CAIRO, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- International CIB Black Ball Squash Open kicked off Monday in the Egyptian Capital Cairo, with 48 top Egyptian and international squash players participating from around the world.

The tournament, which is hosted and organized by Egyptian Black Ball Sporting Club, is a platinum tournament of the Professional Squash Association (PSA).

The championship is running from Dec. 3-9 at Black Ball Sporting Club in New Cairo district.

The Black Ball Open, which will offer over 180,000 U.S. dollars in prize money, will be the final PSA World Tour Platinum tournament of 2018 and is the biggest professional squash tournament to take place in Egypt's capital since the men's 2016 PSA World Championships.

Black Ball Sporting Club's squash director, Ashraf Hanafy, said the tournament is one of the biggest in the world, adding that the first prize is 25,000 U.S. dollars.

"Egypt in squash is just like Brazil in football," Hanafy told Xinhua. "We have six male players in the list of the world's top 10s quash players."

For his part, squash player Max Lee from Hong Kong, China, said he is so excited to participate in such a big tournament.

World No. 14 Lee will be playing world No. 1 Mohamed al-Shorbagy, who won last month's Hong Kong Open, on Tuesday.

"The feeling to play versus the World's No. 1 is always exciting...I will enjoy it, but I will try to beat him," Lee, who beat al-Shorbagy a few years ago, told Xinhua.

Along with Lee, Tsz Fung Yip, whose world ranking is 23, and Leo Au, No. 28, both from Hong Kong, are also participating in the international tournament. Enditem

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