Late entrant Margot Prow and wildcard Charlotte Pastel both impressed on day one of the Steel City Open 2026, beating Alicia Mead and Cindy Merlo respectively in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The action was taking place at the Steel City Squash club, marking the first time ever that a women\u2019s-only PSA event had taken place in the Pennsylvanian city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barbados\u2019 Prow only got into the tournament following a late withdrawal, and flew into Pittsburgh just hours before her match on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She didn\u2019t even have the luxury of watching others take to the court before her, with her encounter against fellow lefty Mead the day\u2019s first match on the glass court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was Mead who made the better start, too, winning the first game 11-5, but Prow quickly found her feet, leveling the match with an 11-8 success in game two, holding off Mead\u2019s comeback charge having initially led 8-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Game three would prove to be decisive and it looked as though Mead would take it, as she overturned an early 5-2 deficit to bring up three game balls at 10-7, only for all three to come and go, as Prow reeled off five points on the bounce to move within one game of victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She didn\u2019t have to wait too long for victory either, as she raced to a 10-5 lead inside nine minutes in game four, letting out a huge cheer and a sporting a broad smile after a forehand into the tin from Mead\u2019s racket ended the contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was more drama to come later in the day, too, as wildcard Pastel, playing in just her second ever World level event, upset Switzerland\u2019s Merlo 3-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 18-year-old \u2013 a freshman at the University of Virginia and a former US National U17 champion \u2013 is ranked more than 400 places below Merlo at No.469 in the world, but defied both her ranking and her inferior experience with an outstanding display, fittingly showing plenty of steel along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She showed maturity beyond her years and multiple occasions, first putting the disappointment of losing game one \u2013 when she\u2019d had a game ball \u2013 behind her to win games two and three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She then kept her cool in equally impressive fashion when on the brink of victory, seeing two match balls come and go at 10-8 up in the fourth, only to close it out on a 17-shot rally at 11-10 moments later, when a Merlo backhand hit the tin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her reward for what is the biggest victory of her career so far is a second-round clash with fellow American Sabrina Sobhy, who will join her sister Amanda in entering the fray in round two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere on day one, there was a five-game win for Hannah Craig over Ainaa Amani, and a hard-fought, four-game success for Nadien El Hammamy over Xin Ying Yee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Round One<\/strong> Results<\/strong> Late entrant Margot Prow and wildcard Charlotte Pastel both impressed on day one of the Steel City Open<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-9873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-squash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Margot-Prow.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Margot-Prow-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Margot-Prow-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Margot-Prow-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Margot-Prow-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Margot-Prow-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Margot-Prow-2048x1366.jpg",2048,1366,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Margot-Prow-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Margot-Prow-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Margot-Prow.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9873"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9875,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9873\/revisions\/9875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Nadine Shahin (EGY) bt. Danielle Ray (CAN) 3-0: 11-9, 11-9, 11-9 (23m)
Margot Prow (BAR) bt. Alicia Mead (ENG) 3-1: 5-11, 11-8, 12-10, 11-5 (40m)
Saran Nghiem (ENG) bt. Saskia Beinhard (GER) 3-0: 11-6, 11-4, 11-8 (28m)
Nadien Elhammamy (EGY) bt. Xin Ying Yee (MAS) 3-1: 11-7, 10-12, 11-9, 11-1 (51m)
Hannah Craig (IRL) bt. Ainaa Amani (MAS) 3-2: 7-11, 12-10, 12-10, 7-11, 11-7 (54m)
Jana Swaify (EGY) bt. Marta Dominguez (ESP) 3-0: 11-5, 11-8, 11-3 (25m)
Charlotte Pastel (USA) bt. Cindy Merlo (SUI) 3-1: 10-12, 11-8, 11-9, 12-10 (36m)
Lauren Baltayan (FRA) bt. Menna Hamed (EGY) 3-0: 11-7, 11-7, 12-10 (36m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"