While 2008 promises to be a great year for squash in the UK, with the staging of the HI-TEC World Squash Championships at Manchester’s National Squash Centre in October, the year gets off to a flying start when 450 of the world's finest players from 34 countries converge on Sheffield, from 2-6 January, for the prestigious Tecnifibre British Junior Open.

England Squash looks forward to the development of a successful and fruitful partnership with Tecnifibre, the brand which has signed up to be title sponsors of the event for the next three years.

Over recent years Egypt have been supremely dominant and have claimed six of the eight titles in each of the last two seasons.  No1 seed for the Boys' Under 19 Drysdale Cup is the reigning Under 17 champion Mohamed El Shorbagy, who has been making impressive inroads on the PSA Tour over recent months.  His main challengers will include South Africa’s Rudi Willemse, Nicolas Mueller from Germany, and the English duo of Adrian Waller (Hertfordshire) and former Under 17 finalist Joe Lee (Surrey).

France’s Camille Serme is hot favourite to take the Girls' Under 19 crown.  The 18-year-old two-time European Junior Champion and World Junior Championship runner-up will be looking to go one better than last year and cement her place as the world’s top junior.  No2 seed is Hong Kong’s Annie Au, while three times British National Champion Victoria Lust (Bedfordshire) and Low Wee Wern from Malaysia complete the top four seedings.

American Olivia Blatchford, now resident at Pontefract Squash Club, returns with her sights firmly set on retaining the Under 15 title she won last January.

Other English chances are spearheaded by National Champions Kimberley Hay (Northumbria) in the Under 17s, and Peter Joyce (Avon) in the Under 13s - while David Wardle (Surrey) is highly-rated and starts as the Under 15 number 2 seed.

The championships take place at Hallamshire and Abbeydale Squash Clubs from 2-6 January – with the finals being held at Abbeydale on the club's state-of-the-art all-glass court.