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Heather McKay will be inducted into the United States Squash Hall of Fame on Saturday, November 7, 2026. The ceremony will occur at a special luncheon at noon at the Arlen Specter ���ϲ����� Center in Philadelphia.

Heather McKay is inarguably the greatest woman squash player in history. An Australian, McKay had a career unbeaten streak of 640 consecutive matches. She won sixteen straight British Opens. In those sixteen British Opens she recorded 104 9-0 games. She captured the first two World Opens. From 1975 to 1985 she lived in Toronto. She and her husband Brian worked at the new Toronto Squash Club, a seventeen court (fifteen hardball singles, one softball singles, one doubles) facility. Brian was the manager; Heather was the coach—perhaps the first woman in the world to work full-time as a squash teaching professional.

McKay had a colossal impact on squash in North America. She won the 1976 Canadian National Singles. She won the first three Bancroft Opens, as well as the 1978 Viva International and the 1979 National Singles.

Her initial foray to the U.S. was in January 1977 when she flew to New York to headline the inaugural Bancroft. It was the first time an American women’s squash tournament had offered prize money. “Her racquet, body and mental control are supreme,” wrote Bobby Lehman after the seminal tournament, “and she could be counted on time and again to quell any hope that her opponents might have.” Total prize money was $6,500; McKay walked away with $2,000, the largest payday she would ever get in squash. (The winner’s prize of the first British Open in 1974 was £50; her last British Open in 1977 earned her £100; the World Open in Brisbane in 1976 netted her $2,000 Australian.)

McKay was a global celebrity and her appearances in the States gave American squash an enormous boost. She also captured two U.S. National Doubles titles (playing the left wall with Barbara Savage), rejuvenating that tournament.

To learn more about Heather McKay, you can read an in-depth profile by James Zug last summer for .

The U.S. Squash Hall of Fame was founded in 2000 at the Racquet Club of Philadelphia. In 2006 it moved to Yale’s Payne Whitney Gymnasium. After sixteen years in New Haven, it relocated back to Philadelphia in April 2022 when the elegant Peggy & Leo Pierce Family U.S. Squash Hall of Fame space opened at the Arlen Specter ���ϲ����� Center.