Tauranga scores rich-list international squash

The world's leading female squash players will converge on Tauranga in August after confirmation yesterday the city will host one of the richest tournaments on the international calendar.
The US$55,000 ($92,000) New Zealand Women's Open is back after a 13-year hiatus, with organisers hoping to get most of the world's top 16 players to the August 11 to 16 tournament.
It will be staged in an all-glass court inside the Bayfair shopping centre and sanctioned by the World International Squash Players' Association (WISPA).
It follows last year's $70,000 International Festival of Squash, which featured an exhibition series involving a handful of top-20 players.
The New Zealand Women's Open was last staged in 1996 and won by world No 1 Sarah Fitz-Gerald.
Tauranga's Wayne Werder, former New Zealand No 1 and a director of Squash NZ, said the tournament, backed by major sponsor A1 Homes, was suggested after the success of last year's two-day exhibition.
"Last year was hugely positive, showing us we can fit a court into Bayfair and generate enough interest to get the sponsorship to take it to the next level, but it was always part of a three-year plan to get both New Zealand Opens (men's and women's) back on the map.
"We've picked a difficult year to try to do it, but with a naming sponsor confirmed and a couple of other sponsors on board we've been able to push the green light."
A main factor in to the organisers' decision not to forge ahead with the men's event this year was the need to make the tournament the strongest possible. Werder said they wanted top-16 players fighting it out, not players ranked 20 to 40.
"For the credibility of the open, looking at all the great players who have won it in the past (including Tauranga's Susan Devoy eight times), the calibre of the players needed to stay high."
Already world No 1 Nicol David (Malaysia) had indicated her interest, with New Zealand's top two-ranked players Shelley Kitchen (10) and Jaclyn Hawkes (17) spreading the word internationally.
David won the weekend's US$57,000 women's Texas Open, beating Natalie Grainger for her 36th career title. Squash New Zealand chief executive Mike Thompson said it was imperative to capitalise on the success of last year's exhibition tournament at Bayfair, part of a wider Festival of Squash.
"We've been working hard behind scenes the last 12 months to get the money up and even in these tough economic times, with things on the funding front tight for us, we asked our board to reconfirm their commitment to reviving the open.
"On the back of last year's success, the price of losing momentum for the sake of the budget line is too great a trade-off.
"We needed to keep building rather than leave a year's gap."
 An eight-strong international men's series will be run in conjunction with the women's world tour event, with the Mount Festival of Squash for club players taking place at the Mount, Tauranga and Te Puke clubs the same week.
New Zealand Squash had registered the tournament - which carries gold star status because of the prizemoney - with WISPA this week.
"We only had a couple of windows of opportunity," Werder said.
"With the Malaysian and Singapore Opens on just before, we needed to be able to fit in the New Zealand Open with a couple of other international events down this way to have any hope of getting the top Europeans here," Werder said.
"Getting that gold star status and the fact a few big tournaments on the WISPA calendar have fallen over this year should guarantee we'll be one of the top events on the world stage and get the leading players."