Squash: Next few months will decide Rarere's path

Hawke's Bay's Lakeesha Rarere is the Oceania under-19 girls' champion and the Aussie No1 in the same age group.

Remember Lakeesha Rarere, the little girl from Bridge Pa?

Well Rarere, 17, who first set tongues wagging when she won the national Maori under-11 squash title in 2005 as an 8-year-old, ain't so little any more on the international squash scene. The world's 19th-ranked junior, who has been based in Brisbane since 2006, beat Aucklander Ellie Epke 3-0 in the final of the recent Oceania Junior Championship in Invercargill.

Epke, who had beaten Rarere in two epic five-setters earlier this month, was unable to match her speed and intensity.

"That Oceania Champs title was the highlight of my career to date," Rarere said.

The youngest of six children of former Hastings Tennis and Squash Club members, Angela and Taina, Rarere first took to the court at the age of 5. However, she avoided tournaments until 2005 when, in addition to her national Maori title, she recorded a second placing to Northland's Abbie Palmer in the under-11 final at the national junior championship.

"I'm still playing Abbie at tournaments. I've beaten her the last four times and, in the past, she used to chop me up," Rarere said, during a spell between trainings with her coach of the past two years, former world champion Rodney Eyles.

At 88 on the world's women's rankings, Rarere, played in the Invercargill-hosted transtasman test series in her buildup to the Oceania champs. The Kiwis won 27-9 but Rarere beat Palmer 3-1 before losing to Epke.

Before the test series Rarere, who boasts an Asian Junior Squash Federation ranking of two, played in the Timaru-hosted New Zealand Junior Open, where Epke beat her in the final.

Aussie's eighth-ranked senior woman, Rarere started April with the Australia Junior Open which saw her beat Palmer 3-1 in the final.

With this level of success it was no surprise Rarere, who has won Queensland state and Aussie national titles in every age group, 11s, 13s, 15s, 17s and 19s, finished school after her year 12 studies last year with the aim of becoming a fulltime professional.

"I'm semi-professional at the moment and I also work part-time in a Thai restaurant," Rarere said.

She hopes to play for Australia at the junior world championships in the Netherlands during July and August and then the September Junior Commonwealth Games in Samoa. Those tournaments will give her an indication as to whether or not she is ready to turn professional.

Next week she will lose the services of Eyles, who will move to the United States to start a new coaching contract.

"It's a bit devastating because he puts so much work into us and he works so hard with player academies," Rarere said.

Next month Rarere will play three Women's Squash Association tournaments in Darwin, Perth and Adelaide and in June another three in Palmerston North, Christchurch and Invercargill.