Squash: Taiapa's on a roll at national level

BAY FIRST: Rhiarne Taiapa is the first Hawke's Bay squash player to win the country's most improved junior female award. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

National age groups
Squash
TALK rolls with Hawke's Bay squash player Rhiarne Taiapa and she hopes her current one continues until the end of today at least.

Within a week of the 16-year-old helping her Hastings club team win the national B grade team title at the Hawke's Bay club in Napier, Taiapa won the national under-17 title and was named the country's most improved junior female for the year at the national age group championships in Hamilton at the weekend.

The team segment of the championships end today and should Eastern No 1 Taiapa, who earned A grade status in July, beat her Northland opponent McKenzie Johnson in the playoff for third there's a good chance she will be named in the New Zealand under-19 team for next year's world championships in Tauranga.

When the Hastings Girls High School Year 11 student, who was seeded second, beat Bay of Plenty top seed Nadia Hubbard 3-2 in her final on Sunday Taiapa captured her first national individual title. She won the deciding set 15-13.

"There wasn't much of a crowd at the start of the final because everyone thought Nadia would win. But when the word got around about me being 2-0 up the gallery was packed. Nadia came out really wanting it in the third and fourth sets, we both wanted the title in the fifth set but I wanted it more," Taiapa recalled.

She was unbeaten in her previous three matches before the final. Right-hander Taiapa, who has played squash for eight years, was blown away with the most improved award.

"It was a real surprise and it's a first for a Hawke's Bay-based player. My Hastings clubmate Tania Tatana won it back in 1996 but she was playing for another region then."

Her Eastern team was seeded fifth for the team champs and exceeded expectations by reaching today's 9am playoff for third. Taiapa is unbeaten in team play to date.

She won her match in four sets when Eastern beat Canterbury 3-1 on Monday. Eastern were never going to beat Auckland on Monday afternoon so she decided to give a niggly leg injury some recovery time as Eastern lost 4-0.

Yesterday, Eastern beat Wellington 4-0. Taiapa has lost one and won one match in her previous two encounters against fellow A2 grader Johnson.

"I reckon I can beat her and I'm confident our Eastern team can beat Northland. World championship selection is a pretty good incentive for me ... playing in a world championship here in New Zealand would be awesome," Taiapa said.

Taiapa is no stranger to international selection and is a three-time New Zealand Secondary Schools representative. Last year she was unbeaten in singles and doubles play as the Kiwis junior secondary schools team thrashed their Aussie counterparts 27-3 in Sydney.

Throughout her career Taiapa has been regularly compared with New Zealand rep and former world No 4 Joelle King because of her strong power game. Three years ago Taiapa said she wanted to follow a similar path to professional King but last year that aim changed slightly.

"I still want to be a professional but my own version," Taiapa said at the time.

Recent results and awards suggest that version will be worth monitoring.