Despite only rolling up and meeting his new partner David Guest on Friday night, Wanganui's Rod Bannister retained his share of the Over 35 Masters title at the Big Barrel New Zealand Doubles Championships at the weekend.
Winning four straight matches to claim the championship at SquashGym at Palmerston North,Bannister had not committed to another full season of squash until the national selectors sent around emails with details of the masters test series against Australia in October.
"Two-and-a-half weeks [ago] I wasn't even thinking about it," Bannister said.
When his regular partner Mike McSherry was a late withdrawal, Bannister was told about the Canadian A-grade player Guest, whose wife Sally Guest would also win the women's masters with Mickayla Kerr. "I was like, 'if he's reasonable, I'm quite keen. We managed to sync in quite well."
In the best-of-three sets match-ups, Bannister and Guest won their opening round Friday game, then the Saturday morning quarter-final over a New Caledonian pair 2-0.
That put them into the semifinal with Croydon Rutherford and Jason Burton-Brown, who had eliminated Bannister and McSherry from the Open Grade at last year's doubles nationals. This time, Bannister and Guest won 2-0, and went on to the final with Wellington's Willie Bicknell and Corey Love. Bannister and Guest carried off the final 2-1.
Wanganui's Kevin Austin and Keith Hughes won the Over 35s consolation plate.
