Former pro wins Open

HOT FAVOURITE: Former professional and No1 seed Joseph Watts (foreground) justified his favouritism with victory in the Wanganui Squash Men's Open at the weekend.

FORMER professional and Central Districts men's representative Joseph Watts franked his favouritism with victory in the annual Wanganui Squash Open over Anzac weekend.

The Feilding-based A-grader mastered Rangitikei's Matt Ratcliffe in the final, justifying his No1 seeding in the event.

Watts proved too strong in the end winning 3 games to 1, including an 11-8 victory in the 4th game. Ratcliffe was very competitive, but simply couldn't sustain the pace or intensity created by Watts. More than 100 entries were received, with players coming from Bay of Plenty, Taranaki, South Taranaki, Auckland, Wellington, Hawke's Bay and locally.

Such was the strength of the open grade, No2 seed and former international Tamsyn Leevey, once ranked the 24th woman in the world, finished out of the placings in the men's grade. The New Plymouth-based Leevey, playing out of the Kawaroa Park club, claimed the women's title after beating Fiona Gifford-Moore from Khandallah, Wellington.

Cullinane College student James Van Kerkoff showed his class by winning the special plate. The B-graded student has represented Squash Central at senior men's level and was No5 seed for the open.

The Open Plate was taken by Whanganui player Nathan Wall, while his teammate John Roestenburg won the consolation plate.

Wanganui Squash Club hosted the tournament and media liaison Rod Bannister said the Anzac weekend event was an outstanding success across the board.

"From past experiences there is nothing more frustrating being a competitor in a squash event that is disorganised and runs behind match times over a weekend. We had no such problems and were actually an hour ahead of schedule coming in to the finals on Saturday evening, a rarity for a squash tournament," Bannister said.

"There were full playing draws, a record number of out of town entries, some great competitive matches played in excellent spirits, a great spread of food for all to enjoy and well-organised off-court social activities. The majority of the players and supporters stayed around late on Saturday evening to attend the prize-giving and to enjoy our brand new and spacious lounge facility.

"The success comes down to many things including a very motivated and driven committee that has defined roles, a great club administrator and the much appreciated support from the event sponsors: Shane Stone Builders, Alarm Watch, The Storage Space and Moore Law."

The next major event at the club is the early June B-Grade Tournament.