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.
