Taking aim at NZ titles

Squash PHOTO/FILE

The Wanganui men and Ohakune women had New Zealand titles in their crosshairs last night in the penultimate evening of the E-grade nationals at the Wanganui Squash Club.

Representing Central, the Ohakune Squash Rackets Club's women's team were undefeated heading into their 8pm showdown with fellow unbowed squad Papakura, the Auckland champions.

Ohakune had beaten Waikato's Lugton Park 5-0, Wellington's Red Star 5-0 and Northland's Whangarei 4-1 in their Pool B competition and wanted to take down Papakura to make today's final.

No1 seed Lauren Wikohika has been in very good form.

In the men's competition, the home side of Wanganui came back from dropping the first game to beat Wellington's Thorndon 4-1 on Thursday, then were to face Otago's Alexandra yesterday at 4pm.

Alexandra had won two match-ups but lost to Thorndon 4-1.

Speaking from the "war room" actually the Wanganui Tennis office which the team had procured as their base coach John Roestenburg said they only needed to win two matches against Alexandra to make today's final, but they wanted to go in with momentum by winning the full match-up.

"We're not going to back off for this game, that's for sure."

By press time, Kevin Sherman had won his game in three sets, while Shanan Whitlock took out his game in five sets, boosting Wanganui into the final. Having got through Pool A as expected, they will face either Auckland or Bay of Plenty from Pool B, who were both unbeaten heading into their match-up last night.

Roestenburg said the men's final at 2pm today would have some showmanship, where spectators could watch the live scoreboard from the club rooms, while the musical entrances and "ring girls" were all ready to go. "We've got a lot of surprises lined up."