Jarvis Kaplan day 3 report

Jarvis Kaplan Cup Interprovincial Squash Championships

Pietermaritzburg

With only two days’ play remaining in the Jarvis/Kaplan Cup interprovincial squash championships being played in Pietermaritzburg the heat is on as the top 3 men’s teams – defending champions Kwazulu Natal,

Western Province and SACD vie for top honours.

In the past decade Western Province has won the title 5 times (2006, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014) while Kwazulu Natal has emerged victorious on 4 occasions (2008, 2010, 2011 and 2015).

In Wednesday’s fixtures SACD inflicted a fairly surprising 17-8 defeat on Central Gauteng. In the first match of the tie, Gauteng’s captain Devon Hendrikse scraped through 13-11 in the decider in a really tough encounter with SACD’s JP Brits only to see Jimmy Schlebusch and Rudi van Niekerk account for Kyle Maree and Paul Atkinson respectively to give SACD a 2-1 in matches lead. Christo Potgieter in the number 2 slot provided a surprise as he outplayed the recent National Championship runner-up, Thoboli Mohohlo, in straight games 11-8 11-4 11-8 to give SACD victory. The last tie saw Tarek Momen salvage 3 points for the Gauteng team as he defeated Karim Gawad in 4 games.

Western Province notched a whitewash win 20 – 4 over Northerns. In the first match of the tie Ruan Olivier (N) pushed Clinton Leeuw, now based in the USA, to 5 games but thereafter it was pretty much one way traffic with Shaun Le Roux, Pierdro Schweertman, Rodney Durbach and Daniel Smith clinching their matches against Kelvin Ndhlovu, Nell van der Merwe, Craig Ruane and Jason Phillips.

Defending champions Kwazulu Natal spearheaded by Steve Coppinger, ranked 24 in the world , and Laurens Jan Anjema of the Netherlands had an equally easy 20-3 win over Free State with only Andrew Martin, their number 4, stuttering to a 3-2 win over St Andrews learner John Kuhn.

Thursday’s encounters sees Kwazulu Natal facing Central Gauteng and Western Province taking on the SACD side which could be the match of the day.

In the women’s Kaplan Cup, Central Gauteng who suffered a 15-8 loss to Northerns on the first day, bounced back with another 20 full house beating SACD 20-3. Western Province accounted for Northerns 15-9 in an interesting encounter. Karen Blom, Sacha West and Miranda Lang, their 3,4 and 5 strings defeated Christine Ferreira, Megan Page and Makgosi Peloakgosi to give them a win while in the number 2 slot Alex Fuller was outplayed in straight games by 2016 National champion Milnay Louw and Siyoli Waters bowed out in 4 games to Sarah Jane Perry, ranked 12 in the world.

Thursday’s matches: 13h00 : Men A : Western Province vs SACD, Kwazulu Natal vs Central Gauteng, Free State vs Northerns.