South African Teams appear on the international stage with funding assistance from Squash South Africa’s Individual Registration Scheme.
September has seen the participation of the South African National women’s team – Alexandra Fuller, Elani Landman, Milnay Louw , Lizelle Muller together with manageress, Siyoli Waters – and the South African Universities Team – Alexa Pienaar, Hayley Ward , Dewald van Niekerk, John Kuhn, Adam Shean plus Anton Louw, Mike Bester and Kerr Rogers – in Dalian, China and Birmingham England respectively.
Their participation was made possible with funding from the Squash South Africa Registration Scheme. Contributions from the scheme also assisted the National junior players to the WSF World Junior Individual and Team championships in July to India as well as the SA Masters squad of possible medal winners to the World Masters Championships in Charlottesville, USA also in July.
In Dalian, 4th seeded Malaysia were too strong for South Africa, the 12th seeds, in their first round pool clash. Nicole David, playing her 50th match in the event , accounted for Alexandra Fuller 11-4 11-7 11-8. Low Wee Wern defeated Milnay Louw 11-6 11-6 11-8 with new cap, Elani Landman, presently based in the USA, bowing out to Sivasangari Subramaniam 6-11 11-13 3-11.
Their second round pool match sees South Africa playing 13/16 seeds Switzerland.
Alexa Pienaar, the number 1 women player in the South African Universities team participating in the World University Squash Championships being hosted by Birmingham University in Birmingham, has certainly had a highly successful week. Seeded 5/8, she reached the final of the Individual event eventually outplayed by Lily Taylor in straight games 11-7 11-8 11-6 in the final.
In the team event, South Africa accounted for Austria 3-0 in the first round of the pools and then lost to England 0-3. In the clash with England Pienaar impressed as she pushed Taylor to 4 games losing 10-12 in the fourth.
Finishing second in their pool, South Africa then beat Australia 2-1 to set up a 5th/6th play-off against the Czech Republic today (Wednesday).
Results : Pool event:
South Africa 3 Austria 0: Dewald van Niekerk bt Simon Draxler 11-2 11-6 11-5; Alexa Pienaar w/o Jacqueline Peychar; Adam Shean bt Paul Mairinger 8-11 11-7 8-11 11-6 11-9.
England 3 South Africa 0: Josh Masters bt Dewald van Niekerk 11-9 11-4 11-2; Lily Taylor bt Alexa Pienaar 11-7 7-11 11-5 12-10; Owain Taylor bt John Kuhn 9-11 11-1 11-5 11-2.
5/8 Positional Play-off :
South Africa 2 Australia 1: Dewald van Niekerk bt Thomas Calvert 11-9 12-14 10-12 11-9 11-4; Alexa Pienaar bt Jessica Osborne 11-611-6 11-6; John Kuhn lost to Nick Calvert 8-11 5-11.
