Latest News

Green Shield Champions again
Sunday, June 20, 2010

Squash Australia May 2010 National rankings ACT players
Sunday, May 23, 2010

For details see our ACT Juniors in Australian Rankings

Corren and Karwalski prepare for the ACT Open
Friday, March 26, 2010

Matthew Karwalski whose world ranking is inside 70 from Raymond Terrace in NSW has returned to defend his title. He too was at the courts today training. with him was Bonny Wu and Justin Beard both from South Australia. Matt has been training hard for the last 6 weeks after he returned from America. In America Matt competed in the Van Coover, LA open and the prestigious Tournament of Champions. David Palmer has been mentoring Matt and has helped him to develop a training plan. Bonny Wu has not been touring much lately with the added pressure of doing a University degree. She has represented South Australia in the last two National Teams Championships. Justin recently competed in the Victorian Mountain district championships where he came 5th losing to a past Australian open champion Cameron White. Justin hopes to break into the top 100 players in the world this year and travel to Europe. These players will be competing at the ACT open over the next two days.

Mike Corren with a world ranking inside 90 in the world comes to Canberra to try and capture the ACT Senior Squash Open title. He dropped into the Woden Squash Centre today to familarise himself with the courts and make sure his body was ready for the challenge ahead. Mike has competed in the Gipsland open and came runner up at the Australia Day Challenge in Queensland. It has been a long time coming for Mike to compete for the ACT title with travelling overseas usually taking priority. He has decided to concentrate his efforts on the Australian calendar. He was able to win the Victorian and NSW opens last year. Will he be able to add ACT open to his trophy cabinet this year? For those wanting insight into what it takes to be a professional squash player here is a taste of his pre tournament training routine. He spent 10 to 20minutes warming up before hitting a ball. Then against a training partner he played 1 game (point a ralley first to 11) of restriction squash down the right side wall, followed by a game on the other side. Then he played 5 games of squash using the full court. In the games he used a variety of different styles of play. By this stage he was sweating quite a lot but proceeded to continue training on his own hitting a variety of shots and doing strength exercises in between. Mike said that he has spent 6 weeks working on his fitness without playing much squash.

Squash Australia Workshops
Saturday, March 20, 2010

20th March at Brisbane

The Elephant in the room. Squash Australia is seeking to improve the registration system to capture all squash players in the system. Fee system and competition management system for squash in Australia is being addressed.

States and territories agree on principle to create the systems and change the fee structure of payments to Squash Australia. There were three outcomes of these talks, to be managed by Gary ODonnell.

Gary will create a google forum for discussing the project.

I have joined a working party to work in consultation with Bob Dubos from NSW who will be the coordinator. The group consists of Phil Sinnot SA, Marus Smith, Steve Bowen WA, Fiona Young Vic, myself and Bob. We will work via phone hookups and weekly communication.

A Finance group was created to discus the fee structure. Gary Hampson will be attending.

We then worked on the Strategic plan for Squash Australia. Participation has been elevated to the top of the priorty list. Gary Odonnell could not emphasize enough that States should consider following the Squash Australia model at Sate and maybe even club level. Prompt continuity of Squash in Australia.

Hall of fame dinner. Winner of awards

Refereeing - Karim Langer

Volunteer - Grant Norman (Gary Hampson was nominated)

Administrator - Sue Doherty NSW (Gary Hampson was nominated)

Coach - Lorraine Howell (Pat Siciliano was nominated)

Junior athletes of the year - Tamika Saxby and Sam Brown

Stewart Boswell received the Senior Athlete of the year award.

Service award - Chris Sinclair

Service award Barbara De Bruine - a lot of work was done on National coaching. She was amazing as she told great stories and finished with a stirring speach about the future of the game. She said only three athletes ever did the work she set out for them. She was very humble and ACT would be proud of her and her aceivements.

Hall of fame inductee - Anthony Rickets. He was truely humbled to receive the award acknowledging past champions as inspiration. He was so emotional and it showed an authenticity and deep felt beleif in squash in Australia. For more details please visit the Squash Australia story.

Heather Makay was invited for a chair interveiw. Her stellar career was mentioned. She was asked how the sport might fare in the future.

She didn't think anyone worked as hard as they need to to make it.

Heather Makay interview

Barbara de Bruine pointed out that Hashim Khan mentioned to Heather twice throughout Heather's career that someday she might be a good player even after winning 16 Brittish Open titles.

Heather received a standing ovation.

The hall of fame dinner was a great success with ACT being very well represented in the awards.

Squash Australia AGM outcomes

For a full report please visit the Squash Australia Website

Story by Ray Payne.

ACT Junior Open 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010

Under 11 Girls		Under 11 Boys
Winner	Kathleen Palmer	Winner	Peter Nuttall
Runner Up	Erin Lindner	Runner Up	Anand Siththaranjan
		Plate Winner	Flynn Fleming-Wilkie
Under 13 Girls		Under 13 Boys
Winner	Kirstie Wild (VIC)	Winner	Fletcher Hall
Runner Up	Maddison Cater	Runner Up	Alex Lock
		Special Plate	Dylan Prentice
		Plate	Jamie Thompson
Under 15 Girls		Under 15 Boys
Winner	Leanna Davey	Winner	Robert Palmer
Runner Up	Katelyn Lindner	Runner Up	Zac Evans
		Plate	Jacob Watt
Under 17 Girls		Under 17 Boys
Winner	Laura McCredie	Winner	Brad Williams (Sydney)
Runner Up	Holly Barnes	Runner Up	Zac Morris
Under 19 Girls		Under 19 Boys
Winner	Madeleine Barnett	Winner	Brad Williams (Sydney)
		Runner Up	Josh Southwell-Nobbs
		Plate	Jeremy Salter

Squash ACT looking to grow
Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Squash ACT is looking to expand and grow. You have the chance to gain free entry to Squash ACT events and be supported as a player you can apply to volunteer.

Such activities include

Event organisation - ACT Junior and senior open

Fund raising - To help support ACT representative teams

Social activities - BBQs, themed squash events and dinner dances

If you would like to be involved please send an e-mail with your expression of interest and some contact details for us to get in touch with you.

Congratulations to ACT juniors
Monday, February 15, 2010

Christine Nunn - #2 U19 females

Josh Southwell-Nobbs - #12 U19 males

Jeremy Salter - #16 U19 males

Holly Barnes - #14 U17 females

Laura McCredie - #16 U17 female

Leanna Davey - #10 under 15 females

Robert Palmer - #11 U15 males

Zac Evans - #12 U15 males

For a full list of the National Junior rankings, visit Squash Australia.

2010 PSA Super Series Hails Return of Australian Open
Friday, January 22, 2010

	2010 PSA Super Series Hails Return of Australian Open Howard Harding
	The Australian Open marks its return as a major event on the Professional Squash Association World Tour as one of ten tournaments comprising the 2010 PSA Super Series, the players' organisation revealed today. The 2010 PSA Super Series gets underway this week in New York with the long-established JP Morgan Tournament of Champions at the US city's iconic Grand Central Terminal. The PSA's new tournament initiative will climax with a prestigious season-ending championship in December. "Pulling together this package of top level events as early as this in the year has been a major aim for the Professional Squash Association for as far long as I can remember," said PSA CEO Alex Gough. "I'd like to thank all of our partners and promoters for reacting as well as they have over the past months and weeks. We have a very busy end to the year once again, and it has not been easy scheduling around two major multi sport games, namely the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. "I'm sure our players will be delighted by this announcement, so they can structure their year around these major events. It is also imperative for our TV distribution that we have a structured calendar that we give to broadcasters as early as we can. "Our aim is to really drive the message home that Professional Squash has a vibrant, sustainable World Tour and this is a very good start to that process," Gough concluded. Australian Open Tournament Director Gary Hampson added: "The development of the Super Series World Tour this year has given us a great opportunity to put the Australian Open back into the elite level of championships. We've been able to move the Open to August, away from the tour break, and this will allow the best players to come to Australia. "The Australian Open has traditionally been one of the world's leading squash tournaments with a history of great Australian champions and the best players from overseas; and now we will be able to attract over a hundred of the world's best men and women to come to Canberra in August. In recent years, Australia has not seen the whole tour competing on our soil and we are excited at the prospect of seeing the top ten men and women playing in the last three days of the Open." David Palmer, the world No8 from New South Wales and one of the greatest Australian squash players of all-time, said: "It is great to see that the Australian Open this year will be a Super Series Event. I have been playing on Tour for 16 years and this will be the first time that I will get to play a Major Tournament back in Australia. "I spoke to the organisers over the Christmas period and it sounds like the venue will be very exciting. I am sure that the Australian squash fans will be excited to see great Squash and all the top players compete for the title. "The Australian Open joins a great list of Super Series tournaments worldwide that the PSA calendar is now boasting." Of the ten 2010 PSA Super Series events, the following nine are confirmed: JP Morgan Tournament of Champions, New York, USA, January North American Open, Richmond, VA, USA, February Sky Open, Cairo, Egypt, April/May Australian Open, Canberra, Australia, August Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Open, Hong Kong Kuwait Open, Kuwait, November Qatar Classic, Doha, Qatar, November Punj Lloyd PSA Masters, India, December ATCO PSA Super Series Final, (TBD), December "We are currently in close communication with England Squash and are hopeful that the 2010 British Open can be added to this excellent list of events," added Alex Gough. This year's PSA World Tour calendar also features 2010 World Open, the premier Tour event which will take place in Saudi Arabia this year and is a stand-alone event outside the PSA Super Series.

Junior Spring 2009 Grand Final Results
Saturday, December 19, 2009

Barbara de Bruine Award – Most Improved Player

Laura McCredie, Barbara de Bruine - Most Improved Female Player	Daniel Jones, Barbara de Bruine - Most Improved Male Player

Grand Final Results

Div	Winners	Runners Up
1
	Jacob Watt, Laura McCredie, Daniel Jones	Tom Nicholls, Sam Lock, Jeremy Salter
2
	Harrison Barnett, Brenton Dally, Luke Crowther	Bethany Lindner, Nathan Ryan, Leanna Davey
3
	Adam Fleming-Wilke, Arran Claringbold	Aiden Parkes, Richard Pozza, Thomas Leach
4
	Alex Cachia, Aiden Parkes, Adam Gauntlett	Lachlan Watt, Toomas Mirlieb
5
	Kathleen Palmer, Clayton Jenkins, Peter Nuttall	Joe Nuttall, Sarah Parsons

ACT Residents Championships
Monday, December 14, 2009

	Winner	Runner Up	Special Plate	Plate
Mens Open
	Raymond Payne	Josh Southwell-Nobbs	Doug Rogan	Chris Robb
Mens A
	Zac Morris	Andrew Morris	Robert Palmer
Mens B
	Jacob Watt	Zac Evans	Matthew Hall	Simon Abley
Ladies Open
	Donna Chalmers	Laura McCreddie
Ladies B
	Alison Haskins	Karina Sommers
Juniors
	Adam Fleming-Wilke	Alex Lock

Spring 2009 Grand Final Results
Thursday, December 10, 2009

Group:	ACT
Event Name:	Spring 2009
Start Date:	11/8/2009
End Date:	10/12/2009
Event Type:	Pennant

Grand Finals Results

Div	Winner	Runner Up
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

Spring 2009 Grand Finals
Saturday, December 5, 2009

The ACT Junior Finals will be on Friday 4 December and the Seniors will be played from Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 8 - 10 December.

National Teams Championships
Saturday, November 21, 2009

ACT Team

Women – Joe Morgan (1) and Christine Nunn (2)

Men – Josh Larkin (1), Raymond Payne (2) and Paul Smith (3)

ACT finished 4^th out of 5 states and territories.

Results can be found at http://www.squash.org.au/events.php?gdid=1082&groupid=121&year=2009 or view attached document.

The players had a great time driving through the Tasmanian country side and playing some wonderful players. Interesting was the ACT team players choice award. ACT players were asked to vote for the player of the round. 2 points going to the first choice and 1 point going to the second choice. The clear winner was Christine Nunn followed by Joe Morgan, Josh Larkin, Ray Payne and Paul Smith.

The winners of the tournament were the South Australians.

By Ray Payne

Document Download:
National Teams Championships 2009 (PDF - 135 Kb)

ACT Master class
Monday, September 14, 2009

Congratulations to Paul Bushel for winning the over 40 mens title, Peter Murphy who won the over 35 womens and Sarah Nelson who took out he over 40 womens category.

It was Paul Bushels 6th masters title in a row. Paul Also represented Australia at the trans Tasmin masters challenge against New Zealand prior to the National Tournament.

Referee education help required
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

If you would like to get involved with improving the quality of refereeing please contact squash ACT

Board adopts a new procedural fairness policy
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Squash ACT board has decided to adopt a new policy regarding procedural fairness.

This applies to any of our decisions that affect individuals and probably clubs. It includes disciplinary matters during competition, complaints against any of our staff or coaches and bad behaviour during representative team trips.

To read the full policy please visit the policies section of this website

Senior Team Manager required
Monday, August 24, 2009

Squash ACT is seeking an individual to be the Senior Team Manager for the National Teams Championships in October 29th - November 1 at Launceston Tasmania.

The manager will be in charge of selecting the team and organising the flights, accommodation and uniforms.

If you would be interested in the position please contact Squash ACT

Update on Coaching development officer
Friday, August 21, 2009

Squash ACT Update

Pat Siciliano has been appointed Coaching and Development Officer on a contract basis recently.

Pat & Ray Payne of Squash ACT, have recently participated in the level 2 Squash specific, week long coaching course and just been approved as level1 squash coaching course assessors!

Pat has taught in Primary Schools, Outdoor Education as well as working in private enterprise.

The emphasis to expand squash into Primary and Secondary School sport and the general community is a very high priority!

He also hopes to support local coaches and teachers in their professional development.

Having held a position as a Regional Schools Development Officer for Squash NSW and taught in schools, Pat is very flexible in program delivery in school or at squash court centers.

With the recent announcement that the Australian Open Squash Championships will be hosted in ACT for several years, it is a great opportunity to profile squash in your school.

You can get in touch with Pat through Squash ACT.

A Guide to Enjoying Your Squash
Monday, August 10, 2009

A Guide to Enjoying Your Squash

This season. Let’s make sure that everyone enjoys their squash. Here’s how –

· If you play a bad shot and are likely to have a stroke called against you – concede the point yourself – don’t pretend innocence and hope for a soft decision.

· If you appeal for a let, but then think you probably wouldn’t have got to the ball – retract your appeal and concede the point.

· If you don’t get the ball up or you know it hit the tin or the out of court line – call it yourself – don’t wait for the referee.

· If the ball’s called out or not up – only appeal if you are certain the call is wrong – not just on the chance that the referee might have some doubt.

· If there is confusion or doubt over a call or the rules, appeal and then accept the decision.

· Keep any discussion with the referee to a minimum – accept the call and focus on wining the next point.

Why are we raising this? Because for many players our wonderful game is spoilt by an attitude that places the referee in the firing line – instead of largely refereeing our own games, we have developed a culture of appealing to the referee, trying to take advantage of their skill or ignorance to win or trying to influence the decisions of the referee by arguing, yelling and postulating.

We want to develop a culture where all players accept the outcome of a bad shot, or a bad decision on what shot to play, with minimum input from referees. Each competition night should be fun and competitive – none of us want to have arguments and bad feeling over decisions. Nearly every division will have someone that nobody wants to referee because they seek to win their matches by bullying and cajoling the referee. Captains and other players in the team need to help them to change.

Of course, it is important to know the rules and to learn how to interpret the subtleties for each level – safety is of the utmost importance in the lower divisions, while fairness becomes equally important in the higher divisions and tournaments. Every player has to make an effort to learn the rules and keep up to date with interpretations – Squash ACT will run course this season to help.

To help foster this fair and self-refereeing attitude this season, the Board of Squash ACT has decided to recognise the fairest player in each Division at the end of the season. You’ll be voting on the fairest in your own Division. Make an extra effort to be fair from the very first round this week and encourage others to do the same.

Remember – smiling reduces tension and helps you focus on the next point – frowning keeps the tension inside you.

Squash ACT Board

A Letter to ACT Region Squash Players about the Australian Open
Tuesday, August 4, 2009

We are entering a very exciting year for squash in Canberra, Queanbeyan and the surrounding areas of NSW – I’m including the South Coast, Riverina and Albury. Our region will host the Australian Open Squash Championships for the next four years leading up to the Centenary of Canberra in 2013.

In early July next year, some of the best men and women squash players in the world will be here, competing for an important national title on a glass court so we can all see them play. Stewart Boswell our own local champion is committed to defending his title won a few weeks ago in South Australia. I saw the final with Cameron Pilley and the spectacular retrieving and attack on the glass court just makes me want to see this more often. Joelle King from New Zealand, a rising star on the women’s tour and the defending champion will also return in 2010.

Knowing the communities as I do in our region, I’m sure that most of you are thinking how can I be involved? How can I help? How do I make sure I get a really good seat?

We expect about 1,500 squash players to converge on Canberra for the Australian Open. We will need volunteers then. In the meantime, there are two important things to do that will make 2010 a fantastic festival of squash.

· If you own or are part of any business that would benefit from an association with the Australian Open as a sponsor, please identify the key contact for an approach and send me their contact details. Just send me an email directly and confidentially. We are preparing a professional kit for potential sponsors that we will send out and will provide them with all the benefits and encourage them to get on board. Sponsorships begin with $1,500 packages and rise to national television coverage as one of our named sponsors.

· We need to develop our glass court expertise. For that we need a free or cheap space in which to assemble, test, modify and play on the glass courts available to us for next year. Spaces that can accommodate a court about 10 metres long, eight metres wide and six metres high with a flat floor are in short supply. If anyone has any suggestions or knowledge of an appropriate space that we can use for a number of weeks to put the courts up and test them, please send me an email – I’ll do the rest. Anywhere in the region will do.

Soon we will have an Australian Open newsletter available for everyone – so you can keep up to date with the progress and announcements. The next major series of announcements will be at the ACT Dinner Dance and Awards on Saturday 22 August. Don’t forget to book in for the dinner and you’ll be amazed at what we have planned for the Australian Open in Canberra in 2010.

All the best in your matches this season – play hard, play fair and enjoy yourself.

Gary Hampson

President

gary@brindabella.net

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