Defending champion Hayley Ward was joined by first-time entrant JP Brits on the winners’ podium when a successful Crusaders Squash Club PSA satellite tournament drew to a conclusion at the club in Park Drive club on Sunday.
The 25-year-old Ward, who leaves for India on Thursday with the SA team to compete in the World Cup Championships, won her second straight Saders title with a comfortable win over Keschia Scorgie in three games.
Brits, 32, was at the tournament for the first time and underlined his experience against talented young rival Damian Groenewald, also winning 3-0 in just over 30 minutes.
It was the culmination of a successful week of squash at the Crusaders club, with the Saders Open for local players taking place from Monday to Thursday and the Saders Racketball Open running alongside the weekend’s PSA event.
In the Saders Open, Tim Duvenhage showed great commitment and concentration to outduel Keanu Morrison 3-1 in the final, while Matt Lewis took the racketball title with victory against veteran Gary Webb on Sunday.
In the PSA women’s final, Ward continued to show her progress, picking up her third PSA title of the year after also winning at the Wanderers in Johannesburg and Harlequins in Pretoria earlier this year. She also added the Madibaz Open title to her belt in May.
The EP No 1 seemed a bit below par at the start of the weekend, losing the first game of her opening match to Janet Byrnes, who produced some stunning winners to get the concentration of her younger opponent.
But Ward is known for her calmness under pressure and she came back for a 3-1 win, and was not seriously extended again during the weekend.
She proved too sharp for Scorgie in the final and shot to a 10-0 lead in the opening game to emphasise her control of the match.
Her SA Country Districts opponent never game up the fight, but could not bridge the gap and eventually went down 11-1 11-2 11-6.
Scorgie had her best match in the semifinals against EP’s Jacqui Ryder, who had earlier put out second seed Kim McDonald, of Northerns. In a tight three-game contest, the SACD player took it 11-8 11-8 17-15.
In the men’s final Groenewald battled to find his rhythm against the precision play of Brits, who shows no signs of slowing down after earlier this year winning the Londt Park Open.
Both players are from Pretoria, although Brits plays for SACD, and they know each other’s games well.
But it was Groenewald who made just too many mistakes to handle the pressure exerted by his experienced opponent.
With Brits focused on taking the ball early and maintaining an immaculate length, the closest game came in the second when the score reached 7-7.
But Brits was mostly the master of the situation and reeled off the next four points to go 2-0 ahead, finishing off the job by winning the third game 11-5.
Port Elizabethan
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