Final Talent Development Centre announced

Squash New Zealand is pleased to announce that Waikato will host the third and final Talent Development Centre for the northern part of the North Island.

The Waikato Talent Development Centre (TDC) will be head-coached by Joanne Williams and Lindsey Walters, with assistance from a range of top coaches and players from throughout the district. Selection of the squad will be underway shortly, with the first camp set to run over February 11-12. As with the other TDCs announced by Squash New Zealand this month, there will be three camps run for aspiring under 11 and under 13 juniors from the Northland, Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Waikato districts. These will be hosted by a range of clubs in the Waikato district.

This completes the set of three TDCs that Squash New Zealand had aimed to set up. The Northern TDC will run alongside the Central TDC, run out of SquashGym Palmerston North, and the Southern TDC run out of Christchurch. Squash New Zealand is thrilled with this result, and looks forward to the TDCs helping to educate and refine the champions of tomorrow. High Performance Coach Paul Hornsby said "I believe that this additional level of support at under 11 and 13 level promises to be of huge benefit in developing and educating players earlier in their squash careers. It will provide a springboard and the players coming through the system will provide larger pool of talent to feed the National Development and World Junior Squads in future years. I am excited and looking forward to working with the coaches who will be delivering the camps".

Squash New Zealand would like to thank all of the coaches, clubs, districts and other organisations who came forward to host a TDC. The high calibre of proposals enabled the luxury of hand-picking the three centres we felt would be most beneficial based on location, facilities, and coaching staff.