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NZ Doubles Championships 2014

130 pairs, including Commonwealth Games hopefuls descend on Palmerston North in search of 2014 national titles.

The Big Barrel New Zealand Doubles Championships gets underway at SquashGym, Palmerston North on Thursday with 150 of New Zealand’s top players looking to make their mark on the national scene early in 2014. The tournament has also attracted New Zealand’s Commonwealth Games hopefuls, who are hoping to gain selection for Glasgow in July.SquashGym PN

The event returns to SquashGym in Palmerston North for the second consecutive year continuing the club’s legacy of hosting significant events over the past decade. Tournament Director Jason Burton-Brown was pleased with the number of entries, “To attract 150 players across all the divisions is massive but to have the players we will see representing New Zealand in Glasgow in a couple of months playing is a huge bonus.”

Commonwealth Games double medalist Joelle King will headline the event. She will compete in the BNZ Women’s Open and FMG Men’s Open draws with Bay of Plenty’s Amanda Landers-Murphy which is a strong hint from New Zealand selectors of a Commonwealth Games pairing for later in the year. King won Gold in the Women’s Doubles at Delhi in 2010 (and Silver in the mixed doubles with Martin Knight) with the now retired Jaclyn Hawkes). The selectors appear to prefer the left hand, right hand combination that Landers-Murphy provides King compared to Megan Craig and Kylie Lindsay (both right hand players). Craig and Lindsay will team up and are second seeds. They will be out to upset the favourites King and Landers-Murphy. Local hopes in the Women’s draw rest upon SquashGym’s Danielle Fourie and Rebecca Barnett. They will be seeded third and will fancy their chances on their home courts to upstage their higher ranked opponents and make the final.

The FMG Men’s open is the best men’s doubles draw seen in New Zealand for a number of years. It has a mixture of current New Zealand reps such as Paul Coll and Lance Beddoes, and former stars of yester year such as former world number three Stu Davenport and Commonwealth Games Gold medalist Glen Wilson. Coll and Beddoes line up as number one seeds with the absence of Martin Knight (due to injury) and Campbell Grayson who has not sought a new partner for the event. Coll and Beddoes will want to claim the title to try and earn the second doubles pairing at Glasgow behind Knight and Grayson. They will face stiff competition from the Wellington pair of Evan Williams and Zac Millar. The left hand, right hand combination could be the dark horse in the draw. There are plenty of local men’s pairings including local professional Kashif Shuja and former Mexican
Davis Cup tennis player Victor Romero. Mike McSherry and Rod Banister will be looking to roll back the years upset some of the younger combinations as well.

The MacDougalls Mixed Open draw will also see some closely fought competition particularly with the absence of Joelle King and Martin Knight from the draw. Paul Coll and Amanda Landers-Murphy will team up and be number one seeds. Campbell Grayson and Megan Craig will be a very good combination and it will be hard to pick the winner between these two pairings. A local pairing of Kashif Shuja and Danielle Fourie should also be very competitive.

Each match will be played over a best of three sets played to eleven. At ten all it will be sudden death to decide who takes the set. The tournament has a number of other divisions including Men’s and Women’s Over 35’s, Men’s and Women’s Social, Men’s Over 50 and Mixed social.

The competition starts from 5.00pm Friday with the finals on Saturday afternoon from 3.00pm. Entry
is free for all spectators.


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