Seeded qualifiers through to final round in Palmerston North

The first round of qualifying went the way of seeds today at the New Zealand International Squash
Classic in Palmerston Nortth today.

Top seed, South African Tristan Eysele beat local junior Corbin Faint in straight games, while on
court opposite, fellow New Zealand junior player Scott Galloway edged past countryman Andrew Ellis, also in 3 sets. Earlier home town favourite and former 2012 Classic champion Kashif Shuja, beat clubmate and former Mexican Davis Cup player Victor Romero in 21 mins. Romero a new convert to squash after a professional tennis career made his PSA debut as a local player. New PSA member Zac Millar also from New Zealand beat the higher seeded Tatu Knuutila from Finland in a tough 4 setter.

In the later matches, New Zealander Ben Grindrod beat local junior Luke Jones in 4 sets, USA’s Mike Lewis beat another local Jason van der Walt, 3 sets to 0 in 27mins. In the closest match of the round former top 100 PSA member and local Josh Greenfield made a welcome return to tournament squash after 3 years and beat the higher seeded New Zealander Jamie Skiffington in 5 sets, while in
the final match of the round, second qualifying seed Hannan Tarmidi from Malaysia, beat another New Zealand junior Max Trimble also in 3 sets.

The second and final round of qualifying starts at the SquashGym club at 7pm tonight (NZ time) and features the following match-ups…

(1)Tristan Eysele (RSA) v (L) Scott Galloway (NZL)
(3) Kashif Shuja (NZL) v Zac Millar (NZL)
(4) Ben Grindrod (NZL v (L) Josh Greenfield (NZL)
(2) Hannan Tarmidi (MAS) v (7) Mike Lewis (USA)

First Round Qualifying Results

(1)Tristan Eysele (RSA) beat (L) Corbin Faint 11/6 11/2 11/1 (19mins)
(L) Scott Galloway beat (8) Andrew Ellis 11/9 11/8 11/9 (24 mins)
(5) Tatu Knuutila (FIN) lost to Zac Millar 11/8 11/15 11/8 11/3 (36 mins)
(4) Kashif Shuja beat (L) Victor Romero 11/5 11/5 11/5 (21 mins)
(3) Ben Grindrod beat (L) Luke Jones 7/11 11/1 11/2 11/6 (20 mins)
(L) Joshua Greenfield beat (6) James Skiffington 11/6 11/5 9/11 5/11 11/3 (34 mins)
(7)Mike Lewis (USA) beat Jason van der Walt 11/8 11/5 11/3 (27 mins)
(L) Max Trimble lost to (2) Hannan Tarmidi (MAS) 12/10 11/9 11/2 (24 mins)