Top Seeds Continue to Dominate

Day two of the Property Brokers New Zealand Junior Nationals has seen the top seeds in all the draws continue to progress through to round two and the quarter finals in their respective draws.

The premier under 19 boys division will see some fantastic match ups in tomorrow’s quarter finals with the top 8 seeds the having progressed through. All eight are A Grade players. SquashGym’s Regan Smith will have a mountain to climb if he wants to progress any further with his match up against number one seed Zac Millar of Wellington. Wellington’s Rebecca Barnett will play fifth seed Sarah Jensen in tomorrow’s semi who caused a slight upset beating fourth seed Samantha Brown in today’s quarter finals. Auckland’s 14 year old Ellie Epke who is playing up two age groups will face Courtney Bragg from Bay of Plenty in the other semi-final. The Boys quarter finals get underway from 11.00am tomorrow, with the semi-finals on tomorrow night at 5.30pm. The Girls semi-finals are on from 1.00pm tomorrow.

Local SquashGym player Luke Jones beat Josh Oakley (son of Susan Devoy) 3/0 to reach tomorrows quarter final against top seed Scott Galloway (Wellington) in the under 17’s. This will prove a tough ask for Jones who will have a home crowd on his side. Hayley Hughes and Paris Dalrymple-Mortleman the number one and two seeds are through to the quarter finals having hardly got out of first gear in the Girls section.

Another local hope Corbin Faint went down in the quarter finals of the Boys under 15. The eight seed lost to number one seed Sam Sayes of Northland 3/0. Faint won the under 13’s title at the North Island Juniors earlier this year but the step to under 15’s proved a little too tough at this tournament. In the Girls section New Zealand rep Abbie Palmer (Auckland) continues her march towards another National. Palmer was the youngest player in the New Zealand team at last year’s World Junior Women’s in Boston, USA. With her international experience she should prove too good in the under 15 section.

The Under 13’s has seen top seed Anthony Leeper dominate all of his matches to date. He will now play Temwa Chileshe (Canterbury) in what should be a close semi-final with Chileshe having played well so far. The Under 13 Girls is where local interests are high. Top seed Kaitlyn Watts of SquashGym is through to tomorrow’s semi-final as is SquashGym’s Courtney Trail. They are on opposite sides of the draw so an all local final is highly possible.

In the Boys under 11’s top seed Kobe Fleming (Wellington) is through to tomorrows semi-finals with a straight set win over Mason Smales. He will play fourth seed Thomas Elijah to make Sunday’s final. In the under 11 Girls, SquashGym hopeful Annalese Faint dipped out in the quarter finals but top seed Anika Jackson who is graded well above her rivals is through without any troubles to tomorrow’s final four.

Saturday’s matches will be a lot tighter with the tournament starting to get to the business end of the competition.