Squash: Beddoes' bogey strikes again

Greymouth's Paul Coll and Waikato's Joelle King display the silverware in the wake of their respective North Island title victories at the Havelock North Squash Club yesterday. Photo / Warren Buckland

Don't be surprised if North Shore squash player Lance Beddoes puts a light-hearted request on his entry form for next year's Squash Eastern-hosted nationals in Hawke's Bay.

It will read: "Please don't allocate me any matches at the Havelock North club."

Third seed Beddoes lost his third consecutive final at the club when beaten 11-2, 11-2, 11-6 by top seed Paul Coll of Greymouth at the three-day, 140-player North Island Championships which ended yesterday. Beddoes lost the final of the Havelock North Open last year and in 2014.

"It's good to be beating Lance regularly in the senior ranks because he beat me all the way through the junior grades. But he's never easy," the diplomatic Coll said. This was Coll's first North Island title and first visit to the Havelock North club for a tournament. He had played an exhibition match at the venue in the past.

Ranked 34th on the world rankings, Coll labelled himself a northern hemisphere player as he is based in the Netherlands for six months of the year.

"Off-season fitness proved the difference today. It's good to be home to freshen up. I've come off a long season so lately I've been training more rather than playing and it paid off."

Coll's next major event will be the Australian Open next month. In their respective semifinals Coll beat Tauranga's Ben Grindrod, the fourth seed, in straight sets and Beddoes accounted for second-seeded Wellingtonian Evan Williams, who retired injured when Beddoes was 7-1 up in the fifth set.

Fifth seed Cameron Jamieson of the Hawke's Bay club did the best of the host province players in the men's open draw with a quarterfinal exit. Grindrod beat Jamieson in five sets.

World No9 and Kiwi No1 Joelle King of Waikato predictably won the women's open title. The top seed beat third seed Megan Craig of Marlborough 11-7, 11-7, 11-7 in their final.

King's displays on the weekend were the ideal consolation for Hawke's Bay squash fans, after she withdrew from last year's Havelock North Open with the flu.

In their respective semifinals world No45 Craig beat second seed and world No39 and Belgium No1 Nele Gilis 11-3, 11-8, 11-5 and King defeated the fourth-seeded Amanda Landers-Murphy of Bay of Plenty - who boasts a world ranking of 55 - with an 11-1, 11-6, 14-16, 11-4 scoreline.

Host club player Rhiarne Taiapa did the best of the Bay entrants in the women's open draw by taking out the consolation plate - the equivalent of a top-10 finish. Taiapa earned her A grading on the weekend and is the first Bay woman to achieve this status in at least 20 years.