Kaitaia Squash and Tennis Centre has played a huge part in New Zealand No.1 and world No.10 Shelley Kitchen's life.
When the opportunity came up to play an exhibition match at her old club in her hometown last night, she jumped at the chance and invited world No.2 Natalie Grainger of
the United States to come with her. Grainger and Kitchen are in New Zealand for the NZ Open at Mount Maunganui, which gets underway today with men's and women's qualifying rounds.
"I don't get to do this sort of thing very often at all," Kitchen said about the exhibition match.
"I started playing squash at the club when I was two and played my first tournament at 10, and although we left Kaitaia when I was 16, I always like to come back here. It's what I can do to give back to the club where I pretty much grew up."
Based in Auckland, Kitchen spends much of her year travelling to tournaments and has spent the past two weeks furiously training for her NZ Open campaign.
The 29-year-old's first match is on Thursday, against Annie Au of Hong Kong and Kitchen said the clash with Grainger should give her a good indication of how she would fare at the Mount.
Before the exhibition match got underway last night, Kitchen and Grainger along with world No.8 Madeline Perry of Ireland, who volunteered to umpire the match at Kaitaia, took 25 juniors for a coaching session.
"It's good to see so many juniors playing now as squash in general was struggling at all clubs not just up here, but there has been a real surge in numbers recently," Kitchen said.
The match was intense, with an on form Grainger and a determined Kitchen battling it on-court over 60 minutes. It was the best of five sets and after 25 minutes, the match was tied 1-1.
The fierce clash continued and was not decided until the fifth set, which Grainger began strongly, charging ahead to a 5-1 lead.
However, Kitchen clambered her way back to level the score, 9-9, but Grainger showed her class taking the last two points to win the set 11-9, and the match 3-2.
