Squash: Champs were one-time foes

Foes can become friends judging by the once- rocky relationship between Dame Susan Devoy and Leilani Joyce.

Dame Susan, who won the last of her eight British titles in 1992, claims her former Waikato team-mate once thought she was a "grumpy old bag."

"That's saying it in nicer English," admits Joyce, now the second New Zealand woman to claim the sport's biggest tournament. "I didn't want anything to do with Susan because we didn't get along.

"It wasn't until I started playing the [international squash] circuit that I fully appreciated what it was like for her."

Dame Susan recalls a youngster with tremendous potential who wavered in her commitment to the sport - "she didn't really want to knuckle down and put in the hard graft."

Several years later, the former world champion received a letter from Joyce endorsing the advice she had refused to heed as a rebellious teenager. "One thing I've always told her is that she has an opportunity to be a world champion because I think she has the talent," Dame Susan says.

"Then the training is all worth it and those are the things that she remembers now."

Dame Susan pays tribute to Joyce for her genuine joy at winning the coveted British title.

"She's like a kid with a new toy at Christmas time and I think that's really what the sport is all about, just the feeling of achievement.

"She got little money and she's probably not going to get million-dollar deals either but she couldn't care less. The name on the trophy is all that matters."