Good Start For New Zealand At World Doubles Champs

A good start for New Zealand at the 2017 WSF World Doubles Squash Championships in Manchester with five wins out of their six matches in pool play.

Rotorua’s Amanda Landers-Murphy featured in three victories. The 26-year-old won two women’s doubles with Joelle King, although one of them went three sets and she also combined with Zac Mllar to win a mixed contest easily.

The tough match for Landers-Murphy and King was against the eighth seeded Canadians, Samantha Cornett and Nikki Todd and lasted 37 minutes before the top seeded Kiwis won 5-11 11-5 11-9.

“It’s great to get off to a good start and start the first day strong. We had a bit of a challenging one (against Canada). We lost the first game and coach Glen Wilson talked to us and we had to change a few things up and fight back really so it was good we were able to do that,” said Landers-Murphy.

On day two Landers-Murphy will play just one match where she will team with Millar again as they take on the sixth seeds from India.

Other Kiwi results from the first day of the competition where New Zealand are one of the favourite nations having won two gold medals and a bronze last year were Paul Coll and Campbell Grayson winning in straight games over the Scottish pair Douglas Kempsell and Kevin Moran 11-9 11-6, although it took 44 minutes to complete the win.

Evan Williams and Lance Beddoes won their match against a South African team but fell to the second seeds from Australia, Ryan Cuskelly and Cameron Pilley in straight games.

Williams and Beddoes play their third pool game on day two against the seventh seeds from Wales.

Tournament top seeds Paul Coll and King play their first two matches on day two while Coll and Grayson as fourth seeds could have a tough match against English fifth seeds Declan James and James Willstrop.

The fifth world doubles championships, featuring Men's, Women's and Mixed events is contested by a record 50 pairings from Australia, Canada, Colombia, England, India, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, South Africa and Wales and runs from August 1- 5.

The world champs also have added value as they help decide the seedings towards next year’s Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

 

Day one results:

Men’s Doubles Pool B

[2] Ryan Cuskelly/Cameron Pilley (AUS) bt [10] Evan Williams/Lance Beddoes (NZL) 11-7 11-10,

[10] Evan Williams/Lance Beddoes (NZL) vs [13/16] Christo Potgieter/Jean-Pierre Brits (RSA) 11-10 11-6,

Men’s Doubles Pool D

[4] Paul Coll /Campbell Grayson (NZL) bt [12] Douglas Kempsell/Kevin Moran (SCO) 11-9 11-6,

Mixed Doubles Pool C

[11] Amanda Landers-Murphy/Zac Millar (NZL) bt [13/16] Catalina Pelaez/Andrés Herrera (COL) 11-3 11-5,

[1] Joelle King/Amanda Landers-Murphy (NZL) bt [9] Natalie Grinham/Milou van der Heijden (NED) 11-5 11-4,

[1] Joelle King/Amanda Landers-Murphy (NZL) bt [8] Samantha Cornett/Nikki Todd (CAN)  5-11, 11-5, 11-9,

Day 2 schedule (UK time)

Wed 02/08/2017 18:45 - [7] Peter Creed/Joel Makin (WAL) vs [10] Evan Williams/Lance Beddoes (NZL)

Wed 02/08/2017 18:45 - [4] Paul Coll/Campbell Grayson (NZL) vs [5] Declan James/James Willstrop (ENG)

Wed 02/08/2017 11:00 - [1] Joelle King/Paul Coll (NZL) vs [13/16] Lisa Aitken/Harry Leitch (SCO)

Wed 02/08/2017 16:00 - [1] Joelle King/ Paul Coll (NZL) vs [17/20] Milnay Louw/Christo Potgieter (RSA)

Wed 02/08/2017 11:45 - [6] Joshna Chinappa/Vikram Malhotra (IND) vs [11] Amanda Landers-Murphy/Zac Millar (NZL)

The link below will provide livestreaming.

http://wsfworlddoubles.com/