Auckland Squash Open A Start To Following In Paul Coll's Footsteps
Thursday 5 March 2020, 12:54PM
By dave worsley
2397 views
As Paul Coll continues his great success around the world. Back in New Zealand there’s plenty of top squash taking place with the start of the Barfoot and Thompson Auckland Squash Open PSA underway this evening.
The men’s draw has three players ranked within the top 100 in the world and five different nationalities taking part.
The tournament is being held at the North Shore Squash Club through to the finals on Sunday 8th March and is worth US$6,000 for the men’s tournament and a women’s Satellite also be played at the same time.
Top seed is Henry Leung from Hong Kong who entered with a ranking of 76 in the world, while New Zealand Commonwealth Games player, Evan Williams from Wellington will be second seed with his ranking of 91. Williams recently warmed up for the Auckland Open with victory at the Henderson Open beating one of New Zealand’s top juniors, Elijah Thomas in the final.
The third and fourth seeds are also from Hong Kong in the form of players, Chi Him Wong and Tang Ming Hong.
There are some highly competitive first round matches including Leo Fatialofa against Thomas, Temwa Chileshe facing Anthony Lepper, Sion Wiggin playing Chris van der Salm as well as Glenn Templeton the national junior champ taking on Joel Arscott. The winner of this last match plays Williams in the second round.
The women’s draw features New Zealand’s second and third ranked players, Abbie Palmer (Auckland) and Emma Millar (Waikato) as well as hard-hitting Aucklander Lana Harrison who was a finalist last week at the Eden Epsom tournament to Millar.
Korean, Yeonsoo Yang won the Henderson Open and is part of a group of players from her nation who have been competing in events in New Zealand for a number of weeks.
First matches are from 6pm tonight.
The tournaments are an ideal way for professionals to improve their ranking, or for younger players to get a kick start on the PSA tour and is also a New Zealand Junior selection event.
The Barfoot and Thompson Auckland Open is part of a five tournament series promoting the sport with events around the upper North Island. All tournaments will be live streamed via Facebook. Further Satellite events are already being planned.
With the completion of the Henderson and Eden Epsom tournaments, the remaining events are March 13-15 The Arch Delahunty EBOP Open PSA Satellite (at Whakatane) and the Royal Oak Open & PSA Satellite 22-24 March.