Grays ACT Open, April 5-6, 2008

EVENT REPORT

The ACT Squash Open received a huge boost due to a former top 50 world ranked player, Dianne Desira, entering the main draw to defend her previous three Championship wins at this event in the Women's Open Division. The Open was conducted last weekend at the Woden Squash Centre, Canberra which has recently been upgraded to be an excellent competition venue. ACT Squash and event management company Inform Connection conduct the event which is a significant tournament on the Australian and World Circuits. Solid entries were received through the graded events as well as in the Open divisions where there was $5,000 Prize money for the taking.

Di Desira, from Melbourne , has had some great achievements in her career to date. The most recent of these was to be a member of the highly successful Commonwealth Games squad in Melbourne . Other achievements include; Moorabbin Open winner 2005, Australian Open semi finalist 2004, Queensland Open semi-finalist 2004, Melbourne Open runner up 2004, Australian Closed r/u 2005 , main draw world open 2005. Di entered this event as number one seed and was the favourite to take out the title this year. It was not to be, however, with an unfortunate injury in the final against Shannon McNamara. Shannon is the new Grays ACT Open Women's Champion - well done.

In the Men’s Open, Matthew Karwalski from Sydney was the number 1 seed . Matthew is known for his self belief and is a real contender for the title, especially since he is at his highest ever world ranking of #90.  Likely contenders for the title included Simon Carruthers, Paul Bushel and local player Tim Manning. Tim has a long history at the ACT Open with a win in 2004 and again in 2006 and was keen to take out the title again this year. There were some exciting match-ups in the lead in to the final which ended up being between the number one and two seeds, Matt and Simon. Simon won through in four games to become the Champion for 2008.

We hope you enjoyed the event and look forward to hopefully seeing you again this weekend at the Willoughby Open.

Regards

Lisa Walton