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• Zac Alexander and Donna Urquhart took out the men’s and women’s trophies at the Australian Closed Squash Championships.
SANDGATE squash players Zac Alexander and Donna Urquhart claimed their first national senior titles when they took out the men’s and women’s trophies at the Australian Closed Squash Championships in Brisbane on June 8.
Zac and his brother Jake, both Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holders, play premier grade for Sandgate in the Northside River City Squash Inc. night-time competition. Donna played for Sandgate in 2008.
Alexander beat veteran Queenslander Craig Rowland 4-11, 11-7, 13-11, 11-9 while Urquhart beat a determined Lisa Camilleri 13-11, 6-11, 11-6, 11-8.
Alexander, 20, is the reigning Australian junior champion and was facing a player 18 years his senior in the June 8 decider. Rowland has not played on the professional tour for over two years but was once ranked as high as seven in the world. He also played for Sandgate from 2005 to 2007.
Urquhart went into the tournament in good form, having won two titles already in 2009 and making the main draw of the Seoul Open earlier in the week, where she pushed second seed Rachael Grinham all the way in a first round defeat. Urquhart said she was fortunate to get away with a win, especially after her slow start.
“I was so lucky to win that first game,” she said.
“I had a terrible start. Once I started to play at my pace though I started getting the ball to the back of the court where I wanted it and I started controlling the rallies.” |
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By Darren Walton April 23, 2009 (Fox Sports)
Seeking an edge over New Zealand, Robbie Deans has sounded out Australia's two-time world squash champion David Palmer for a conditioning role with the Wallabies.
Coach Deans, a squash fanatic who plays A-grade in Sydney, believes the freakishly fit Palmer could help alleviate the Wallabies' problem of fading in the second half.
With the annual trans-Tasman series locked at 1-1 last year, the Wallabies established early leads over the All Blacks in the third and fourth Bledisloe Cup Tests only to be run down in the closing 20 minutes of both games.
Palmer is revered on the world squash tour for his remarkable stamina, a quality Deans is hoping to instil in the Wallabies in his second season in charge. The idea arose when former world No.1 Palmer gave Deans working over on court at the Sydney Football Stadium complex.
For training, Palmer has been known to complete the beep test - a torturous multi-phase fitness drill often used by footballers - five times back-to-back with just a three-minute break in between each.
"It's bloody hard, one of the hardest things I've ever done physically and mentally," Palmer said. "But that's what squash is all about; it's about being pushed to your max and how fast you can recover and how many times you can go to that breaking point and keep coming back."
Deans said some Palmer punishment was just what his Wallabies needed. "Teach them about perseverance; how do you keep going when your legs are gone. That's what our blokes need to learn," Deans said.
"Staying composed when fatigue strikes. It's a big advantage. The strength is minimising that recovery time.
"No doubt squash is actually one of the better forms of conditioning for rugby because of the footwork and the qualities David alluded to; perseverance, spacial awareness, mental resilience - intimidation is a big part of it. "There's nothing better. It's actually great for defensive technique as well.''
Palmer, who has done some work with NRL heavyweights Melbourne Storm, said he would love to assist the Wallabies when there was a break in his schedule. "Definitely,'' he said.”I follow the Wallabies, the sports are similar: they're non-stop, there's no breaks, it's up and down.
"There's so many different aspects to squash. Its endurance, its speed, there's flexibility, there's tactics, there's the mental side - the tactical intimidation. "It's like playing chess at a million miles an hour. It's not like other sports where you get time to think about your shot. It's so fast it's such a reflex instinct type of game.
"Using the squash type of training in rugby would be beneficial."
Agence France-Presse |
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