Media Release

Tuesday 17 January 2006

STAR-STUDDED SQUASH TEAM NAMED FOR MELBOURNE

A star-studded Australian squash team has set its sights on capturing more than half of the gold medals on offer, following the announcement of what is regarded as Australia’s strongest ever Commonwealth Games squad.

The ten member team includes recently crowned world doubles champions Anthony Ricketts and Stewart Boswell, mixed doubles champions Rachael Grinham and Joseph Kneipp, and former world number one David Palmer.

The team includes the second set of siblings to be selected in the 2006 Australian Commonwealth Games team, with sisters Rachael and Natalie Grinham joining brothers Clive and George Barton who will compete in the skeet shooting.  Rachael and Natalie combined to win the bronze medal in the doubles in Manchester.  For former world number one Rachael, Melbourne will be her third Games, after making her debut with silver in the doubles in Kuala Lumpur in 1998.  She also won a bronze in the singles in Manchester and will be striving for an elusive victory in Melbourne.

World number three and reigning British Open champion Ricketts and Rachael Grinham recently took out the Australian Open titles. 

Daniel Jenson, Kasey Brown, Dianne Desira and Amelia Pittock will make their Commonwealth Games debut.

Squash made its first appearance at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, where five medal events were inaugurated – men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles and mixed doubles.   Although the Commonwealth features a high proportion of the World’s top squash players, Australia collected two gold, two silver and a bronze with Michelle Martin (gold) and Sarah Fitz-Gerald (silver) dominating the women’s singles and Martin joined with Craig Rowland to take gold in the mixed doubles. 

In Manchester, Fitz-Gerald collected Australia’s sole gold – although the total medal haul was higher than in 1998, with two silver and six bronze medals.   The chances of that being emulated in Melbourne are slim with the introduction of play-offs for bronze rather than the allocation of bronze medals to losing semi finalists as was the case at the two previous Games.

The squash tournament will extend throughout the full period of Games at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre, with a rest day on 21 March.  Singles competition will commence on 16 March, with the gold medal play offs in the evening session of 20 March.  Doubles competition begins two days later with all medal play-offs in the three events being held in a single session beginning at 10.00am on 26 March, the final day of the Games.

The two singles competitions will involve a knockout draw, with players or pairs eliminated until the top two play off for the gold medal, and the two losing semi finalists for the bronze. The three doubles tournaments will, however, initially be in a round robin format, with the highest ranked teams progressing to the quarter finals, from which stage a knockout system will apply, leading to gold and bronze medal play-offs.

Australia will certainly have tough opposition, with defending men’s singles champion Jonathon Power from Canada currently heading the men’s world rankings.  It is expected that England will also send a strong men’s contingent, with James Willstrop (ranked 6^th), 1998 singles champion Peter Nicol (ranked 7^th) and Lee Beachill (ranked 8^th) all contenders for the singles medals.

In the women’s competition Malaysia Nicol David recently become the number one player in the world for the first time.  The 22-year-old is the first Asian player to top the women’s rankings. David clinched her position at the top of the world rankings when she upset top-seeded Rachael Grinham in the final of the World Open to become the youngest ever world champion.

And the New Zealand duo of Shelley Kitchen and Tamsyn Leevey recently won the women’s doubles world championship in Melbourne.

In announcing the team, Australian Commonwealth Games Association CEO, Perry Crosswhite, said the team has set very high expectations.

"The Commonwealth Games is virtually a world championship for both singles and doubles and means an enormous amount to the players.

“The team has set a target of three gold, two silver and three bronze medals, which when you look at the opposition will be difficult to achieve, but they are not shying away from their predictions.

“With the recent Australian Open and World Doubles Championships held at the Games venue, our team has had the ideal preparation,” Crosswhite said 

The team members are now spread across the globe, with the men in Chicago at the Windy City Open – North America’s richest tournament, and the women are competing in events in world tour events in New York, Hong Kong and Malaysia in the lead up to the Games.

2006 Commonwealth Games Squash team:

Men                                                                                        Women

Stewart Boswell            (27, ACT)                                       Kasey Brown                   (20, NSW)

Daniel Jenson            (30, SA)                                          Dianne Desira            (24, VIC)

Joseph Kneipp            (32, QLD)                                       Natalie Grinham               (27, QLD)

David Palmer                (29, NSW)                                      Rachael Grinham             (28, QLD)

Anthony Ricketts              (26, NSW)                                      Amelia Pittock                 (29, VIC)

Byron Davis            (SA) Coach

Norman Fry            (QLD) Section Manager

Geoff Hunt            (QLD) Coach 

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