Evan Williams: New Zealand Juniors coach on the Barfoot & Thompson Auckland Squash Open

The Barfoot & Thompson Auckland Squash Open is currently underway at the North Shore Squash Club with some intriguing matches in store across the weekend. 

The men's PSA Challenger has its quarters and semis on Saturday and final Sunday while the women's Satellite runs Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. 

The men's draw involves players such as Northland left-hander Freddie Jameson, who was a finalist at the New Zealand Junior Open this year - but is up against another teen in Auckland's Vihan Chathury who will be playing for New Zealand at World Junior Championships in Egypt in July.

New Zealand Juniors coach Evan Williams joined D'Arcy Waldegrave for an update on the action.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the All Sport Breakfast podcast with Darcy
Waldgrave from News talk EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Nineteen minutes after eight, there's talk some squash now PSA
Challengers Series. It's the Auckland Dot Squash Open and we
are joined by former Commonwealth rip and a champion as
well as squash of the same event. Even williams it
looks after the Juniors now that you will junior coach.

(00:32):
Good morning, Evan. What's it looking like you got some
new rock stars on the horizon?

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Good morning. Yeah, yeah, we've got some fantastic players hopefully
going to be hit in their straps when we get
to Egypt and just one the eight weeks time and
it's quite an exciting, quite an exciting time for the
New Zealand squash.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
So the drive behind the Challengers Series is to develop
players for the World Juniors. Is the Mortate more.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
To it, or the Challenger Series is the low end
of the PSA World Tour. So you start on the
Challenger Series, you work your way up and the prize
money and then you enter into the World Series events.
So it's a really good entry point for junior players
and younger professionals, so less they sort of start their
careers there and then rapidly move their way up.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
So they're all looking for representation. They want to go
to the World Junior champ. How does that work? Is
it based on if they have nice sneakers or is
it purely results based? Even How do you go about
picking this team and how big is the team?

Speaker 3 (01:36):
The team we've got six players that are heading away
and the boys team and six players that are heating
around the girls Squashing. Zealand has done a really good
job this year of building an incredibly robust selection criteria
and policy for us to be able to pick the teams.
Thankfully we don't have to pick them. It a tough
job doing that, but we've got head to head results,

(01:58):
we've got fitness testing, we've got attitude. It does, mindset
does whether they're prepared for these sorts of So there's
a really big selection criteria which helps us pick the
right players.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
So they're packed previous. You're not going away for a
couple of months yet, but that's all been in. It's
pencil pencil, it's penned in. They know they're playing. So
results here aren't as important for selection, but very important
as the build up.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yes, definitely. Yeah, all the selection stuff's been done. We
started selection from January this year and they've done sort
of four months of rigorous work with training camps and
selection tournaments, head to head matches for that one and
then now that other team's been picked. Now it's their
opportunity to go out and sort of get their seat
wet on the professional scene and so you see what

(02:49):
it tastes like to be up against the professionals and
probably you know, a very very high level of squash.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
So what's happened? Even who's looking good? What are we
looking forward to?

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Looking forward to everybody? We've got the New Zealand Jr
Number one, there's Olidunebar he's going to be seated at
the World Junior event later on in the year. We've
got a couple of other youngsters that are playing Freddy
Jamison there's probably a player to look out for and
the Auckland opened and that's that's about who we've got

(03:24):
for the Challenges Series, and then we've got for the
World Junior Boys. Then we've got a really got a
really young team this year. We've got five of the
players that have been selected will be available for at
least one more World Juniors as well, so it would
be quite a good build up for future World Junior
campaigns that we have.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
It's at the North Shore Squash Club. They've got means
in women's quarters and semi Sun four pm, I believe,
finals from three pm on Sunday. Plenty of mahi for you,
Evan Williams to work out how to improve these guys
and girls as they carry on toward the World Juniors.
Thanks very much for your time this morning.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Even thank you. Thanks that us.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
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