Namibia fourth in Pretoria

Namibia’s men’s squash team finished fourth in Division C of the South African Growthpoint Inter-Provincial Tournament in Pretoria after losing 16-10 to Gauteng on Friday.

It was Namibia’s best performance in recent years and all the more commendable after ijnuries had ravaged the team. 

On Thursday, Emil Dorgeloh aggravated an injury in Namibia’s 3-2 semifinal defeat to the South African Country Districts C team and had to be replaced by captain and team manager Steven Berry against Gauteng. 

That defeat saw Namibia contesting the third-place playoff match against Gauteng on Friday, and their injury woes continued when their second-ranked player Danie Greeff got injured in his match against Mhlanhla Genge.

Greeff won the first set 11-3, but his injury grew worse as the match progressed and Genge won the next three sets 11-5, 11-5, 11-9 to win the match 3-1. 

Gauteng went further ahead when their top-ranked player Josh Deutschmann beat Namibia’s number one, Max Endjala 3-1 after an intense encounter. 

Deutschmann won a marathon first set 15-13, and went 2-0 ahead when he won the second 11-8. 

Endjala fought back to win the third set 12-10, but Deutschmann sealed a 3-1 win after winning the fourth set 11-9.

That put Gauteng 2-0 ahead, but LeHugo van Rooyen pulled a game back for Namibia when he beat his opponent, Calvin Spencer 3-1 (9-11, 11-4, 11-9,11-5). 

Team captain and manager Steven Berry took on Phil Marais and gave a great performance befor going down 3-2 in a tough five-setter. Berry lost the first set 11-2, but made a great comeback to win the next two sets 11-4 and 11-9. 

Marais, however, finished stronger, winning the next two sets 11-3 and 11-4 to take the match and give Gauteng an unassailable 3-1 lead. 

In the final match, which was in effect a dead rubber, Namibia’s Christoff Knoetze beat Keith Ncube of Gauteng 3-1 (11-7, 11-5, 6-11, 11-4). 

That saw Namibia finishing fourth in Division C, which draw a lot of praise from Berry. 

“What a great experience and our players did really well. Christoff Knoetze and LeHugo van Rooyen really fought hard and made great names for themselves. LeHugo played at number three which was really throwing him into the deep end, but he did really well and managed to win two out of his five matches. Christoff showed that he is a force to be reckoned with and someone to look out for on the Namibian circuit as well,” he said. 

“Danie Greeff, what a machine, he played so well – he won all of his matches last year and won four out of five this year, and the only match he lost was due to an injury right at the end. Max Endjala once again showed why he is the best player in Namibia, and Emil, with his injury just kept on pushing and really fought so hard,” he added.

“Unfortunately we lost in the semifinals and due to an injury to Danie Greeff in the last third place playoff against Gauteng we were unable to pull the win through there. So we ended up coming fourth, but I’m quite confident that if Danie had not picked up that injury we would have won that match as well. But overall it was a great week, a lot of great experiences and new friends were made and we are looking forward to taking squash to the next level here in Namibia,” he said. 

Berry said they would now prepare for some exciting tournaments coming up in Namibia. 

“We gained a lot of experience that we will be able to bring back to local squash players to help them prepare for the Namibian BDO Open in September,” he said, adding that Namibia will also host a five-nations tournament in September.

“After the Namibian Open we will host a five-nations tournament for both men and women against South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, so it’s going to be a great experience and what we learnt we will definitely be able to bring back and help prepare the players for what lies ahead,” he said. 

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