NAMIBIA’S national women’s squash team left for France yesterday to compete at the World Squash Federation’s Women’s World Team Championship which takes place in Nimes from November 12 to 17.
It will be the first time that Namibia will compete at the event, for which a record 26 nations have entered. Besides Namibia, Argentina and South Korea will also participate for the first time, while Namibia is ranked 25th for the tournament, just above Spain. At a blazer ceremony on Wednesday evening, Quinton van Rooyen Junior of Trustco, the major sponsor of Namibian squash over the past 10 years, wished the team well, saying they were proud of their association with Namibian squash. ‘Of all our sponsorships, we are the most proud of this one. Play hard and we wish you the best of luck,’ he said. The team manager, Gwen Lister, thanked Trustco for their support, saying that Namibia’s participation would do a lot for the development of the game. ‘Trustco are sponsoring the trip on the Namibia Squash Association’s recommendation and they feel that it’s very important that Namibian squash players get some international exposure,’ she said. ‘We’ve had the Namibian Open for the last few years which has been sponsored by The Namibian newspaper which has brought a lot of top foreign players to our country and we think that this type of exposure is absolutely invaluable to the development and improvement of squash in Namibia,’ she added. The Namibian team consists of the number one and two seeds, Isabel Schnoor and Adri Lambert, who are both from Windhoek, and the number three and four seeds, Lucinda Rodriguez and Ruth Hornikel, who are both from the coast. Lister said the team was well prepared and that they were hopeful of putting up a good performance. ‘Namibia is seeded 25th, but we do believe that we can acquit ourselves well. The team has been training very hard indeed and we have an excellent coach in Karin Pretorius. We think that what this trip can do for the development of squash in Namibia will be quite amazing because we hope that the girls, when they come back, will try and impart what they have learned with our developing youngsters in Namibia,’ she said. Namibia will compete in Pool D against Hong Kong who are the fourth seeds, the Czech Republic (13th seeds) and Columbia (20th seeds). England, who have won the competition six times, are the top seeds, followed by Egypt, Malaysia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the defending champions, Australia. The only other African country competing is South Africa, who are the 14th seeds. Namibia’s women’s participation follows on the Namibian men’s team’s participation at the WSF Men’s World Team Championship in Germany last year, when Namibia came 31 out of 32 competing nations. On that occasion, Namibia beat Bermuda, who finished 32nd, but lost to Mexico, Scotland and Canada.
