Squash team equals best IPT performance

Namibia equalled their best ever performance at the Growthpoint Inter Provincial Tournament Cup by winning a bronze medal in the C category in Gqeberha last weekend. 

The Namibian team of Le-Hugo van Rooyen, Brandon and Trevor Grane, Kyle Kriel, Danie Greeff and Francois Hanekom gave impressive performances in the group stages, winning all their matches to reach the knockout stages as the winners of their group.

Their run ended in the semifinals when they lost to Eastern Province B, but in the third-place play-off they comfortably beat EP C to win the bronze medal. That equalled their best performance at the IPT Cup, after they had previously finished third in 2019 and 2022.

The chairman of Wanderers Squash Club, Steven Berry, said it was a great performance. 

“The guys did really well at the Country Districts. Namibia has never won the C division, and we’ve been there for many years now, and the performance that they put in this year was fantastic, winning all their round-robin matches.

“Then they played semifinals against the group favorites, EP B, who actually came second in their group, losing to Western Province, but they ended up winning the finals.

“So we played the semis against them and they were also the home team, so they had a big crowd backing them and spurring them on, but although we lost, we put up a huge fight in that match,” he said.

“We were two matches-all going into the final match, which was between Kyle Kriel and their number three, Benji Newman, who was just too strong for Kyle. He is a phenomenal squash player, an up-and-coming 17-year-old who they reckon will be one of the top South African players in the next few years.

“He’s a real talent, and it’s unfortunate that Kyle had to be the one that had to play a guy like that to decide the match. It was a tough one, but overall the guys played really well, and they ended up winning the third-place playoff match quite easily, which is fantastic,” he said.

Berry said they are already planning for next year’s tournament.

“We are going to have a debrief and discuss the tournament – what went right, what went wrong, and what we can do to improve the preparation for the players for next year,” he said. 

“Zimbabwe played in the IPTs for the first time this year; they started in the D division and won that, so now they have been promoted to the C Division. Next year, there will be some good international rivalry going on as well, and the guys are really excited about that,” he added.

Berry said that squash in Namibia is going strong.

“We had a record entry of 96 players for the Hüster Wanderers Open two weeks ago, so we are really excited about where squash is at the moment and the interest in squash. And that’s continued for the Phabufarm Wanderers Open on 24-26 July, where we’ve already got 75 entries, while the coastal players haven’t even entered yet,” he said.

“The entries close this Friday, and we are expecting another huge turnout,” he said.

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