Matanatabu wins Lautoka comp
Marika Matanatabu took top honours in the Squash Fiji’s A grade tournament final at the Northern Club, Lautoka, on Saturday night.
The three-day tournament saw Matanatabu winning the A grade, Daniel Lal took out the B grade with Atul Mangal claiming the C grade while Jason Pillay won the novice category. “I’m slowly coming back into squash now after the 2015 Pacific Games,” Matanatabu said. “I went to Suva to play in a tournament and I saw there was
a lot of interest, so it’s a good time to come back and help the sport grow in Lautoka, especially for the juniors.”
Matanatabu said they had a tournament in Suva two months ago and it was good to have another one in Lautoka.
“It’s hard because you need more overseas exposure in terms of competition.
“I need more game time and right now we can’t do that but it’s good that we are still training,” he said.
Squash Fiji president, Blair Macaskill said other players featured in the tournament were Daniel Fong, Andrea Roxburg, Romit Meghji and Alison Yee.
“This tournament’s probably the largest one we’ve had since November, last year. So we had about 67 entries from Suva, Nadi and Lautoka,” Macaskill said. “I think the focus at the moment is trying to grow the numbers and pulling in new players because we want to start having tournaments with junior players taking part.
“Our next tournament will be the national club championship, “I don’t want to confirm as yet, but we’re looking at Nadi as a possible venue, on the next long weekend, which is Prophet Muhammad’s birthday,” he added.