Season comes to early close

Not seeing Evan Williams’ name in the main draw of the squash nationals took some getting used to, and the man himself admitted it was gutwrenching.

The Tawa 23-year-old said he had been attending a national tournament – junior or senior – since he was 7, so succumbing to a wrist injury and having to bypass last weekend’s event in Auckland was a tough decision.

‘‘It’s [left wrist] been pretty bad since May, when I played three tournaments in Australia,’’ he said. ‘‘I went to the world teams [in June] and I’ve been having physio every time I’m home.

‘‘It was a crappy decision I had to make to pull out, but I haven’t had a great couple of months and it had to be done.’’

Williams consulted a specialist to get a full assessment. He said he had been playing in pain, but was hopeful surgery was not required. The injury curtails a so- far successful season for him, with excellent results in Australia and England.

The Tawa man has lifted his world ranking to No 87 this year. He is the third-highest New Zealander in the rankings, behind Campbell Grayson, 41, and Martin Knight, 49.

‘‘I’ve been playing the best squash of my life, so to miss my first nationals in 16 years was hard to think about.’’

The only silver lining was that he had been able to sleep in his own bed for more than a few days.

‘‘ I’ve been home for five weeks this whole year. The two weeks I’ve had this time around is the longest stretch – it sucks to be injured, but nice to be home.’’

Williams said he was keeping fit and, if the prognosis was good with his wrist, would target a return to the court in England in September.