Smith off to NZ Open with high hopes
Southland’s Ella Smith is hoping to enjoy the experience of attempting to qualify for the main draw at the NZ Open in Auckland starting on Tuesday.
The 16-year-old is one of 16 qualifiers looking to secure four spots in the open main draw at the professional international tournament.
‘‘Hopefully, I will make it through qualifying, but I have got a bit of a tough draw so it will be interesting to see what happens and see how I go from there,’’ she said.
‘‘I have got a girl from Thailand who I would play in my second round, which would be difficult. It is good exposure though.’’
Smith is using the tournament and the Waikato International event to keep her game sharp heading into international events with the New Zealand under-19 team.
The Southland Girls’ High School student was named in the NZ under-19 team to travel to Australia and Malaysia in September to play in their junior international tournaments, as part of her campaign to qualify for the World Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires in 2018.
She was also named in the NZ under19 team to attend the BWF World Junior Championships in Indonesia in October.
Smith puts her improvement, which has seen her selected for the NZ under19 team earlier than expected, down to several factors.
‘‘A lot of hard work, lots of training and playing tournaments against different people and lots of travelling,’’ she said.
Smith had plenty of success at the recent South Island Open held in Southland recently, as Southland dominated the event.
She picked up the women’s singles title and combined with Philippa Buzzard to take out the women’s doubles, She joined forces with men’s champion Nic Raines to take out the mixed doubles title.
The experienced Raines secured the men’s doubles with David McCormick.
In the under-19 section Southland’s Caleb Lay and Claudia Smith won the boys’ and girls’ singles titles, respectively.
Sam Loan and Bradley Jackson picked up the boys’ doubles title, to go with their men’s doubles title at the Otago Open recently.
In other squash action, Southland took three teams to the New Zealand National Junior Teams event recently.
The under-19 A team finished fifth, the highest for a Southland team in recent years, while the under-19 B team was 10th. The young Southland under15 team finished third in division two .
There are also some other Southland teams involved in tournaments in the coming weeks.
The Southland division three team will be playing in Christchurch starting tomorrow, while the following weekend the Southland senior team will take on Canterbury and Otago in Dunedin for the Neil Cup.