Schepers takes title

ALTHOUGH he is now based in Pretoria at UP-Tuks, Murray Schepers kept the Eastern Province flag flying high when he won the U19 title at the Bloemfontein Open squash tournament early this month.

Schepers, who completed his schooling at Grey High last year, has emerged as one of the country’s most promising young players.

He was EP’s player of the year in 2016 and last year was the SA Closed U19 champion.

Seeded No 1 for the Bloem tournament, Schepers had to earn his title the hard way, being tested as early as the second round when James Barrow took him to five games. He won the fifth 11-3.

He had a comfortable 3-0 win over Jacques Duminy in the semifinals, but faced another titanic struggle in the final against Glenn Yates.

Up 2-1, Yates fought back well to win the fourth game 11-9, but Schepers’s dogged determination paid off in the fifth as he took it 11-8 for a notable victory.

In the U19 girls’ section, EP’s Danell Douglas also gave a good performance, finishing in third place after starting the tournament as the fifth seed.

Her important win came in the quarterfinals when she put out the fourth-seeded Ilzane Louw 3-2, 11-6 in the fifth.

This earned her a semifinal shot at the top-seeded Panashe Sithole, where she delivered a courageous effort before going down 11-3 in the deciding game.

Testimony to her good showing came in the fact that Sithole won all her remaining matches 3-0 to take the title.

Douglas finished off a good weekend by defeating another seeded player Helena Coetzee (2) 3-0 in the playoff for third place.

Other EP players to end in the top 10 were Erin Powers (U14, 7th), Luke Kelly (U14, 4th) and Dean Venter (U16, 5th).