Craig leads Canty women’s squash team

Megan Craig will spearhead the Canterbury senior women’s squash team at the national interdistrict championships at Napier in August.

A two-times national champion and recent runner up at this year’s nationals Craig has a A1 grading and will be ably supported by Emma Cormack, recent Canterbury Open champion Ruby Turnbull, Sophie O’Connell, all A2 graders, while Kelly Sullivan replaced Nikki Kennedy last week. Canterbury was did not field a team at the 2016 nationals.

The men’s team. which won the national inter-districts title two years ago for the first time in its 43-year history and followed that up winning again last year, will be hard pressed to repeat the feat with some new faces.

The team will be lead by Jayden Millard who has just begun a university course at Otago. Joe Williams is No2 followed by Quinn Udy from Blenheim, who is currently in the NZ junior boys team competing at Tauranga in the world individual and teams event. Adam Odering is at 4 with newcomer Simon Slade in fifth spot, all players having A2 gradings.

From the winning team of the last two years absent is Johnny Barnett, a backbone of the team now living in Wellington, and Chris Van der Salm last week’s Canterbury Open champion who is ranked fifth in New Zealand. He is unavailable along with Oliver Johnstone and Jackson Beresford.