Squash success for siblings

Siblings Rudi van Niekerk and Lizelle Muller demonstrated the gulf between themselves and the rest when they coasted to victory in the Westview Open squash tournament on Friday.

Van Niekerk made it a hattrick of titles with a 3-0 win over Madibaz No 1 Jason le Roux, while Muller picked up her fifth title in a row with a similar margin over the promising Hayley Ward.

Both Le Roux and Ward gave it their all to try to match their opponents, but in the end the defending champions were in a class of their own.

The tournament was robbed of what could have been a fascinating men’s showdown between the top-seeded Van Niekerk and No 2 Greg La Mude when the latter had go into hospital on Thursday for a kidney stone operation.

This allowed Le Roux another crack at the title and although he fought furiously to maintain some sort of parity in the second game, he could not sustain that effort.

He showed his fighting qualities by holding off three match points at 10-6 in the third game, but Van Niekerk finally prevailed 11-4 11-8 11-9.

In the women’s final, Muller swept through the first game without dropping a point and it must have been some relief for Ward when she won her first point at 3-0 down in the second. From there, the young Madibaz student kept pushing her more experienced opponent and took the second game to 9-9 before conceding the next two points.

Muller drove home her 2-0 advantage to control the third game for an eventual 11-0 11-9 11-6 result.