DOUBLE GOLD FOR RYDER
Zena Wooldridge reports

Chris Ryder won his second world championship gold of the week when he beat Mark Krajcsak 3-1 in 89 minutes.

Ryder's patience played off in a magnificent example of tactical manoeuvring of the local boy Krajcsak. Chris lost the first 7/9 in 25 minutes, but by the time he clinched the second 10/8 Krajcsak was looking decidedly weary.

Although Chris took the 3rd game 9/1, Krajcsak threatened to come back at the start of the 4th, until his legs gave up and Chris took the 4th game 9/4 to become the World University Squash Champion, adding the individual title to the team title won by GB on Wednesday.

Earlier today Lauren Siddall secured a comfortable 3-0 win in the 3rd/4th play-off against the American number 1 seed Katie Patrick to win bronze in the women's individual event, adding to Joel Hinds' individual bronze in the men's championship.

01-Sep-06:
Semi-finals ...
Zena Wooldridge reports

Semi-final stage of the World University Squash Individual Championships resulted in a finalist and two bronze medal play-offs for GB after this evening's play.

Lauren Siddall faced the number 2 seed, Malasian Yoke Wah Lim, to whom she lost in a close 3-2 in the team quarter-finals 3 days ago. Two games down, Lauren took the initiative in the 3rd via a slow lob game to force her opponent into the back corners, which rewarded her with a 9/2 game. Unfortunately she couldn't quite maintain that in the 4th and went down 3-1.

In the other half of the draw, the German Kathrin Rohrmuller (whom Lauren has already beaten this week) toppled the number 1 seed Katie Patrick (Canada) 3-1.

In the men's event, 3/4 seed Chris Ryder faced unseeded Joel Hinds in the all-British semi-final set up by Hinds' fantastic win over number 2 seed Jan Koukal yesterday. In the end Hinds was too tired to really test Chris and Chris maintained his clean sheet 3-0 wins throughout this week.

He now faces number 1 seed Mark Krajcsak (Hungary) in the final.

The 2 other British players remained in action this evening, both Emma Beddoes and Jonathan Harford securing easy victories in their 5th-8th play-offs.

Daily Report

Down to the Last Four
Zena Wooldridge reports

Team GB was guaranteed to lose two players from the individual championships today with two all-GB clashes at quarter-finals stage.

Emma Beddoes faced 5-8 seed Lauren Siddall in a re-play of the last three years' British University's final. Today's match was another closely-contested event over 50 minutes, with Lauren coming back from 5-0 down in the 3rd to take the semi-final spot 9/4, 9/4, 9/7. It's a shame the draw didn't allow both these quality British players the opportunity to contend an individual medal at these championships.

GB's top man, Chris Ryder took 45 minutes at a relatively easy pace for him to despatch the Frenchman Fabien Verseilles 9/7, 9/3, 9/7 to cruise into this evening's final.

The other all-British battle was between Birmingham team mates Joel Hinds, who eliminated the number two seed yesterday evening, and world number 111 Jonny Harford. Joel didn't manage to find the pace or the accuracy he displayed yesterday, and Jonny couldn't find the spark to take advantage of that, which resulted in a 75 minute war of attrition, disrupted by an injury break caused by Jonny's racket catching Joel's lip at the start of the 2nd. Joel eventually came through 9/0, 9/7, 1/9, 10/9 to set-up another all-British match in the semi-final. After Joel's last 2 epics, Chris must fancy his chances to reach the final.

So, GB's medal aspirations remain intact as we approach the semi-finals on Friday evening.
  

Mark Krajcsak Interview

information and news
from Szeged welcomed

Qualifiers:

Jaroslav Cech (Cze) bye
Roman Celler (Svk) bt Nikolai von Engelmann (Ger)  3/0
Ádám Kerényi (Hun) bt Victor Gupta (Swe)               3/0
Marek Manik (Svk) bt Anders Kroscky (Ger)             3/0
Yvain Badan (Sui) bye
Alexander George (Usa) bye
Pavel Sladecek (Cze) bt Atila Dobai (Svk)                3/0

TEAM EVENT

Team Gold for GB
Zena Wooldridge reports

The GB Team took team gold this evening, beating France 2-1 in the final of the World University Squash Championships in Szaged, Hungary.



Lauren Siddall gave the team a solid start with a 9-1, 10-8, 9-1 start over Maud Duplomb.



Chris Ryder admitted he has never played as well on a glass court when he dispatched Fabian Verseille in a clinically professional performance 9/2, 9/1, 9/0 in 30 minutes. It left Jonathon Harford (Birmingham) to play the dead 3-set rubber which he lost 6/9, 9/1, 5/9 to Yann Perrin.

The other members of the squad who played their part in the overall team gold were Emma Beddoes and Joel Hinds, both of whom won their semi-final matches the previous day to set GB up as firm favourites in the final.

South Africa won a nail-biting 3rd/4th play-off against the USA that went to 8-all in the 5th in the deciding match.

GB into Final v France
Zena Wooldridge reports

The Great Britain Team floated comfortably into the final of the WUSC with a 3-0 win over South Africa. GB's confidence is further boosted by having rested Jonny Harford and Lauren Siddall for the final whilst the USA kept France on court for an hour longer in the other semi-final.

Emma Beddoes (Nottingham) gave the team a useful start on her 21st birthday with a 3-1 win, slightly edgy at times, but her superior fitness and consistency brought Emma a fairly comfortable win in the end.

GB's number one player, Chris Ryder (Loughborough) scored a comfortable 3-0 victory over Lloyd Barcza who simply couldn't compete with Chris's fitness. His comment after the games was that it was all rather loose, but at that pace he felt he could run all day, whilst his opponent ran out of steam in the end.

That left GB number three string, Joel Hinds (Birmingham) to play a dead rubber against the RSA number 2 Nicol Mulder, who he cleaned up in a rapid 3-0.

France have won two of the last four World University Squash Championships, with the help of Thierry Lincou who led them to victory against GB in 1998 and 2002. GB have won the team event once, so will be looking to take gold in what promises to be a very competitive final tomorrow.

Zena Wooldridge

Semi Final Line ups complete

Quarters:  GBR 2-1 Malaysia      South Africa 2-1 Switzerland
                  France 2-1 Canada    USA 3-0 Austria

Top seeds Great Britain claimed their semi-final berth with a win over Malaysia whilst USA beat Austria, France overcame Canada and South Africa took the last spot beating Switzerland.

28-Aug-06:
A busy day in a busy town
Daniel Szabo reports on Day ONE

Szeged, Hungary is famous of many things like its paprika, salami, the University of Szeged, the Szeged Youth Festival, and its kayak-canoe, handball, and junior-squash sport-life.

You can imagine all of these in a relatively small and hidden town ... and this is all happening at once!

So basically you can say that young people took over the city, and they can barely survive to stay in good shape. Typical summer feast, concerts, tents everywhere, and nobody seems to care …

The 5th World Universities Championship 2006 started in the local squash-club on four traditional courts for the group-phase and playoff matches. Finals will be played on an all-glass court in the Educational and Information Center of the University (TIK).

The opening ceremony was held last night for the 16 nations, with almost 100 registered participants from all over the world.

The individual men’s event will start after the mixed team championship. First and second seeds are old time rivals Mark (the local hero) Krajcsak from Hungary and Jan Koukal from the Czech Republic.

The draw shows an interesting coincidence, that they might be playing each other before the individual, at the team-event’s playoffs on Wednesday.

The first day’s best match - according to spectators – was Yann Perrin’s five-gamer 3-2 against Yvain Badan from Switzerland.

The Swiss team almost took the first spot of their group when Badan lead 2-1 against Perrin, but in the end of the day the French came out of the court unbeaten after dashing home hopes by beating Hungary 2-1 as well.
   

TEAM FINALS NEWS
direct from Szeged

FINALS & PLAYOFFS

DAILY NEWS BULLETINS

information and news from Szeged welcomed

TEAM
RESULTS
 

THE FRENCH VIEW A Tough and long day in the life of a coach. It all started this morning against Canada, where Joan’s decisive match was a stressful one, a lot of frustration and contact between the two players, both fully aware that the outcome would be a semi final for their team. After a lot of between game chats, Joan started to establish his game to win that crucial match. But it was only the beginning, as the USA were now on the scene. Celia lost a difficult match. Fabien was leading 2/0, got caught 2/2, and saved a match ball 8/6. On the rally of the match, he ends up wining the match 9/8, thank GOD! And Yann was more dominant in his match and got us the ticket to meet the almighty British. So tomorrow, a beautiful final on the glass court. All the team was dreaming of it, and the will and cohesion of the team allowed the dream to become a reality. We are looking forward to tomorrow, but we are all happy to have a good night of rest. Later. French Coach

Intro Video from Szeged

Hungarian TV News Clip  (mouse over to play)

Countries Entered

Information Bulletin

FRANCE

• Joan Lezaud
• Yann Perrin
• Fabien Verseille
• Célia Allamargot
• Maud Duplomb
   
• Yves Ménégaux, entraîneur

information on other squads and news from Szeged welcomed

  
Great Britain
  

GB Management Team

Keir Worth
Team Coach:

England Squash Performance Coach and former Head Coach and Squash Development Manager at the University of Birmingham