Squash | South African Team Announced for World Squash Federation World Teams Championships

Johannesburg, South Africa: The South African teams are firmly focused on giving a strong account of themselves in the World Squash Federation (WSF) Men’s and Women’s Team Championships in December but will also have an eye on building for the future.

Van Niekerk:Growthpoint South African National Champion, Dewald Van Niekerk of Johannesburg will spearhead and captain the South African men’s team for the upcoming World Squash Federation (WSF) Men’s and Women’s Team Championships to be played in Hong Kong in December.

South African teams will face a steep learning curve at World Championships

• Pienaar, Van Niekerk will captain sides in Hong Kong

Under the guidance of coaches Richard Castle (women) and JP Brits (men), the South African teams will come up against the world’s best players at the tournament in Hong Kong from December 9 to 15.

This year’s sides represent something of a changing of the guard in SA squash, with stalwarts such as Brits, himself, Christo Potgieter and Growthpoint national champion Alex Fuller no longer in the picture for national selection.

While that suggests a lack of experience for the class of 2024, neither of the coaches is perturbed at the challenge ahead, knowing that to reach the next level the players need to receive exposure against the world’s elite.

Brits sees it as part of the journey for this younger group of players – Ruan Olivier is the oldest at the age of 30 – to develop their games and to become the flag-bearers for SA squash in the years ahead.

“It is a bit of a new phase with the younger players coming through, but there is a lot of potential among them,” he said.

“Ruan has been there for a while and was very unlucky not to play in 2021 when the event was cancelled because of a variant of the coronavirus.

“So, he will be playing in his first world team champs, while four-time Growthpoint SA champion Dewald van Niekerk (27) has been around and has good experience, and then we have two younger players in Damian Groenewald (21) and his brother Luhann (18).”

With Damian playing in his second world teams’ event, Brits felt the previous experience would stand him in good stead, while Luhann, the Growthpoint SA U19 champion, will achieve the rare feat for an SA player of being part of the world junior teams’ event and the senior edition in the same year.

At those World Junior Championships in Houston, Groenewald registered a brilliant 3-2 win over Egyptian opponent Omar Azzam to give them a rare victory against the north African country. It helped the SA team to finish eighth at the world champs, their best placing.

“It will be tough, but training correctly at a world-class standard is a given if you hope to get to events like the Olympics and there’s nothing quite like getting onto the court with world-class players, and watching and learning from them,” Brits said.

“That sort of interaction inspires players to aim for a higher level. You must train incredibly hard to get there, but this sort of exposure just nudges them further in the right direction.”

For Castle, there is a lot of attention on building for the Olympics Games, at which squash will make its first appearance in 2028 in Los Angeles.

“From an SA perspective it’s really good that we have young players like Savannah Ingledew in the fold and that Awande Malinga is furthering her career in the United States, while our top girls are all hard competitors,” he said.

“We have just had a national camp, which I believe was a big success and we opened their eyes to the intensity and the change of mindset in squash which the rest of the world has adopted.”

Alexa Pienaar: Alexa Pienaar of Pretoria will captain the South African women’s team for the upcoming World Squash Federation (WSF) Men’s and Women’s Team Championships to be played in Hong Kong in December.

He acknowledged they had a relatively young side, with captain Alexa Pienaar the senior member at the age of 30.

“But she’s in the prime of her squash life and Hayley Ward has been campaigning overseas so she knows what it’s like to compete against some of the experienced professional players.

“Our goal is always to try to finish in the top 10, and ultimately we would aim for the top eight, but this is definitely a side we can build on for the future and this will be a stepping stone for that.”

While the team have often been competitive at the Worlds, Castle acknowledged that women’s squash around the world was building greater depth.

“There are very few weak teams in the women’s environment now, so the game has evolved a lot,” he said.

“We need the exposure to that level, but we also need to make sure the exposure is valued so what happens when we come back is perhaps even more important than what we achieve in Hong Kong.”

The teams are:

Women: Hayley Ward, Savannah Ingledew, Teagan Russell, Alexa Pienaar (captain)

Men: Dewald van Niekerk (captain), Damian Groenewald, Ruan Olivier, Luhann Groenewald

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