The South African Country Districts men’s and women’s A squash teams, with Karim Gawad and Lauren Siddall at the helm, continued their complete dominance of the GrowthPoint Jarvis and Kaplan Cups in Pretoria on Tuesday.
They handed out whitewash 20-3 and 20-1 victories against Midlands A and Eastern Province A, respectively.
Midlands A, who had upset Western Province in the first round on Monday, found themselves completely at sea and only managed to scrape together three games against their powerful opponents.
In the No 3 slot, JP Brits won the first game easily 11-4 against Justin Gouweloos, but was pushed to 15-13 in the second game before Gouweloos faded and bowed out 4-11 in the third.
The next match saw Midlands’ Daniel Smith take the first game off SACD’s Rudi van Niekerk, before van Niekerk dominated the play, running out a 3-1 winner. For SACD, Jimmy Schlebusch and Christo Potgieter notched 3-1 wins against Luke McFarland and Josh Taylor respectively, and it was left to the world No 2 player, Egyptian Karim Gawad, to defeat Tristan Eysele as SACD registered their second full house of 20 points.
The Western Province team will be strengthened by the appearance of the world No 12 New Zealander, Paul Coll, who lands in Johannesburg on Wednesday having received an emergency visa. Province may be lucky to stave off relegation as Free State A inflicted a 17-4 victory on them with only Rodney Durbach managing to save some face when he defeated Free State No 2 player Reinhold Hergeth in straight games. Western Province have 10 points from two matches, which places them in a dicey zone.
Last year’s winners, KwaZulu-Natal, suffered another defeat – this time at the hands of the BizHub Central Gauteng A team – 7-18. For KwaZulu-Natal, Diego Elias, ranked 19th in the world, surprised when he accounted for 10th-ranked Fares Dessouky in four games, but apart from this win, only Justin de Neef pushed his Gauteng opponent Rudi Willemse to five games.
Dylan Groenewald, Devon Hendrikse and Thoboki Mohohlo added to the Gauteng tally by outplaying Adrian Hansen, Andrew Martin and Gary Wheadon.
Over the past 25 years, two provinces – Central Gauteng with 12 wins and Western Province with nine, have dominated the Kaplan Cup.
Monday’s first day saw Western Province beaten 16-10 by Northerns and the second round had Northerns outplay Central Gauteng to the tune of 16-8, although the result could so easily have gone the other way.
Diana Haynes (CG) accounted for Megan Page 3-2, while Lume Landman cantered through 3-0 against Christine Ferreira to give Central Gauteng an early 2-0 lead.
Northerns Hannelize Human then beat Michelle Kohne 3-0 to put them on the scoreboard. The clash between the No 2 players, Northerns’ Milnay Louw, the 2016 and 2017 national champion, and Elani Landman, presently based in the US, was the turning point.
Louw took the first game 11-8, but Landman came back, winning the next two 11-3 11-8. Determined play by Louw had her level at two games all, and she won the decider 11-6 to level matches at 2-1 all and games at eight each.
Ranked 38th in the world, Canadian Holly Naughton clinched the match for Northerns, outplaying Central Gauteng’s captain, Cheyna Tucker, in straight games.
Matches continue on Wednesday with two sessions at the three venues – Pretoria Country Club, Harlequins and Pretoria High School Old Boys.
Picture of KZN’s Andrew Martin courtesy of Beandri Potgieter