Hadji wins 13th BTB Tournament
Benoni’s Nick Hjiphilippou’s Behind the Ball (BTB) Squash Coaching Academy tournament was held recently at the Boksburg Squash courts.
There were 32 BTB members participating.
The youngest participant was eight years old and the oldest 36 years old.
The 60 matches that were played over two days were of a high standard and were played in good spirit and fair play.
The third and fourth positions were contested by Michael Camden-Smith and Liam Boyd.
Although Boyd played with a heart of courage, Camden-Smith came through to take the match 3-2.
There were five matches that went the full five games.
The top two women’s positions were contested by Benoni’s Ceanne Cole-Niven and Amy Flynn, from St Dominic’s (Boksburg).
Although Flynn did her utmost, Ceanne proved just too strong and won by 3-0, to take the women’s section.
The men’s final was contested by Jason Cole-Niven and Pano Hadji.
This was the second consecutive year that the two training partners met in the final.
Jason, a past u-19 junior and South African number one, and captain of the Protea team at the World Junior Championships in 2006, came into the tournament as the number two seed.
Hadji, on his 14th consecutive appearance in the BTB Squash tournament came in as the number one seed.
Hadji spent seven years playing for Cyprus as the country’s number one player, but decided, three years ago, to stop representing Cyprus and to serve the three-year suspension necessary to switch countries to become eligible to play in the South African closed tournaments and improve his SA ranking.
The two players delighted the crowd at Boksburg and, although Jason was on the verge of revenging last year’s loss, Hadji came back from 2-0 down to win 13-11 in an exciting fifth game and capture the title for the 13th time.
