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Knight wins the day at NZ Classic

New Zealand’s Martin Knight has proved too strong for his Australian opponent Matthew Karwalski today in the final of the Fitzherbert Rowe Lawyers New Zealand International Squash Classic played at SquashGym. Knight redeemed himself after finishing runner up in last year’s tournament where he lost in five sets to Scotland’s Alan
Clyne. The tournament also doubled as the North Island Championships.

Knight was dominant in a three set victory and he got off to a fast start. He raced away to a 7 - 1 lead in the first set and by the time Karwalski woke up, the first set was all over 11 – 3 in 14 minutes. Knight was full of energy and put pressure on Karwalski in most rallies with Karwalski not helping himself with a number of errors. Knight also picked his moments to unleash some fantastic forehand winners.Joelle and Martin small

The second set followed much the same pattern as the first. Knight raced away to a 4 – 0 lead with Karwalski making more errors particularly on the backhand side due to Knight’s pressure. At 5 -1 the pair played a huge rally which resulted in Knight hitting a superb forehand winner which seemed to break Karwalski’s spirit. Knight then powered on to an 8 – 1 lead in the set. A mini fight back from Karwalski was too little too late as Knight took the set 11 – 5 in 13 minutes.

Starting the third, Knight was wary of keeping the pressure up as he knew Karwalski was fresh having had an easy run through to the final, whereas Knight had a tough hour long semi-final against Paul Coll. It was nip and tuck at the start of the third with both players trading points early on. At three all Knight started to pull away with a combination of long structured rallies that forced Karwalski into more errors, particularly on that troublesome backhand side. All of a sudden, Knight led 8 – 3 and the title was within sight. Knight was not going to let the tournament go now. Three more Karwalski errors under immense pressure from Knight and the match was over.

“I didn’t think the score line would read that easy and the match was tougher than it looked. I was really happy with how I played and I made very few mistakes. I was able to build good pressure which ultimately led to Matt making some errors,” Knight said after the 40 minute match. “We had contrasting routes to the final and winning my match in three yesterday against Paul (Coll) was key to keeping enough energy in the tank for today.”

Knight will miss the next leg of the New Zealand swing of PSA tournaments in Christchurch but will return for the final tournament in Invercargill later this month.

Full results are available at http://www.squash.org.nz/sit/live/tournament/event/1013208


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