Williams and King Retain Waikato Open Titles

Pictured Right - Evan Williams (Left), Sam Crawford Squash Director SNZ (Centre), Adam Murrills (Right) - Waikato PSA Final

Joelle King and Evan Williams have retained their Waikato titles for the second year in a row with respective wins over Amanda Landers-Murphy and Adam Murrills.

Joelle King of Cambridge was looking to defend her title from 2015 and came out in the first game in devastating style against Amanda Landers-Murphy of Rotorua. King put her shots away and Landers-Murphy battled to retrieve them with King in control of the centre of the court and claiming the first game in convincing fashion. The second game saw King make a number of unforced errors whilst Landers-Murphy played some tight shots, however King dropped her error rate and tightened up her play eventually taking the second game. King came out firing in the third match knowing she still had her Men's Division 1 game to play. King played some amazing shots and had some great deception which sent Landers-Murphy in the wrong direction at times. King picked up some great shots of Landers-Murphy but it wasn't enough and King retained her Waikato Open title for 2016.

Evan Williams of Wellington and Adam Murrills of England were set to battle it out for the second weekend in a row with Williams keen to take back to back wins having won the Pak'N'Save PSA and Open at Devoy last weekend. Both players came out in the first playing strong structured rallies which saw each other moving around the court, there was also some great deception where both players went in the opposite direction to the ball. Williams worked Murrills hard and claimed the first game with some great shots Murrills couldn't retrieve. Murrills came out strong in the second and really took control of the centre of the court. Murrills managed to work Williams around the court and he forced Williams into errors and irretrievable shots. Murrills controlled his rallies and sent Williams in the wrong direction eventually seeing Murrills claim the second game. Williams came back into the third game looking strong and took advantage of some loose shots by Murrills where Williams worked Murrills into the corners and punished anything which was loose. Williams looked dominating and he eventually closed out the third in a convincing fashion over Murrills. Williams and Murrills battled to the end in the fourth with long rallies which had the packed gallery on the edge of their seats, with a number of match balls Williams worked Murrills hard and his great work got him across the line to get him his second title in two weeks.

Full results can be found below.

Make sure you check out the Qualifying Round, Round 1, Quarter Final and Semi-Final results as well.

Mens Finals

[1] Evan Williams (NZL) bt [2] Adam Murrills (ENG) – 11/7, 6/11, 11/4, 15/13

Womens Final

[1] Joelle King bt [2] Amanda Landers-Murphy – 11/2, 11/8, 11/5

Picture Below - Joelle King (Left) and Amanda Landers-Murphy (Right) - Waikato Open Final