The crowd at the Hong Kong Squash Centre went home happy after witnessing a double home triumph in the finals of the eighth running of the Buler Challenge Cup.
First up was the women’s final with home favourite Joey Chan taking on top seed Rachael Grinham, the Australian former world number one currently ranked six.
Chan, the left-handed world #19 who at 23 was some 12 years younger than her opponent, took the first, regained the lead at 2-1, but Grinham fought back again to level it 12/10 in the fourth.
It was Chan who prevailed 11/9 in a tense decider to claim her fifth WSA title, keeping the Buler Cup in Hong Kong hands as she succeeded Annie Au as a popular champion.
A home winner was already assured as the men’s finalists Max Lee, the top seed, and Dick Lau, who had survived three marathon five-setters to reach the final, took to the three-glass-walled centre court.
This one was a much simpler affair as Lee, the reigning HK national champion, won in straight games in just over half an hour to add a second Buler Cup title to the one he won in 2008, making it six career PSA titles.
[2] Joey Chan (Hkg) bt [1] Rachael Grinham (Aus) 11-7, 4-11, 11-9, 10-12, 11-9 (51m)
[1] Max Lee (Hkg) bt Dick Lau (Hkg) 11-4, 11-8, 11-7 (32m)
“Managed to do my classic “when in doubt lose by 2 points in the 5th”… That was a crowd-pleaser for the locals to say the least. I quite enjoyed it myself tho. Joey is such a fair player and in a 5-set match that went right down to the wire you could probs count the referee decisions on one hand (although shame one of them had to be a questionable stroke on matchball – not that I’m dwelling on it clearly ha).
“I guess I gotta say that I’m disappointed to have lost that, given that it was so close and could have gone either way, but I’m actually really happy just to have been able to get in 4 matches on the trot and other than the expected stiffness from playing competitive matches I’ve come out of it feeling injury-free. That’s a win in my book at the moment, as well as feeling no hesitance in my movement for the first time since tearing my hamstring in January, so overall this week served its purpose to get in some competitive match practise leading up to the British Open and I’m actually really pleased with how I’m feeling physically at the end of it.”
Rachael Grinham on Facebook
(from left) Mr Leo Wong, Senior Leisure Manager (Sports Funding) of LCSD, Mr Gary Lau – Manager of Free Town Watch Products Ltd., Mr David Mui MH JP – Chairman of HK Squash and Mr Cedric Tyen – Executive Committee Member of HK Squash.
