Master's Game Blog Update

Settled into the first day of playing here in Sydney. Most Games participants suffered the "longest que in mankind" as over 28 000 athletes tried to get their accreditation on friday before competition started. I managed to hit a ball on two occassions en route to Sydney on a stop over in New Zealand. As I told my wife - squash is very popular down here and finding courts will be easy. Sure enough, the first stop was Rotorua, NZ, a town of probably less than 10,000 where I had my choice of 4 facilities - including one at the high school. The second time I practised was practically at the Auckland airport where alongside Air New Zealand Jumbo jets was the airport fitness club which had a run down, but functioning court. It was nice to hit a ball a few times to get the stroke going - and boasts still travel the right way around here.

I played two matched yesterday. The first against a fellow Canadian from Vancouver who I played a couple years back. Regretably I had the same result dropping the match in three straight. The games are using PAR 11 scoring which is not at all popular for the same reasons we experience in Canada - the games are too short at anything less than open level play. Most folks down here are playing PAR 15 in their league play and liking it much more. I won my second match in three straight yesterday so I am encouraged that somewhere in this tournament is a place for me.

I am grateful to have received a squash shirt with a maple leaf and a Canada title to it from Manta sport. I have seen many of the other Canadians wearing our country's symbols and Canada forms the largest visiting country at the games with over 2000 athletes. I hope we can have some Squash Canada shirts ready for the next games or the World Masters Squash Championships to be played in Germany!
Sydney is a remarkable city and my wife and I have been run off our feet chasing the exciting things to do. We haven't had time to do laundry yet - so today's competitor is going to notice something slightly off on the court. It's an hour train journey to the squash facility so we have to run

Source: Bruce Madu