White & Pittock Celebrate South Australian Success

Australians Cameron White and Amelia Pittock lifted the titles in the Partek South Australian Open Squash Championships after triumphing in the finals at the Next Generation club in North Adelaide, Australia.

White said that winning the trophy may lead to a full-time comeback to the professional ranks.   The 30-year-old from Geelong, seeded seven, claimed his eighth title on the PSA Tour when he upset second-seeded Queenslander Steve Finitsis 11-6, 11-8, 11-5.

White is currently ranked 147 in the world - but reached a career-high 48 six years ago when he was a full-time member of the PSA Tour.  He stepped away at the end of 2005, only playing four major tournaments in 2006 and two so far this year.

“The last year and a half I’ve taken my foot off,” he said.  “We had a baby six months ago, so I’ve been doing all those things that come with that responsibility.  Really the last couple of years, I’ve been playing enough to keep my ranking steady, but not to improve it.

“It’s hard to play professionally based in Australia so I’ve been weighing it up whether to give it another go or not.”

White said he would decide over the next four to six weeks whether or not to head overseas and take a coaching job that also allowed him to play the tour.

He said he felt in control of his game throughout the whole tournament, highlighted by the fact he made only eight errors in the final against Finitsis.

“I felt like I was doing enough to win in every match this week and was playing pretty solidly,” he said.

“Even when I could have been playing better I just kept plugging away.”

White now heads to Clare for next week’s Clare Valley Australian Open, where he will have to play in the pre-qualifying rounds.

But he said his form in Adelaide gave him an enormous amount of confidence heading into Australian squash’s most prestigious tournament.

Fellow Victorian Amelia Pittock also enjoyed success over a Queensland player when she outlasted reigning Australian junior champion Peta Hughes 8-10, 9-6, 9-7, 9-2 to win the women’s title.

Pittock will also take a confidence boost into the Australian Open, where she is seeded number three.

The 23-year-old from Dromana claimed the third professional title of her career and her second of the year when she used superior shot-making to defeat the 20-year-old Hughes.

Pittock has also been weighing up her future in the sport recently, easing back on her workload after last year’s Commonwealth Games.

“I took some time off and wasn’t training as much as I could have,” she said. “But I’m loving it on the tour now and I’m really liking training.”

The first three games took 54 minutes, but when Pittock claimed the third 9-7 Hughes was broken and Pittock raced away to win the final game 9-2 in just five minutes.

“That last game went pretty quickly, but it was a gruelling match,” she said.  “I really wanted to win this tournament … I’ve been training pretty hard so I’m really happy with the result.”