BOTH junior and adult members of Henley Squash Club turned out in force last Saturday at the Henley Leisure Centre as part of World Squash Day’s “World 2020 Challenge”.

The focus of the day was to promote squash’s bid to be part of the 2020 Olympics. Despite being played by more than 20 million people of all ages throughout the world, squash is currently not included in the Olympics.

Globally, more than 40,000 players took in the World 2020 Challenge from more than 750 squash clubs in 72 nations. The scores from each club contributed to a worldwide score between two teams named Team Squash and Team 2020.

World Squash Day organisers hope the total figure of competitors will run into the hundreds of thousands, and enable them to claim the event as the biggest sports fixture in history, as well as the biggest squash match.

At Henley, there was a rolling competition during the day in which juniors and then adults played.


Each match was a single game with the winner being the first person to 20 points. Players of all standards took part in the event, from juniors who have been playing for less than a year through to a former national champion.

In addition to playing their World 2020 Challenge, the juniors had the energy, stamina and enthusiasm to play additional round-robin matches.

Ella Jennings and Beth Ireland were the winners of the two squash round-robins, whilst Jemma Nightingale came top in the racketball round-robin.

The adult matches were keenly fought with a number of close results, most notably a 20-19 victory for Simon Street (playing for Team 2020) over Adrian Richmond (for Team Squash).

The overall result from Henley was 10 matches apiece, with Team 2020 winning the day by 329 points to 325 points.

For more details about the club and its various activities contact Duncan Nightingale (07899 731219) for the adult section and Richard Little (07786 942670) for the junior section, or visit www.henleysquash.co.uk

Published 29/10/12