SOME of the state's best young squash players were in Dubbo recently with the staging of the annual Dubbo Junior Open.
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Players travelled from far and wide to take part in the bronze-level event and all those in attendance were impressed with high quality matches played, especially in the finals.
Dubbo Squash's Ian Shepherdson said while numbers were slightly down on previous years, it was still a high-class weekend.
"It was good, we had 32 kids playing. That was a little bit down but that's because it clashed with a State Tournament in Sydney so a lot of the really high ranking players were there," he said.
"We had players from the under-11s grade all the way through to under-19s and there were players from Canberra, Moree, Dunedoo, Rylstone, Parkes and Orange.
"There were a lot of good games, we were kept pretty busy all weekend as most players had four matches each so there was a lot of squash played."
In the under-19s, talented ACT player Adam Gaunlett took out the boys division.
In the under-17s the winners were Moree's Liam Bruno and Dunedoo's Elle Lane.
In the under-15s there were wins for Ryan Bushell-Keegan of Orange and Casey Nightingale of Parkes.
Dubbo achieved some hometown success in the under-13s with Kobe Andrews winning the boys division, while Georgie Lane made it a Lane family double with victory in the girls division.
While Dubbo may have only won one division, Shepherdson said he felt a number of younger players were on the cusp of making an impact at a higher level.
"There's a lot of good up-and-coming players coming through," he said.
Shepherdson also took time to praise the efforts of Beryl Mortimer, who dedicated much of her time in the lead up to the event ensuring everything would run smoothly.
The attention now turns to the weekend of April 18 and 19 when Dubbo plays host to the NSW Country Age Championships.
That tournament is a silver-ranked event meaning it is the third highest level competition in the country.
Shepherdson said he expects roughly 70 of the best players in NSW to descend on Dubbo for that competition with a high standard of play guaranteed to be on show.