Nanaimo area squash players Owen Stacey and Melinda Morben won their categories at the 2020 Trend Diesel Open. A total of 97 players took part in the three day event Jan. 24-26. (Dan Marshall/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Dan Marshall

Making a Racquet

Two local winners at Nanaimo’s largest squash tournament

Jan 30, 2020 | 5:07 PM

NANAIMO – The biggest annual squash tournament in the city has wrapped up for another year.

The 2020 Trend Diesel Open featured 97 competitors in eight different divisions at the Nanaimo Squash Club from Jan. 24 to 26.

The three day event kept the four courts full of men’s, women’s and masters games.

Club pro Richard Birks said his involvement dates back seven years and the Open has gone on a lot longer than that.

“It’s a volunteer run event. We had an increase in participants from last year which made for a good atmosphere all weekend.”

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Most of the players come from BC with a few from Alberta.

Birks said the Trend Diesel Open is on par with the biggest squash events in the province.

“It’s right up there with the other adult tournaments. There’s a big one in Victoria and a few in Vancouver. We’re getting entries that match those, so it’s quite good for us.”

Two of the divisions had Nanaimo area winners.

Owen Stacey, who is still a junior, won the Men’s D while Melinda Morben took the Women’s A.

Two pro ranked players were in the Open category with Ryan Picken finishing first by beating out runner up Tristan Eysele.

Other winners were Jack Webber (Men’s A), Lucas Jessa (Men’s B), Simon Lewis-Schneider (Men’s C), David Snook (Men’s 55+) and Ava Cairns-Lock (Women’s B).

Birks retired from the world squash tour about eight years ago and is now focused on coaching, lessons and expanding the junior program.

He does still play a few tournaments but had to sit out the Trend Diesel Open with an ankle injury.

Along with Stacey, two of the other prominent juniors at the club are Sam Hardie and Stefane Prairie.

Hardie and Prairie are ranked in the top 15 in the province at the U19 level, while Hardie and Stacey still qualify as U17’s.

Interest in the junior program is growing although Birks said not quite as quickly as he would like.

“But it is growing. We’ve been bringing in school groups and trying some different recruiting strategies and programs and it’s slowly paying off.”

The expectation is that the Trend Diesel Open will be a staple of the Nanaimo squash calendar for a long time and down the road there’s a possibility it could expand into something bigger.

“There’s been talk about trying to turn it into a pro-am as well,” Birks said. “Bring in a sanctioned event on the world tour and run the amateur event beside that. That might be something we can do in the future.”

dan@nanaimonewsnow.com

On twitter: @danmarshall77