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Pool A: [1] England, [12] South Africa, [13/18] Kuwait, [19/22] Austria

England goes into this tournament as raging favourite for a very good reason. They the only team to have all players ranked in the top 12 (the seedings were taken off the November rankings, so wherever a ranking is quoted it’ll refer to November’s figures). Three of the Australian team members have achieved this at some point in their career, but two of the English team have been #1 and all of them have reached career highs of 5 or better. Four players who in the last twelve months have all been ranked at least 5 – that’s bloody tough to beat. Their average ranking is 7. The nearest team to that is Egypt at 14 and Australia at 18. It’s unlikely a team of this experience will have any difficulties going into a tournament with the extra pressure of being favourites.

England is one of only three teams that have fielded a team for every World Team Championships (along with Australia and New Zealand). They’ve won the event four times (two as Great Britain) and have always finished at least fourth. In Vienna they were dramatically dumped out of the tournament in the semi finals by France in a much publicized encounter (the footage of which can still be viewed on Guide-to-squash.org, but the single camera at the back of the court misses much of the drama and gamesmanship, and if anyone tells you it was blown out of proportion then they should speak to someone who viewed the match). England is fielding the exact same team as the one that was beaten in Vienna and the memory of that event should provide ample motivation.

South Africa

South Africa has replaced two players, perennial master’s champion Craig Van Den Wath and Adrian Hansen with Mike Toothill and Clinton Leeuw. SA’s best result to date is third, but that came in 1969 when there were only six teams competing. In Vienna they finished behind Scotland in the pool stage and lost to Egypt in the quarterfinals to finish eighth overall. A smart South African coach won’t waste a single drop of sweat or unnecessary motivation trying to beat England in the pool event (or even playing their strongest team). They should concentrate on ensuring something horrid doesn’t happen like a loss to Kuwait, and save their reserves for their quarterfinal hurdle.

Kuwait and Austria.

Kuwait’s best result was easily coming 20th in Vienna (coming 10th out of 10 teams in 1976 doesn’t count). Austria came a disappointing 21st as the host nation last time and arrive with three new players. The major goal for both of these teams should be to ignore England completely and try to cause a major upset of South Africa to come second in the pool.

Only three or four teams in this competition can give England a real challenge and it won’t (and shouldn’t if the coaches play their cards right) come from the pool rounds. The excitement of this pool will begin if Kuwait or Austria can take the challenge to South Africa, although they’ve got a tough task.

England
Lee Beachill
Peter Nicol
James Willstrop
Nick Matthew

South Africa
Rodney Durbach
Mike Toothill
Greg La Mude
Clinton Leeuw

Kuwait
Abdullah Al Mezayen
Bader Al Hussaini
Nasser Al Ramzi
Mohammed Hajeyah

Austria
Anders Fuchs
Aqeel Rehman
Jakob Dirnberger
Andreas Freudensprung

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