Top seeded Joelle King and Amanda Landers-Murphy progressed to post-section play in the women’s doubles squash at the Commonwealth Games today.
The New Zealand pair beat Australians Sarah Cardwell and Christine Nunn 11-8, 11-6 in 20 minutes, to help atone for their upset loss to Malaysia on the first day of doubles.
“It was probably our worst performance [against the Malaysians], but we get better each day,” said King, who won the singles gold medal earlier in the week.
“We were just flat yesterday. Hopefully we can move forward. It was a pretty positive start today. We started to gel a lot better.”
Meanwhile men’s third seeds Paul Coll and Campbell Grayson won their men's doubles against the Malta pair of Daniel Zammit-Lewis and Bradley Hindle 11-4, 11-10 in 25 minutes. It was their second victory of the competition.
In their second mixed contest, top seeds Coll and King easily accounted for Malta’s Hindle and Dianne Kellas 11-2, 11-4 in just 13 minutes.
“We were pretty sharp today,” King said. “We haven’t had a chance to practise together here, but seemed to be okay.
“We were happy with the things we were working on,” said Coll, the singles silver medallist. “It’s the Commonwealth Games, so we are taking things pretty seriously. We wanted to win. We know each other’s game and we’re just looking forward to tomorrow.”
Lance Beddoes finally took the court when he and Evan Williams came up against the tough Malaysian pair of Nafiizwan Adnan and Ivan Yuen. The Malaysians squeezed through a tight encounter, winning 11-9, 11-10.