Darwin Squash Centre gets $4.5m govt funding
By ALAN THATCHER
Squash NT (Northern Territory) has been successful in bidding for the Australian Open Squash Championships in November 2017.
Despite strong competition from two other major destinations, the NT bid was successful due to the Northern Territory Government funding of $4.5 million which will develop the Darwin Squash Centre and encompasses a permanent show court.
This is the first time that the Open has been held in the Northern Territory – and there will also be a total prize money of $30,000, which will ensure that players from all over the world will visit the Territory to vie for the prize money and see some of our Territory icons in their down time.
Along with the Open event, the new Australian Premier and B Grade National Championships will be played alongside providing a great environment for Australian players below PSA status – more details on the grading system will be published shortly.
Following immediately on from the Australian Open will be the Australian Doubles Championships, also held at the Darwin Squash Centre.
This will provide a week long Squashfest displaying the best of the best and its right here in the Northern Australian Capital of Sport – Darwin!
Darwin is also hosting the Australian Junior Open in January and it is expecting bumper entry of players from Asia.
The club currently boasts 12 courts, six with moveable walls to form four doubles courts.
Because of these facilities, the Darwin Centre recently hosted the World Doubles Championships. And more than 500 players packed the place for the recent Australian Masters individual and team tournaments.
It’s always great to hear about clubs developing their facilities and putting on fantastic events that help to grow the game.
Congratulations to Darwin. We will aim to keep readers in touch with the project as it continues to develop.
