Promising Madibaz squash star Hayley Ward will be aiming to continue her good form this year when she heads the varsity’s women’s line-up for the University Sport South Africa tournament in Port Elizabeth next week.<\/p>\n
The event, which involves individual and team categories, will be hosted by Nelson Mandela University from July 1 to 7.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old Ward finished fourth in last year’s tournament in Johannesburg and was included in the best-of-the-rest team at the conclusion of the week.<\/p>\n
She has shown her potential this year, with her highlights being victories in the Londt Park Open and the EP Closed, but knows the USSA tournament will provide a true test of her status.<\/p>\n
“I feel I have played better this year, with better results in the tournaments I have played,” said the third-year accounting student.<\/p>\n
“And I believe I have also become mentally tougher.<\/p>\n
“But I think I will have to wait for USSA and the Kaplan Cup interprovincial [in July] to see how I go against other players to assess if I have improved.”<\/p>\n
From a team point of view, Ward said they would like to improve on their fourth position of last year with a place in, at least, the top three.<\/p>\n
She added that in the individual tournament, from Sunday to Tuesday, she would be aiming to “play the best squash I can and give it my all”.<\/p>\n
There were a number of aspects she was working on to continue her development, said Ward.<\/p>\n
“I am still trying to work on my movement and speed on court.<\/p>\n
“In addition, I have been trying to take the ball earlier and to improve on my overall game.”<\/p>\n
She said her preparations for the week were on track, having combined court skills with a fitness programme she hoped would stand her in good stead in a challenging tournament.<\/p>\n
Once the individual tournament is done, the team event will take place from Wednesday to Friday, with sides playing two matches a day.<\/p>\n
Ward said they were looking forward to competing on familiar territory.<\/p>\n
“I think it could be an advantage playing on our home courts as we often train here and will have more support than usual.<\/p>\n
“However, some of the other student players also come from PE so they will have an idea of what to expect.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Promising Madibaz squash star Hayley Ward will be aiming to continue her good form this year when she heads the varsity’s women’s line-up for the University Sport South Africa tournament in Port Elizabeth next week. The event, which involves individual and team categories, will be hosted by Nelson Mandela University from July 1 to 7. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2674,1995,2800,2005,3607,2696],"class_list":["post-19782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-hayley-ward","tag-madibaz-squash","tag-nelson-mandela-university","tag-squash","tag-ussa-squash","tag-ussa-squash-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}