University of Johannesburg student Alexa Pienaar retained her title in a titanic struggle with Lauren Siddall in the University Sport South Africa squash tournament in Port Elizabeth last night.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old reached the final of the individual event for the third consecutive year and claimed her second title at the Nelson Mandela University north campus courts.<\/p>\n
It was a courageous performance by the chiropractic student, who seemed in control when, leading 2-1, she built up a 7-4 lead.<\/p>\n
Pienaar later admitted that nerves had kicked in as she closed in on victory against her experienced, 33-year-old rival from Tshwane University of Technology, whom she had always struggled to beat.<\/p>\n
“It was a nerve-racking stage and I think I got a bit tight at that moment because suddenly I was thinking that I could win this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After dropping the game 11-8 to make to score 2-2, Pienaar said she was still reasonably confident.<\/p>\n
“I managed to regroup walking back on the court for the fifth game.<\/p>\n
“I just said to myself \u2018OK, it’s back to square one; just get in there play some long rallies’.<\/p>\n
“I was still feeling strong and I knew I could keep the pressure on if I just kept the rallies going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pienaar, who won the final game 11-8, said it was a big breakthrough for her to finally beat Siddall, who has played on the professional circuit and had a best world ranking of 38 in 2008.<\/p>\n
“It was a big win for me because I’ve had such a mental thing about playing against her,\u201d the UJ No 1 said.<\/p>\n
“Having lost to her on a number of occasions, it was a real boost to get past that hurdle.<\/p>\n
“I know Lauren has not been playing much and I hoped I could use that to my advantage. I knew it would not be easy, but I felt I could give her a good run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pienaar was delighted to win the individual title again. “It’s really awesome to retain the title, especially against a top player like Lauren.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pienaar will now turn her attention to the team event, which UJ have won for the past six years. The tournament ends on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
University of Johannesburg student Alexa Pienaar retained her title in a titanic struggle with Lauren Siddall in the University Sport South Africa squash tournament in Port Elizabeth last night. The 23-year-old reached the final of the individual event for the third consecutive year and claimed her second title at the Nelson Mandela University north campus […]<\/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":[2765,2005,2151,1733,3607,3632,2696],"class_list":["post-20078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-alexa-pienaar","tag-squash","tag-uj-squash","tag-university-of-johannesburg","tag-ussa-squash","tag-ussa-squash-title","tag-ussa-squash-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20078","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=20078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}