20 Mar 2010

Former British Open winner Anthony Ricketts (Former AIS Scholarship Holder) has been inducted into the Squash Australia Hall of Fame, joining a host of former champions who have previously been honoured by the sport’s national governing body.

Ricketts combined with fellow New South Welshman David Palmer and Canberra’s Stewart Boswell to keep the Australian squash flag flying high during the 2000s before a chronic knee injury cruelly ended his career when he was just 28.

He was part of the Australian squad that won the 2003 World Men’s Teams Championship and also won silver medals alongside Boswell in the men’s doubles at the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games.

The 31-year-old Ricketts was once ranked as high as three in the world and was the top Australian at the time, but he had his career marred by a succession of knee injuries.

Ricketts was born in Sydney in March 1979 and began playing at the Thornleigh courts when he was nine years old.

He was national champion at Under 17 level in 1996 before announcing his arrival on the Australian squash scene when he was crowned junior men’s champion in 1999, following on immediately from Palmer and Boswell.

He won the first of his eight main Professional Squash Association titles the same year when he beat Billy Haddrell in straight games to win the YTL Open in Kuala Lumpur, but his first major success came in 2000 when he beat Paul Price to win the first of his two Australian Opens.

He won twice more in 2001, including the Malaysian Open, as he took his world ranking to 19, before cracking the top 10 in 2002, reaching number seven in the world.

Ricketts consolidated his world ranking until injuring his knee in January 2004, which forced him off the tour for seven months.

He returned late in 2004 and achieved his breakthrough year in 2005 when he won two of the world’s most prestigious tournaments – the Tournament of Champions in New York and the British Open, along with his second Australian Open.

Seeded 10th at the Tournament of Champions, Ricketts beat third seed Peter Nicol, Amr Shabana and world No 1 Thierry Lincou on his way to the title.

Eight months later at the British Open, the sixth-seeded Ricketts beat Peter Nicol in the semi-finals then James Willstrop in the final for the biggest win of his career.

"The British Open was the highlight of my career, due largely to the number of great Australians players that had gone before me," he said.

"There is so much history involved with it, and much of that history has been created by Australians."

Ricketts kept the momentum going in 2006, reaching the final of the Canary Wharf Classic before winning the 2006 Super Series, the last major triumph before a recurrence of his knee injury forced him to call time on his career in 2007.

"I knew it was time – I had had five arthroscopies on my right knee and I had been playing in pain for a long time before I called it quits."

Ricketts is not lost to the sport.

He is currently high performance coach for Squash New Zealand and is engaged to former New Zealand number one and 2007 Australian Open champion Shelley Kitchen.

Anthony Ricketts

Date of Birth: March 12 1979

Born: Sydney

Lives: Auckland

Career Highlights

2005 British Open

2000, 2005 Australian Open

2005 Tournament of Champions

2006 Super Series Champion

2000 Malaysian Open

2003 Men’s World Teams Champion

2002, 2006 Commonwealth Games Silver Medalist (Men’s Doubles)

1999 Australian Junior Champion