29 May 2009

Australia’s Ryan Cuskelly (AIS – SQUASH) claimed his third squash title of the year when he downed Pakistan’s Shahid Zaman in the final of the St Luke’s Open in New Canaan, Connecticut on Sunday.

Cuskelly, the 22-year-old from Evans Head in New South Wales, showed enormous character to come back from losing a marathon opening game to win the final 15-17, 11-9, 11-3, 11-9 and add the St Luke’s trophy to titles he won in Kuala Lumpur and Rochester earlier in the year.

The win was Cuskelly’s fifth on the Professional Squash Association tour and will give him a big confidence boost as he heads back to Australia for some training ahead of the Australian Open.

Cuskelly has been living in New York since the beginning of the year and has been training at the Australian Institute of Sport’s base there with coach Rod Martin.

AIS head coach Byron Davis said the win was testament to the hard work Cuskelly has put in over the last 18 months.

“It’s been a hard slog for him but it’s good to see it’s starting to come together for him,” Davis said.

“There’s still a long road ahead, but it will give him a lot of confidence heading into the Australian season, especially as he’ll be facing a higher level of competition.”

Davis said Cuskelly’s win over Shahid, a player once ranked as high as 14 in the world, was an important stepping stone.

“Shahid’s been around a long time and has lots of experience, so you certainly can’t take him for granted” he said.

“But Ryan was fairly consistent all week and stayed mentally strong throughout, which is a real key to his game.”

Cuskelly’s next tournaments will be the Australian Open Doubles from July 7-10 and the Australian Open the following week.

He then heads to Kuala Lumpur for the Malaysian Open before heading back to North America.

Final result – prefix denotes seeding:

2-Ryan Cuskelly (AUS) bt 3-Shahid Zaman (PAK) 15-17, 11-9, 11-3, 11-9