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March 2010:
Ricketts joins Aussie Hall of Fame |
 Former
British Open winner Anthony Ricketts 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.
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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 PSA 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.
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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 |
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March
2008 - more inductees to Squash Australia Hall of Fame |
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