One of the most popular events on the national squash calendar returns to Dunedin this week.
The Otago Squash Club will host the New Zealand D grade championships, which start tomorrow and finish on Saturday.
There are eight teams in both the men's and women's draws, and each team has qualified from its respective region to make it to the national finals.
The matches invariably produce close results, and teams often comprise a mixture of rapidly improving young players and wily veterans, so there are often some interesting match-ups.
Predictably, many of the players are now C-graders on the national computer rankings, as the registrations for the event were in April.
This is typified by Breanna Brown and Kristina Henare, who spearhead the Henderson women's team and are both C1 players.
Henderson is the top seed in the women's draw and should progress comfortably from pool A.
The Cromwell team will also hope to qualify from pool A.
Its crucial tie will be against fourth seed Rivercity.
Host club Otago is seeded sixth and will be targeting a win against either Devoy Squash (Bay of Plenty) or Manaia (Northland) in pool B, to qualify for the semifinals on Friday.
The Otago team has been training hard under the watchful eye of manager Sam Cross and has a good blend of youth and experience.
The top seed in the men's draw is Kawaroa Park. The team from New Plymouth has impressive depth in its top five. All are C2 players.
Local hope Alexandra is seeded second and will have a great chance of winning the title if its top three can fire.
Teenager Tom Richmond is the highest-graded player in the competition and Alex Peacock and Jordan Smith should be competitive at No 2 and No 3 in the order.
However, the men's draw looks extremely tight on paper and most teams will have realistic aims of making the latter stages of the event.
