The Championships have started!
The place is jumping, the boys from Swansea Uni are pictured here.... Make up your own mind who's looking after who (top effort).
Ashaway are the official supplier to BUCS badminton.
Steve Crandall visited Goode Sport last week to discuss development for 2012/13. Steve is pictured here with some of the Goode Sport Office team:
Steve is amongst the 6th Generation of the Crandall Family to produce strings and Steves Son is currently learning 'the ropes' in production. The Crandalls are the worlds authority on string production. Which is why we can say with absolute confidence that Ashaway Racket strings are the best in the world. They are not produced in the far east, but in the USA by a family with nearly 200 years of experience!
Ashaway are the Official String of next month's ROWE British Grand Prix Championship - the biggest squash event in the UK this year..
AshawayUSA have launched their new updated website:
Daryl Selby beat fellow Ashaway player and World number 1 Nick Matthew to win the British Nationals last weekend. A superb achievement, given the quality of players at this event.
Black Knight Enterprises and Ashaway Racket Strings are proud to announce a 3 year sponsorship deal with World University champion Joel Hinds. Joel has risen 29 places in the PSA rankings since completing University in 2009 also picking up the British Under 23 title and was crowned the BSPA series champion. Currently ranked world number 88, Joel is aiming to break the top 50 this year and is tipped to enter the elite top 32 next season. Joel met with Paul Smith, Partner at Goode Sport (European distributor for Black Knight and Ashaway Racket Strings) last week at the Edgbaston Priory Club for a publicity photo shoot with Mike Edwards (Head Squash Professional) and fellow Black Knight Player, British Under 19 champion Julianne Courtice.
Joel said: “I am extremely happy to be offered this 3 year deal, Black Knight is much talked about and I am chuffed to be chosen as the British representative on the tour” “I have used Ashaway strings for the last 3 years and am now using Ultranick 18, the only tricky part has been choosing which racket to play with, there are so many great options at the moment I am trying the Ion Cannon and Ion Drive”.
Mike Edwards said “The partnership between Ashaway, Black Knight and Edgbaston Priory Club has developed well over the last 2 years since I moved to Birmingham. It’s a great signing for Black Knight with the mens under 23 British Champion Joel Hinds and the ladies under 19 British Champion Julianne Courtice, both of who train and base themselves here at EPC”. Paul Smith added “Joel is going to be a great ambassador for us, he is one of the best prospects on the tour and a very popular and likable lad. At over 6 feet tall wearing either his afro or corn rows – he certainly gets noticed! Lets hope that Black Knight and Ashaway do as well!”
Joel got into squash at school as part of an England Squash primary school programme with Paul Hargraves (now owner of PDH Sports). He was quickly spotted as a player with natural talent and was escalated through the England Squash programme with David Campion. Now Joel trains at Edgbaston Priory club 3 times a day: One session solo on court, One session hitting with one of the other pros and also a session working on his EIS strength and conditioning programme.
Joel is preparing for the British Nationals in Manchester on Tuesday this week where he is aiming for a quarter final place, then he leaves for America to enter PSA tournaments in Virginia, Los Angeles, Winnipeg then on to Canada for the Calgary and Montreal tournaments.
(Pictured above left to right: Paul Smith - Partner Goode Sport, Julianne Courtice, Mike Edwards - EPC Head Professional, Joel Hinds).
Ashaway Racket Strings and Black Knight Enterprises have extended their long-term sponsorship agreements with squash great David Palmer. The two-time World Open Champion has been an Ashaway sponsored player for more than ten years and with Black knight for 3 years. He has recently begun playing with Ashaways new PowerNick® 19, the world's thinnest squash string. The terms of the agreements were not disclosed. "I'm very happy about the agreement," said the 34-year-old Lithgow, New South Wales, native who is now US based in Orlando, Florida. "I've been with the company for a long time. I have had a great relationship with them, and obviously love the string, so I was happy that they were still keen to have me on."
Currently ranked number 15 in the world by PSA, Palmer has been Australia's top squash player for most of the past decade. In addition to his two World Open crowns in 2002 and 2006, and four British Open trophies, he has reached the finals in 53 tournaments since turning pro in 1995, and claimed some 26 tour titles. In a remarkable show of consistency, in August of 2010 Palmer completed ten full years in the world's top ten!
Said Ashaway's Steve Crandall, "We are also 'keen' to have David in our stable and are delighted that he continues his career playing with Ashaway string. He is not only a great player, but a great ambassador as well, both for our products and for the sport."
A long-time user of Ashaway's popular PowerNick 18, Palmer recently switched to Ashaway's latest Zyex®-based innovation, PowerNick 19. After play-testing the string during development, Palmer began using the final production version in tournament play beginning in November 2010. He said the new string "feels excellent," and gives him, "a little bit more power, a little bit more touch. On top of that, it looks really good: the black string with the white Ashaway logo stenciling looks really good and stands out well on the court."
He also likes the durability of PowerNick 19. "The great thing about the PowerNick 18 was that I could never bust the stuff," he said. "PowerNick 19 is not lasting quite as long—it is thinner, after all—but I'm still getting a long time out of my racquets. It's great not to have to worry about restringing my racquets every two or three matches. With this I can go to a tournament and have my racquets all strung up and not have to worry. I can often use the same racquet for the whole tournament which is what I like to do."
Ashaway Racket Strings has introduced PowerNick®19, the thinnest string ever to grace a squash racquet. The new 1.05 mm string utilizes a monofilament core, based on a special formulation developed for Ashaway by Zyex Limited. Designed to provide improved power and performance for both amateur and professional players, PowerNick 19 provides excellent resilience and response, along with a dramatic increase in the ability to grip, cut, slice, and work the ball. "PowerNick 19 is an evolution of the core construction we developed for its popular stablemate, PowerNick 18," said Ashaway's Steve Crandall. "Unlike our UltraNick series, which uses a multifilament Zyex® core to provide softer feel, PowerNick strings use a specially constructed core of multi-stranded Zyex monofilaments. PowerNick strings, and especially this new 19 gauge, are designed to provide superior power and playability."
PowerNick 19's Zyex monofilament construction prevents tension loss while the ultra-thin 1.05 mm gauge maximizes ball control. The specially designed outer spiral braid provides good gripping action—enhancing spins and slices—while a proprietary outer coating improves stringing and enhances durability.
"However," added Crandall, "in order to make a string this thin perform the way we wanted, we had to do some real magic in the lab. And we had the help of Zyex Limited, which developed a special proprietary monofilament material just for PowerNick 19."
And perform it does, according to David Palmer, a long-time Ashaway string user who used the glossy black PowerNick 19 to good effect in September's prestigious British Grand Prix and October's Commonwealth Games in India, as well as in a number of other recent PSA tournaments. "This new PowerNick 19 string gives me the power to play hard and fast, but also gives me nice touch and control at the front of the court. So depending on my opponent and how I am physically, I can use it to my advantage."
Gloss black in color, Ashaway's new PowerNick 19 is available in 30 ft sets or 360 ft reels. Ashaway recommends stringing PowerNick 19 up to 30 lbs tension, or about 10–20 percent less than you would string a standard squash string.
