Helen Muir was inducted into the WA Squash Hall of Fame on Wednesday, 8th November.  Her squash career started when she was in the Australian Junior Tennis Squad with Margaret Court and travelled to Melbourne to further her tennis career.  Whilst working at the local squash courts Helen decided to practice her tennis shots on the squash court and she was approached to play squash.  Helen returned to Perth in 1960 and was selected in the WA State team in 1962, winning her first of five State Opens in 1963.  Helen represented Australia in 1964 against Great British, also playing in the British Open.

Helen often came up against the world famous Heather McKay in the semi finals of the Australian Open. Helen said ‘Playing Heather was always tough, she is an awesome athlete. We would see who could take the most points off her. The most I got was 4’ .   Helen was regularly seeded in the top 8 in Australia., perhaps without Heather there an Australian title was possible.

Helen went to Kalgoorlie in 1968 where she helped start the Golden Open Squash Tournament that is still running today.

Helen recently returned from the World Masters Tennis in USA where she has a world ITF ranking of 18 in the O75.

Also acknowledge at the dinner was Lyn Chandler who was presented with the Service to WA Squash award. Lyn started playing squash at Belmont Squashworks in 1983. In 1985 she joined the committee and has been on the Belmont committee since then, apart from a one-year absence. Lyn has served on most of the WA Squash committees and is still heavily involved running the Monday night and Day league competitions. Lyn works tirelessly for the sport and is worthy recipient of this award.

Sue Hillier from Vic Park Squash Club was awarded the 2017 Player of the Year. Sue has had an outstanding year starting with a win in the World Masters O50 in April. She then went on to play in the final of the WA Open hoping for her eight win, only to lose in 4.  In July, Sue won the Golden Open Div 1 and Masters event. She then went on to win the WA State Masters O50 title. Sue represented Australia in the Masters Trans Tasman team in September winning all her matches in the test series. Sue then won her fifth Australian O50 Championship in Ballarat to become only the eighth player to achieve 5 wins in an age group  since the competition began. Sue has ended the year as the No1 female player in WA an incredible achievement for the 54 year old.

Photo courtesy of Joe Mihaly.

More photographs from the night can be found by clicking here