AN abundance of home-city talent will be eager to take a win in the weekend’s Bathurst Masters Squash which gets underway at Bathurst Panthers on Saturday morning.

Half of this year’s division one pool in the annual mixed-gender competition will be made up of Bathurst players, with 12 divisions of competition taking place.

Last year’s champion Jeff Bond won’t be back to defend his division one crown but the man he defeated, Tony Whackett, will turn up to try and go one spot better.

Tournament organiser Dave Fuller is a home-city contender in the top tier and is interested to see how much of a shake-up they can give the competition.

“We’ve got about 100 people coming, which is not as strong as our numbers last year however, we’ve got a very good division one again this year,” he said.

“In the eight players that we have contesting division one four are from Bathurst. I think the strongest of those chances will be Simon Hine. Andrew Kelly’s there and he will be taking a bit of a step up this time after winning the division two title last year. Alicia Pollard is also there along with myself.

“There’s also a former Bathurst player Simon Bolton who’s coming back and he could be a bit of a dark horse.”

Fuller says anyone other than Whackett taking the division one title would come as a major shock.

“The favourite would have to be Tony Whackett. He got injured in the Australian titles last year so this will be his first tournament back. Even with that I still think he will be too strong,” he said.

“He’s made the Australian test team to play against New Zealand. This will be his hit out, a chance to hone his skills and use it as a bit of a trial run.”

The remaining Bathurst chances include Nick Farr, Brett Moulds, Egbert and Ben Kritzinger, Alex Macquarrie as well as Caroline and John Parker.

Along with the Bathurst Open the masters tournament is one of the pinnacle events on the calendar and marks the first big competition at the Panthers venue since the Australian Squash Masters in September.

“They’re the two major events that we host every year. There will be a few people looking forward to coming back. It’s starting to build the excitement towards the next Australian Masters which this year will be in Perth in September,” Fuller said. 

“I’d also like to thank the Blayney Squash Centre for helping us out over the weekend and letting us use their courts.”

First matches will get underway on Saturday from 8.30am.