YORKSHIRE’S Lee Beachill will have his work cut out to emulate his best-ever position in the World Squash Championships when this year’s tournament gets under way in Manchester today.
For the 30-year-old former Skelmanthorpe Squash Club player has not played a serious competitive match since July when he suffered a medial cruciate ligament injury, and so will have to find some form quickly if he is to reach the last 16 and fulfil his current seeding.
In 2004, Beachill actually reached No1 in the PSA world rankings and that sesaon reached the World final in Qatar, where he lost a five-setter to Frenchman Thierry Lincou.
Since then he has enjoyed mixed success, reaching Super Series finals and the Virginia Pro Championship in the USA, and last year completed a ninth PSA title when winning the Wolverhampton Open.
The Pontefract-based Beachill has not had the best of good fortune on the injury front, and in 1997 suffered both a life and career-threatening injury in a car accident in which he broke his back in two places and was subsequently told he would never play squash again.
Incredibly, eight weeks later he was on court winning six qualifying rounds of the 1998 British Open before losing to eventual winner Peter Nichol.
He has also previously undergone surgery on ankle and shoulder injuries, while earlier this year he was under the knife again when having a hernia operation.
But like before, the gritty Yorkshireman was back on court within six weeks, contesting his seventh British National final (he has won that particular title three times, and the first man ever to reach seven finals).
“It is definitely going to be very hard for me to progress in this year’s World Championship,” admitted Beachill, who still keeps in touch with his friends from the Huddersfield area.
“I picked up the ligament injury in July, so I’ve not really been able to prepare for the World Champs, in fact I’ve only just started to get on court and hit again, so it is certainly not going to be easy.
“There are also now so many good players out there that every match is going to be tough. I’ve got a qualifier to overcome in the first round, and then a very useful Italian in the second, but if I can get past those hurdles I will have reached my potential seeding in getting to the third round.”
It is 20 years since Beachill left the Savoy Club at Skelmanthorpe to join top coach Malcolm Willstrop at the Pontefract club, where he played in his Yorkshire League days.
More recently he has played with Halifax Queens in the National Super League, where he helped them to runners-up spot behind Exeter last year.
“I still see some of the lads from Skelmanthorpe and Huddersfield when I’m playing for Halifax as some of them come over to watch, and it’s always nice to see my old mates again,” added Beachill, who left the family home at Haigh (near Bretton, where mum and dad Sue and Malcolm still live) to live in Pontefract with his partner, with whom he now has two children.
“I’d been playing well, up to getting the cruciate injury, having reached the quarter-finals of the Kuwait Open in April, and I know that when I’m fully fit, I’m still easily capable of maintaining a world ranking of about No10.”