Australian team announced for World Cup
Published Fri 05 May 2023
Four players have been selected on the Australian team for 2023 World Cup in Chennai, India.
Nick Calvert (QLD), Alex Haydon (SA), Jess Turnbull (QLD) and Joseph White (NT) have earned their places on the team with coach Stewart Boswell also travelling to India with the quartet.
It is the first time the tournament has been staged since 2011 and will be held from 13 to 17 June.
The quickfire competition format sees best of five game matches played to seven points with a two-point margin not required.
The top ranked male and female will earn two competition points for a win, with the second ranked players earning one point.
The round robin stage will be followed by a knockout competition to determine the World Cup champions.
Calvert is looking forward to wearing the Australian colours for the first time since the 2019 WSF World Doubles Championships.
“I’ve been in decent form, and I had some good results in Australian tournaments at the start of the year which I was happy with, which most likely contributed to my selection,” said Calvert.
“This year I have spent less time worrying about things like team selections and rankings, and more time thinking about my training day to day and immediate upcoming matches.”
The 23-year-old believes that working on his game in the northern hemisphere at the start of this year will hold him in good stead when he joins his teammates in Chennai.
“I’ve enjoyed playing and training in Europe for the past two months,” he said. “Playing against European players can be quite different to playing against Australian players, and even though I haven’t had ideal results in some of the tournaments here, it has helped highlight the areas in my game that need attention.
I’ve been training in Sheffield, England for this period and have been addressing these areas, which should bring me into good form leading up to the World Cup.”
Australia will be joined by hosts India along with Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Colombia and 2011 champions Egypt at the event.
At the most recent World Cup in 2011, the Australian team of Rachael Grinham, Cameron Pilley and Aaron Frankcomb finished third after beating Malaysia in the bronze medal match.
