Australian 'Unknown' Wins Merredin International

Little known Australian Matthew Karwalski caused a massive upset when he won the Merredin International Open in the West Australian wheat belt centre of Merredin.

The unseeded Karwalski won his maiden PSA Tour title in his first ever final when he beat top-seeded compatriot Scott Arnold 7-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-10 (3-1) in 45 minutes at Merredin Squash Club.

The 21-year-old from Newcastle, NSW, is ranked a lowly 261 in the world and had only played three main tour events before this year's Merredin International.

He joined the tour this time last year but had spent the past 12 months training at his base at the Raymond Terrace Squash Centre, north of Newcastle, preparing to make a serious tilt at the professional circuit.

His performance this week came as a surprise even to Karwalski, who beat four higher-ranked players on the way to the title.

Karwalski had played fellow New South Welshman Arnold numerous times in the junior ranks and had never before beaten him.

"Scott always had the upper hand as a junior," Karwalski said. "I also played him three weeks ago in a warm-up tournament and he beat me 3-0 quite comfortably."

Karwalski refused to get carried away with the win, pointing out that he only just scraped into the qualifying draw for next week's City of Joondalup Open in Perth.

"It was very tough this week the whole way through," he said. "I was lucky to make it through the first match against Kristen (Johnson). There were two long games in that match that could have gone either way.

"But I'm on top of the world at the moment."

Final:
Matthew Karwalski (AUS) bt [1] Scott Arnold (AUS) 7-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-10 (3-1)