Squash WM: Grüße des WSF Präsidenten

It is a great pleasure to extend a warm welcome on behalf of WSF to all players, managers, coaches, referees, press and spectators attending the 23rd Men's World Team Championship.

Surprisingly enough, given the strong record Germany has in hosting major championships, this is the first time of hosting the Men's Team event. It is fitting therefore that it is being run by Norman Farthing, Andreas Preising and their very experienced team at the highly successful Ahorn Sportspark in Paderborn, where the Men's World Junior Individual and Team Championships were very successfully staged in 1990. The facilities in the Clubs are excellent and I am sure that all the visitors will enjoy the city and surrounding area as we did in 1990. My thanks to the German Squash Verband, to the local organising committee, to the sponsors, the Clubs and very important, all the volunteers required to stage such a large Championship. The event is indeed large with, at the time of writing, 30 entries with teams from all around the world.

Some excellent squash is certain and we hope to see some high quality HD TV coverage too. The relaxation in the distraction rule which we introduced at and after the recent Commonwealth Games is encouraging much more spectator involvement and atmosphere, something we need to highlight as a step forward in our next Olympic bid. The 3-Referee system is also now well established and instead of hand signals we expect to have an electronic button system in operation at this Championship.

First and foremost it is all about the players and their teams so we look forward to your arrival in Paderborn.

I look forward to being with you all during these Championships and wish all competing teams good fortune.