After hanging up her racket, Amanda Landers-Murphy has been convinced to return to the squash court by her great mate and doubles partner, Joelle King, aiming for a second Commonwealth Games gold. Sarah Cowley Ross reports.
Back in 2019, Amanda Landers-Murphy retired from her beloved game of squash.
After nine years as a professional, it was becoming increasingly difficult to fund playing on the Northern Hemisphere-based world tour. And the two-time world doubles champion and 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medallist made the difficult decision to call time on her career.
“I didn’t pick up a squash racket for at least a year after that,” the Rotorua local says.
Landers-Murphy started working full-time as an environmental forester for Timberlands, while studying environmental science, but itching away in the back of her mind was some unfinished business on the squash court.
When her good friend, doubles partner and current world No.5, Joelle King, planted the seed for her to return to the court for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in July, it was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up.
“When I finished, I wasn’t ready to be done,” the 31-year-old Landers-Murphy says. “I saw the Comm Games as an opportunity to get back out there and enjoy it.”
She returned to training and in December 2020, entered a squash tournament. It was, she says, a definite “shock to the system”.
Last weekend, it was Landers-Murphy giving King a shock at the New Zealand squash championships in Tauranga, when the close friends went head-to-head in the women’s final on the Devoy Club’s glass court.
Landers-Murphy stuck close to King in the first game, and won the second, before King claimed up her ninth national title, 11-9, 9-11, 11-6, 11-1.
She’s immensely proud of the success King is having on the world tour, and how she and men's world No.2, Paul Coll, are shining a light on New Zealand squash.
“Seeing Joelle playing so well is awesome. She’s had her ups and downs but she’s an amazing fighter,” Landers-Murphy says.
“They’re really making us proud. The whole country should be proud of what they’re doing.”
Landers-Murphy has been paired with King since the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where they finished fifth in the women’s doubles. The friends, who won back-to-back world doubles titles in 2016 and 2017, will go into Birmingham as the defending Commonwealth champions.
“It’s pretty special to able to do this with one of your closest mates,” Landers-Murphy says.
The pair slipped back into their successful partnership at the world championships in Glasgow in April, looking strong to win a third world title. But they had to withdraw from the tournament at the semifinal stage, when King was injured.
“The nice thing for us that we discovered at the world doubles is we were able to get back on the court after not being together for four years, and it was as if no time had passed,” Landers-Murphy says.
They are part of a seven-strong team heading to Birmingham, with another women’s doubles pairing, Kaitlyn Watts and Abbie Palmer, making their Commonwealth Games debut.
When she was playing regularly on the PSA World Tour, Landers-Murphy was in the world’s top 50 singles players for seven years (her highest world ranking was 35). She had a lot of success in Australia, after her first world tour title at the 2011 New South Wales Open, and won the 2017 London Open and made the semifinals of the Irish Open two years running.
Growing up on a farm in the Waikite Valley on the outskirts of Rotorua, Landers-Murphy was introduced to squash through her parents, who played at the Waikite Valley Squash Club (if you’ve been lucky enough to go to the Waikite Valley Thermal Pools, it shares the same driveway.)
She learnt to play at the Reporoa Squash Court, not far from Waikite, and later moved into Rotorua to play out of the Geyser City Club where she now trains.
The New Zealand No.2, who’s of Te Āti Awa descent, has always managed her own training programme, knowing the right combination of what she needs to be at her best on court.
“A big part of my game in the doubles is to go for the shots when they’re there. So, I’m hitting thousands of the same shots through the week to be able to do my job at the Games,” she says.
The doubles squash court size is wider and the height of the tin is lower than on the singles court, allowing extra space to fit players on court. Landers-Murphy says it allows the opportunity to go for more shots but laughs when she says there’s also more court to cover.
The basis of the doubles game, Landers-Murphy points out, is tactical - knowing who’s covering each section of the court. But such is the relationship between herself and King, it’s become very instinctual between them.
“We would walk on court with no talk, and know who’s doing what and what jobs we have to do,” she says.
Landers-Murphy has been called the foil to King’s power, with a deft left-handed touch and precise angles.
The world champion Indian pairing of Joshna Chinappa and Pallikal Karthik head into the Games as favourites, but Landers-Murphy admits the Commonwealth field is stacked with excellent teams.
"Doubles is such a momentum game - you can get a run of points, and it could take a game or a match," she says.
“For me it’s always the same pressure and the same feeling - you’re going out there to do a job. I can’t wait.”
Having come out of retirement, Landers-Murphy realises how special it is to be doing what she loves.
“I think I’m playing as well as I was when I stopped,” she says. “It’s just relearning to be under that pressure and to be at that competitive level again.
“Going away to the world doubles showed me that I was still comfortable out there. I love being out on court and can’t wait to be back out there.”
