O'Donnell said the spectator interest at last week's Australian Open in Canberra showed the sport had the potential to attract a new audience.

About 1000 people turned out to watch England's Nick Matthew and Ireland's Madeline Perry triumph in Sunday's finals at the Royal Canberra Theatre, with almost 4000 fans attending throughout the week.

Staged with a white ball on an all-glass court, the world's best squash players treated spectators to a high-energy spectacle, presenting the sport like it had never been seen in Australia.

''Clearly HD TV is going to really help squash,'' O'Donnell said.

''As we move onto high definition TV ... it's literally a changed ball game. As the product improves, the television potential improves.

''It will make stars out of the players and they will get greater familiarity from the spectators' perspective. We've just got to keep getting better. With the more quality coverage that we've seen [in Canberra] and the quality of play, that will clearly help.''

Perry's five-game win over Alison Waters was one of the best international women's finals in recent memory, but the match of the tournament was played on Saturday night between world No2 Ramy Ashour and Frenchmen Gregory Gaultier.

Ashour prevailed in five gruelling games, drawing raucous applause from the amazed audience. It was a titanic clash which proved to O'Donnell there was a spectator market for the sport.

''The semi-final match that was played between a Frenchman and an Egyptian in Australia that gets a standing ovation from the crowd at the end of it reflects the fact,'' O'Donnell said.

For more on this story, including details of the performances of Australian players in the tournament, see the print edition of today's Canberra Times.