Another remarkable week in the SQUASH TIGERS WORLD!
The headlines were, Lily and Mimi making it a family semi-final celebration in the GU15 and GU11 respectively, with five of our crew finishing top 10 of their age groups in what was a brutally strong event. Excitingly off court we announced the appointment of a new member of our elite coaching staff - Claire Gadsby joining the program as Touring Pro. Never a better time to be a Squash Tiger - read on for the brief breakdown…
The Ohio Summer Gold was conducted at the T Squash Academy and the Cincinnati Country Club. Pre-COVID, Ohio was the first stop on the JCT tour, and my own personal excuse to watch an NFL match once a year... but sadly no more. (Go Bengals?) The event itself saw over a dozen Squash Tigers showing us the benefit of a well put together summer.
As we mentioned in the headlines, our own version of the Williams sisters, Lily and Mimi, starred in the semi finals of the GU15 and GU11 respectively. Lily is in her down year and Mimi only two weeks past her 10th birthday, it was awesome! Lily won a high level quarterfinal in five big games, and Mimi finished third after winning a five game 3/4 playoff! Well done ladies!
And while awesome, there was still more from the team! Parth was our sole representative in the BU17, a brutally (said it once, will say it again!) tough draw in which the Big Dog came back from a second round disappointment to finish in 9th place. Similarly in the BU15, JJ and Arjun did us proud, with JJ also finishing top 10. Arjun kept his somewhat unfortunate streak intact, by playing one of his team mates (again) as he did in Virginia a couple of weeks ago. A distinction we could all do without!
The GU17 saw Claire demonstrating her pronounced improvement in defeating a player rated 0.27 ahead of her to make the quarter finals. Despite suffering a little more than the normal level of adversity, (come to training to hear the story and hear one of my patented Paul rants :) !) Claire was tough and competitive and there will be more to come… soon! GU15 star Lily made a semi-final with Kayla battling through to win big matches and Angela showing why she is regarded as one of our big improvers of the year.
Off court, as we wrote earlier, we can welcome Claire Gadsby to the program! Despite how old it makes me feel, I first met Claire when she was an outstanding 12 year old, so it’s a special treat for me to have her join the program as an accomplished player and our new Touring Professional. Claire joins our other Touring Professional Jamie and Head Professional Colin White - and finally the team is established!
I can’t wait to see everyone at camp this week, even if you’re not training, please find time to come in and say hi. Claire will be on deck later in the week after she gets over some jet lag :) and Colin will be running proceedings right from Monday morning.
Never a better time to be a Squash Tiger - see you at the club!
