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Nick Chirls - player
Throughout my squash career, which now spans over a decade,
I have had one major goal: to represent my country. All last
year I played in qualifying events to finally get the chance
to play in the World Junior Squash Championships for Team
USA. I have never worked harder for anything in my life.
At the beginning of December six of us, including two coaches
traveled to Chennai (Madras), India, to represent Team USA
in the 12th Junior World Squash Championships. We arrived
on the 1st of December after more than twenty-four hours of
traveling. India was unlike anything I have ever experienced
from the second I stepped foot out of the airport. We arrived
at around four in the morning, and there were already thousands
of people roaming the streets for reasons I still do not understand.
The streets were even dirtier than those in New York City,
the air was more polluted, a constant honking from cars filled
the air because there were no traffic lights, cows were roaming
the streets in addition to all the people, I could go on.
We rushed to the hotel and slept for a few hours that morning
until our coaches woke us up to actually go have a practice.
The facility was a five minute drive from the hotel and was
actually quite beautiful (it was built for the sole purpose
of hosting the World Championships). Let me also note that
we were followed by two members of the Indian National Guard
who were instructed to guard the US team with their lives
for our entire stay there.
The individual tournament started two days later and I won
my first round match against a kid from Zimbabwe. However,
I lost in the second round the next day to a kid from Hong
Kong and I ended up doing reasonably well in the consolation
rounds, finishing somewhere in the top thirty or so. The most
exciting moment for me in the individual event did not come
in one of my matches however, but watching my teammate, Julian
Illingsworth, upset the number three ranked player in the
world on the third day. It was amazing, so unexpected, and
it gave the team a huge amount of momentum going into the
team event (which we viewed as much more important). Julian
eventually finished in the top eight, the best finish ever
for an American junior.
The team event started the second week and the US was seeded
tenth going in. We actually expected to be seeded higher,
but considering the best US finish ever was 12th more than
twenty years ago, we didn't get too worked up about it. We
were put into a pool with four other teams and the top two
teams would advance to the quarter-finals (our goal for the
event). We lost to Pakistan (the eventual winners) and beat
Zimbabwe the first day. Then we played the Netherlands on
the second day, which was really the team we had to beat to
make it out of our pool. Three people play for each country
(one after another). We won the first match and lost the second,
and so my match would be the decider. I have never been more
nervous in my life, I walked onto the court shaking in anxiousness.
I lost the first game relatively quickly mainly because of
nerves, and then fought down from a large deficit in the second
game to take it 10-8 and I started to calm down and play some
of the best squash I have ever played in my life. I won the
next two games without giving up a point and Team USA had
won. The team ran onto the court and reporters from the national
newspaper were taking pictures and asking for interviews.
It was a moment I will never forget. The team eventually finished
seventh, the best ever for a US junior team.
I was given the chance to represent my country and my teammates
and I all stepped up to the challenge. I got to meet kids
like and unlike myself from all over the world, including
Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, and Mexico, I got to experience a
culture that was beyond anything I could have ever imagined,
and less importantly, I of course got to miss school. My trip
to India was everything I had always dreamed it would be and
so much more.
Christopher Gordon - player
I arrived in Chennai in the last week of November to begin
my final preparations for the 12th World Jr. Men's Squash
Championships. This was my first time in India and I have
definitely never seen a place as unusual as this. It is almost
a complete contradiction of itself because, while it is by
far one of the most advanced technological nations of the
world, the poverty, living, and working conditions would be
no where near what we would deem acceptable or expect from
such an advanced nation. For the first week I trained with
the Indian National team at their brand new national center
which was to be the venue for the event. It was a fantastic
center that housed 7 ASB Game Courts and one ASB glass show
court. The only visible problem was that they had painted
the floors of the courts so we could expect them to become
slippery. On the 1st of December the rest of the American
team, consisting of players: Julian Illingworth, Nick Chirls,
and Michael Gilman, joined me in India. They were accompanied
by our coach Mike Callaway and manager Duncan Pearson.
After 2 days of training as a whole team the individual event
kicked off. I had a disappointing beginning when I lost to
Hungary's Mark Krajick in the second round after sustaining
a minor ankle injury. I was advised by the physio to forgo
the plate events so as to make sure I would be fit for the
team event. So I was left to watch the rest of the Americans
compete. Nick lost in the 2nd round to Hong Kong #1 Dick Lau
and Michael also lost in the 2nd round to Pakistan's Safeerullah
Khan who is now British Jr. Open Champion, by any means a
formidable opponent. Julian fortunately was able to brush
aside Wales's Jethro Binns. In the round of 32 Julian shocked
everybody by coming from 2 games behind to defeat Egypt's
#3 seed Moustafa Essam. He produced some fantastic squash
that day and has definitely pleased all American squash fans
by making the last 16. Unfortunately the next day he went
out in 53 mins to Pakistan #1 Khayal Muhammad 3,3,5. On to
the team event.
This summer we had set a goal of breaking into the worlds
top 10 squash nations but after riding the wave that was started
with Julian's steller performance in the individuals, we decided
that top 8 had a much nicer ring to it. Fortunately I was
fit just in time for the start of the team event and felt
very positive that my ankle was able to hand a 50 minute 6,1,2
loss to Pakistan's Majid Khan in our first pool match. As
we expected we weren't able to take a single tie from Pakistan
but rebounded well by drubbing Zimbabwe later that day. The
second day of pool play featured the match that would probably
decide who went through as the second team to the quarters
in our pool, which consisted of Pakistan, Netherlands, Zimbabwe,
Hong Kong, and USA. This match was USA vs. the Netherlands
who were the #7 seeds. Julian went on first and came through
in a big way against Dlyan Bennet who is World Jr. #5 and
is a British Jr. Open finalist. I went on next and just couldn't
contain Piedro Schweertman losing in three. Everything was
down to Nick and it didn't look good as he quickly went 1-nil
down and was losing the 2nd. He dug deep and pulled out the
2nd in nail-biting 10-8 finish. Then out of completely nowhere
all his errors stopped and all he could find was the nick
as he blanked Tom Hovenaars 9-0 in the last two games. Now
all we needed to claim our first ever quarterfinal berth was
a win against 15th seeded Hong Kong. The next day, Julian
completely dominated Dick Lau in a quick 3. I had a slightly
harder time defeating Patrick Choi in a close 3 to book our
tickets to the quarters.
In the quarters we drew Australia and there was an anxious
moment when we arrived what we though was an hour early for
our match only to discover that we were 5 minutes late. This
was definitely a most inconvenient situation as Julian had
to go on court cold (without stretching or warming up properly)
to play Jhie Gough. After surrendering a 2-1 lead he lost
the 5th in an incredibly tight 9-7. Next Michael went on against
the vastly experienced Luke Margan and pushed hard but couldn't
make him snap losing in three. Then according to the Internet
I lost the dead rubber to Aaron Frankomb 27-0. This is deceptive
as we actually didn't play the rubber; Aaron and I spun the
racquet to decide who defaulted and unfortunately I lost the
spin. I haven't heard the end of this one; the amount of stick
I've gotten for my alleged 27-0 loss has been tremendous so
now I've had the chance to set the record straight. Being
very mentally down from losing our quarterfinal we severely
struggled against Mexico later that afternoon in a 5-8 playoff
match. On the final day we faced our arch-rival Canada for
7th place. What a better way to finish off a strong showing
then by beating the Canadians??? Julian got us underway by
beating Matt Serediak for 7 points. Nick went on next and
went down fighting in 4 to Robin Clarke. In fact 2 of the
games he lost were by the 9-7 margin. Then I went on and did
the business against Brian Ernst. I went 2-0 up and then somehow
lost the third 10-9 as he desperately tried to claw his way
back. Fortunately, though I was able to seal our 7th place
finish by claiming the 4th game 10-8. It was a fantastic finish
from our point of view and we can only hope that this will
be used as a stepping stone for future teams to advance and
learn from. All we had left now was 18 hours on our flight
back to the U.S. to savor our historic 7th place finish.
Mike Callaway, manager of Westchester Squash - coach
Going to India is the highlight of my coaching career so far
and I was honored to be asked to coach the team. Due to the
lack of preparation time before the event (only eight weeks)
it was impossible to get the team together. However at least
once a week I contacted all the players by email or phone
and also spoke to their individual coaches to find out how
each player was performing and to see if they could offer
any advice.
Both Julian and Chris managed to come to Westchester Squash
to play against some of the professionals up here, which was
a good opportunity to see them play and I also watched Nick
play at the Baird E Haney. Steve Gregg was great at doing
all the background organizing (visas, jabs etc).
So, all we had to do apart from this before the tournament
was fund raise to pay for the event. The USA team and coaches
all had to raise a share of the costs unlike some teams who
are supported by their government.
We arrived in India to a mass of people at the airport more
than you see in Times Square! We were picked up and taken
to our hotel. The next few days we spent acclimatizing, the
Indians had built a new squash center with an all glass court
called the Thunderdome and four ASB rainbow courts with the
targets on. I felt that the courts would have been better
without the targets for a world championships! In another
building they had four more
courts of the same type.
It was generally around 85 degrees and fairly humid each
day but the courts were air conditioned, so not too bad. The
individuals started with Julian and Chris having byes while
Nick and Michael won easily against players from Zimbabwe.
On the second day Julian won easily but Chris hurt his ankle
and was unable to move against his Hungarian opponent and
lost in three. Michael played well against the Pakistani U17
British Open champion but lost and Nick lost to a player from
Hong Kong. This was a low point in the event as we had hoped
to get two players into the third round.
The next day Julian played a great match coming from 2-0
down against the Egyptian #3 seed to beat him in five. He
always believed in himself and the Egyptian was more interested
in taking breaks to wipe his glasses than play squash. The
whole team was really hyped up after this match, with plenty
of photographer and TV presence adding to the emotion. It
was a bad day for Egypt all three players lost and their coach
kept them locked in their hotel room for six hours to think
about their performance.
The next day Julian lost to the #1 Pakistani in 3 games on
the all glass court. The rest of the individuals Nick and
Michael both played well in the consolation event, but our
main goal now was to get a top 8 position in the team event.
Before the finals there was a parade of all the teams live
on TV with Jahangir Khan as the guest of honor. That night
all the coaches & managers were invited to dinner with
Jahangir Khan at the organizers beach house on the Indian
Ocean.
In the team we were provisionally seeded 10th which we felt
was unfair behind Canada and Wales. Their teams included players
we had beaten in the individuals and despite protests the
seeding was not changed, but it gave us that extra motivation
to prove the seeding committee wrong. We beat Zimbabwe easily
3-0 resting Julian, and Chris was now fit to play however
still lacking confidence. We then lost to Pakistan 3-0 before
facing the crunch match against Holland. Julian defeated Dylan
Bennett a 5/8 seed in the individuals to give us the upper
hand. Chris then played the # 2 who we felt he should beat
but the confidence was not there and he lost to put the match
at one all. It was a tough decision who to play at three but
we chose Nick and from losing the first game and being 7-2
down in the second he won 27 of the next 29 points to completely
demoralize his opponent in true American style with fist pumps
& playing great attacking squash.
This left us to beat Hong Kong to guarantee second place
and a spot in the quarter finals. We took no risks and played
the top three players leading to a 3-0 win.
This set us up to play Australia in the quarters. Again the
#1 players were drawn to play first Julian played Jhie Gough
who had reached the quarters in the individuals. The match
went to five at 7 all Julian just lost his concentration and
tinned the next two shots to lose when we all thought he might
have won. This left us a mammoth task which was too much for
Chris and Michael.
The same day we played Mexico losing 3-0. Both teams looked
tired after a number of grueling matches and the player with
the early advantage never gave it up.
This left us to play Canada for 7/8th position. We were confident
to win at one which Julian easily did but the two other ties
were always going to be close. The number threes played second
and Nick despite a strong start faded towards the end of each
game losing 3-1. This left Chris to play to win the tie for
us. He raised his game and always just had the upper hand
to win in four close games to give the US teams its first
victory over a Canadian team in a world Championship and 7th
place, the teams highest finish ever.
The Indians did a great job of hosting the event and we were
well looked after. It was very safe and all teams had a guide
with them. The US & Pakistani teams had armed guards as
well which was a bit weird to start with, but then we got
used to it.
It was great to arrive back in the States to see so many
people at Yale who were delighted the team's performance.
I think it gives everyone encouragement for the future.
I will always remember the trip and hope that I am lucky
enough to be asked again to coach the team.
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