Winter Warm-Up Recap

By Josh Giesey

This past Sunday the MSRA, with help from StreetSquash, hosted the First Annual Winter Warm-up, part of the MSRA's new One Day Tournament series.  This tournament was designed to give New York area squash players tournament style matches before this years Grand Open.  Thirty Eight players filled all 8 of the StreetSquash courts throughout the day, playing tough, competitive, fast-paced matches.  Of the days overall draw the men's lower levels had strongest representation with 21 players filling two groups for each the 3.0 and 3.5 divisions.  The women's draws showed good numbers as well with 12 entrants split between a 3.0 and 4.0 draw.  While the MSRA organized the event in a tournament fashion, the overall spirit was one of sportsmanship with many players hopping on available courts just to hit or to squeeze in an extra game or two with player outside of their draw.  For instance, two 3.0 and one 3.5 mens players filled entrants in higher draws who cancelled allowing for the draws to be played without interruption (thanks Josh, John and Andrew!).  All 3 players displayed great determination and gave the higher level players tough, close matches, despite being outranked and playing double the number of matches.

Of particular interest is that three of the seven divisions were won by StreetSquash participants with each going undefeated throughout the day.  The three StreetSquash winners included Jamel Key winning the Mens 3.5 Group 1 draw, Julian Hackney winning the Mens 3.5 Group 2 draw and Lizzie Gatling winning the Womens 4.0 draw.  Rounding out the rest of the divisions, the winners were as follows: Sunil Mathew winning the Mens 3.0 Group 1 draw, Jacques Raphael winning the Mens 3.0 Group 2 Draw, John Randall winning the Mens 4.0 draw and Julie Herskowitz winning the Womens 3.0 draw. 

In other news, the First Annual Winter Warm-up confirmed that squash players love to eat!  Throughout the day 38 players managed to eat over 40 bananas, drink over five cases of bottled water and eat sixty slices of pizza!  All in all the day was a great success.  The MSRA and StreetSquash are looking forward not only to next year's Winter Warm-up but also the next one day tournament to be held later in the spring.