By Brett Erasmus
Well I clearly know nothing about soccer, so there is some squash stuff below that may interest you. All the South American teams I fancied were pretty much knocked out at the quarterfinals stage (Uruguay had to cheat to go through to the semis), but it was fun to speculate on what the decisive factors may be. I guess it makes sense that the current two best teams in the world would meet in the World Cup final. Spain was ranked FIFA number one going into the tournament and Holland currently has the longest unbeaten streak in international soccer (over 2 years). One of these two teams will make history on Sunday as neither have previously won the Soccer World Cup and as previously noted, a team from the northern hemisphere has never won a world cup played in the southern hemisphere. My money is on Spain (which means the Dutchmen will probably win).
One person who has already conquered all is seventeen year old Amanda Sobhy, of New York, who recently became the World Junior Women's Squash Champ. Congratulations Amanda! I believe this makes her the first junior world champ from the U.S. and moves her to number 35 in the senior rankings. Prior to this Sobhy became the first woman to ever win four professional tournaments as a sixteen year old. Amanda has always worked very hard to achieve what she has so far in her career. To my mind, she has always been destined for greatness. Not so much because of how good she is at the game of squash, that goes without saying. It was more her attitude to training that surprised me most. She seems to genuinely enjoy pushing herself as hard as she could for four (or more) hours a day. I happened to see her doing court sprints with a friend a while back and it was quite evident that she was having loads of fun (whilst killing herself on court). I am not sure I have ever seen anyone enjoy court sprints that much. Hard training is a huge part of her success and she deserves every win she gets in future.
Obviously, thorough preparation is a huge contributory factor in the success of any professional athlete. For example, James Willstrop and his girlfriend, Vanessa Atkinson, spent the last 3 weeks training in the mountains of Colorado. Not playing squash, but running and biking. I guess altitude training is beneficial for squash players after all. Something to do with conditioning your body to deal with the lack of oxygen...see my previous blog for more on this topic. Aerobic conditioning is not the only thing they work hard at. I had the privilege of playing a training game with them both this week and, as expected, they made me and three friends look quite stupid on the court. Interestingly, they have both developed the ability to hit any shot they like from a range of starting racquet positions. I found this particularly hard to deal with, as you could not at all anticipate where the ball was going. When I asked James about this deception he said it was deliberate and learned over time. He had to work on it to get it right. Of course, I thought, and then, without thinking, I said that Vanessa must have picked up on it too, because she does all the same types of clever things with her racquet. He simply retorted that he learned it from her, not the other way around. “She is the world champion.” A true statement by James, but still, modest to a fault.
One person who has already conquered all is seventeen year old Amanda Sobhy, of New York, who recently became the World Junior Women's Squash Champ. Congratulations Amanda! I believe this makes her the first junior world champ from the U.S. and moves her to number 35 in the senior rankings. Prior to this Sobhy became the first woman to ever win four professional tournaments as a sixteen year old. Amanda has always worked very hard to achieve what she has so far in her career. To my mind, she has always been destined for greatness. Not so much because of how good she is at the game of squash, that goes without saying. It was more her attitude to training that surprised me most. She seems to genuinely enjoy pushing herself as hard as she could for four (or more) hours a day. I happened to see her doing court sprints with a friend a while back and it was quite evident that she was having loads of fun (whilst killing herself on court). I am not sure I have ever seen anyone enjoy court sprints that much. Hard training is a huge part of her success and she deserves every win she gets in future.
Obviously, thorough preparation is a huge contributory factor in the success of any professional athlete. For example, James Willstrop and his girlfriend, Vanessa Atkinson, spent the last 3 weeks training in the mountains of Colorado. Not playing squash, but running and biking. I guess altitude training is beneficial for squash players after all. Something to do with conditioning your body to deal with the lack of oxygen...see my previous blog for more on this topic. Aerobic conditioning is not the only thing they work hard at. I had the privilege of playing a training game with them both this week and, as expected, they made me and three friends look quite stupid on the court. Interestingly, they have both developed the ability to hit any shot they like from a range of starting racquet positions. I found this particularly hard to deal with, as you could not at all anticipate where the ball was going. When I asked James about this deception he said it was deliberate and learned over time. He had to work on it to get it right. Of course, I thought, and then, without thinking, I said that Vanessa must have picked up on it too, because she does all the same types of clever things with her racquet. He simply retorted that he learned it from her, not the other way around. “She is the world champion.” A true statement by James, but still, modest to a fault.
Reposted courtesy of Brett Erasmus from Brett's Squash Blog www.brettssquashblog.com
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