CANADIAN RAZIK WINS THE 2007 COMFORT INN OPEN SQUASH TITLE

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January 25, 2007

Men’s and Women’s Teams Championships.

Much like being 17th in line to the throne, being 17th in line to play for the provincial team doesn't leave you holding your breath. However, unlike the Duke of East London-shire, a slew of injuries left me as the very fortunate recipient of an invite to play for Team BC at the Men's Team Championships in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, joining Jeff Evans and Shakiru Matti. Each of us played 4 tough matches, and some of us (Jeff & Shakiru) played much better than others (me), leaving us with an 8th place finish, after tight losses to Nova Scotia and Ontario.

I play in a lot of tournaments, and have to say that this was one of the best squash tournaments that I have ever been to. The hospitality of the host club was unparalleled, and it was a great experience to see the diversity of squash across the country among the 3 man teams. Team Quebec (the eventual winners) had two players ranked in the PSA top 100, and gave up a mere 11 points in the final (27-3, 27-4, 27-4) to Team Alberta, a squad stacked with 3 of the best junior players in the country. On the other end of the spectrum, my new friends on Team PEI were surprisingly competitive on court, and not-so-surprisingly social off-court. Between them and their fan club (which consisted of every PEI ex-pat living in Ontario - 5 people), they gave the local establishments a record weekend!

It was also cool to see once again why BC is one of the best places to play squash. Between the championships and the companion tournament, I met 4 or 5 players that used to play at VRC, and speak very highly of the time spent playing squash in BC. And in talking to a lot of players, I would conservatively guess that we have at least double the number of tournaments as any other province.

Next time that a Team's tournament runs through town, I would encourage all players and fans to spend some time and experience this unique squash event!

Adam Radziminski

And now the Women.

Speaking of getting to see a Teams tournament coming through town...well the Jericho Club was the place to be this weekend. In contrast to the reports of last years teams event “there’s a squash tourney on at this club?” in Toronto, Shauna Flath and crew organized and hosted a fantastic Women’s Canadian Teams Squash tournament at the Jericho Club.

Being host province, BC submitted two teams to the tournament called (strangely enough) BC-1 and BC-2. The BC-1 team of Melanie Jans, Emma Parke and Sarah Parsons had most of Friday off with their first match at 5pm, so I’ll start with the early-rising team of BC-2 – Carolyn Russell, Karyn Trombley and myself who were lucky enough to start out with a 9am match on Friday. Which was fine because we needed the practice for our 9am matches on Saturday and Sunday and I just LOVE matches before 11am. Probably the biggest match for BC-2 (seeded 5th) was our very first one against Quebec (seeded 4th) as the winner would very likely finish second in the pool to Ontario to gain a spot in the top 4. Karyn was first out of the gate and had an unexpected but all important win over her feisty Quebec opponent, Louise Lefebvre. Carolyn then faced the Spanish import Olga and came away with a solid 3-0 win. Phew! BC-2 were off to an excellent start and I didn’t have to be concerned about my pre-11am form. We faced top seed Ontario at 5pm Friday. Karyn ran into a granite squash wall called Tara Mullins who didn’t make a single unforced error until the 3rd game (and believe me I thought Karyn played well!!) and then it was Carolyn’s turn against Katie Patrick. Despite spraining and having to strap her ankle in the warm-up, Carolyn’s amazing ability to turn a possible excuse into another surmountable challenge saw her scrape out a tenacious win over Katie in 4. One could say the pressure was now finally on me...but facing a girl half my age (never thought I’d be playing squash long enough to use that phrase) who made it to the Junior British Open semi’s 2 weeks ago my money was on my opponent Laura...but I did manage to quadruple (or more) my points expectation and definitely did more court sprints than Laura so really the match was of greater fitness benefit to me than her so I did come out ahead somewhere.

Meanwhile the #3 seeded BC-1 started their tournament with a win over the junior girls from Manitoba before hitting a slight obstacle in the form of Alberta (#2 seed) on Saturday morning. Sarah Parsons lost to the energizer bunny (“is she still a junior? No she’s 37”) Anna Martin and Mel won her match over “cross court nick” Leona in 3, leaving Emma to decide the outcome with Claire Fern. Not to drag out the suspense for their team mates, they took the match to 5 - smiling and laughing their whole way through it as though it were a social party...it really was an excellent match to watch, both had similar games but finally Emma emerged the victor, sealing the win for BC-1.

Fast forward to the semi-finals Saturday night, BC-1 v BC-2. With Carolyn out due to the ankle injury it was up to Karyn and I to win every match henceforth. I faced Sarah Parsons first and started out at a gallop, maybe just a bit too quick because after 2 games to 0 up things started to go a bit awry for me...and a little better for Sarah...and after a bit of a blur I was shaking her hand and congratulating her on a 3-2 win (Is that happens as you get older in the game? That “blur” thing?). Karyn again played well against Emma but to no avail, we were into the 3-4 play-off against Alberta, BC-1 were in the 1/2 playoff against Ontario.

Sunday morning...BC-2 vs AB: Karyn faced Claire from Alberta first and pulled out her “phenom” game - game 1 to BC, game 2 to BC, and 9-0 game and match to BC! Outstanding. I was so busy cheering I nearly forgot what it meant – that it would be nice if I could win too, you know, so Karyn could get that bronze medal she deserved. No problem, I was only playing energizer bunny herself before 11am on a Sunday morning....well, wonders will never cease. Maybe it was a case of sub-conscious “transference” but next thing I was starting to believe that Anna was actually suffering from MY morning game affliction and my heels didn’t appear to be sleeping on the floor as they usually would. Game 1 to BC, game 2 to BC, and 9-0 game and match to BC!! Much excitement in the two-man BC-2 camp.

Shift sideways to Court 1 where BC-1 were playing Ontario. Emma faced the in-form Tara Mullins and despite trying to keep up and challenge the frantic pace unfortunately lost. Mel played Katie and as expected won her match in style, leaving the two-junior up and comers – Sarah Parsons and Laura Gemmell - to battle it out. Sarah threw everything she had at Laura and after what seemed like hours it was still only 3-3 in the first game. Slowly though Laura drew away and took the first game. Game 2 and 3 went the same way, both girls playing exceptional squash with Laura perhaps showing some extra squash experience despite her younger age. Things are looking pretty good for Canada’s future in womens squash – good luck to Sarah in her first WISPA tournament this next week.

So after all that, it was BC 2nd and 3rd – not quite the gold but we did dominate the majority!!

Thanks to Shauna and the Jericho Club for hosting an outstanding tournament; the whole event ran extremely smoothly, the dinner, breakfasts and facilities were excellent and the level of squash was exceptional – an awesome opportunity to see the big name players in Canadian womens squash here in Vancouver. And thanks to Emma for organizing the team uniforms, the hoodie tops and playing shirts were great.

Cheers

Sian Campbell