Gold #4

      This weekend 11 of our juniors competed in the fourth gold event of the season at the Toronto Skating Cricket and Curling Club.  Friday night was quiet a busy night at the club as they had a doubles Pro-Am, a PSA event and the Junior Gold going on at the same time.  Even Gerry Dee made an appearance.  This event turned out to be the biggest junior event in a number of years as 150 players competed.  Friday didn't end for Windsor until 11:00 because, as luck would have it, Alex Mroczkowski, in his first Gold event, was the last match of the night.  
       After the first round matches only Amin and Luca won to stay in the main round of their respective 
draws.  Luca played a phenomenal first round match against a very tough opponent.   He hung tough in 
game five and kept pressure on his opponent, forcing him into many errors.  
       Day 2 saw matches start early in the morning and we were warned that 155 matches had to be played 
in one day so to anticipate delays.  By the end of the day, courts were over 2 hours behind and again 
Windsor was playing one of the last matches of the night.  The Windsor players played great on Saturday. 
 Jagroop was a tactician on the court, moving his opponent from front to back and side to side and 
dominating much of his match.  However, a few bad breaks in the final game led to Jagroop losing the 5th.  
Aparna showed much improvement by taking an opponent she had previously lost to in 3 to the 5th 
game this time.  Hannah demonstrated great perseverance in her match after going down 2-0 to come back 
and win in the 5th.  Ananya proved that she is not at all out of place in the U13 division as she ended up
winning the consolations.  Phil disposed of his Saturday opponents with his deft touch and retrieving ability. 
Ryan's retrieving and deadly shots caused his opponents all kinds of problems in the U19 division.  Usman
was as entertaining as always as he frustrated his opponents (and sometimes spectators) by chasing 
down every ball and never giving up.  Subhan, while new to gold tournaments, proved that he is ready to 
play at this level.  
       Of course, Windsor had the last match of the night with Sara Khan.  Her 7:30 time turned into 10:00.  It
 was great to see all of the juniors hang around to watch her play.  Sara was up against a formidable 
opponent.  She played great, using her power to move her opponent all around the court.  However, in the 
end it wasn't enough to take the match.  
      Despite the late Saturady finish, Sunday was another early start.  The highlight of the day was definitely
 Amin playing in the U15 final.  It was a great match that had long rallies, great shot-making and amazing 
retrieving.  Unfortunately, Amin's opponent was just too consistent and eventually forced Amin into 
uncharacteristic errors.
     All in all, the juniors played amazing this weekend.  The best part was the support and camaraderie 
that the kids showed each other throughout the weekend.    Final results can be found here.

Diego/Walker Exhibition

This past Wednesday night welcomed a great night of squash with Diego Elias, the 20 year old Peruvian World Junior Champion (fresh off a win over WR #6, Marwan Elshorbagy in the Motor City Open) and Alister Walker (former WR #12 from Botswana). The night started off with the pros helping Graeme and Dave with a junior squash session with the emphasis on their favourite shots (lobs and the backhand kills).  Some juniors had the chance to play a game with either Diego or Alistair!
After that, four of the highest bidders had the opportunity to play softball doubles with Alister and Diego, our pros (Graeme and Dave). The matches were, Graeme/Jeff Derochie vs. Alister/Luca Dalla Bona and Diego/Aaron Nagy vs. Dave/Nick Dimitrijevic. This time, beauty had beaten age in both first round matches which led to a Diego/Nagy vs. Alister/Dalla Bona matchup in the finals.  After many entertaining rallies between the two teams Alister/Dalla Bona managed to win the final match.  
Finally, the pizza arrived and the real fun began. The match between the two pros started with a bang. Tight drives, perfect drops and rolling nicks were being hit from the onset of the match.  With the match tied at 2, the intensity and quality of rallies increased even more.  The amount of shots these two players got to was incredible! Just when you thought the rally was over one of the players would get to a shot you never would have thought they’d get to. In the end, Diego Elias managed to win the match. Thank you to everyone that came out to support this event, and to all the sponsors and to Graeme and Dave who put on this amazing event!
Here is a link to all the pictures.

Bottle Drive

It's that time of year again to drop off your empty bottles at the club for our annual bottle drive.  Bottles will be collected until January 21st.  You can leave them in the room by the entrance.

Bottle Drive

Christmas Parties

     Saturday was a busy day for Windsor Squash and Fitness.  Saturday afternoon saw 50 juniors show up for their annual party hosted by Graeme and Dave.  It is also at this party that the coaches reflect on the year gone by and give out their annual awards.  The emphasis on junior squash is that it is all about the effort so it makes sense that the awards given out were Effort Awards.  This year's winners were Mackenzie Elliot, Subhan Saleem, Wade Masse, and Courtney Furmanek.
     We also did a mannequin challenge on Saturday at the club.  Here it is:

In the evening, 50 or so adults gathered at Lilly Kazilly's for the annual Christmas party.  Thanks to Doug Lovegrove and Graeme for organizing this great night.

Canadian Junior Open

Juniors with Diego Elias (WR #23)

    What a great four days of squash!  WSF juniors played players from all over the world.  I guess we can't complain about travelling to Toronto when New Zealand brought a big contingent.  Also, Andrew was able to negotiate a home and home series with Barbados :).  The level of squash was unbelievable as the best juniors in the world descended on White Oaks.  No juniors were able to stay in the main round of their draws.  However, after the first round, many of our juniors began to win some matches.  To win any matches at the Canadian Open is a feat.  To win a draw is a great achievement as most draws had a full 64 best squash juniors in the world in them.  Congratulations to Luca Dalla Bona who won the Bronze division of the U15 draw in a gut-wrenching 15-13 in the 5th.  Well done Luca!  Complete draws can be found here and pictures from the weekend can be found here.

Ontario Junior Closed

       This weekend 10 juniors took part in the Ontario Closed at Executive Squash and Fitness.  Up for grabs were Ontario Championships and this brought out the best players in Ontario.  All juniors played strong and some even hung around the main round for a bit.  Phil Dimitrov had a breakout weekend by winning 2 matches in a row to get him into the bronze final where he finally tired, losing in a close 4 games.  Sara Khan also had a strong weekend by placing second in her round robin to put her into the main round, where she finished fourth.  Full results can be found here.

Ontario 50+ Champ

 Not only do we have the Canadian U11 champ, Canadian 35+ champ, but now we can add the Ontario 50+ champ to our Hall of Fame.  This weekend was the Ontario Masters Championships at Executive Squash and Fitness. Dave entered his draw as the 3rd seed.  He upset the second seed in the semi finals and went on to win in the finals 3-0.  I think Dave must be secretly training and was just using this as a warmup for the Fall Down Classic this upcoming weekend.  I think the WSF rule is if you win an Ontario Championships, you cannot play age groups at your own club tourney.  Just sayin....

Full results can be found here.