Squash Magazine: What’s it like being a lefty?
Chris Hanson: I’d say it’s pretty awesome. I feel like I have a big advantage over a lot of righties on tour. I have yet to figure out what that advantage actually is and make use of it, but it’s in the works.
SM: What’s your greatest struggle being a lefty?
CH: Trying to teach technique to young right-handed players—either I can’t get my point across by showing them my own lefty swing, or I look like a fool trying to do it right-handed.
SM: Favorite off-court experience at Dartmouth?
CH: Going apple-picking and admiring the beautiful foliage…and being in a frat!
SM: Most embarrassing moment at Dartmouth?
CH: Probably during freshman year when one of the older guys on the squash team invited me to come hang out at his fraternity—the one I wanted to eventually join. I felt pretty cool getting to go over there before other freshman got to, until someone spilled a drink on my pants and people started shouting “Look! The Freshman wet himself!” A classic humbling moment, but no one seems to have remembered since I joined the fraternity the next year.
SM: How did it feel to finally beat Hansi your senior year?
CH: Does Hansi receive Squash Magazine? If so, I got really lucky that one time senior year, he must have been injured. If not, I beat him well before I reached senior year, and there might have even been a 3-0 victory for me in there somewhere!
SM: What’s one thing you know now as a pro on tour, that you wish you knew before turning pro?
CH: How to pick and choose the right tournaments to play—pretty sure I was the fastest player of all time to reach the 13-tournament limit. I was gone every other week for about seven straight months; meanwhile my training partners, Ryan Cuskelly and Zac Alexander, were just having a laugh seeing me be a complete novice.
SM: Favorite food?
CH: I love a good fad diet—I’m on the gluten-free craze right now; haven’t even looked at bread or pasta in weeks, except for when I stand longingly outside the Greenwich pizza shop at night.
SM: What’s a funny story from the tour?
CH: At Pan Ams 2014, the Canadian team had a rule that anyone who pulled out their phones at the dinner table had to sing a song to the entire room with pretty much all of the other teams in attendance. Todd Harrity and I made the mistake of sitting at the Canadian table, and subsequently ended up singing a Florida Georgia Line song and “Chandelier” by Sia to a packed house in the Hotel Del Rey dining room. I was average at best, but Todd was just incredible!