By Bill Buckingham
“This should be the most fun weekend of the squash year. You will ultimately play for the U.S. somewhere along the way, and there is nothing better than that.” With those words, Ganek Family National Team Coach Paul Assaiante welcomed players to the third-annual Regional Team Championships...
By James Zug
A Different Kind of Daughter: The Girl Who Hid from the Taliban in Plain Sight
By Maria Toorpakai with Katharine Holstein
(Twelve, 2016)
Within the squash world, it was well-known that Maria Toorpakai had a special story.
She had been a promising junior, the first woman to come out of the...
Lighting the Way: A New Solution for Squash Court Lights
By James Zug
It started about seven years ago when Lee Witham and his wife Jihyeong (everyone calls her JiJi) decided to build a weekend home in upstate New York. Working early from scratch, they ambitiously decided to build a net-zero...
By James Zug
Kingston upon Hull, the East Yorkshire port town, has a delightful old district along the harbor: narrow, cobblestoned streets, ancient pubs, a museum about slavery in the Georgian home of William Wilberforce. On the other side of town, in West Hull, is KC Stadium where Hull FC,...
by James Zug
A couple of indelible images from the 2016 Windy City Open remain in the squash frontal lobe. The “I don’t believe it, that is a joke, an absolute joke,” sequence at 7-5 in the fourth game of Mathieu Castagnet & Daryl Selby’ s second-round match. If you...
by Dent Wilkens
Photography by Michael T. Bello/mtbello.com
Kanzy El Defrawy and Ahmed Abdel Khalek entered the College Individuals Nationals with the weight of expectation squarely on their shoulders. Both players were seniors slated to graduate this spring, and were capping two of the most successful college careers in the past...
by Chris McClintick
Amanda Sobhy has reached the finals of six of the past seven U.S. Women’s Championships. Her third national title this March marked was her second as a full-time professional squash player and her first as a professional supported by the US Squash Elite Athlete Program.
The week leading...
by Bill Buckingham
Not only does seventy-four-year-old Jay Nelson clearly recall winning his first championship in any sport—the 1954 little league title in Saugus, MA, as a second baseman and pitcher—he also remembers many of the sixteen players he struck out hurling a perfect game at the age of twelve....
by Chris McClintick
They almost withdrew. It was the title they wanted most and the last to elude them on the SDA tour. As the 2015 Briggs Cup was starting, Damien Mudge was nursing a debilitating pinched nerve in his right foot. He was far from 100%. Ben Gould’s parents,...