Hi Everyone, thanks for stopping by. This is my first post on here and i'm just going to kick it off with a recap of some of the squash related activity i've been involved in this year so far.
I'll start with an event that was a quite a highlight for me and just a great thing to be a part of, and that was the Northside Thursday Premier Grand Final Summer Season 2012/13. The decision was made to hold the Thursday Premier Grand Final on a Saturday (for the first time that I can remember) to try to make a spectacle of it rather than just being like another normal Thursday night fixtures match. The aim was to attract spectators to come and watch the best teams in Brisbane fighting it out for the trophy, and of course the pride. My team from Sandgate managed to make it into this grand final, although we did it the hard way. We had our chances in the final but some choking and surprise losses meant we had to settle for second to the ever consistent Stafford team. Overall it was an enjoyable day and it was great to see a crowd of people turn up to watch, and the celebrations when we went out that night helped us to forget about the disappointing loss.
Some of the interested spectators who turned up to watch the grand final.
Our Sandgate team (from left to right): Darren Cook, Jordan Till, Josh Stack-Masula, Nathan Turnbull, Dan Karwalski.
At the start of April the new season of fixtures kicked off and I was playing really well and in some of my best form until an old shoulder injury came back and I came down with a mild flu that just hung around for what seemed like an age. I continued to play for my fixture teams while trying to get over my injury and sickness but that only made it take longer to recover. During this time (which was around 6 weeks in the end) I was not doing any training or hitting outside of my fixture matches as my physio had said I had to limit the amount I played or my shoulder wouldn’t recover at all and it would make it worse. The lack of time on the court meant my results really suffered and I just wasn’t really playing well at all. I guess I learnt from this experience that sometimes with injuries and sickness it is better to take some time off playing completely so my body can recover faster and I can get back to training and playing my best sooner.
In June, Brisbane City Squash held their AGM to elect a new committee to guide squash in the Brisbane area for the next year or so. I decided to get more involved in this side of the sport so I put up my hand to be on the committee and was subsequently voted in as 1 of 10 Brisbane City Squash committee members. It has been a very interesting experience to see what happens in the background which most players don’t see, and I have learned a lot, but there is still a lot of work for the committee to do and I’m hopeful that we, as the committee can make progress on this in the future.
Around the middle of July I developed a bit of a niggle in my adductor, but I didn’t really think much of it so I kept playing as normal for a couple of weeks until one particularly tough fixture match. I was playing one of my rivals who I have played many times before and we always have tough games together. This was no exception, and after the match I was barely able to walk because of the pain my adductor was causing me. I went to see a physio the next day and was told that I had strained my adductor quite high up, and it could take more than 8 weeks to get back to normal. I was not pleased with this news but I knew from my previous injury earlier in the year that I was going to have to take time off to recover properly.
I didn’t step foot on the court at all for an entire 4 weeks which is a very long time for me given that I was still working at the courts. After that, I had to ease back into it, no lunging, no sharp movements or changing direction. I was only allowed on court by myself and just to hit drives down the wall. I was slowly able to build this up to doing basic routines which I did at every opportunity because I just wanted to be on court. I continued seeing my physio once a week and doing all the exercises he gave me throughout the entire duration of the injury to limit my time off playing.
Eventually, a full 2 months after my previous match, I made my return to fixtures with a comfortable win. This was probably still a bit earlier than I should have come back and while I was able to play without pain, I still had to build up confidence again but I was stoked to be back playing. I was actually hitting the ball really well, better than I was before the injury in fact, and I attribute this to all the routines and technical work I was doing while I wasn’t able to run and move properly. So from this injury I learned that there are positives to be gained from injuries, in my case it gave me time and forced me to work on my shots which I don’t normally do enough. While my movement wasn’t great when I first started playing matches again, I was actually hitting the ball better than ever.
My movement and fitness slowly came back to me and this combined with improvement to my shots meant I started playing quite well. A couple of weeks ago I finally achieved the goal I set for myself at the start of this year, and that was to reach a squash matrix rating of 300. For those who don’t know, Squash matrix is used to record all of our fixture results and each player has a rating that goes up or down depending on whether you win or lose a match and the rating of your opponent. It is a guide as to a player’s ability compared with other players in the competition. I have wanted to reach 300 for quite a while now and it took a bit of training and a number of good wins, so to finally get there was pretty exciting for me and indicates that even after an up and down year I am now back to playing better than ever.
Last weekend I competed in the annual Stafford Doubles tournament in Division 2 with Craig Simmich. I am a massive fan of doubles and I’d really like to see more doubles tournaments like this around each year. This is the third time I have played in this tournament (with a different partner each time) and its always a lot of fun and as an added bonus this year, Craig and I actually won Div 2. We were somewhat fortunate to scrape through for the win on count back over Craig Rowland and David Cobbold. It is a very fun, social sort of a day but on court every team still wants to win so it was great to be able to do that this year. It was also quite a treat to be able to see some of the world best players competing in Division 1. The current men’s # 58 in the world Zac Alexander and Matt Hopkin were winners over women’s former # 1 and current # 14 Rachael Grinham and current # 22 in the world Donna Urquhart. There is always a lot to be learned from watching and talking to these players so this was a great opportunity. Overall it was and always is a very well organised and enjoyable tournament, thanks to Stafford Squash Club and tournament director Lachlan Johnston for making it happen.
Craig returning a ball in our match against against Dave Cooper and Andrew Pringle.
Craig and I collecting our prizes for winning Div 2.
That’s about it, catching you up on some of the highlights of my year in squash so far. Sorry it was a bit long, but it’s been a big year. Stay tuned for my next (shorter) article and thanks for coming to check it out!
