The eighteenth-annual World Squash Day was celebrated at the 2019 FS Investments U.S. Open Squash Championships.
The finals of the men’s and women’s draws at the U.S. Open and the United Squash Hall of Fame luncheon and induction ceremony were the centerpieces of an exciting day at Drexel’s Daskalaskis Athletic Center. Egypt’s Nouran Gohar and Ali Farag won the Open. Two women—Ginny Akabane and Bunny Vosters—were inducted in the first all-female induction class into the Hall of Fame.
This year’s theme for World Squash Day was The Big Hit. America was in the vanguard of The Big Hit. Downstairs on the Kline & Specter Courts the 2018 U.S. Skills Levels Championship was in full swing. On World Squash Day, exactly 120 matches were played at Drexel. The 2019 Skill Levels featured 116 players competed in eleven divisions ranging from 3.0 to 6.0. US Squash introduced the ratings system in the mid-1990s and has hosted the championship since 1996. Thus, thousands of people had the chance to play squash, reunion with friends and family courtside and watch world-class squash at Drexel.
World Squash Day was on the forefront around the U.S. Six hundred and seventy-six official tournament matches were played across the country, showing the depth and breadth of the game today. It was a busy day for young players. There were seven junior tournaments: a bronze in Philadelphia; a bronze in San Francisco; a bronze in New York; a silver in Connecticut; a silver in New Jersey; and a gold in Baltimore. In total, 487 kids played a Club Locker-recorded match on World Squash Day.
Besides the U.S. Open, the other professional tournament on the American docket was across the continent in Los Angeles: the NBCC LA Open. The semifinals of the Women’s Squash Doubles Association event were held at the Jonathan Club at the same time as the U.S. Open finals. The two matches featured players from Canada, England, Ireland and the U.S. A major stop on the WSDA tour, the NBCC LA Open was sponsored by the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
World Squash Day was originally launched in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in the U.S. Derek Sword, an avid twenty-nine year-old squash player from Scotland, worked as an equity sales analyst on the 89th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. He played three times a week at the New York Athletic Club and had just gotten engaged ten days before the attacks. To honor Sword, a group of New York and British friends hosted a memorial match in London in January 2002 which led to the creation of World Squash Day.
Each year since 2002, events have taken place across the globe on World Squash Day—exhibitions, clinics, publicity stunts, tournaments—that expose the game to many new people and sustain and deepen a love of the game for those already involved.
At a special luncheon before the finals of the 2019 FS Investments U.S. Open Squash Championships, US Squash inducted Ginny Akabane and Bunny Vosters into the United States Squash Hall of Fame.
Kevin Klipstein, the president and CEO of US Squash, welcomed a large crowd of friends, fans and family to the gala luncheon next to the ASB GlassCourt in the Drexel’s Daskalakis Athletic Center. Klipstein spoke about US Squash’s mission of integrity, inclusiveness and innovation. “The Specter Center will be where we bring our values to life,” he said.
Mark Pagon, the chair of the board of US Squash, then spoke about the meaning of excellence. “The ancient Greeks talked about arête,” he said. “It is a word that means both excellence and virtue. It is an aspirational word, that our Hall of Famers not only have had exceptional performances but also reflected integrity and sportsmanship. That is what our Hall of Famers do—they demonstrate the essence of squash.”
The chair of the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame committee, James Zug, spoke of the many squash luminaries at the luncheon. Members of the Hall of Fame committee in attendance included Sam Howe and Gail Ramsay. Five Hall of Famers were at the luncheon: Joyce Davenport (inducted in the class of 2011), Ralph Howe (2002), Sam Howe (2002), Gretchen Spruance (2000) and Carol Thesieres (2018). “As this is the fortieth anniversary of the merger of the U.S. men’s and women’s squash associations,” Zug said, “US Squash is pleased to highlight the history of women’s squash with our first all-female induction class.”
A moving video examined the extraordinary careers of Akabane and Vosters.
Vosters was a record-setting doubles player. She won the National Doubles in 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1971 with Jeanne Classen; 1968 with Betty Meade; 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976 and 1977 with her daughter Gretchen Spruance. She also won the 40+ division of the National Doubles in 1965 and 1966 with Barbara Clement Hunter and 1967 and 1968 with Jeanne Classen. Thus, three times Vosters pulled off the rare double of capturing both the open and 40+ draw on the same weekend, something only one other player has ever accomplished (Barbara Hunter in 1960).
Gretchen Spruance, who was inducted in the Hall of Fame’s inaugural class of 2000, spoke about her mother. “We’d come off the court all sweaty and dishelved,” she said, “and my mother would not have one hair out of place.” Also in the audience was Bunny Vosters’ daughter Nina Vosters Moyer, who won two National Singles titles, and her daughter-in-law Lee Howard Vosters who won a National Intercollegiate Singles title.
Voster’s granddaughter Ashlee Vosters accepted her grandmother’s induction into the Hall of Fame. She told the audience about how Vosters was a basketball and field hockey champion in college, a remarkable tennis player and a pioneering squash player. “She had a keen instinct to win, incredibly steady with impeccable control,” Vosters said. “She was majestic, classy and deadly.”
Gail Ramsay, the head coach of the Princeton’s women team, then introduced Ginny Akabane.
Ginny Akabane won the National Singles in 1975, the Canadian National Singles in 1973 and 1974 and the Hyder in 1979. She also was a member of the Team USA’s squad at the 1979 World Team Championships in Birmingham, England. Akabane was the president of the U.S. Women’s Squash Racquets Association in 1979-81, leading the merger of the national men’s and women’s associations. “Ginny was a fierce competitor with impeccable, gracious sportsmanship,” Ramsay said. “She never had formal coaching. She was the first woman to play in men’s leagues in Rochester. She was twice a finalist at the Carol Weymuller Open—a really outstanding player.”
Akabane then spoke about the changes that she’s seen in the past half century since she started playing squash. “Back in the 1970s, squash was so small,” she said. “Everyone was a friend and an opponent. It was a BoWash game—stretching from Boston to Washington. I have such fond memories of the game of squash as a child and now I love seeing it as an adult. It is all across the country, it has such great diversity. So many women and girls are playing.”
Kevin Klipstein then thanked Akabane for her central role in bringing about the merger of the men’s and women’s association forty years ago. “Your work in pulling off the merger set the stage for the growth in U.S. squash. Without your work then, we would not have been in a position to institute prize-money parity in 2013 and to help lead to prize-money parity for all major pro squash tournaments around the world.”
The U.S. Squash Hall of Fame was founded in 2000. Next year it will move from Payne Whitney Gymnasium at Yale to its new home at the Arlen Specter US Squash Center in Philadelphia. The Hall of Fame is the only national squash hall of fame in the world with annual inductions and a bricks-and-mortar location. With the additions of the Ginny Akabane and Bunny Vosters, there are now sixty-five members of the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame.
(l-r): Mohamed ElShorbagy, Nour El Tayeb, Ali Farag
(l-r): Mohamed ElShorbagy, Nour El Tayeb, Ali Farag
Three past champions—Mohamed ElShorbagy, Ali Farag and Nour El Tayeb—have the opportunity to enrich to their FS Investments U.S. Open legacies after advancing to the 2019 finals, while Nouran Gohar aims to engrave her name on the coveted trophy for the first time following Friday’s semifinals, October 11, at Drexel University’s Daskalakis Center in Philadelphia.
The opening match of the semifinal session defied expectation as 2017 champion Nour El Tayeb swiftly eliminated world No. 1 and defending champion Raneem El Welily in a three game, thirty-five minute match, 11-8, 11-9, 11-5. Fighting off early deficits in the second and third games, El Tayeb out-maneuvered and out-played the 2018 champion to maintain her unbeaten record against El Welily on the ASB GlassCourt in Philadelphia.
El Welily and El Tayeb had already met two times this season, with El Tayeb prevailing in the China Open final in September and El Welily taking their most recent encounter—the Oracle NetSuite Open final in San Francisco last week. El Tayeb first upset El Welily in the 2015 U.S. Open quarterfinals in five games. Two years later, she went on to upset El Welily again in a five-game final.
“I watched our last match from San Francisco this morning,” El Tayeb said. “I was shocked, I didn’t think I was doing a lot of things badly, but she was just unbeatable and took every chance. Today, I was laughing, when I was 6-4 up in the first game I thought ‘yes, I’ve taken more points than I did last time.’ Last time the most I scored was five, so after I took the first game I thought ‘wow, I’m in this and it’s not like last time’. I think that was my mindset going into today, I didn’t want to lose 3-0 to her and I took every point as it came because she can beat anyone 3-0 on her day and I don’t think I’ve ever beaten her in three, not in practice, not in my dreams, not anywhere.”
The 2017 U.S. Open proved to be historic for El Welily and her husband Ali Farag, as the couple celebrated their first World Series titles alongside each other. The dream of pulling off the U.S. Open husband and wife double is still alive, as Farag followed El Tayeb into the finals in the ensuing match against Peru’s Diego Elias.
Farag fell behind 4-7 in the opening game against the world No. 7, at which point he strung together six straight points to go up 10-7, and converted on his second game ball 11-8. The second game was close to start with both players level at 5-all. Farag began to force from Elias, including three strokes as the Egyptian pulled away to take the second 11-6. Farag then closed out the match in a nick-filled third game, 11-8 after fifty-three minutes. Farag, who has held the world No. 1 ranking since March, hadn’t been in action since Monday following Miguel Angel Rodriguez’s withdrawal from their quarterfinal encounter.
“I’m extremely happy,” Farag said. “It felt like the first performance of the tournament, I had a couple of good wins against solid opponents at the start of the tournament but then the unfortunate situation of Miguel pulling out let me rest for three days, so it felt like I wasn’t in the zone anymore and that made me a little nervous.”
Farag, a 2015 Harvard graduate, had the guidance of Harvard coach Mike Way in his corner, while Elias has Jonathon Power, the two-time U.S. Open champion and Way’s former pupil.
“I’m in my best comfort zone when Mike is around,” Farag said. “We had a chat before the match and he settled me down. Diego got off to a great start and I think I weathered the storm well. I tried to dominate the ‘T’ area and it’s never easy against him because he hits the ball very cleanly and his positioning is very good. If leaving the room today you would have told us that we would be leaving with two 3-0 wins tonight I wouldn’t have believed you. It’s a very good day for us. We will both have solid opponents in the final now. Whoever it will be, they are all playing really well but we’re going to give it our best and if we walk away with another repeat of 2017 then we would be very happy.”
The three-game results continued with the final two semifinals of the evening. The second women’s semi was a repeat of the 2019 British Open final between Egypt’s three seed Nouran Gohar and France’s Camille Serme and ended in the same result. Gohar, world No. 5, only needed thirty minutes to claim the British Open title in May and was able to get off court one minute earlier Friday night, overpowering the 2016 U.S. Open champion 11-4, 11-6, 11-4. The result sends the twenty-two-year-old through to her first career U.S. Open final.
“Before playing here, I was thinking yesterday that all the semi-finalists are U.S. Open champions and I’m the only one that isn’t,” Gohar said. “Hopefully I can do it tomorrow. I’m just really happy to be on court, I had a solo practice this morning and there are some days when you are feeling good and you are very excited to be one court and today was one of those days. It really helped against someone who is very precise, accurate and tactical like Camille. She beat me last time at home, which was really painful and it was great today. You work really hard throughout the whole season for days like this when you are feeling great on court and I’m really happy about it. I’m just going to relax today and forget about it because tomorrow is a new day.”
World No. 2 and defending champion Mohamed ElShorbagy is one match away from equaling Peter Nicol’s record of four U.S. Open titles, following a comprehensive victory over compatriot and world No. 3 Tarek Momen. One week after a narrow five-game final against Momen in San Francisco, ElShorbagy pushed through two close opening games 11-8, 11-9 before barreling into the final 11-3 in the third after forty-four minutes.
“You had to win the rally many times before you won the point,” ElShorbagy said. “Patience was the key today and I think I was a little bit more patient than him. I’m really happy to be off in three and playing Ali tomorrow, he has had a really good run here and with how many matches he has had, I had to make sure that I won in three if I was going to get through today.”
The twenty-eight-year-old currently holds three U.S. Open titles —2018, 2016 and 2014—and level with fellow three-time champions Gregory Gaultier, Jansher Khan, Hashim Khan and Roshan Khan.
“It would mean so much to have a shot at winning the U.S. Open title for the fourth time, but I’m up against the best player in the world right now,” ElShorbagy said. “I’m after him and I want his ranking, but right now he had an unbelievable season last season and I think it’s fitting that the first Platinum tournament of the season we have the world No. 1 and No. 2 in the final and hopefully it’s a good match in front of everyone.”
The Aspen Institute has named SquashSmarts, the Philadelphia after-school youth-enrichment program, as a Project Play Champion.
The Aspen Institute’s Project Play program develops, applies and shares knowledge that helps build healthy communities through sports. They work with leading organizations to develop solutions to foster quality sports activity for all youth, regardless of zip code or ability. Project Play is a multi-year effort to grow national sport participation rates and related metrics among youth.
“No one organization alone can build healthy kids and communities through sports,” said Tom Farrey, Aspen Institute’s sports & society program executive director. “It will take like-minded groups, even competitors, collaborating to get kids off the couch without running them into the ground. The need for Project Play is clear. The number of kids, especially lower-income youth, playing sports keeps decreasing. Only 37 percent of all kids ages six to twelve played team sports on a regular basis in 2017—down from 45 percent in 2008. This is a public health concern as physical activity declines for youth.”
In 2019 SquashSmarts—a place-based nonprofit in North & West Philadelphia offering free out-of-school time program that integrates squash education, academic support and leadership skills—will hire a program alum as an in-school engagement coordinator to work with physical education teachers to introduce free squash sessions into the schools’ gym curriculum. To date, SquashSmarts has partnered with five targeted schools that have limited gym or after-school activities in those neighborhoods, which serve 130 kids in sixth to twelfth grade and eighty alumni (ages eighteen to twenty-four) in its core program. SquashSmarts commits to growing engagement and programming towards younger students in fourth and fifth grade, with a goal of expanding community program reach to 600-800 kids in these partner schools.
Egypt’s defending champion Mohamed ElShorbagy and 2016 U.S. Open champion Camille Serme put in convincing quarterfinal displays against New Zealand’s Paul Coll and Team USA’s Amanda Sobhy Thursday, October 10, to reach the 2019 FS Investments U.S. Open semifinals at Drexel University’s Daskalaskis Athletic Center in Philadelphia.
The tournament’s two seeds both prevailed in three games in what had been anticipated to be potential five-gamers or upsets.
Serme, world No. 4, found herself up against home favorite Sobhy for the second time this season, having defeated the American in an hour-long Open de France final last month. Thursday night’s encounter proved to be half as quick, as Serme controlled the entirety of the match against the unsettled world No. 8 11-2, 11-4, 11-5 in twenty-four minutes.
“I’m very happy,” said Serme, who reaches her fourth career U.S. Open semifinals. “I know Amanda has been struggling a little bit with her leg, it’s not easy to know that and play your best. I’m happy with the performance I did today. It was a great battle in France, she played really well. She’s very strong physically and I always try and play on that with Amanda to make the rallies really long and make it as long as I can even if she is going to win the point, I try to make it hard for her.”
Serme will face a U.S. Open semifinal debutante in the form of Egypt’s world No. 5 Nouran Gohar, who dispatched 2018 semifinals Tesni Evans in three games. Friday’s semifinal between Gohar and Serme will be a rematch of the 2019 British Open final, which the Egyptian won in three games.
“I haven’t played Nouran since June at the World Tour Finals, so I’m really looking forward to this match,” Serme said. “It will be a tough match and I’m very happy to be back in the semis of this tournament.”
On the men’s side, ElShorbagy and Tarek Momen will clash for the first time in Philadelphia in what will be their twenty-second career match up on the PSA World Tour. ElShorbagy overcame world No. 5 Coll in an encounter that opened up with two entertaining, attritional games. ElShorbagy saved two game ball in the second in what proved to be a pivotal point in the match. The world No. 2 then pulled away in the third to earn his place in the semifinals 12-10, 14-12, 11-5 after sixty minutes.
“Playing Paul is always going to be tough,” said ElShorbagy afterwards. “You have to accept before you go on court with him that you are going to go through a physical war with him before you can try to beat him. I think the first and second game were crucial, he had his leads in the first game, I had my leads in the second—we both lost focus when each one of us was leading, but I think a little bit of experience got me through them. I had to have courage and go for more winners. I didn’t volley as much as I would have liked in the match and I didn’t go as short but I went for it in the tie-breaks and luckily it paid off.”
In the first men’s quarterfinal of the evening, Momen put in a motivated performance against 2018 finalist Simon Rösner. The German controlled the first game 11-8, but Momen controlled the momentum from the second game onwards 11-8, 11-3, 11-3 in fifty-four minutes.
The result sent Momen through to his first U.S. Open semifinal in his seventh tournament appearance.
“Getting to my first semi-final here is special,” Momen said. “I’ve always wanted to play well here but I’ve never reached the semifinal. The closest I came was last year when I was match ball up in the fifth but lost it in the tie-break, so it’s good that I have gone one step further and hopefully I continue to go further into the tournament. I think every pair of players in the top ten must have played each other in a final. I’ve had big finals against Paul Coll, Mohamed ElShorbagy and Simon, so you just have to think about it as a normal match against a top player and be sharp 100% and execute the game plan as well as possible.”
Today at the 2019 FS Investments U.S. Open, US Squash celebrated the progress made towards the completion of the Arlen Specter US Squash Center, scheduled to open in Fall 2020. US Squash led tours of the location currently under construction: the historic Armory building on Drexel’s campus, just a few steps from the Daskalakis Athletic Center, where the U.S. Open is being staged.
Kevin Klipstein, the president and CEO of US Squash, spoke about the limitless possibilities that the Specter Center. “We can’t wait to open the Specter Center and transform squash in Philadelphia, the U.S. and the world. It will be the flagship for the game. The Specter Center, with eighteen singles courts and two doubles courts, will open next fall. It will model broad community engagement and access while being a home for squash in the U.S. It will serve as US Squash’s national headquarters, house a learning and innovation center run in collaboration with official community partner SquashSmarts, the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame, squash’s first comprehensive museum, a coaching excellence center and state-of-the-art high-performance athlete development resources in coordination with Drexel’s Division I athletic program.”
Eric Zillmer, Drexel’s athletic director, spoke about the enduring partnership between Drexel and US Squash. “This is the ninth year that Drexel has hosted the U.S. Open. It has been an incredible experience that with the Specter Center will deepen and broaden in a myriad of ways. We are so blessed to have the visionary leadership of John Fry, the president of Drexel.”
Paul Assaiante, the Ganek Family US Squash Head National Coach, spoke about the Specter Center’s three guiding principles. “The first is access,” he said. “This means squash for all. The second principle is opportunity—cultivating the next generation of squash players through programs like SquashSmarts. The third is excellence—elite athletes will train here and reach the next level because of the Specter Center. Coupled with the seven courts of the Kline & Specter Squash Center at Drexel, as well as the twelve new courts at Penn, the Specter Center will create a hub of thirty-seven courts within a three-block radius in University City. The Specter Center will deliver an unparalleled event experience to players and fans from around the country—and the world—when they visit Philadelphia.”
Steve Gregg, the executive director of SquashSmarts, spoke about the future of his award-winning program at the Specter Center. “Next year we will all be standing together just a block away from here,” he said, “but a world away from the game as we know it right now. SquashSmarts will grow from 211 students to over 900. But the Specter is so much more than just a place for an urban program. It will develop a new ecosystem where we incubate and innovate community squash programs as we bring squash to new audiences. We will create a center where a Todd Harrity can grow up with a Tempest Bowden, an Olivia Fiechter with a Oscar Merino, the Faison brothers with the Sobhy sisters—that everyone will have the same resources and the same opportunities from the first day they pick up a racquet.”
The Arlen Specter US Squash Center is currently under construction. Located in the historic Armory building, the Specter Center will dramatically accelerate US Squash’s progress towards its mission centered around access, community, excellence and sportsmanship. The Specter Center will feature eighteen singles courts—including two all-glass exhibition courts—and two doubles courts, serve as US Squash’s national headquarters, the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame, house a Learning & Innovation Center and offer elite athletes state-of-the-art development resources including a Coaching Excellence Center and coordination with Drexel University’s robust capabilities as a major Division I athletic program. The Specter Center will serve as a model for community engagement, operating in partnership with SquashSmarts, Philadelphia’s award-winning out-of-school squash and education program.
US Squash honored Alex Stait at the 2019 FS Investments U.S. Open with the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee National Coach of the Year nomination. Stait, Team USA’s junior men’s head coach, was presented the award by Adam Hamill, US Squash director of national teams.
Hamill welcomed Stait onto the ASB GlassCourt. “US Squash has the best coaches at the highest level,” Hamill said, “and Alex Stait is the epitome of that. In 2018 he led the boys team to a bronze finish at the World Juniors in Chennai, India—thus fulfilling US Squash’s mantra of ‘always on the podium.’”
Stait said that he was deeply honored to receive the award. He thanked Merion Cricket Club where he first worked when he came to the U.S., as well as Agnes Irwin School, where he is the head squash coach. He also thanked his doubles partner, Ed Garno, with whom he has won a national doubles title, and his supportive family. “It is amazing to be a part of an incredible team at US Squash,” Stait said, “and I am excited about the Specter Center opening next year.”
Since 1998, the USOC National Coach of the Year has honored the best coaches at the highest levels of the game. Last year’s honoree was Mike Way, the head coach at Harvard.
Raneem El Welily (l) and Nour El Tayeb in Wednesday's quarterfinal action
Raneem El Welily (l) and Nour El Tayeb in Wednesday’s quarterfinal action
The sixth annual Women in Sports Day at the FS Investments U.S. Open was appropriately observed with dominant displays from two of the world’s top professionals—Egypt’s Raneem El Welily and Nour El Tayeb—who both advanced to the semifinals in three games Wednesday night at Drexel University’s Daskalakis Athletic Center in Philadelphia.
El Welily was the first player to book her place in the women’s semifinal against England’s world No. 7 Sarah-Jane Perry. Perry fought off multiple game ball in the second game, but El Welily pulled through 14-12 and continued her momentum in the third to take the match in three games 11-6, 14-12, 11-8 in thirty-four minutes.
The match marked El Welily’s 350th career victory on the PSA Tour, but the world No. 1 and defending champion couldn’t get ahead of herself knowing that a dangerous opponent would meet her in the semifinals in either El Tayeb or prodigal Rowan Elaraby.
“I’m so far away from defending my title,” El Welily said. “It used to be very hard for me mentally to play the same person again and again, but since the years have passed, I think I have got used to it. We play one week after the other, and it’s very common that we play the same person back-to-back. It’s just another match, I don’t think of it as a repeat of something that has happened before, it is just a new match and a new opportunity.”
El Tayeb followed on court against Elaraby—the 2017 and 2018 world junior champion. El Tayeb, who won the World Juniors in Boson in 2011, swiftly dispatched her compatriot 11-6, 11-2, 11-7 in twenty-six minutes.
“I’m feeling great on the court and I’m very pleased with how I’m playing,” El Tayeb said. “I can’t wait to get back on here for the semis and hopefully reach another final. I’m happy that I’m reaching the stage where I’m playing Raneem. It’s been a great season so far, she is the best in the world for a reason, but I can’t wait to get on there and play a good match.”
Two years ago, El Tayeb claimed her first career PSA Platinum title in a classic five-game U.S. Open final over El Welily. The two Egyptians have already faced each other twice this season, splitting the two encounters with El Tayeb winning in the final of the China Open and El Welily claiming the Oracle NetSuite Open final.
Diego Elias (l) celebrates clinching match ball
Just one men’s quarterfinal concluded the night following Miguel Angel Rodriguez’s withdrawal from the previously scheduled match that sent Ali Farag through to the semis. An enthralling five-game encounter between Peru’s world No. 7 Diego Elias and Egypt’s world No. 4 Karim Abdel Gawad closed out the night. The match’s momentum swung back and forth with each game until Elias pulled away in the fifth 4-11, 12-10, 11-7, 5-11, 11-7 after eighty minutes.
The result is a momentous one for the twenty-two-year-old who becomes the first South American player ever to reach a U.S. Open semifinal—Elias’ second career semifinal appearance in any PSA Platinum event.
“I’m just so happy with my performance today,” Elias said. “I think I like this place—it was my first quarterfinal here and now my first semifinal here. I’m just really happy to have my dad here and Jonathon Power, he has been helping me for so long and I’m really happy that this is happening. I’m feeling really confident, now I have to recover. I always have good matches with Ali, so I want to be at 100 percent to play well and have another great match with him.”
The second half of the quarterfinals play out Thursday, October 10, starting from 5:30pm local time.
Monique Lamoureux-Morando, Kim Clearkin, and Jocelyn Lamoureux-Davidson after being awarded their Women in Sports Day Special Recognition Awards.
The sixth-annual Women in Sports Day at the 2019 FS Investments U.S. Open, presented by Comcast NBCUniversal, was highlighted with a special court-side reception before the evening’s matches. Co-chaired by Ashley Bernhard and Katherine Joyce, Women in Sports Day honors the achievements of women squash leaders and promotes equality and opportunity.
Kevin Klipstein, the president and CEO of US Squash, welcomed the many guests to the reception. He noted that the Women’s Squash Committee had taken Women’s Squash Week and turned it into a global phenomenon, with more than a hundred cities around the world. Since 2013, the U.S. Open has been a world leader in prize money parity and promotion of the women’s game. Women in Sports Day highlights the efforts to advance the lives of women and girls through squash and sport, and celebrate the on and off-court achievements of women leaders.
Klipstein introduced Karen Dougherty Buchholz, the senior vice president of administration for Comcast. Buchholz led the development of Comcast’s Tech Center, the tallest building in the U.S., not in Chicago or New York. Buchholz is also a squash mother, as her daughter Julia plays for the Penn team. “We intentionally named this Women in Sports Day,” Buchholz said, “not Women in Squash Day. We are focused on empowering women in sports and in life.”
Buchholz screened a powerful three-minute video called Letters of Change, based on the experience of Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux, the twin sisters who lead Team USA to a gold medal victory in ice hockey in the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. “Sometimes the real win,” the film concluded, “has nothing to do with a gold medal.”
Kim Clearkin, the vice president of programs and events at US Squash, then introduced the Lamoureuxs. She talked about the pressing need for role models. “You have to see it to be it,” Clearkin said, quoting the famous Billie Jean King line. She then presented the 2019 Women in Sports Day Special Recognition Award to Jocelyne Lamoureux and Monique Lamoureux.
Jocelyne spoke about their mother’s mantra: “cheer for the one behind.” She uses that advice to work for a more inclusive environment for all people. Monique said that “when we speak about gender equity, we need more than just women in the room. We need the men there too. We need all of us.”
Previous honorees at Women in Sports Day at the U.S. Open include Kasey Brown, the former world No. 5 and pro tour president; Anne Farrell, the longest-serving US Squash employee in history; Alicia McConnell, the former world No. 14 and U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee leader; Maria Toorpakai, the Pakistani squash player and women’s rights advocate; and last year’s honoree, Jenny Duncalf, the former world No. 2 and gay rights pioneer.
Klipstein then introduced Lara Rhame, the chief U.S. economist for FS Investments. Rhame spoke about FS Investments’ synergy with US Squash, as both seek to develop access, community and equality.
Sakora Miller, US Squash’s events manager, then awarded the 2019 Achievement Bowl to Molly Pierce. A number of Pierce’s family were present, including two of her national champion siblings, Connie and Michael.
Pierce, a longtime leader and many-time national champion, has been a weekly mentor, board member and key philanthropic supporter of SquashSmarts, the Philadelphia urban squash program. “This is where I belong,” she said, talking about her first encounter with SquashSmarts back in 2001. “This is my passion and I love it. Bruce Springsteen says you can’t start a fire without a spark. I will continue to try to be that spark.”
The Achievement Bowl is US Squash’s oldest award. Every year since 1955 it has been given out to women who have made notable and profound contributions to the advancement of squash. Last year’s recipient was Gail Ramsay.
Molly Pierce with her family and Sakora Miller after receiving the Achievement Bowl.
2019 Women's in Sports Day panel from left to right; Dr. Ellen J. Staurowsky, Wendy Bartlett, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, Monique Lamoureux-Morando, and Madeline Perry.
2019 Women’s in Sports Day panel from left to right; Dr. Ellen J. Staurowsky, Wendy Bartlett, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, Monique Lamoureux-Morando, and Madeline Perry.
The sixth-annual Women in Sports Day, presented by Comcast NBCUniversal, took place today during the 2019 FS Investments U.S. Open at Drexel.
The day began with a special mid-afternoon panel discussion at the Daskalakis Athletic Center. Laurelle Holley, US Squash’s marketing and events manager, welcomed a large crowd to the DAC’s media room. In the crowd were Drexel students, college coaches, urban program staff, teaching pros, national champions, and U.S. Squash Hall of Famers. Ellen Staurowsky, a professor in Drexel’s department of sports management, moderated the panel. Staurowsky is an expert on social justice issues in sport.
Panelists included Trinity’s Wendy Bartlett, now entering her thirty-sixth season as head squash coach of the women’s team; Baldwin School’s director of squash and former world No. 3 Madeline Perry; and Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux, champion ice hockey players. The panel discussion centered around the theme “Gender Equity & Women’s Sport: Shifting the Landscape and Participation.”
Two years ago, the Women in Sports Day panel discussed the mental side of squash; last year, it was about how to build and maintain a strong physical body. This year the discussion was titled: “Gender Equity & Women’s Sport: Shifting the Landscape and Participation.”
The Lamoureux twins spoke about their journey from skating on a pond across the street from their house in North Dakota to winning silver medals with Team USA in the 2010 and 2014 Olympics and gold in last year’s Olympics. They spoke about their work with the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation in Philadelphia and their roles in guiding USA Hockey towards greater gender equity. Perry talked about growing up in Northern Ireland and how she had been told, “girls don’t play squash,” the day before she decided to try the sport. Bartlett spoke about the paucity of women coaching in collegiate squash and the need for succession planning and networking so that more women have the opportunity to coach.
The hour-long discussion ended with a robust question-and-answer session.
In addition to the panel, Women in Sports Day also included a practice with the girls of SquashSmarts. They practiced on the courts at the Kline & Specter Squash Center at Drexel. Two PSA players—Tesni Evans and Nele Gilis—joined thirty SquashSmarts girls, giving them a first-hand look at life on the professional tour.
Founded in 2001, SquashSmarts has just begun its nineteenth season. A 501(c)3 non-profit, SquashSmarts is an award-winning, free, intensive, out-of-school academic and athletic mentoring program changing the lives of Philadelphia’s public school students. Students are recruited in middle school from Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary, Neuva Esperanza Academy Charter, Science Leadership Academy, Carver School for Engineering & Science and Overbrook Educational Center. Operating out of two facilities—the Lenfest Center in North Philadelphia and Drexel’s Daskalakis Athletic Center—the program has students attend practices three days a week for seven years. SquashSmarts is the central community partner of the twenty-court Arlen Specter US Squash Center opening next year on Drexel’s campus.
