The following report was written by Paul Assaiante, head coach of the team representing the United States in the World University Squash Games. Update: Assaiante has also written about the final individual results, the first day of team play, and team USA’s victory in the bronze medal match.
Melbourne, Australia — Hello from “down under”!
We are here representing the US at the 7th World University Games in Melbourne. The team departed last week and braved the 23-hour journey where we were welcomed with open arms by the host country.
This is an interesting event in that we are the only country that has a collegiate league, if you will, and with schools who play against each other annually. We are also the only country that has amateurs only representing their schools under the governance of the NCAA. As a result, our competition here is a wonderful group of youngsters who are members of the PSA or WISPA who are going to university while playing pro squash. They are able to compete at their University championships and then ultimately attend these games. In the true collegial nature the players are enjoying each others’ company and competing hard.
Our team consists of Kristen Lange (Penn), Logan Greer (Yale), Alex Domenick (Cornell), Chris Hanson (Dartmouth), and Todd Harrity (Princeton).
The tournament started off with individual play and after the first day we had both women in the quarters, and Chris and Todd through to the quarters as well. Alex played a great first match but lost to a scrappy player from RSA, which put him into the plate. The students have played a match a day, which is not overly grueling.
Todd lost in the semis to a beautiful player from Germany and will be playing in the 3/4 match against a great player from Hong Kong. Chris will be playing against another player from Hong Kong for the 9/10 match, and Alex will play the Aussie #1 player for the 13/14. Kristen will compete against a Hong Kong player for 5/6, and Logan will face a player from RSA for 7/8.
Based on our singles play, the seedings for the team event appear to be:
- England
- Hong Kong
- USA
- Canada
- RSA
- Australia
- Austria
- Singapore
Stay tuned for more to come from the World University Games.
