This past Saturday again saw players from all across the Eastern corridor descend upon Squash Tigers for our second Rehearsal Tournament of the 2024/25 season. Coach Michael’s first RT as Head Coach was the headline, but with everyone from JCT players through to competition novices there was something for everyone. The skill, sportsmanship and friendship that have become the hallmark of our Rehearsal Tournament Series was well in evidence!
For those of you new to the Squash Tigers world, as background, Rehearsal Tournaments are:
“ … in-house events conducted at SQUASHTIGERS! For the 2023-24 season (Sep 2023 thru May 2024), the Rehearsal Tournament Series comprises 9 tournament events. The Rehearsal Tournament Circuit attracts entries from top juniors. It also provides a great home for beginners to gain rehearsal before they step out into the US Squash ranking world. Players play a minimum of three and a maximum of four matches on a Saturday, commencing first thing and concluding early afternoon. The event does not count towards rating or ranking, so players may be relaxed enough to develop their games in a friendly environment, yet serious enough so that they will be ready for the wider world when they get out there!
Premier Division saw our new Head Professional, Coach Michael, dominating a select field including our Philly visitor Brandon, RT stalwart Eric and first time Premier Leaguer Adam! Some great preparation for the Virginia JCT from Eric and let’s hope there are a few withdrawals from the BU19 so that young Brandon gets a deserved place in the draw. Final podium places were Coach Michael, Brandon and Eric in what was a pretty high quality court one exchange.
Coach Huma from our soon to open Philly club was kind enough to play in D1 and make sure all the kids were stretched to the maximum. Coach won the event handily, but made sure the players learnt from the experience with his usual kind and enthusiastic manner. Julian made the final, with Dev and Jesse the remainder of the top four and all looking to have made good improvement since the start of the season. Finishing positions 5 through 8 saw some solid matches, with Sriya eventually besting Neil after Neil’s solid win over Matthew. Matthew then rebounded with a win over our Bronze Nationals Champion Alison.
Division 2 saw Evan Z. take the victory, rebounding after his qualifying loss to Alison. Evan went undefeated through pool play and was joined on the podium by Yaseen and Riya, who has demonstrated some great improvement as a reward for her diligence through Fall. The division also saw a NY guest, Noah, and the ever hard working Serena, both of who competed strongly throughout, belying their ostensible lack of tournament exposures. Well done to both!
Division 3 was a future stars bracket if there ever was one! Evan H. edged out Lily, who came away with a trophy in her first ever event! Shout outs to Azlaan, Aksh and Princeton who competed hard, learned a lot and showed a great morning of work under the tutelage of the ever patient Coach Ebonie.
Overall a day that had everything, from the professional skill and intensity of Coach Michael showing the advanced players all four corners of the court, to our Gold Tournament standard players, preparing for their next event and into our neophytes who gained both confidence and experience to make that next step. Thank you as always to Coach Claire for her masterful construction of draws and kind leadership as Tournament Director.
Our next Rehearsal Event of the 2024/2025 season will be November 30, again at our New Jersey club and you can expect to get a direct mailout reminding you to enter. As always, the events are perfect opportunities to get matches, matches and more matches to prepare for the rigors of US Squash Junior Circuit competition. There are few junior US Squash events of note on that particular weekend, so please be aware that we cap our entries at the first 50 players to register, so if you intend to compete, sooner rather than later is the best way to avoid disappointment!
For our Rehearsal Tournament crew, see y’all at the end of the month for the next installment in the odyssey… and for our regular Squash Tiger crew, see you at training for our “Attacking Angles Week”!
