The GOAT of squash—as reckoned by many observers—might be Ramy Ashour, who just announced his retirement from the pro tour. In a remarkable interview with Outside The Glass, Ashour talks about what injuries have taught him, his best win and worst loss, his ideas about scoring and how he ate his first squash trophy.
The greatest Frenchwoman in squash history, Camille Serme joins OTG to talk about coming back from tough defeats, devising game plans and assessing theories on whether marriage is good or bad for your squash.
Last month Nicol David, the greatest female squash player in history, announced that she was going to retire from the pro tour later this spring. Here she talks with Outside The Glass about what she loves about the game, the Olympics and having dinner with Roger Federer.
Exactly twenty-five years ago, in February 1994, the men of Yale and Harvard played each other in a famously close match. The score went to 4-4. The final match, between Jamie Dean and Tal Ben-Shahar, ended 18-17 in the fifth. OTG talks with Dean and Ben-Shahar about what happened that historic day and how it changed their lives.
In two years’ time, US Squash will open the Specter Center, a world-class, twenty-court, 65,000 square-foot facility in Philadelphia. Kevin Klipstein, Ned Edwards, Steve Gregg and Rich Wade explain what it will look like.
One of the most recognizable people in the game, Ronny Vlassaks has just arrived in the U.S. to coach at Squash on Fire in Washington. He tells OTG what it is like pick up squash for the first time in his mid-twenties after a career as a world-class pro cyclist.
In 1978 Sue Newman King captured the British Open, becoming the first woman not named Heather McKay to win the title since 1961. Forty years later she talks that tournament, her unusual start in squash and the founding of the women’s pro tour.
Daryl Selby, world No. 16, hilariously contemplates his obsession with another game with a tiny ball: golf.
An injury on the ice brought a Canadian junior hockey player into the squash court, and the game of doubles was never the same. Jamie Bentley, three-time World Doubles champion, speaks about the game of cutthroat, the thrill of doubles and the day, up match ball, he lost seventeen points in a row.
Last season, the PSA Tour was set ablaze by Nicol David making videos of her dancing with fellow pros. Here is the inside story. And Mark Talbott talks about Tom Cruise and dancing at Grateful Dead shows.
Imagine flying in very late for your first match at the World Open and your luggage doesn’t make it with you. That is what Sarah Fitz-Gerald, the Australian great, faced in her final World Open, in Qatar in 2002. What happened next is the stuff of legend.
A salty seventy-two year-old southpaw from borderlands of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Bryan Patterson has been a top junior, amateur and professional player and a camp director and coach. For the past quarter century, he’s been mentoring kids in the U.S., first in Brooklyn and then Philadelphia and for the past eleven years at CitySquash in the Bronx.
What do we love to do when we aren’t playing squash? OTG talks with James Willstrop about theatre and Chris Gordon about ice hockey. Both PSA pros have had good runs recently: Willstrop just captured the gold medal in the Commonwealth Games and Gordon won the British Virgin Islands Open in February. But off-court: emotions, story-telling, stitches in the face, Mr. June and the Scottish play—it’s all here.
One of the most successful coaches ever, David Pearson has worked with some of the top players in the world, including a few competing this month in the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia. A childhood in Zambia, school in Zimbabwe and a job in the complaints department of a shoe company—all that came before he came to squash as an adult.
One of the greatest players in squash history, Geoff Hunt won eight British Opens and the first four men’s World Championships. A little-known part of his career was the Australian's sojourns in North America, first as a teenager and later as a pro. Hunt has stories about Original Six ice hockey, Victor Niederhoffer, the Mennen Cup, Sharif Khan, the Philadelphia Boast and the shortest men’s World Championship final in history.
Steve Line is The Man in Black. The first and only full-time professional squash photographer, the Englishman has been sitting behind the front wall, camera in hand, for almost thirty-six years. He now takes 48,000 photos at each event. But it wasn’t always that way: Line tells of turning from geology to photography, his wedding photo mishaps and how he developed film in a coal bunker.
Mike Lewis is the Walter Mitty of squash—except his day dreams became a reality. In his mid-twenties, he quit his job to become a touring squash pro. In the next eighteen months, he played in forty-seven countries, reaching world No.112. Here are tales from his life on the road, including the art of sleeping at squash clubs and discovering squash fans in places like Andorra, Morocco, New Caledonia and Paraguay.
Outside The Glass got a special, behind-the-scenes look at Aspire Academy in Doha, Qatar. Geoff Hunt, Stewart Boswell and Jonathon Kemp took us on a tour of the world’s only squash boarding school. We learned about kabaddi, saw fencing and table tennis practice and spent time at the squash facility from where future world champions will probably emerge.
What is it like to be a Dreamer, to be brought to the U.S. as a young child and grow up without documents? Reyna Pacheco is a Mexican-American who graduated from Columbia last year and is now a professional squash player. She is ranked world No.72. Pacheco tells her inspiring story to OTG. “Dream big, work bigger—work as big as you dream."
Jazz trumpeter, data cruncher, media guru, Howard Harding is the man behind the story. He has researched, written and issued over 8,600 squash press releases in the past thirty years. He’s also the founder and director of SquashInfo.com, the Bible of squash. And he’s hung out with Lou Reed.
One of the giants of North American squash, Clive Caldwell has been a top pro player, director of the pro hardball tour and owner of major squash clubs in Canada. OTG sits down with him to talk about the original oversized racquet, the infamous Bunny Suit, the creation of the WPSA logo and how squash can evolve: "Every change is a nightmare,” he says. "Nobody wants change. If you don’t change, you die.”
It is a lodestar for your life: the very first time you stepped on a squash court. Sometimes it was a magical moment; other times an ordinary moment, just something you did. Looking back, though, it is when your life changed. Guests include Ted Price, Demer Holleran, Larry Sconzo, Jack Bickel, Rich Wade, Bart McGuire, Matt McAndrew, Kat Grant, Leo Pierce, Nick & Tom Post, Sam Howe, Jim Dawson, Jeff Stanley, Alvin Wolff and Molly Pierce.
In the fourth of our series on best wins and worst losses, OTG jumps into possibly the most excruciating and exciting arena: team matches. We hear about the greatest Team USA squad that no one knows about—the gold-medal winning American girls at the 1980 Women’s World Juniors—and other tales of redemption and recidivism. Guests include Freddy Hernandez, Kat Grant, Rich Wade, Ted Price and Adam Hamill.
In our third episode in our series that looks at best wins and worst losses, OTG dwells on something squash players vividly remember: match points. Miraculous comebacks, stunning collapses, whether in a national championship, a club tournament or a C league match, these are moments they've never forgotten. And neither will you. Guests include Andres Vargas, Bart McGuire, Preston Quick, Jim Dawson, Matthew McAndrew and Larry Sconzo.
Squash is a family game: we compete with our parents, our children, our siblings, our cousins. As we continue our series about memories of your best win, your worst loss, OTG presents a half dozen stories about the poignant joys, irritations and sorrows of playing in a squash family. Guests include Leo Pierce, Molly Pierce, Sam Howe, Nick Post, Tom Post and Demer Holleran.
Earlier this month, Amanda Sobhy, the world No.6 player, suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in the semifinals of a tournament in Colombia; she was at match point against fellow American Olivia Blatchford. Sobhy talks with Outside The Glass about the lead-up to the injury, her harrowing journey to the hospital that night and her plan for the long road back.
It is March, so it is time again for the Cheltenham Festival, the annual horse jumping meeting in England. Malcolm Willstrop, a former horse racing journalist, takes Outside The Glass into a betting shop in Pontefract to put a wager down before spinning a few tales from his early days in squash. The dean of international squash coaches, Willstrop has been mentoring players for a half century, including Gawain Briars, Lee Beachill and his son, world No.9 James Willstrop.
OTG is starting a new series of interviews about memories of your best win, your worst loss and the first time you played squash. Olivia Blatchford, a longtime Team USA member and currently world No.27, inaugurates the series with an insightful look back at victories in Mexico and Ireland, defeats in New York and the perfect roll corner. How do you incorporate the “I don’t lose, I learn” mentality? What is your theory about how to play match points? What do you do when your five-year-old says, “...
Nour El Tayeb and Ali Farag are newlyweds, having gotten married last summer. They are also two of the most exciting and exceptional young players on tour. They talk with Outside the Glass about honeymooning in Vegas, cattle farming, how they coach each other between games, the brilliance of Harvard coach Mike Way, playing in front of the Great Pyramids and what El Tayeb’s grandmother always says to Farag.
The elder stateswoman of collegiate squash, Wendy Bartlett is in the midst of her thirty-third season as head coach of the Trinity College women’s squash team. Outside the Glass sat down with her to talk about everything from squash in Pittsburgh in the 1970s to nail biting 5-4 matches to the precipitous decline in the number of female coaches today.
