Squash Pros and Skyscrapers
As Clubland USA’s chief squash correspondent, it should be known that I will not pass up an opportunity to watch professional squash. Spencer Lovejoy, who played #1 on the Yale Men’s Squash team, and then let loose on the pro squash tour, invited Clubland USA to watch a National Squash League game at Open Squash in Manhattan’s Financial District.
The National Squash League reinvents professional squash, capitalising on the fast-paced nature of professional squash. Instead of the regular, single-player, best of five games to eleven format that squash follows, the National Squash League brings to the fore a radically different format: two teams of three players each go head to head with each other over the course of two twenty minute and one thirty minute periods. Teams are permitted a limited number of substitutions and powerplays. A powerplay is when the opposing team cannot win points for a brief period of time.
While squash leagues are familiar sights in Europe, and there are a few in the United States at the amateur level—my club participates in the Connecticut Squash League, and I play on their team—at the professional level in the United States, the National Squash League is a welcome addition.
Started by Lovejoy and Harvard’s Timmy Brownell, the NSL features both men’s and women’s teams competing in north and south divisions, the winners of which play the finals. Now in its second season, with an expanded roster of teams, the NSL’s Greenwich Panthers competed against the New York Knights on their home courts. Even better, Clubland’s favourite squash player, Juan Camilo Vargas, was playing on the top of the ladder for the Greenwich Panthers.
This was my first time watching a new format of squash. There’s something enchanting about watching professional squash. It is even more bewitching when your friend is on court. Seeing Vargas—or Juanca, as our squash-playing friend likes to call him—on court is like seeing a well-oiled machine crank out shot after shot with remarkable accuracy and resounding power.
Being able to see six-world class players in one evening is quite the spectacle, and the NSL delivers a high-paced game that changes the way squash players watch the sport. The Greenwich Panthers featured Juanca, Malaysia’s Sanjay Jeeva, and Brazil’s Diego Gobbi. On the other hand, the New York Knights had at their roundtable the Malaysian Eain Yow Ng, American Dillon Huang, and the stodgy Brit Simon Herbert.
While the Panthers took the lead early in the first and second period, by the time the third period came around, the path for victory seemed more like a steep climb uphill. The Knights put up a remarkable fight, strategically using their powerplays to move away from the game of attrition that was being played, and adopting a more aggressive, attacking stance. While the first period was plagued with mega-rallies ending in lets and the occasional stroke, the referee, Canadian squash player Nicole Bunyan, cracked down on the blocking and the intentional uses of lets to keep the scoreboard from racking up points.
The Knights’ magisterial powerplay in the third period was the beginning of the end for the Panthers, and while Juanca tried his darnedest, he lost crucial points in a row, resulting in a 34–27 victory for the New York Knights on their home courts.
We’ll be back to watch more NSL matches. In the meantime, unlike the rest of the Pro Squash tour, which requires you to go through positively Victorian streaming technology, you can watch the NSL on YouTube.