Local girl competing at national squash junior open

About 250 of the country’s best young squash players will be converging at White Oaks Resort and Spa next
week for the 2021 Canadian Junior Open. 

Along with the athletes will be their parents, coaches and other supporters visiting Niagara-on-the-Lake Dec. 11 to 14, promising an entire building buzzing with excitement. It’s the premiere event of the squash season for the junior age players.

“We’ve hosted this event for about 25 years,” says Matt Easingwood, White Oaks’ squash director. “We have a number of Squash Canada officials coming, 12 referees coming from all over the province, and about 20 local volunteers helping out as well.”

A brand new state-of-the-art  glass court will be installed on the White Oaks tennis courts to allow as many as 150 spectators to watch some of the action from all angles. That court will be used for matches featuring some of the top-ranked players, as well as for semi-final and final matches. 

“It’s the first time (for the glass court) since the 2014 Women’s Team Championships, which were held here,” Easingwood explains. “But this is a brand new court, just recently purchased by Squash Canada. It’s going to be dedicated to Jonathon Power in a ceremony Saturday night.”

Now retired from competition, the Comox, B.C. native will be on hand for the honour. The 47-year-old Power is known as one of the best shotmakers to ever take to the court. He was the first North American to attain the World number 1 ranking and won 36 top-level events over his career, including the 1998 World Open and the 1999 British Open.

About 10 local players will be competing next week, including 17-year-old Zoe Abraham of NOTL. This will be Zoe’s third time competing at the nationals. 

The A.N. Myer Secondary School student is looking forward to the competition. 

“I’m in a higher age category, so everyone who is in this category is definitely competitive,” Abraham tells The Local. “I think this year is going to be great, especially since we haven’t been playing for a couple of years now. Everyone who has stuck around to play the sport will be great competitors.”

The former figure skater took up the racquet sport just five years ago. After seeing the game being played while she was rehabbing a knee injury suffered on the ice, her interest was piqued, and she decided to join the junior program.

“It’s a great facility to play at, and everyone is so welcoming at White Oaks,” she says. “The squash community in general is just so welcoming. Being singled out playing squash you get to connect with all these people.”

Abraham will be graduating this spring, hoping to start her post-secondary studies in social sciences and the environment at the University of Waterloo, Toronto or McMaster University. She hopes to play Ontario University Athletics (OUA) squash once her future is decided. 

“I’m on the high school squash team,” says Abraham. “I roped some friends in so we could go to tournaments together. I definitely want to do an extra-curricular at university, and I’ve met some of the university coaches. Pre-COVID I worked with the University of Toronto’s women’s squash team, so I have a connection there.”

Easingwood says there are about 60 participants in the White Oaks junior program, ranging in skill level from beginner to advanced, and in age from four to 19. They’ve been training since August following a pandemic-induced hiatus from the courts. Some participated in last weekend’s Ontario Championships in preparation for the nationals. 

Over its 30-plus years of operation, the White Oaks junior program has turned out some of the best young players in the country. 

“Nick Sachvie is a two-time national champion. He still trains here,” Easingwood says of the St. Catharines resident, now 29 years old. Sachvie, currently ranked 120th in the world, plays on the Professional Squash Association (PSA) circuit. On Nov. 8, Sachvie knocked out the top two seeds to claim his first title since 2019 in the Gatineau PSA Challenger in Quebec.

“We’ve also had Akashan Rajagopaul, from Niagara Falls. He won the Canadian Junior Open in 2014 (at U15) and 2016 (at U17).” 

Easingwood also points to another White Oaks player from St. Catharines, Noah Crawford, who won the U15 Ontario Junior Open Championship in 2018.

Also new to the nationals this year are U23 men and women categories, to be recognized as a PSA satellite event with $500 in prize money for each division. The new age groups were created in part for those players who may have missed out on their last year of junior eligibility and for other post-junior athletes. 

Though Abraham originally thought her entry into this year’s U19 event would be her last year playing at the Canadian Junior Open, she admits that she would love to come back and play in that category in the future. 

“Since we introduced that, I will definitely have the chance to enter that. It’s my home club. I’d love to come back here and compete again.”