Squash Blog - 21st Men's World Team Championship 2007

We are now well into the competition and somewhat over the 10 ½ hr jet lag – meaning that we now sleep through the whole night but still hit the hay at about 9pm and wake up at the normally unearthly hour of 5am!

This is co-incidentally good though because all our matches have been noon or early afternoon and so the team has been wide awake for the games.

From my perspective as the coach I am interested in getting the team to function as one unit and perform their individual best while supporting the rest of the players when not playing themselves.

With the mix of youth and experience it’s been a simple process because each end of the spectrum seems to be feeding off the other.

We have Chris Gordon and Julian Illingworth as the younger two and Richard Chin and Jamie Crombie (now 41 yrs old) as the, let us call it, more ‘experienced’ pair.
Chris and Julian have the natural ability of conveying their enthusiasm and eagerness to perform while Jamie and Richard have a more settled calmness about them which suggests they are less likely to get rattled. These two viewpoints have fed each other so that what we have are the 2 youngsters as keen as you like, wanting to produce high quality, controlled and clinical performances to show themselves and the rest of us that they ARE mature and ARE reliable and WILL give 100%. While the flip side is that we have the more experienced guys playing to show how it should be done… They are willing to give it everything for the team, to set that example and not let themselves or the impressionable youngsters down.

So we are getting some great performances from the boys here and they are only likely to get better as the event goes on and their drive to support each other grows - the bonds from combat cementing everything.

It’s also been fun to get involved in the Indian way of life in Chennai. To see the streets and smell the daily routine of a city with so many people who have so few possessions really makes me feel lucky to be where I am.

Yesterday Robby and I played some of the Indian junior kids in the morning and it was great to get on court with these kids who are fighting for their life through every point they play and every length they sprint. It’s a delight and honor to be here and be able to sense that life and passion and desperation to succeed within these kids. I have no idea of their backgrounds but it is clear they all have this dream of reaching out of their humble beginnings to the world stage. So it’s fitting that they train here at the courts in Chennai just before the best players in the world lock their rackets in battle breathing the very same air that these kids do every day.

Chris Gordon Blog

Hello from Chennai,
Everything is going well here. We qualified for the last 16 by finishing second in our pool. We took convincing wins against Venezuela and Japan and lost to a strong French squad. Everything has been pretty good, the hotel we’re staying at is first class. We’ve all been enjoying the plentiful buffet feeding frenzies. I haven’t actually spent much time outside the hotel or the venue, dividing my time between the venue and my room (in which I keep the curtains drawn and use sparten lighting in order to really maximize the cave effect!).

Most likely we will play South Africa tomorrow. This match is huge because if we can win we will guarantee our highest finish ever in the modern era. To add even more excitement to the encounter, we will be playing on the glass show court.

Right now we are at the venue watching official Team Senior Citizen, Jamie Crombie, do battle with Australia’s young gun Scott Arnold. Crombie is looking very buff and moving exceedingly well for an over 40.

We are looking forward to some more quality performances to close out the week and are also looking forward to experimenting with DVT on our 16 hour flight home.

It’s been emotional,
Chris