Wednesday was one of our more relaxed mornings at the World Squash Junior Championships with the start times slightly later, writes Ireland junior performance coach David Noone.
12:30pm for the first match was nice. Everyone got a much-needed longer sleep and the bodies got a chance to recover a little more.
The girls were up first in their 9/16 match against Macau China, with a playing order of 2, 1, 3, meaning Ella Walsh, Ella Erickson and Zoe Yeomans were in action.
Ella W controlled her nerves very well. There were some very difficult points and she was much more composed than her opponent, playing the more mature squash and getting us over the line for a 1-0 start. Things were looking good.
Ella E then sealed the victory for Ireland when her opponent retired in game three of their match. Ella, who had been gaining great momentum, looked like she would have run away with it before an ankle injury forced the retirement of the Macau player.
Zoe finished off the impressive victory with relative ease, and a delighted Irish contingent have now moved into the 9/12 bracket and will play South Africa on Thursday for the chance of a top 10 in the world finish. Exciting times.
The lads, with a team line-up of Christian Dromgoole, Danny Lynch and Aaron Knox, had the ominous task of taking on the Kiwis in their 12-22 match. Christian got proceedings underway and got to work quite quickly.
Building himself a 2-0 lead, things were looking good. But the match tightened in the third, tension got into his swing and the slightly looser squash freed up the centre for the tall New Zealander to attack.
The contest wasn’t without dramatic rallies, dives and some big refereeing decisions and after it levelled up at 2-2, the fifth game didn’t go as planned and Christian unfortunately couldn’t find a way through.
Danny was on next for a rematch of his round one opponent from the individuals, Ollie Dunbar, who is a serious player and ranked in the top 10 world juniors. Dunbar was on fire, but so was Danny and an enthralling battle produced some incredible squash.
It was corner-to-corner stuff and some of the best squash I have ever seen Danny play, but it still wasn’t enough. Danny did have three game balls in the third, but it wasn’t to be.
Aaron won the dead runner best of three, 2-1. He has been in superb form and if Christian or Danny had gotten a W, Aaron would have cleaned up for us. Thursday heralds another tough battle… Switzerland.
The matches keep coming thick and fast and thank goodness for Breanne Flynn, keeping the bodies in working order with multiple daily physio sessions. Two days to go here in Cairo. Plenty more squash to be played.
