Welcome to the December edition of this brief supplementary monthly newsletter, exclusively for our women squash and racketball members.

As we did in the main club newsletter last week, we’ll use this last edition of 2021 to reflect on the year and to cast our eye forward to 2022.

Looking back

Overall, 2021 saw greater visibility of our women’s involvement in squash and racketball, through a combination of higher participation numbers in the box leagues (now up to 9), an active Wednesday evening training group, the relaunch of our ladies squash team (as well as a couple of players featuring in the “men’s” teams), and a voice on the club’s Social Committee.

We need to keep nudging forward on all these fronts in 2022, but we established a base camp in 2021 - a solid platform from which we can hopefully keep growing, slowly but surely.

It was fabulous to see Grace making headway on the professional tour, culminating in being named as the PSA Challenger Player of the Month for November and coming through unseeded to win a prestigious 10k event at the start of this month.  A new highest world ranking awaits in the next listings on 1st January.

Joining Grace in Adam’s pro training hub in 2022 will be one of England’s top U19 players, Katie Malliff.  Katie’s coach is based in Warwickshire, but Katie lives in Wendover, so she will be training more in Berkhamsted rather than regularly commuting to the Midlands.  It will be a return to our club for Katie, who was an active player in our box leagues up until a couple of years ago.

Looking forwards

It would be great to get the box league participation into double figures.  Go on, if you’re not already in the boxes, put your name forward for the start of the next round:  Monday 17th January for squash (Rob Harbron squashleague@bltsrc.co.uk) and Monday 31st January for racketball (Andrew Bryson racketballleague@bltsrc.co.uk).

The boxes are a good way to ensure you play regularly - even without other games, they provide roughly 1 playing opportunity a week every month (provided you organise your games!).  Otherwise it can be all too easy to let things drift, particularly after a break such as Christmas and New Year - being in the boxes prods us all into action. Right there is your 1st New Years Resolution:  join the boxes; or, if you’re already in them, organise and play all your games every round!

We’ll keep the Wednesday evening sessions going, even when Grace is away competing.  It’s important to maintain the regularity:  if it’s Wednesday, it’s training at the club!

The ladies team returns to action on Monday 10th January, down the road against Tring.  Good luck!  If you’ve had a break from squash over the past 10 days, it’s time to get some warm-up games in the diary before then.

A good opportunity might be the Fun Evening on Friday 7th January.  It’s a graded round-robin event where you play 1 game up to 15 against 6 or 7 other players around the same level as you.  With some food and drink to follow,  If you’re interested, contact Richard Carr (richardj.carr@hotmail.co.uk) and cc Gill (philtrimmer@btinternet.com).

With Lily captaining the ladies team, and Corina on the Social Committee, now would be a good time to increase the representation on the Squash & Squash57 Committee (current membership in the email sign-off).  If you’re interested, contact John (john.gs@btinternet.com).

Grace kicks off her 2022 campaign on 26th January in the US with the Boston Open.

Before then, Natalie is playing in the British Junior Championships U17s in Birmingham, starting on 6th January. Good luck Nat!

All of the above is subject to restrictions permitting.  Fingers crossed.

Thank you for helping us press the refresh button on women’s squash and racketball at our club in 2021 - let’s keep up the momentum in 2022!

All the best for your squash and racketball in 2022!

Squash & Squash57 Committee

(John Shaw, Mark Shattock, Adam Fuller, Gill Trimmer, Rob Harbron)