Since 2008 the NASH Cup has focused on the experience of all those involved in the event, and the impact it can have on the sport we all love. The past week has been incredible. The final’s night was electric with full stands and dozens more enjoying the standing room. We are happy to share match write ups from Stingray and Robbie D as well as notes from the trophy presentation below.

The Experience

• The tournament started with 48 professionals. 21 in the NASH Cup for the first time.
• Extra events such as the Lighting Matches; Pro-Am Doubles; and Challenge Match brought members and professionals together in friendly competition.
• Full crowds every night enjoyed some of the best squash ever seen at London Squash. Many matches could have turned out very differently had the ball bounced just a little differently.
• Whoever booked the weather got it right again. After 14 years of hosting there has been one year that was too hot, and one that was too cold, but the vast majority have somehow been perfect. 
• The London Squash bar nearly ran out of beer with over 20 kegs consumed. This is a lot. Thank you to all who were responsible and either didn’t bring a vehicle or chose to leave their car at the club each night.

The Impact

• Over $10,000 has been raised to support squash programming at junior and university levels.
• Exhibition matches were help successfully at clubs in Chatham and Sarnia. We hope it starts the season properly at Maple City Squash and the Sarnia Riding Club. The pro’s loved the experience.
• The NASH Cup was launched to help support the western squash program. On finals day, the life of long-time coach Jack Fairs was recognized and celebrated. It was wonderful to have so many past and current mustang players to finals night.
• The 2022-23 Squash season in London has officially begun

Let’s get onto the matches….

Saturday’s Matches

5:30pm         Annual Challenge Match

Featuring Daniel Mekbib; Torrie Malik; Lucy Beecroft; Ally Thomson; Diana Garcia; Calvin Ho; Scott Mikalachki & Brad Hanebury (aka Stingray)

6:30pm         Zeina Zein (EGY; 89) bt Georgia Adderley (SCO; 59) –

3-1 – 11-4, 9-11, 11-9, 11-6 (47m)

8:00pm               Nathan Lake (ENG; 38) bt Curtis Malik (ENG; 75) –
3-1 – 11-6, 10-12, 11-2, 11-7 (51m)

6:30pm         Zeina Zein (EGY; 89) vs Georgia Adderley (SCO; 59)

Match reporter Stingray Hanebury back for his final report of the 2022 Nash Cup. 

A big match with a big crowd looking forward to some high caliber squash.Many member of the club have picked Zeina as the favourite to win tonight, citing her speed, power, and accuracy. However, one of our club’s Scottish members – I won’t mention Gary by name as he asked me not to – let us know that a Scot doesn’t go down easy, and we should expect Adderley to do whatever it takes to win this match. 

Zeina runs up with an early lead and goes up 6-2. Adderley finds her form and wins a good rally to bring it to 3-6, but the next two points Zeina steps up the pace and speed to take an 8-3 lead. She continues the onslaught to go up 10-3 game ball. Zeina takes the first game 11-4. 

This break is brought to you by Ron Henry’s shoes. We don’t understand them. He keeps buying them. They don’t make him any faster on court.  

Second game starts with Zeina going up 3-0. Adderley steps it up and responds by winning the next two points. However, then she gets a ‘no let’, giving one back the next point. 

Adderley looks much steadier this game. She’s found her length and is moving Zeina around the court. 

This reporter should also note that Zeina is playing with tape on her hamstrings. We’ve heard that she saw our resident RMT and disc golf enthusiast Jessica Beintema, but Jessica refuses to divulge any information. This reporter is on the case. 

Regardless, Adderley continues to stay strong and the points are back and forth up to 9-7. The crowd is getting excited at the prospect of a tight match. 

Adderley gets her first game ball after a mega rally. 10-8. Zeina responds with a quick boast and then decides to serve from the left box. Love the mind games. Adderley doesn’t see

m to notice and wins the point to tie up the games 1-1. 

In between games this reporter grilled Jessica about the tape, but she wouldn’t crack. 

Down 2-1 in the game, Adderley hits a reverse boast from the back right of the court. Local legend and part time T-Rex, Chris Lee, suggested that was the shot of the tournament. 

Zeina begins to pull away in this game and Adderley hits herself in the head twice to wake herself up. Adderley goes down 6-3 and is able to put in a big effort to tie it up 6-6.  Zeina gets a lead back to 8-6 but then Adderley hits a gold length that Zeina misses, which she felt she should have retrieved (she probably should have). 

Adderley receives a no let call to give Zeina a 10-8 lead.  Adderley responds with a forehand straight kill. She’s fired up, but still needs to focus. She wins the next point but then hits a poor tin to lose the game. Zeina looks a bit relieved to have gotten away with a freebie. 

Zeina comes out in the next game with a small lead. Adderley tries to move up her t position and picks up the pace. She closes the gap to two points and Zeina starts to look a little uneasy with the momentum. 

Zeina recoups and decided she can move even higher up on the t. Adderley tries to respond in kind, but Zeina hits several fantastic winners to take the first match a ball and eventually the match.

8pm               Nathan Lake (ENG; 38) vs Curtis Malik (ENG; 75)

Alright final match of the night with the Men’s final having two English guys battling it off for the cup. Nathan the top seed and unseeded Curtis Malik battling their way through to the final. The vibe at the club is incredible  after the Women played and everyone is several beers deep. All are now arm chair pro’s. Both players come out hitting length and moving each other around to all corners of the court, it isn’t until 4-4 we have an unforced error by Malik. Nathan is creating some subtle pressure going short waiting for a loose return from Malik to capitalize on a hold and perfect length. Nathan’s strategy and execution is holding up as he takes the first game 11- 6.

The start of the second both players are attacking anything loose and creating some incredible pressure. The game is dead even as both players aren’t making any unforced errors and it is suddenly 7-7. The crowd is really getting into the match. Both players are trading winners and attacking the ball. The match goes extra points with an insane rally and Malik seems to be on the receiving end of an onslaught of Lake’s attacking. Malik counters with incredible precision and takes the game 12-10.

Into the third and the crowd as no allegiance they just want great squash and time for more beer.  Although the third starts off even it isn’t long before Nathan just runs away with game? What is going here? Nathan just walked through that match completely uncontested to take it 11-2.

Alright fourth game, can Malik regroup and force a fifth? The crowd here wants and needs this as a bunch of pitchers were bought expecting a marathon. As the game goes on not sure if Malik had a strategy and why he let the fourth game go so uncontested, but he is fighting allot harder and we are back to 5-5 battle. Nathan pressing and playing error free just proves too much for Malik. Nathan takes his first Nash Cup title 3-1.

Understanding world rankings and the prize money

The goal of every professional is to win the title. That goes without saying.

But every player who participated this past week has earned some money and PSA ranking points. With the exception of two wildcard placements in each draw, entry into any PSA events is based on a players’ world ranking, and that rank is achieved by gaining points at each tournament a player enters.

An approach similar to this is used by many professional sports. It does have a few faults. Players can find achieving initial points difficult especially if they don’t have smaller events in their region. Any player who loses in the opening round of the NASH Cup gets 31.5 points. To achieve an “average” this figure is divided by 10…..so if a player was entering the PSA and giving a wildcard to the NASH Cup for their first event they would go from zero points to 3.15. This would immediately move a male athlete from 823^rd in the world to 568^th. On more entry to Challenger 20 event and they would be top 450….it’s a lot easier to get into future events ranked 450 than 823, and more points means higher rank. The NASH Cup can give local athletes a hug boost if they want to compete globally.

For those who golf, one could look at how a player finished in a tournament in a similar way to a handicap. The round (or tournament result) may be better or worse than the players “normal” which is defined by their handicap. If the result is better than the handicap (rank) may improve, if the result is worse, it may go the other way.

Each finalist leaves NASH Cup with $2,109 USD and 230 points. A player averaging 230 points would currently be rank top 35 in the world. The champions will received $3,339 USD and 350 points This points average is top 20 territory.

It should be noted that players with a current average better than 350 points were not blocked from entering the NASH Cup….but if they came and won it would not improve their ranking and could risk pushing out a better score from their (leaving them worse off). The purse directly influences the level of player that attends.

For reference the top ranked past NASH Cup players are Mostafa Asal (EGY; #3 averaging 1,462) and Olivia Fiechter (USA; #11; averaging 568). We see some great players at London Squash on their way to being among the world’s best. The odds are that some of this years participants will one day funds themselves near the top of the ranks.

Big Thank you to:

• Our referees –  Steve Flude (who has been to almost every NASH Cup); David Fishburn; Dave Howard; and Bob Mansbridge. They did a wonderful job.
• The London Squash staff = Jeff Tudhope was extremely involved as the club’s general manager; Chris Hanebury our club professional; and Laurie Ingram with all of our stewards – Jack Hancock; Markus Schoettle; Misda Senduir; Thomas Minnie; Ian Babenko; Doug Kosciukiewicz; & Hamish Fallowfield.
• Our sponsors – The funds provided by our sponsors are the reason we can offer the purse that we do. Many support the event out of a love for squash and it really means a lot. Among the long list of supporters are those who provide their skills and knowledge for free which allows this humble event to broadcast around the world.
• Our billets – The London Squash community steps up each year. It’s been three years since the last “normal” (aka pre-covid) NASH Cup and there was some concern that we would not be able to find homes for all the players. Thank you to all who stepped up. The players really appreciate it and many new friendships have been formed.
• The committee volunteers – You worked tirelessly all week to make sure everything ran smoothly, and it made this an unbelievable event. From crowd control to medical held; from match write-ups to airport drop offs; from online programming to player packages and the new live match streaming/commentary. There a huge number of “moving pieces” during the NASH Cup and it wouldn’t be possible without you.

The trophy presentations took place on the London Squash doubles court and included a Q&A with the professionals. This was an interactive experience with the ability to both ask and receive questions. Georgia Adderley; Nathan Lake; Curtis Malik and Zeina Zein were a treat to watch on court. All clearly love their sport and have a great respect for those they compete with.

• Nathan Lake first attended the NASH Cup as a junior. He was brought in at the last minute as a reserve player in 2010 and lost to that year’s champion Jan Koukal. He’s been back a number of times, but this was the first time as top seed. It’s great that his name will now be added to the growing list of NASH Cup Champions.
• Zeina Zein was playing in only her 10^th PSA event. She started as the 13^th best ranked player (unseeded) and overcame some very skilled and experienced opponents to claim her second (and largest) PSA title. Zeina is only 17 and her squash future is bright.

The NASH Cup will return in 2023. The dates will be confirmed in the weeks ahead.

Have a great season!

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