The individual event of the World Junior Championships took place from July 28 to August 1, and was filled with both overwhelming joy and
incredible disappointment. The joy was most evident when Nick Sachvie downed 5th seed Danish Atlas Khan. In a five game marathon Nick prevailed, and in doing so, played an integral role in improving our seed from 9th to 5th in the team event. The disappointments, obviously, occurred when we lost in the main round. However, as every cloud has its silver lining, each player on Team Canada shared every loss, offering support and encouragement, and we as a team were made stronger as a result. Personally, I would like to say thank you to Nick, Arjun, and Tyler for assisting me through my loss to Mohammed El Sherbini. I am unsure whether or not I could have rebounded as quickly as I have without them. We on Team Canada have entered the team event not only confident in our personal abilities, but also in one another's abilities as well. Because of this, we have an advantage over our opponents I feel can be unparalleled.Team Event:
We have just finished Day three of the team event here at the World Junior
Championships, and so far things are looking very positive for Team Canada. Our first match was against Team Venezuela on the glass court, and we won a comfortable 3 matches to 0. It is important to note that the location of the glass court is in a shopping mall in downtown Quito. This is very cool as strangers shopping often stop to watch, and the result can be a crowd of up to 750 people all watching a squash game.
Our second match was against South Africa. We knew going in that the South African team was highly underrated, so we were sure not to underestimate them. I was up first against number one player Paulo Rodriguez. Paulo and I have developed a bit of a rivalry, as I beat him in a tight five gamer a couple of years ago, and he beat me in four at Junior World's in 2008. Fortunately, I was the victor this time and won the match 3-0. Arjun was up next and unfortunately was not up to par with his game, and lost his match 3-1. I am confident that, had Arjun been playing up to his normal standards, he would have won 3-0. So, with the matchup tied at 1-1, it was down to Nick to pull out the win for Canada. While it was imperative that he was nervous throughout the match, he won it 3-0 which put Team Canada through to the round of 16 against Mexico.
Our matchup with Team Mexico was a huge success and confidence booster for Team Canada. Arjun played first and let me say that this was an extremely stressful match
not only for the rest of the Canadian Team but me personally, because, if he lost, the weight of our success or failure would have been put on my shoulders. He was up 2-0 in games and 8-4 in the third only to have the Mexican number four come back to tie the match at 2-2. In the fifth, Arjun was down 8-4, but incredibly made a huge comeback and won the decider 11-9. This match was unbelievable. I was next up and played Miled Zarazua, the number one player in Mexico. Thankfully, I played probably the best I have so far in the event and won 3-0, confirming a spot in the quarter finals. Nick defaulted his match because of a bit of a niggle in his back. He'll be all set for tomorrow.
Today we play India in the quarter finals. A win here would be unbelievable for our team for it would guarantee a top four finish. I know we can win. Team Canada has never been stronger than it is now. We are all playing well, we are all fit, and we will all put ourselves to the limit if we have to. We Will Succeed. GO CANADA!
by Andrew Schnell
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