The 2017-’18 squash season is coming to an end and it’s been a good few months from an Indian perspective. The top players who were part of the Commonwealth Games contingent at Gold Coast returned with two silver medals, compared to the solitary gold in 2014.
Youngsters Aditya Jagtap and Velavan Senthilkumar won their first Professional Squash Association tour titles. Ramit Tandon won a title in Abu Dhabi and continued his steep rise in the world rankings – he’s moved over 400 places in the last year to be placed No 63 in the world right now. Joshna Chinappa, fresh from her silver at Gold Coast, defeated Nicol David – former world champion and the Indian’s nemesis – for the first time in 15 attempts.
It would be fair to say Indian squash is on the upswing.
Speaking to The Field from his office at the Indian Squash Academy, national coach Cyrus Poncha feels this is just the culmination of a decade of hard work behind the scenes the federation in India. He spoke about the significance of 2018 for Indian squash, the areas that need to be worked on and whether a squash league is a viable option at a time when sports leagues are popping up in the country left, right and centre.
Excerpts from the interaction:
The last few months have been a nice little phase for Indian squash...
Absolutely. I’d say we have had a good run over the last few years. Indian squash, what it was, maybe a decade ago to what it is today, it’s a massive jump whether it is the juniors or seniors. The performances of the seniors has been especially heartwarming and we hope it continues to improve this year and years to come.
In a 2009 interview, you had specifically spoken about a set of junior players to watch out for... Ramit, Aditya, Velavan. And it looks like they are delivering now.
It was a plan that was put in place then. A lot has to do with the Indian Squash Academy and the Squash Federation of India’s efforts. This academy was the brainchild of Mr N Ramachandran to have an academy which is only for players. There’s no membership or social squash happening here – as in, if you want to play, you can’t just pay and start using our courts, which is good and bad, I will admit.
We do need academies where people can just turn up and start playing but as an elite academy our focus has been to create athletes. It was his vision that we need a dedicated centre for training elite talent. That’s perhaps why the results are here to see now.
2018 is a massive year for Indian sport and squash is no different...
For us, not being an Olympic sport, we have the two major events happening every four years – Commonwealth and Asian Games. So it’s always a massive year, every four years. But this year is extra special because the Indian Squash Academy is hosting the World Junior Championships in July and later in the year we are hosting the Asian Junior Championships as well. So it’s a crucial phase for us.
How do you gauge 2018 so far? Happy with the progress?
100%. With regards to the players you mentioned earlier – Ramit, Aditya, Velavan, Abhay – they are following what Vikram [Malhotra] did a few years ago and starting to make their mark on the professional circuit. We have Harinder [Pal Sandhu] and Saurav [Ghosal] continuing to improve. We have Ramit, Mahesh [Mangaonkar] and Vikram [Malhotra] in the top 75 now (Vikram is 78th at the time of publishing) and youngsters like Abhay [Singh] and Velavan, who is still studying, starting to do well. So there is a solid platform from where to improve on. No doubt that in Indian men’s squash we now have the numbers, there is a depth of talent.
Which brings us nicely to the next question. In women’s squash, Joshna and Dipika have been the flagbearers for a long time, both in top 20 right now. But there is a big chasm after that. Only one more player is in the top 100 currently. Does that gap worry you?
Of course, there is a gap. It’s easy to see. We are hoping that we do get more players transitioning from the junior level to the seniors. Like in the men’s, we are now seeing the women’s players also get scholarships to the US and move their for their studies, so we are losing out on talent like that. Vikram and Ramit did the same but they have now come back to be a part of the circuit, our hope is that their returns inspire more to do the same.
For instance, there was Anaka Alankamony, who won a silver at the last Asian Games, went to the US to study and started working for Microsoft. Like her, there have been many, before and after, who have chosen that path. Our juniors continue to do well, but unfortunately, the transition is not happening for various reasons.
Have you been able to put a finger on why this is happening and how to prevent losing talent this way?
Why are they going? They get scholarships from good universities to study. We can’t change that. From their perspective, it’s a huge opportunity. It’s difficult to forgo such an opportunity. Like I said earlier, I hope players do return to the professional circuit once they are done with their studies.
You mentioned earlier that the ISA is only for elite training. In the US, for instance, almost every gym would have racquetball courts and most have squash courts as well. Squash courts are part of most universities’ gyms as well. You don’t have to be a player to go and try it out – it’s open. Is that the next step for the sport in India?
Absolutely. I’ll take a leaf out of badminton if we are to progress to the next level, that’s where I have seen the biggest change. Badminton is producing results now, but the process has been going for a couple of decades. In the last five years, I have seen badminton courts come up in big numbers across cities in India. That’s the direction squash needs to take. On that note, I see a few builders are installing squash courts in building complexes, so that’s one step towards popularising the game. This is the natural next step for our progress.
Two silver medals at CWG 2018, instead of the one gold medal at Glasgow, 2014. How do you assess the showing?
Delighted. 2014, the girls were not seeded but they went on to win gold, so that remains a phenomenal achievement. And that was the case this year as well, with the competition level quite high. We were not seeded to win, and Joshna and Dipika looked like they’d lose in the group stages as well but they pulled through tough games.
Winning the silver from there and losing only to the reigning world champions [from New Zealand] in the final is a phenomenal achievement. Saurav and Dipika were seeded fifth and they pulled through a gruelling quarter-final. So two silver medals, I will take it with open arms!
The drama in the lead-up to CWG with the foreign coach resigning... do the medals feel extra special because of that?
Not at all. The medals are special, for the reasons I mentioned earlier. The drama was something that played out in the press and we were not affected.
The top four currently – Joshna, Dipika, Saurav and Harinder – they are the seniors now. Three of them are in top 20. Where do they go from here?
To have three players in the top 20 is great in the first place. Joshna, Dipika and Saurav are the cream of the talent and we have wanted them to hold their positions among the best 20 in the world consistently and they are doing it now. The targets we set are not with winning events in mind. Great if that happens. We prefer to set ranking targets, as that gives you an overall perspective on how they are performing and the process behind it. The target for all four of them is now to break into the top 10.
The leagues are coming up left, right and center in India. Is that the way forward for squash. Do you see it as a viable option?
For the last five years, the talks are happening, it’s being discussed. We have been talking to stakeholders. We are yet not convinced of sustainability in terms of the viewership, however. More people are interested in the sport now, thanks largely to social media. But is the sport popular enough to make the average sport fan want to turn on the television to watch a squash league? We will get there, hopefully, but a league is not yet viable. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. At this point, we have not found a solution where stakeholders can break even, and we don’t want the good work we have done in the recent past, to go backwards.
