Goodlife Open - Ottawa

My second stop on tour, took me east bound in Canada. I headed from Niagara to Ottawa via the train for 5 hours. I  set up camp with Adrian Dudzicki on the outskirts of the city and began training in preparation for the tournament.  Adrian and I had spent the summer in Australia together, so knew how to handle each others company, and the week was a blast.

With three days preparation, Johnny Wilson from the Ottawa Athletic Club, gave us some good advice and suggested some sessions in order to prepare efficiently for Thursday's first round matches.  The body was starting to feel good, more fluid and the strength and power was coming back..

Thursday came and I warmed up mentally and physically for my opponent Lawrence Delasaux, from England. We had played once before, and everyone knows how talented and tricky he can be, as I thought about my game plan and strategy.  Lawrence had been under the weather the week before, and I knew a strong mature performance could play tough on his mind. I began on good form, attacked when in-front, jumped on balls that were loose and managed to keep the tempo high.  2-0, 11-4, 11-8 and 5-2, Delasaux decided enough was enough, and withdrew from the match handing me the victory. Although I would grasp the win with two hands and look forward to my quarter-final match, you never enjoy winning in this style. 

What went wrong... well I learnt a few lessons from my second attempt Vs David Phillips. First one was preparation.. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. As much as I wanted to win, I needed to let my emotions subside and remain focused for the task in hand.  The excitement and adrenaline played on my mind, and that night I failed to get much sleep, as I began thinking about my match over and over. The poor performance indicator was my eating patterns. Due to the late night, I therefore slept in late in an attempt to regain the hours. This hindered the amount of time to eat, and instead of feeling light and energetic leading into my match, I felt lethargic and slow. Lesson learnt, I became clearly frustrated, and even at the top of my performance levels, a great performance would of been needed, while Phillips cruised to a 3-0 victory. I was disappointed in myself for obvious reasons of inconsistency, but also realised that Phillips had played well that day and maybe it was a step to far..

I stayed and watched some great matches, and enjoyed some good squash. Julian Illingworth, World no. 35 came out the winner, beating Joe Lee from England, ranked 77 in the finals. 

I regrouped, thought about my match, and started to think towards my next destination, Chicago, Illinois.  I would be staying with a good old friend, Jonas Knigge Laursen from Denmark. Jonas and I have grown up playing the junior European squash circuit together, but in different age groups, so knew each other well.  He is now the assistant squash coach, at the University Club of Chicago, situated in downtown next to Millennium Park. I was going to be based here for 4 days before we rolled up to Madison, Wisconsin.