The Shakiru Matti Squash Academy has made a breakthrough at the national team level in a big way.
The Richmond-based program will represented for the first time at this summer’s Battle of the Border event in Niagara-on-the-Lake, with a whopping five members in Canadian team colours. That is more than any other club in the country.
The event will see Squash Canada’s top up-and-coming players squaring off against the United States over four days in three age divisions — U17, U15 and U13. The 24-player Canadian team features eight returning players.
The roster was determined through various selection criteria tournaments across the country and at the recent Canadian Junior Championships.
Matti Academy members have come close to making the Battle of the Border team before — led by Alex and Matthew Toth who have since continued their careers at the university level in the US.
This time, the Sport Central program were already guaranteed two spots thanks to Gabriel Yun and Sarah Cao each reaching the national final in their respective divisions.
The number continued to grow with Andrea Toth and Jacob Lin being named to play at the U17 and U13 levels respectively.
Toth, 16, actually entered the nationals as the No. 1 seed but was upset in the quarter-finals. However, she had already earned plenty of selection points thanks to her strong play at earlier tournaments.
Lin, who is just 10, earned bronze at the Canadian championships, highlighted by his win over No. 2 seed Griffen Manley. He still has two more years of eligibility at the U13 level and is destined to earn the No. 1 ranking next season with the last member of the Toth family, 10-year-old Joseph, right behind him.
The Academy received further good news this week when Cynthia Cao was a late addition to the Canadian team. She was fourth at nationals at the U17 level.
“I knew some of them were going to be on Team Canada but was not expecting four,”smiled Shakiru Matti, a native of Nigeria who coached the Guatemala and Mexico national teams before settling in Canada. “Our initial goal was to be the No. 1 club in B.C. (for producing national level athletes) and then Canada. We have accomplished that but there is still plenty of work to do. Ideally, we want to be top 20 in the world. That is the next step.
“I’m glad to see our players get this kind of recognition but I also don’t want them take their eye of the ball either.”
Matti credits the Academy’s tremendous progress over the past few months to a different training approach. He came back with new ideas after attending the British Open earlier this year.
“That really opened my eyes,” he continued. “I realized the intensity needed to be much higher at our training sessions. It wasn’t making major adjustments. Just little things like no cell phones and being on time.
“You can’t change the amount of the amount of hours (due to court availability) but you can change the intensity and the approach to it. We saw the difference at the first selection tournament in Victoria. It was obvious things were going in the right direction.”
The Battle of the Border is slated for Aug. 4-7 and will take place at the White Oaks Resort and Spa.
