The University of Nottingham (UoN) Squash team are facing our rivals from across the city on Super Wednesday, and there are plenty of reasons to feel confident on this as a safe bet for the close Varsity 2017 competition.
The Squash team are in extraordinary form this season, and have been for many years. Their new home in the David Ross Sports Centre have pushed them to new levels; in terms of BUCS series points, only the UoN Table Tennis team are ahead of them overall.
The team boast first place in BUCS with 403.1 points and there doesn’t look to be any catching them, with players such as Hana Ramadan already within the World Top 50.
“We’ll definitely put our A-team out”
On to the important part – beating Trent. There’s no lack of excitement for this fixture, as president Lea Van Der Zwalmen told us earlier in the season: “Varsity is a big event, and for many players its the highlight of the season…we’ll definitely put our A team out.” This season, Nottingham Trent University (NTU) are placed 19th in the BUCS league, with 90 points. Now you can see why I think we should feel confident.
This UoN dominance is mirrored in the Premier Division, where the Men’s and Women’s 1st teams play. The Men’s 1st’s are currently 6th in the division, with 183 points, three places above Wednesday’s rivals, who are in 9th, with 148 points. The women’s team do not play Trent in the Premier Division, but I’m more than confident of a win – since the move to the David Ross Sports Village, the women have been in phenomenal form. President Lea explained that they had “only lost against a few universities .. and this year we’re looking to beat that BUCS score of last year”.
“ [Coach Rich O’Connor] said has never seen a stronger women’s team, and that reflects our strong position at the moment”
The men will need to pick themselves up from the bitterly disappointing recent defeat to the University of West England, losing the Championship to them. Don’t let this knock your confidence in the team though, as the best way to get over disappointment in sport is to come back even stronger, and what better way to relieve this than a good performance against Trent on Wednesday?
Trophies and previous victories matter for very little on Super Wednesday, Trent have point to make up in the Varsity table and will be well up for the challenge, especially with University’s home advantage in the David Ross squash court, a facility which Lea touted as “one of the best in Europe”.
“The home advantage and … the crowd on our side and hopefully that’ll help us win again!”.
The glass courts host 250 available seats, and for a free event there’s no reason not to come down and support one of our most successful teams!
James Doherty
Images courtesy of University of Nottingham Sport, University of Nottingham Squash Club and Twitter.com
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