Toronto (ON) – Four days, four medals! The Canadian Men’s and Women’s Doubles teams captured silver medals yesterday in their respective events. Having clinched spots in the finals the day before, Canada had a day of preparation before facing their opponents on the Main Court.
The Women’s Final was the first match to be played. Sam Cornett and Nikki Todd of Canada went up against Singles gold medalist, Amanda Sobhy and Natalie Grainger of the USA. Asked about their chemistry, having never played together, the Canadians had this to say:
“We spent a lot of time with each other,” said Sam. “That’s the first thing that really helps a team. But I don’t think we have any trouble with chemistry. I think we complemented each other really well.”
“She has the shots, I have the speed,” cut in Nikki.
“I actually think she has shots as well,” added Sam. “We were a really good team.”
The game had many fans amazed by the speed of the sport, with numerous people commenting on the rhythm, atmosphere and intensity that encompassed the match. The first game saw the Americans narrowly take an 11-9 victory, with the Canadians fighting back to win the second game 11-9, forcing a deciding third game.
In the third game, the Americans pulled through and won 11-6, cementing their gold medal victory. Congratulations to Sobhy and Grainger on winning gold in an intense and competitive final!
The Canadian girls had this to say after the match:
“Nikki, just watching her battle up and down that right wall gave me confidence to battle up and down the left. She wasn’t fazed at all. It was pretty cool. We’re going to take that with us into the next couple of days,” said Sam. “We’re doing the best that we can on the court and I know everyone’s doing the best they can off court to make squash an awesome spectacle and I think together it works really well and I hope the IOC sees it. I know the President of the IOC was here and he saw it so that’s pretty hopeful news for us. We definitely have our fingers crossed. “
“Silver medal here is pretty cool,” said Sam of playing in Toronto. “I think winning a gold would be way cooler, finishing with a win would be awesome and that’s what we plan to do.”
We are very proud of Sam and Nikki for their performance through the whole Doubles event! Congratulations on the silver medal! Well deserved.
In front of a home crowd and their family, brothers Graeme and Andrew Schnell played Colombia’s Andres Herrerra and Juan Vargas in the Men’s Doubles gold medal match. The Schnells dropped both games 6-11, 3-11 but did an admirable job making it to the finals and winning a silver medal. The brothers had this to say about their match:
“First of all it’s an honour just to be representing Canada, especially with the number of people that came out and supported us; it was definitely a treat to play in front of them,” said Andrew. We’re kinda sorry we weren’t able to even crack these guys, even give them a match. They’ve played a lot of doubles events together…they were too good today. All the credit to them. We tried a lot of different things, we resorted to just trying to hit the ball as hard as we could at the end because we didn’t know what else to do and even that didn’t work. They played really well today.”
“Because we’re not trained as doubles players it’s pretty tough to have a game plan set out,” said Graeme. “We knew we were in the finals, we weren’t really supposed to be here and we tried everything we could, did the best we could. We were outclassed, we were outplayed and that’s kind of the way it rolls.”
Though outplayed, the boys were still very happy with their performance. “It’s going to be pretty tough to top this one (Pan Am Games), eh?” said Graeme. “Even if I do make another one it’s not going to be the same. Obviously when we were down I think 10-3, 10-4 the crowd was still behind us and that’s something you can’t get anywhere else but Canada. It’s an honour to be playing.”
Great job on the silver medals!
The last event is the Men’s and Women’s Team events. Yesterday saw the Canadian Women’s Team defeat Colombia 2-1, with Hollie Naughton and Nikki Todd both winning their matches 3-0. The Women's Team starts their day at 12:15pm, looking for a victory against Argentina on the Main Court!
The men kicked off the Team event this morning, beating Ecuador 3-0 with Shawn Delierre and both Schnell brothers winning their matches 3-0. The Canadians face Colombia tonight in a rematch of the Doubles Finals. “We play Colombia tomorrow so we’re definitely going to be looking for some revenge in the sport that we’re more familiar with,” Andrew Schnell said last night. “Being on our home courts in our home country in our home city, yes absolutely their home court is the doubles court and I think ours is the singles court so we’re definitely looking to take it to them tomorrow and maybe give them a bit of payback for the spanking they made on us today.”
The Men's Team play again at 5:30pm against Colombia, while the Women's Team close out the day against Brazil at 7:45pm!
Lots of squash action ahead! Stay tuned!
For full event results, schedules and more, go to:http://results.toronto2015.org/IRS/en/squash/schedule-and-results.htm
For daily updates, make sure to follow Squash Canada on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/squashcanada
Twitter: https://twitter.com/squashcanada
Instagram: https://instagram.com/squashcanada/
Go Canada Go!
