OTTAWA (ON) – Samantha (Sam) Cornett of Deep River, Ontario captured the Silver Medal at the Pan American Games women’s individual squash event. The twenty year old Cornett, lost the gold medal match to World #14 and local favourite Samantha Teran of Mexico 3 games to zero (11-6, 11-4, 11-6).
OTTAWA (ON) – Samantha (Sam) Cornett of Deep River, Ontario captured the Silver Medal at the Pan American Games women’s individual squash event. The twenty year old Cornett, lost the gold medal match to World #14 and local favourite Samantha Teran of Mexico 3 games to zero (11-6, 11-4, 11-6).
Enroute to the gold medal match, Samantha Cornett dispatched Cecilia Cerqueti of Argentina (11-5, 11-3, 11-3), followed by defeating the tournament’s #2 seed Olivia Blatchford of the United States 11-7, 11-8, 8-11, 11-6, who is ranked #32 in the World on the women’s professional squash tour (WISPA). The win against Blatchford was Cornett’s best win of her young professional career. In the semi-finals Cornett took out fellow Canadian and reigning Canadian National Champion Miranda Ranieri of Waterloo, Ontario 11-9, 11-5, 5-11, 11-8.
The York University student recently moved to Toronto and trains at the National Squash Academy – Squash Canada’s new National Centre of Excellence under the tutelage of former World #1 Jonathan Power, Gary Waite, Jamie Nicholls and recently appointed Squash Canada Performance Director Jamie Hickox. Since January of 2011, Cornett has improved her professional ranking by more than 40 positions, moving from 86 in January to her current 46 in the world. Cornett has had a great year on the professional tour capturing 2 titles and reaching the finals of 4 WISPA events, she also placed 3rd at the Canadian Squash Championships losing to Ranieri in the semi-finals.
“Sam has showed tremendous improvement in the past 12 months and we are very pleased with her performance at the games and we are hopeful that this is just the beginning of a great squash career”, said Squash Canada Executive Director, Danny Da Costa.
The individual and doubles squash events were highly successful for Squash Canada athletes. Montreal’s Shawn Delierre captured the Bronze Medal in the Men’s Individual event, while Waterloo’s Miranda Ranieri captured the Bronze Medal in the Women's individual event. Miranda Ranieri also teamed up with Stephanie Edmison of Toronto to capture the Bronze Medal in the Women’s doubles event. The Men’s & Women’s team competitions begin tomorrow, Canada is well positioned to bring home more medals. “We were hopeful to win 5 medals at this games and we are well positioned to do that”, said Da Costa.
For more information please contact:
Danny Da Costa – Executive Director
Squash Canada
Tel : 613-731-7385 x 2301
ddacosta@squash.ca
Danny Da Costa – Executive Director
Squash Canada
Tel : 613-731-7385 x 2301
ddacosta@squash.ca
