Zeina Zein, Olivia Weaver And Mollie Marcoux Samaan --- A Princeton Squash Trifecta by Rob Dinerman
photo US Squash
Dateline February 2, 2026
--- This past week has been a momentous and memorable one in the squash
world for Princeton athletes past and present on multiple fronts.On
Tuesday afternoon, January 27th, Princeton junior Zeina Zein
successfully defended her 2025 Women's College Individual Squash
Championship with an airtight 11-8, 12-10, 5-11, 14-12 final-round
victory over Harvard star Caroline Fouts to become the first Princeton
woman to win this prestigious championship back-to-back in the
quarter-century since Julia Beaver won the last of her three-straight
Individuals in 2001. Zein's narrow triumph, coming one day after she
had beaten her freshman teammate Alexandra Jaffe in the semis, occurred
on the portable four-glass-wall court that had been erected in Grand
Central Station to host the Tournament of Champions (ToC), one of the
most important events of the PSA professional tour.
At the very same venue one day later, former Tiger four-time first-team
All-American Olivia Weaver (Princeton Class of 2018), who had been in
the gallery cheering Zein on during the Individuals final, hammered
Fayrouz Aboelkheir 3-0 in the ToC semis, then nearly won the
Thursday-night final as well before being barely edged out by current
World No. 1 Hania El Hammamy, 11-9 in the fifth game.
Finally, Mollie Marcoux Samaan (Princeton Class of '91) begins her
tenure as US Squash CEO today, having been appointed to succeed Kevin
Klipstein after the latter's two-decades-plus in that important role.
Samaan, a two-sport (soccer and ice hockey) stand-out athlete at
Princeton whose senior thesis was on the history of women in sports
from 1985-1946, was named the recipient of the 1991 Otto von Kienbusch
Award as Princeton's outstanding woman senior athlete and later served
from 2014-21 as Director of Athletics at her alma mater.
Complementing this Princeton-squash college/professional/administrative
trifecta (all within less than one week) were the sweeps during the
weekend that both the Princeton men's and women's squash teams recorded
over Cornell and Columbia respectively. The college squash season is
now entering its main stretch, and the Tigers figure to be right in the
thick of it, especially the Zein-led women's team, which didn't drop a
single match throughout this past weekend and is a prime contender to
win the national team championship when that tournament is held early
next month.
