August 25, 2013
- While on the brink (only two weeks to go) of the most important
International Olympic Committee vote for squash ever - that of whether
or not squash becomes an Olympic sport in 2020, we thought you'd be
interested in this one little statistic regarding one of the best
female squash-players in the world...ever!
There are currently
247 active members on the WSA (Women's Professional Squash Association,
formally WISPA) world tour. Of course we all know who the current #1
female squash-player in the world is...Nicol David of Malaysia,
(training in Amsterdam and turning 30 on August 26th) who's held that
position now for over seven years! Nicol David backing the 2020 Olympic bid
However...did you know
that of the 247 active female professional squash-players in the world
still active, there's only one other who can boast being a former world
#1! Do you know who she is? Can you guess? Well...if you don't know the
answer to that question...here she is! Rachael Grinham - August 2004 World #1
Rachael, the petite 5'
2" player is from Australia. Now at age 36, she is ranked #16 in the
world - and is the second-oldest player on tour, (as is Madeline Perry
of Ireland) behind 40 year-old Latasha Khan of the United States,
currently ranked #30.
From the WSA web site...
"A well-known name on
the WSA World Tour, Rachael Grinham is a long-established figure at the
top of the women’s game. She won her first WSA World Tour title,
the Toulouse open back in 1998, and has since gone on to add a further
31 titles to her haul.
Rachael spent exactly
a decade inside the world’s Top 10, falling out in September 2012 for
the first time since August 2002. She spent a 16-month stretch as
world #1 during the 2004-2005 seasons and in 2007 she reached five
consecutive WSA World Tour finals, claiming four of them. The
last of which was the holy grail of squash events, the World Open, in
which she defeated her sister Natalie in Madrid, Spain. She has
won four out of five British Open finals and over the past ten years
has won an average of 2.3 titles per year.
Rachael missed a
portion of the 2010 season through injury, but managed to keep her spot
in the top five, before slipping to six a the end of 2011.
Despite boasting an enviable array of accolades, the highly decorated
and experienced player dropped out of the WSA top ten for the first
time in ten years in the September 2012 rankings. She consolidated her
loss with a Malaysian Open first round defeat at the hands of Omneya
Abdel Kawy. Further first round exits in the Carol Weymuller, US and
China Open’s has seen the Australian’s ranking dip into the teens, but
a quarter-final finish in the Hong Kong Open showed signs that Grinham
can still compete at the top level.
2013 has shown
Grinham’s resilience, after a semi-final finish at the Tournament of
Champions, where she was beaten by younger sister Natalie, followed by
a first round appearance in the Cleveland Classic. The next few
tournaments have seen a mixed set of results for the former number one
with a first round loss at the CIMB KL Open, second round finish at the
Allam British Open, quarter final at the Texas Open and winning her
32nd title at the Victorian Open in July."
What a squash
career...and still going pretty strong for a gal who's been competing
at the professional level since 1994, then world-ranked at #64. And
yes...that's 19 years! How many professional athletes can say that! We
know you'll make it to 20 Rachael! Good luck!
