Cedar Hill Squash Club pro Benjamin Uliana respectfully declined the opportunity today to play former world champion and current world No. 2 Gregory Gaultier.
“I don’t need to embarrass myself,” quipped Uliana.
But there will be a group of young players giving it a go against Gaultier, the 2015 world champion ranked second in the world behind Karim Abdel Gawad of Egypt, when the French superstar highlights a smashing event at the Cedar Hill facility.
The day will be highlighted by the sold-out Fairway Market/ Saputo exhibition match between Gaultier and world No. 8 Ali Farag of Egypt at 4 p.m. The feature match will be followed by a Q&A with the two world squash stars and a photo and autograph session.
Gaultier was world No. 1 this year and is expected to regain the top spot when the June rankings come out. Farag was ranked as high as No. 6 in the world this year.
This is clearly Christmas come early for local squash enthusiasts.
“It is a whole day of exciting stuff,” said Uliana.
Gaultier and Farag will also coach and play top-rated B.C. juniors beginning at 2:30 today. The juniors selected for the honour are Michael Mehl, the 2017 B.C. U-19 champion from Shawnigan Lake School; Ryan Picked, provincial U-19 runner-up and also from Shawnigan Lake; Chris Yuen, provincial U-15 fourth-ranked from Cedar Hill; and Jacob Lin, the Canadian junior champion from Vancouver. Gaultier will also play against Jason Kurylo and Farag against a raffle ticket winner and, indeed, very lucky person.
Gaultier and Farag will also instruct 16 people, who purchased that opportunity, in a clinic running from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
It has long been a squash tradition for top world players to barnstorm and play and coach club players or rising youth players. Those club and elite youth players come away with stories to tell a lifetime. How could one possibly not name drop it into casual party conversation if, say, they had ever been fortunate enough to step on to a court with the Khan dynasty of Pakistan, which between Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan won 14 of 16 world men’s championships between 1981 and 1996.
Today’s Cedar Hill event is part of that great squash heritage of spreading the sport, which is contested in both the Commonwealth and Pan Am Games, but is not yet in the Olympics.
Uliana describes Gaultier, who has won more than 50 World Tour events, as “one of the true greats of the game” with a hallmark physically imposing style. The native of Aix-en-Provence has made it to four world championship games — losing to David Palmer of Australia in 2006, Amr Shabana of Egypt in 2007 and Nick Matthew of England in 2011 — before finally winning it all two years ago.
The 2017 world championships are upcoming in Manchester, England, with Gaultier shooting for a second world title in three years.
Cairo-born Farag, a Harvard mechanical engineering graduate, is also an outstanding talent and will be in the hunt for the 2017 world title at Manchester.
Today’s host Cedar Hill Club boasts players such as Matthew Henderson, the 2015 Canadian junior open champion, Grace Thomas, who in March became the top-ranked Canadian junior women’s player, and women’s world No. 15 Vicky Lust.
That continues a strong squash legacy on the Island. It has included legendary builders/ coaches Stuart Dixon and Phil Green and former world-level players Winston Cabell, Sher Horne, Trevor Thom, Andrea Levy, Richard Jackson, Darren Thomson and Ashley Clackson. Multiple Commonwealth and Pan Am Games medallist Jonathon Power, who in 1998 became the only Canadian to have won the world championship, was born in Comox.
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