Princeton's Julia Beaver

PRINCETON, NJ  Julia Beaver has always made the wins look easy. In a way, that has worked against her, since she often didn't appear to have to make any effort.

More properly viewed, her play is highly tuned and efficient. That efficiency let her cruise through years of college dual-match play without a loss.

Now Beaver has capped a brilliant college career with three straight intercollegiate championships.

SELF IMPOSED PRESSURE
"I was really nervous coming into this year's tournament," Beaver told us, reflecting on her weekend and season on this snowy afternoon, "... with the chance to win three championships, I had created a lot of self-imposed pressure."

With all the pressure on her, Beaver got a real settling effect from the support of her family:

"My whole family came to Cambridge - my 80-year old grandfather came to support me - I got a lot of inspiration from that"

SELF CONFIDENCE
A lot was made of the fact that Beaver had already lost to Amina Helal (Trinity) and Runa Reta (Penn) earlier this year. Did that bother her?

"Not really," said Beaver, "I had already beaten both of them in return engagements, so I knew that I had the potential to beat both of them."

DIFFICULT DRAW
What she didn't know in advance was that, due to the luck of the draw, she would have to play both of them in succession. But she rose to the occasion.

"We had analyzed my loss to Helal on video," said Beaver, " I had let her take

the initiative from me, and had been running all over the court. She had been really attacking and it had caught me off guard. This time I was ready for it."

RARE COMPANY
The rest, as they say, is history. Beaver now joins fellow Princetonians Wendy Zaharko and Demer Holleran in the elite three-championship club.

A FUTURE ON THE ROAD
So what's next for Beaver? "I'm going to take the next few months to write my senior thesis," (Beaver is a Molecular Biology major), "and then I'm playing squash full time," said Beaver firmly, "WISPA squash."

Beaver is going to take the Spring and Summer to train to elevate her game to the pro level and then embark on the WISPA pro circuit. Beaver follows former WISA Champion Ivy Pochoda into the WISPA world. Pochoda currently is

languishing at 75 in the WISPA world rankings. Beaver has much higher ambitions. Last spring at the US Championships in Groton MA, Beaver showed she could already press Latasha Khan, the USA top ranking WISPA pro at 25 in the world. Beaver lost but put up a strong challenge.

Her discipline, competitive drive, and physical strength are all factors that may make her the first American woman to make a real breakthrough on the tour.

"I'm going to give myself two years," says Beaver. "I'm going to apply to medical school for entry in 2003. I'll see where my squash has taken me by then."

Meanwhile, Beaver has a thesis to write and then some decisions to make about where to base herself for her future squash training.

PRINCETON'S JULIA BEAVER