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Jenson Takes Over As Head Of Sea Island Squash Program 
By Rob Dinerman, Jan 18, 2008    
Squashtalk Independent News; © 2008 SquashTalk LLC

Matt Jenson, 28, currently ranked No. 16 on the ISDA professional squash doubles tour, was recently named as Director Of Squash at the Sea Islands Resorts in Sea Island, Georgia. Jenson replaces Ben Gould, who served in that position throughout calendar 2007 before leaving late last month to succeed Scott Butcher as head pro at the Racquet & Tennis Club in Manhattan after Butcher ended his 10-year tenure there to permanently return to his native Australia, where he and his wife are expecting their first child later this winter.

Like Gould (as well as such current squash luminaries as David Palmer, Anthony Ricketts, Stewart Boswell, Narelle Krizek and the Grinham sisters, Rachael and Natalie), Jenson is a late-1990’s alumnus of the famed Australian Institute of Sport, where he was coached by the likes of seven-time British Open champion Geoff Hunt, World Open champion Rodney Martin and Heather McKay, who is widely known as the greatest woman player of all time. Inspired by this group, as well as the exploits of his older brother Dan, who attained a top-five PSA world ranking before an assortment of serious injuries (to his feet, back and knees) ended his career, Jenson was ranked No. 1 in each of the Australian junior age-group categories and competed on the PSA tour from 1997-2001, reaching a ranking as high as No. 59 as a 20-year-old in 2000.

He then spent the early/mid 2000’s (from late 2001 to 2007) as the head pro at the Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley, Long Island, whose racquets program has so flourished under the leadership of former WPSA top-10 Larry Hilbert during the past decade. Jenson himself contributed notably to the growth of the junior squash program there, taking a group of enthusiastic juniors of squash/sightseeing trips almost every June to Europe or Australia before spending each of the past four July/August portions of the summer directing the highly popular summer squash camps in Rhode Island (as well as more recently in Palo Alto) under the auspices of the renowned Talbott Squash Academy, which was founded by former WPSA superstar Mark Talbott, who is universally recognized as the greatest American squash player in history.

It was during his years at Piping Rock that Jenson made the competitive transition from singles to doubles just as the ISDA tour was starting to really hit its stride. His most productive extended partnership to date has been with Jeff Mulligan, with whom he joined up during the spring of 2006, leading to a 2006-07 campaign in which they attained at least the quarterfinal round nine times in 11 appearances, including several occasions when they rallied from deficits (most dramatically when they saved a third-game match-ball against them last spring and wound up winning in five in a U. S. Nationals round of 16 match at the Merion Cricket Club against Tim Porter and Andrew Cordova) and out-lasted talented opponents in exciting five-game matches. This level of consistency --- which has carried over to the current season, in which Jenson/Mulligan have gone five for six so far in reaching the quarters --- eventually led to a semifinal appearance in Denver last March, when they led Paul Price and Ben Gould, the No. 1 ranked team, two games to one and 8-2 in the fourth in the quarters before Price defaulted with a back injury. Jenson’s mobility, pace and shot-making skills on the left wall has been a needed complement to Mulligan’s solid right-wall presence, to a degree that has made this team nearly upset-proof and a threat to the top-echelon teams as well.

At Sea Island Resorts, a resort community with two major hotels (The Cloister and The Lodge) that features five golf courses (it was recently voted the top golf resort in the entire U. S.) and an impressive squash facility consisting of two softball singles courts and a glass-back hardball doubles court with viewing for 30-40 spectators, Jenson’s plans include hosting a $ 25,000 ISDA tour stop in early May (the first time an ISDA ranking event has ever been held in the eastern corridor south of Philadelphia) and continuing the U. S. National Siblings tournament that made its debut this past September (the Jenson brothers won the brother/brother part of the competition) under Gould’s guidance. In his first three weeks in his new position, Jenson has already put in place several programs (in the form of ladders and clinics) to build upon the solid clientele that Gould has already put in place, with the idea of markedly expanding squash’s popularity in this heretofore somewhat squash-underdeveloped region of the nation.

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