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The sell out crowd at Toronto acknowledge the Kneipp and Power semi final battle. (photo© 2002 Dan Kneipp)

At a tournament, even before the first round begins, if you ask one of the players how they expect to do against their upcoming opponent the response is fairly universal. Even if it’s a top 10 player against someone ranked in the 20s or 30s you’ll hear expressions like: ‘I’m playing well at the moment so I should do okay’ or ‘I’ve won our last four encounters’ or even the slightly modest ‘He’s never beaten me before, but in the last couple of tournaments he’s had some good results’. You almost never hear cocky or bravado statements like ‘There’s no way I’m going to lose’ or ‘He’s doesn’t stand a chance against me’ or ‘I’m way too good for him’. This seems to surprise some people who expect the response to be more positive and less cautious and wary.

This is for a few reasons. Firstly the depth and strength of the men’s tour means upsets are both possible and common. There isn’t a single player in the top 10 who hasn’t had a loss in the 1st or 2nd round of the past couple of seasons. For the past three big tournaments alone (Milo South African Challenge, Qatar Classic and YMG Toronto) 10 out of 32 first round matches have been upsets against the seeded player. Dealing with a loss is just part of the occupation. If you approach a game thinking ‘I’m too good for this go, there’s absolutely no way I’m going to lose’, if it does happen you have some heavy psychological baggage to deal with. Going into a match with an over exaggerated sense of it being an impossibility to lose can mean you have further to fall.

This is of course different from going into a game thinking ‘I should win. If I play my best and he plays his best, the match will definitely be mine as I am a better player’. Sometimes to cope with a loss and move past it it’s crucial to acknowledge that you didn’t actually play badly and that your opponent played a great match.

Which brings us to booking flights to and from tournaments. There is a fine balance between self belief, and financial-based realism. If you’re the #1 or #2 in the world you go to a tournament expecting to make the final and will book your return flight accordingly. But what should you do if you’re the #13 or #31 in the world and if you don’t make the final you’re being offered lots of money to play a league match on the other side of the world? The YMG Classic couldn’t have provided a better example of this scenario.

Joe Kneipp and Jonathon Power warm up for their semi final (photo© 2002 Dan Kneipp)

Firstly thinking too far ahead in a tournament is an easy way to cause an early downfall. At YMG for me to need a ticket after the 13th I would need to cause an upset against Lee Beachill and John White. Big enough hurdles to start with. So the best thing to do is make a realistic booking based on previous performances, and ensure the ticket is changeable. Each extra round that you progress means more money so you can pay for the ticket changes or a whole new fare if necessary.

But the YMG scenario involving Bundesliga became very messy. Once I beat White in the quarter finals on the evening of the 12th I couldn’t make my flight on the 13th at 7:30pm as my match against Power was at 6:00pm. The important times and dates that I needed to try to juggle were:

6:00pm 13th Nov Semi final match
7:00pm 14th Nov Final match
7:30pm 14th Air France flight departs
7:00pm 15th Bundesliga match begins in Germany

If I lost my semi final match I would be able to take the Air France flight on the 14th and get to Germany in time. But the challenge was seeing if I could make the final, and still get to Germany in time. Danny ended up tracking down an Air Canada flight that left at midnight on the 14th (leaving time after the final to get to the airport) and got to Frankfurt via London at 4:30pm. He had already spoken at length to my German manager and gone over the different possibilities of what could happen. French player Gregory Gaultier is the back-up player on my team so they need as much notice as possible to call him in if I can’t play. But the added cost of the Air France last minute ticket meant that over the long run I could be financially worse off by having a great tournament, or would let my Bundesliga team down (with a good excuse). When you’re trying to rest and prepare for a semi final match against Jonathon Power these scenarios aren’t what you want to be filling your day up with. Luckily Danny’s Team Kneipp role isn’t just coach, but manager as well so I rested while he bustled back and forth between travel agents trying to come up with a solution.

Unfortunately the scenario what academic as I didn’t make the final. I’m looking forward to the day squash has the same money as golf and the top 20 players all have their own private jets. It would have saved us a lot of hassles.

Machine gun toting commandos like this one in Toronto are becoming a very common sight at airports around the world. It’s supposed to be reassuring and for our safety. But for people who travel for a living it’s a constant reminder of the worst-case scenario as you prepare to fly. (photo© 2002 Dan Kneipp)

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