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It’s interesting how representing your country affects different players. For some it acts as a legal steroid, enhancing the player’s performance with strength, fitness and determination that otherwise isn’t usually there. For other players the extra adrenaline coursing through the veins brings with it nervous tension that seems to bring about a sporting version of tetanus – tense muscles that become fatigued easily, and lethargy and disorientation that aren’t normally there.

Watching different games at the World Team Championships you get to see some great examples of how a belly-full of national pride affects different players.

Martin Stepan is a promising young player from the Czech Republic. I was in Prague recently coaching the top national players and got to work with him. He moves well, can read the game okay, has decent racquet skills and doesn’t mind running. But when they slap a Czech flag on the breast of his shirt he transmogrifies into a D grade junior. Bad movement, rushed shots, loose drive that don’t go to length, and his specialty – loopy drop shots that seem to float in slow motion and scream out to the opponent ‘Smash me for a winner! Smash me for a winner!’

Martin came into these Championships with the undesirable record of 9 national matches and 9 national losses. The other Czech players love talking about how at the European Championships he lost to a 46 year old man who out ran him. It will help this story if you understand that Martin is a very loud and confident person. Yesterday he tried to break that losing streak against Slovenia. To try to give him extra focus and incentive his Czech teammates told him that the #2 on their team who was yet to play had pulled a muscle in his leg and that Martin had to win for the team to win.

THE GLASS ARM
He finally had a victory, but still managed to play below his capabilities and nearly clutch defeat from the jaws of victory. At 8 love, match ball in the fourth his glass arm appeared and he let his opponent claw back to 7-8. (A side note on this – glass arm is a term that has been used for a long time by players to describe someone who cracks under pressure. Knowing this, it’s interesting that the top Swiss player is named Lars Harms.) Martin was finally able to break his losing streak, but until he learns how to control the nervousness National representation brings him, he’ll never play his best squash for his country.

A team (I haven’t gotten the permission of the player or team involved, and don’t expect it’s a subject he wants to talk about in a hurry, so I’ll leave the team anonymous) already has done much worse than expected. A friend was talking to the team’s #1 after the loss. He was saying how he’d have to call the squash federation back home and relay the disappointing news to them and that the loss could mean huge cuts to the national squash federation, probably lost jobs, and long term ramifications for squash in that country. Try playing a game of squash with that pressure resting on your shoulders as you lunge for a volley drop.

Yesterday’s dramatic upset of Malaysia by Hong Kong was a great example of two players affected by national jitters. Hong Kong’s Wong Wai Hang played wonderful squash, ridiculously higher than his ranking of 222 suggests – more like 32. His opponent Iskandar was in the situation where he had to win for his team to progress to the quarter finals, Hong Kong’s man played better because of the situation (and being the underdog and having nothing to lose), Malaysia played worse than normal.

David Palmer and Tommy Berden both showed yesterday that you can be playing a crucial match for your country and still be gentlemanly and sporting. Both players called their doubles bounces, scoops or dodgy pickups. Dutchman Berden was on the end of some bad calls and on two occasions he was having a fruitless argument with the ref trying to plead his case. Both times the situation was resolved by Palmer saying that Berden was right, and he conceded the point.

This sportsmanship culminated in a long rally during which Berden lunged for a drop shot and it was difficult to see if he got it or not. The rally continued and was long and tough and an important one for the Dutchman to win, which he did. Palmer understandably questioned the pickup and the ref called a let.

Which obviously infuriated and frustrated Berden who was confident of the pickup and unconfident that a conversation with the ref would change anything, but he tried anyhow. When he realised this wasn’t going anywhere, he took the ball and went to serve, but from the box as if he had won the point. He then called out to the ref “He (Palmer) trusts my word if I say I got the ball”. The crowd and the ref all looked at Palmer for a reaction. He simply nodded and stood to receive the ball.

It was a wonderful display of sportsmanship and I was the only person that gave Palmer a clap! Perhaps even the crowd was under performing due to national jitters.

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