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Ellen Petersen, Danish National Champion, in top 20
Profiled by Rob Dinerman, Feb 2002 copyright © 2002, Squashtalk Updated May 2005 . Reproduction prohibited.

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Ellen Petersen, Odense, Denmark
Resides: Amsterdam
Age: 30.
WISPA ranking: 72.
Highest ranking: 19

This 30-year-old Denmark native is an anomaly among the touring pro group in several intriguing respects. Her early athletic background had been as a stand-out soccer goalie, and she became exposed to squash only when at age 16 she spent a year as an exchange student in the rural town of Waggawagga, Australia, midway between Sydney and Melbourne, where after several months of inactivity she followed her host to his community public squash club and immediately took to the game.

Photo: Liz Irving Squash Academy

Ranked just inside the top 20 as recently as mid 2002, Petersen is the only significant WISPA player who enrolled in medical school while pursuing a WISPA ranking, and has spent the last nine years pursuing these dual and widely differing careers. She has been relatively inactive over the past two seasons but still is a formidable force on court.

Though based in Holland, where there is much better competition than there is in Denmark, where she has been ranked No. 1 for the past five years, Petersen has been studying at the Odense Medical School, where she will be specializing in forensic and sports medicine once her general training is completed, probably in 18 months. Inevitably there have been occasional conflicts in juggling these two demanding commitments-the Tournament of Champions, which she qualified for by defeating Dana Betts and Rebecca Chiu, was her first tournament after a six-week hiatus while she was studying for and taking exams---but Petersen feels that she benefits from the security of knowing that she is laying the groundwork for a long-term career once her squash days are over.

Having experienced first-hand the nexus between the two fields when a foot tendon problem necessitated two operations and caused her to miss nearly a year during the mid-1990's, she is also convinced that her squash experiences will greatly benefit the sports medicine career that awaits her. But for now, Petersen plans to devote at least the next two seasons to the sport.

She won two tournaments last year, including the Danish Open, before her family and friends in her native town of Sonderborg, and has finished well in a number of the smaller events around Europe and Asia(including reaching the finals in Kuala Lampur, where she flew the day after being eliminated from the Tournament of Champions), but is still in search of the breakthrough win (which didn't come in New York, where she lost in three in the first round to Linda Charman-Smith) that will really mark her arrival as a major player on the WISPA tour.

See also: 2000 profile of Ellen Petersen

You can reach Rob Dinerman by email at Email: rob@squashtalk.com

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