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Ellen Petersen: Squash and Medicine in Odense.
profile by Ron Beck (5/2000) text and photos © Ron Beck, 2000

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At 25, Ellen Petersen sees her squash game at a crossroads. "I'm midway through a seven year curriculum in Medicine," Ellen says, "and at the same time I'm looking at the next year and a half as the time to do it with my squash game." Petersen now stands at a ranking of world number 36. Her goal is to reach the top 25 by this time next year.

Ellen, the personable Danish Woman's champion, is the only Dane traveling on the WISPA world tour at present. "Sometimes it hard to be all by yourself." says Petersen simply. "The English girls are all here as a group, they travel together, and they support each other. In my case, its all self-motivation." It's also a challenge for Petersen to get in the training she needs. She has a heavy load of medical studies commitments to fulfill. "In order to play tournaments and to train I need to get time off from my practical medical assignments in the hospital. The doctors don't understand this sports stuff very well. They say, just be a doctor, you don't need to be fit too."

Petersen has overcome a lot of obstacles to get where she is today. Petersen didn't pick up a squash racket until age sixteen. Until then, she was totally focused on soccer and was a member of the Danish junior women's soccer team. At that point, Petersen's family moved to Australia - which explains her Australian, rather than Danish, accent when she speaks English. "There wasn't a woman's soccer side for me to join," explains Petersen. But there were squash courts - she got interested in squash at that point, and later found it more easy to motivate herself for a sport where it where the winning and losing was all her own responsibility.

Another obstacle has been the lack of training partners in Denmark. There aren't other women players who she can train with, at the same level, on a regular basis. "I have to train with the men," she says, " and men who play at my level tend to just blast the ball and retrieve - They aren't going to immediately put away the loose ball like the WISPA players will. So its always an adjustment to come into a WISPA tournament."

Petersen, lives on the island of Funen, near Copenhagen, the island where Hans Christian Andersen lived. "Odense is a quiet place. It's a nice place to live. I can focus on my studies" says Petersen. On tour, Petersen also is focused on her studies. Between matches and in the evenings she can usually be found in her hotel room studying her medical texts. "The other girls are pretty understanding," she says, "they don't hassle me when I have to go back to my room and study instead of going out with the rest of the group."

Petersen is thinking of cutting back on her medical load for the next year and possibly traveling to Holland or England to train. She really wants to take her squash seriously for the next season and see if she can boost her ranking into the low twenties.

Whatever happens, though, Petersen, with her warm demeanor, pinpoint racketwork, excellent fitness, and competitive spirit, has made a Danish mark on the WISPA tour.

Petersen is also looking to make her mark on squash in another way later on.  She is thinking of concentrating in sports medicine. The specialized sports medicine practices that are commonplace in the USA are almost non-exististent in the Nordic countries. Petersen has the ambition of bringing a strong focus on sports medicine to Denmark some day. Look for Ellen Petersen to continue to make her mark on the sport, on and off the court.

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