Runa Reta - WISPA Squash Pro on Tour on www.squashtalk.com

Just when you think you’ve been through it all as a squash player, something happens that throws you for a loop and tests your ability to adapt. The other day, I was on my way down to the Greenwich Open, when my flight to New York got cancelled and re-scheduled for a few hours later. Wanting to inform the organizers that I would be arriving later than originally expected, I called the club, only to be met with the sound of incessant ringing on the other end. Though I found this to be a bit strange, I thought little of it, arrived at Laguardia, bused it to Grand Central Station and jumped on the next Metro North train to Greenwich. By the time I got off at the station, it was dark and cold outside, and while trying to find a cab to the club, decided to call again to make sure that someone was there. No answer.

At this point, I was a bit concerned, but thought that surely there would be people around playing squash on a Sunday evening, so I gave the cab driver the address and headed off. As we pulled into the Field Club, everything was pitch black. Concern now turned into a mild form of panic. All I had on me was a number for the place that I was now standing at, a place that was very clearly deserted. The driver- let’s call him Sherlock- who thinking that I was some kind of illegal worker coming up to meet my shady employer for the first time, suggested that I try the front door in the event that said employer is found to be looming in the darkness of the hallways, awaiting my arrival (??) Despite the ludicrous nature of Sherlock’s suggestion, I heeded it anyway and went up to the club doors and pulled.

To my total surprise, the door opened and as I peered up and down the empty hallway, I vaguely made out a hand-written sign on a wall with instructions to call Rob the organizer on his cell phone. I rang Rob immediately, and luckily he was already on his way over, sensing (rightly) that a player like myself might arrive at the club and freak out, being deserted in a parking lot in a cold, dark, wooded surrounding. Sherlock took off, Rob came, and it was only then that I was told that major power outages had been affecting the whole since Saturday night (due to incredibly high winds and resulting fallen wires). Other than the club’s power being down all day, several billet’s homes lost power too, thus forcing the fortunate ones to start up their generators, and others to relocate to warmer homes for the night.

A freak winter storm left the Greenwich WISPA event to scramble in the dark.

While power was sufficiently restored on Monday and Tuesday for the practices and matches to go ahead, by Wednesday, another bout of high winds sent trees crashing to the ground, tree removal trucks storming in, and as I was cursed enough to experience, GPS systems to completely fail at their directing tasks! (my billets gave me their car to drive to the club and assured me that I could not possibly get lost with the GPS working. Well, I successfully challenged that statement when running into one blocked road after another, barriers that the GPS- despite all its intelligence- could not detect. Thus, the calm soothing voice of the female computer would tell me “take a left at the next juncture”, when a left was really not possible, due to fallen cables and trees on fire. I would then (trusting my own judgment) avoid the live wire/ burning trees, and go right instead, whereby calm, soothing, (masochistic) GPS would tell me to make a U-turn back to the hazardous area, whereby I would start talking back to the computer, with growing levels of frustration! In the end I had to call my billet to direct me back to the club!)

The winds and unpredictable nature of the black-outs caused a bit of stress for the players and organizers alike. Fortunately, tournament directors Rob and Narelle Krizek were at the helm, showing great composure and seeming to cling to the virtues that claim that you cannot control what happens to you, only how you deal with it. This zen-like mantra not only helped to keep these two directors in a calm, level-headed state, but their actions seemed to spur similar feelings of composed tranquility amongst the players too, as they realized that stressing over a situation (which affected them all equally) would do no good, and that they would just have to play things by year.

In the end, Rob and Narelle quickly decided to change the venue from the Field Club to the Greenwich Country Club, and everything else continued on course, maybe not exactly as planned, but as close to the plan as was possible, given the situation. Who knew that a simple power outage could bear such an important lesson? A lesson that points to the merits of adjusting and adapting, of meeting different situations head-on, and of handling the unforeseen with grace and clarity- a lesson that we would all be wise to hold on to and apply evenly in squash as well as life.