More Than Just A Ranking is a series where we get a personal insight into squash players about more than just who they are on court.
In this episode, we speak with rising star Marina Stefanoni about college squash in the US and her hopes for her squash career.
“I’ve been playing since I was nine, I started after I stopped playing soccer and I’ve been playing almost every day since.
My Dad had played squash recreationally so I knew what it was and we were looking for an individual sport, squash is just one of the ones I tried and I really liked it.
So going into college, I knew I wanted to go pro after school, so I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to play tournaments and events to the level that I want to while in school. But I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to train really hard with the team and have good people to train with, so then that translates into better squash on the pro circuit.
It’s obviously been a big balance with school and the testing, making sure I don’t miss any exams and making sure I go to enough class time. But it’s been rewarding, I would say.
The American college circuit has gotten very competitive like the top couple people on each of the top teams are professional level, honestly and just the density of good players has really helped, I think draw in even more players, a lot of it is high level squash players and it’s good to see, it pushes all of us.
I would say definitely think about it strongly [playing professionally] and even if you just try to play for a year or two, I think it’s a very valuable experience and there are players who have joined the tour when they didn’t think that they would, but then college showed them its possible.
I feel like I’ve improved recently and I’m enjoying the tour the same as always so just hoping that the excitement and enjoyment remains and that’s really all I can ask for.”
