El Halaby goes for four-peat

There may be other players on the squash courts of Amherst, Mass., this weekend but only one question will be on everyone's minds: can senior Yasser El Halaby reset the record books one more time and win an unprecedented fourth individual national championship?

While freshmen Mauricio Sanchez, Kimlee Wong and Hesham El Halaby will also be in the top draw for this weekend's Collegiate Squash Association individual championship, the last tournament of the season, the attention is centered around the chances of a Yasser four-peat. El Halaby knows it will not be easy but is confident in his prospects.

"There are a lot of good players playing right now, so it'll be tough, especially with all the players gunning to take me down," El Halaby said. "I'll just play my game and hope for the best."

This year will be the first that El Halaby enters the tournament in the No. 2 seed as Harvard's Siddharth Suchde will sit in the No. 1 spot. Suchde will likely prove one of El Halaby's greatest challenges at this year's championship. He delivered Yasser his only loss of this season, a 3-0 loss just after El Halaby returned from an extended absence due to injury.

Suchde was also the only player last year to take a game from El Halaby in the national championship.

While Yasser declined to comment on any particular strategies for dispatching Suchde this weekend, he did say that he will play his usual hard, aggressive game from the start.

"My general strategy is always to attack since I think of myself as an attacking player and just do my best on any given day," the senior captain said.

One has to wonder whether the pressure of winning a fourth title has affected his mentality going into this weekend but Yasser is focusing on the matches ahead, not the record possibilities.

"Honestly, [the fourth championship] does [matter] but only to a fairly small degree. What differentiates this year from previous ones is that this is my senior year, and it means a lot for me to do well in it," El Halaby said. "The fact that winning the title my senior year would give me a fourth title is secondary to my desire of finishing off my college squash career with a smile on my face."

El Halaby will certainly enter the tournament with the confidence and control which have come to define his brilliant game.

"Going into the tournament this weekend, I'm going there to win the title. Mentally, I just try to do my best and hope that it would be sufficient for the win," El Halaby said. "Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But as long as I give it my best, I'll be content."

Princeton's other top draw players are also prepared to take on the challenge of this weekend's championship. No. 2 Mauricio Sanchez, who wowed the crowds in his match during the team championship against Trinity's Gustav Detter, is ready to make a strong campaign at Amherst.

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"My body is feeling great," Sanchez said. "I don't think that I have been this fit in a long time. I hope my fitness can take me into semifinals."

No. 3 Kimlee Wong will also travel to Amherst to take on Trinity's Detter in the quarterfinals with the hopes of sliding into the semifinal round.

"I'm targeting to make the semifinals this year," Wong said. "It'll be difficult but not impossible. This weekend, I'll be focusing on being patient before I start to attack, try to keep the ball tight and overall play some great squash."

While these freshmen will make their debut performance in the individual championship, most hopes rest with the veteran champion El Halaby who will finish out his college squash career this weekend.

Following graduation, El Halaby plans to take his game on the road and try out the professional circuit.

"I love playing squash and want to give it a shot competing with the world's best players," El Halaby said. "I don't know where I'll be based, but I hope to do a lot of traveling doing something that I enjoy."