Women's Squash: Freshman sensation steps right into the fire

Freshman Julie Cerullo began playing squash mainly out of convenience. She lived just half a block away from a local squash club, so she picked up the game at the age of six. A dozen years later, the women’s squash team is very glad she did.

Cerullo’s emergence as a top player has helped the three-time defending national champion Tigers offset a number of key losses to graduation and injury. The freshman has played at the No. 1 or No. 2 spot in each of Princeton’s matches this season and has compiled a 6-3 record against some of the country’s top collegiate players. Cerullo’s play has helped lead the No. 4 Tigers to a 6-3 record entering their final two matches of the season.

The top-ranked American recruit of her high school class, Cerullo has certainly lived up to the hype thus far. The College Squash Association tabbed her as the No. 9 player in the nation in their most recent rankings, and she won her first five team matches of the season, including a 3-0 sweep over No. 15 Nabilla Ariffin of Penn.

“[Ariffin] is also a frosh, I’d never played her before and it’s always fun to play new players,” Cerullo said. “I didn’t know what it was going to be like going into it and didn’t know much about her. The points were close, but I came up with a pretty clean win with few mistakes, so that really boosted my confidence.”

Cerullo will continue to face some tough tests, as the Tigers prepare to face No. 8 Williams this weekend and No. 2 Trinity the week after. Though the freshman dropped both her matches last weekend — a 3-2 heartbreaker to No. 9 Dartmouth’s Valeria Wiens and a 3-0 defeat at the hands of No. 1 Harvard’s Nirasha Gurgue, both top-20 individual players in their own right — her supporters have no doubt that she has what it takes to bounce back.

“[Cerullo] has a very rare maturity on the court for someone her age,” senior teammate Kaitlin Sennatt said. “She never gets frazzled, is very consistent and plays as though she has a lot of experience.”

“She’s in that class of athlete that often comes in and does very well,” head coach Gail Ramsay said. “Her competitiveness has really kind of separated her from the rest of her peers, teenage or older. She’s also very skilled and has some technical abilities that elevate her up well above the average player.”

Cerullo attended the world junior squash championships in Chennai, India, last summer, where she was an important member of the U.S. team. She played two key matches for the three-player American squad — which defeated fourth-seeded Canada and beat England for the first time in history — and swept both contests 3-0. The United States finished fourth in the event.

“The best part about it was that I went on last during all the close matches, which were all split 1-1,” Cerullo said. “There was a lot of pressure going in, but I was able to focus on my game, and that’s definitely built a lot of confidence for me.”

St. Ann’s, Cerullo’s high school in Brooklyn, N.Y., did not have a squash team, so she had never competed for a team before the world junior championships. But she has had no trouble at all fitting in with the other players here at Princeton, as her teammates can attest to.

“I’ve been really impressed with Julie,” said senior teammate Emery Maine, who defeated Cerullo in the finals of the William White Tournament last month. “I knew coming in that she’d never been on a team before, so I anticipated maybe having to show her how to be on a team a little bit, but she’s been fantastic. She’s the first one to help anyone out with anything [or] to be a part of any team activities, and she’s a great friend and teammate off the court as well.”

“Just like she is on the court, she is a very mature freshman [off the court],” Sennatt added. “Julie takes on kind of a leadership role even as a freshman because she’s so dedicated and committed, and has a way of showing the rest of the team that she’s giving 100 percent every day. People take cues from her and look to her for advice on their game.”