Squash Magazine: Baset Ashfaq's Exit From Squash, page 2



Ashfaq had a long transition to collegiate life. He was a practicing Muslim and had gone to Friday prayers and ate halal, so it took a while for him to find out how his beliefs meshed with living on an American college campus. On court, he was clearly a fantastic player, but his confidence slowly seeped away. He lost in a qualifying match at the 2006 U.S. Open in Boston to Tom Richards, a player he had always beaten before. After that he never played in another PSA tournament again. He started losing challenge matches. After reaching No. 1 on the Trinity ladder, he lost in quick succession to Shaun Johnstone at No. 2 and Gustav Detter at No. 3. The best recruit in history and he's playing No. 3? He managed to beat the No. 4 player, Supreet Singh, and a month later had challenged back to the No. 1 spot. It wasn't until the finals of the 2007 nationals against Princeton that he showed his true form. He lost the first game to Maurico Sanchez, 9-4. Sanchez had gone undefeated all year. All of a sudden Ashfaq rolled the next three games, 9-2, 9-2, 9-1. He was playing pro squash rather than college squash. He kept his drives super-air-lock tight, no matter how much duress Maurico put him under he detonated the ball with unprecedented velocity. It was little noted in Trinity's dual-match victory, but his match with Sanchez was a seminal moment in Ashfaq's ascendance. A week later, he fell in the semis of the intercollegiates. He played well in the morning, dispatching a pugnacious Kimlee Wong in the quarters. But that Saturday night in the semis against Siddharth Suchde of Harvard, he was out of sorts. In the middle of the first game, Sid coughed up a loose ball. Ashfaq stepped up and crushed it. Sid asked for a let. He got it. All of a sudden, Ashfaq was confused. It was not a let, at least in the way that international players would have expected. He did not take it in stride. He had to make an adjustment—it was like a pitcher learning to adapt to an umpire's strike zone—and it rattled him. The match got physical and Sid came out better for it, winning convincingly 9-7, 9-5, 9-6 and taking the title the next day over Sanchez. He spent his summer back in Pakistan and came back to campus having lost twenty pounds. For a guy who was 6'5”, this was enormously encouraging, as he needed all the help he could get in accelerating around the court. His sophomore year, he was a different guy, more mature and settled. He started to see himself staying in the States after graduation. He began to eat non-halal meat and stopped going to Friday prayers. His studies were on track: he was majoring in economics and had a 3.5 average. He also figured out college squash, that he would be pushed and battered and hacked, that although he cleared well, he would be accused—because of his size—of clogging the lanes. He became used to lesser skilled players getting physical with him. He went undefeated. In the dual match against Princeton, Ashfaq faced Maurico Sanchez again and destroyed him in three, 9-2, 9-2, 9-0. It was the most lopsided win I have ever seen at a No. 1 match between the two top-ranked teams in the country. Those guys had enormous egos to go with their talent and they simply never let a match deteriorate that completely. At the nationals, Ashfaq beat Sanchez again 3-1. Down at Annapolis for the intercollegiates intercollegiates, he beat Gustav Detter in an anticlimactic final. Previous Next