US Squash selects the nation’s top juniors to represent the USA in international competition each summer. Incredibly, six local juniors were offered spots, a record for our area.
Nathan Rosenzwieg was selected to compete in the World Junior Championships, the first time an NCS junior competed in this event since 2010. Nathan is now a first-year player at the University of Virginia, which finished last season with a #8 national ranking.
Elise Kang competed in the Pan Am Junior Championships and scored a Bronze Medal for Team USA.
Three girls represented our nation at the Egyptian Junior Open, considered the third-hardest tournament in the world. Despite being seeded 17/32 in the 32-player GU17 draw, Akaisha Bhatia pulled off two massive upsets in the first two rounds, both by 3-0 wins. First, she beat a 9/16 seeded Egyptian, and then she knocked out the #2 seed, a German, to reach the quarters. Calla Yim took … Continue Reading ››
The 2024 World Masters made history with the largest participation in tournament history as 1,070 masters players from around the world competed in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
NCS’s Carole Grunberg was among three Americans who medaled in the event. She earned a spot in the 70+ 1-8 playoff by winning all three of her group matches. Grunberg reached the semifinals with a 3-0 victory, before losing out in the semifinals against Australia’s two seed Gaye Mitchell 12-10, 10-12, 11-4, 11-7. Grunberg then clinched the bronze medal in the 3/4 playoff against Scotland’s Maureen Carroll 11-6, 11-5, 11-6.
Congratulations Carole!
NCS players Sergio Lopez, Deepak Gopinath, Tawhid Nawaz, Asif Ehsan and Ross Campbell also competed for Team USA. The next world masters will be in Brisbane Australia in August, 2026.
Trinity Moshi won the GU15 draw at the 64-draw Dutch Junior Open. Leading up to the final, she won all her matches in three games, then prevailed in a five-game thriller over the top Dutch player.
Akaisha Bhatia scored the best finish among NCS juniors at the season’s first Junior Championship Tournament (JCT), in Connecticut in August, by reaching the GU17 semis. Akaisha also won the Virginia Gold in GU19 earlier this summer. Playing in an older age division, Isabella Tang took 9th place in GU19 at the JCT and Rohan Gondi, who also won the Racquet Up Detroit Summer Junior Gold, placed 6th in BU19. Zack Ingber took 9th in BU15.
Trinity Moshi won the GU17 draw at the Southeast Regional Junior Gold, and Christian Keng won BU17. Sami Garside, Zack Ingber, and Kian Patnaik finished third in BU19, BU17, and BU15, respectively. Several NCS juniors notched personal bests there, including … Continue Reading ››
The annual Jeremy Barnes Memorial Tournament honors one of our favorite players who brought joy, humor, and a great passion for the game of squash. In a typical Jeremy Barnes match, there were at least three dives for shots out of his reach (and sometimes in his reach). He played in many local and national junior and adult tournaments and was a five-time NCS junior award winner. He then went on to make the varsity team at Drexel University, one of the top teams in collegiate squash.
Be sure to put this tournament on your entry list for next September. It's played at the Chevy Chase Athletic Club on the weekend closest to his September 15 birthday, so the next one will be September 12-14, 2025.
Over 50 players competed in this year’s tournament. In the top draw, 6.0, after coming back to defeat Zack Ingber in a five-game semifinal, Sergio Lopez … Continue Reading ››
The NCS inter-club league recently completed its spring/summer season. Eight teams from DC, Maryland and Virginia competed in a division for players ranked up to 5.0, while six teams participated in the 4.0 grouping. More than 135 players participated in more than 100 matches during the season.
The B team from perennial contender Regency (McLean OneLife) took the title in the 5.0 division, winning in the final over its intra-club rival Regency A.
Bethesda won the 4.0 championship for the first time since 2019.
After a short break, the fall/winter season will kick off in October and run through March 2025. We are speaking with some clubs interested in rejoining both existing divisions, and are exploring adding a pilot division with a few teams to start for players with rankings up to 3.0 to get newer players involved in competitive matches.
The U.S. Junior Squash Championships is the top USA Junior tournament, and it’s open only to the leading 32 US citizens in each age group. Merely being selected for this tournament is one of the highest honors possible for a junior squash player.
Congratulations to all 17 NCS juniors who gained entry to this prestigious event!
This is one of the largest, if not the largest, number of NCS juniors who have qualified for the tournament.
Listed below are those who have gained entry to the tournament and their current position on the cut list. The final seeding of the tournament is randomized after the top four positions.
GU15
Isabella Tang, 3
Trinity Moshi, 6
Shreya Vadlamani, 29
GU17
Calla S Yim, 8
Akaisha Bhatia, 11
Makeda Moshi, 16
Caroline Burg, 27
Khadija Elhaddad, 30
GU19
Elise Kang, 11
Indira Moshi, 25
BU13
Eric Tang, 9
BU15
Zachary Ingber, 14
Kian Patnaik, 27
BU17
Christian Keng, 29
BU19
Nathan Rosenzweig, 6
Daniel King, 16
Lucas Bitar, 32
Gold tournaments are the highest level of junior regional tournaments, and only one Gold tournament is scheduled in the USA on any given weekend.
Zachary Ingber notched his first BU15 Gold title last month at the Baird E Haney Junior Gold in New York City. Inigo Jordan set a then personal best third-place BU15 finish at the same event. Caroline Dupree took home an 11-12 finish in GU17, matching a personal best.
At the Calvert Junior Gold last weekend, Akaisha Bhatia, Inigo Jordan, and Christian Keng posted the highest finishes by NCS juniors by reaching the GU19, BU15, and BU17 finals. Christian dropped just one game on the way to the final, which he lost by scores of (4), 8, (8), (13). He set a personal best BU17 finish.
Inigo, one of the most rapidly improving juniors in the nation, notched yet another personal best with his appearance in the final. The semifinal … Continue Reading ››
Liam Rotzoll, playing #5 and #6 for Harvard as a senior, helped the Crimson finish fifth nationally. He racked up eight wins and just six losses during the season.
With junior Emma Wolf playing #7 for the University of Pennsylvania, the team finished sixth in the tournament, resulting in an end-of-season national ranking of sixth. She recorded an eight win, seven loss season for the team.
First-year Maria Arseniev held down the #2 ladder position for Tufts, which competed in the top-12 division at the National Collegiate Team Championships.
First-year Rohan Bhatia was a reserve player at the championships for the Tufts men's team, which also competed in the top-12 division. He recorded four wins in eight matches for the team's in-season matches.
In just its third year with varsity status, Georgetown won the women’s title in the College Squash Association (CSA) Divisional Team Championships. This tournament is for Women’s Varsity Teams ranked 13-32 … Continue Reading ››
