Victory usually has one of two effects on a person. It either satiates and satisfies the individual or leaves one obsessed with experiencing that success again. For Katie Patrick, the latter is obviously the case.
Patrick won the Black Knight Canadian Universities and Colleges squash championships last weekend at the AC, making her the first female to repeat as champion at that event. Her first victory at the tournament came in 2004.
“It felt great winning for a second time,” said Patrick. “The two were very different, however, as the last final was a very close, hard-fought battle between myself and another player ranked very similar to me in Canada. The last one was in some respects a little more fulfilling, but…it was nice to win for a second time.”
The JD/MBA Toronto student defeated Western’s Stephanie Edmison 3-0 to claim the crown. Edmison is Canada’s best under-19 squash player, but Patrick-who is ranked sixth nationally-was not nervous about facing the young upstart.
“I was pretty confident. I had played Stephanie the weekend before in the Ontario Open and won 3-0 there as well,” revealed Patrick. “The basic strategy was to be patient to allow her to make mistakes and to keep the pace up so she didn’t have time to plan her shots.”
The victory has added significance for Toronto’s ace, as it means she has now qualified to represent Canada in the 2006 FISU World University Championships in Hungary in August. She will be joined in Europe by Western’s Andrew Jones, the winner of the men’s title last weekend.
Patrick is no stranger to international competition, having played in several global tournaments. Her goal is to climb the world rankings while she finishes her program at U of T, but she still enjoys playing in national events.
“This was a nice event because it is smaller and there is quite a lot of spirit in University athletics. In other competitions (nationally and internationally) you don’t have that,” she said. “Most of my focus is on my international ranking, though, which I hope to get up to the top 35 in the world.”
Trying to juggle school and squash is one of the other big challenges the women’s champion has to face: “It’s tough to juggle it all, but I have managed to make it work for the most part. I am away at tournaments at least 2 times a month and sometimes it involves missing a few days of class, but I try catch up after,” said Patrick.
Katie Patrick now has five months to train and compete in preparation for the world championships. A win at this tournament would go a long way in terms of proving that she belongs among the world’s elite squash players.
