“ ” Nick Matthew

FEATURE IN SEARCH OF GOLD Rod Gilmour speaks to triple world champion Nick Matthew about the remaining targets in his glittering career Fresh challenges are said to bring the best out of top players. And so it should be for Nick Matthew, version 2.0, who believes he has found his eureka moment as the great Briton aims to compete at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and bow out of the game with the Gold Coast sunshine on his back and gold around his neck. That’s the belief of a player who will be a few months shy of his 38th birthday when he bids to bag an incredible hat-trick of Commonwealth men’s singles titles. If he does get that far – and he admits he is only assessing his career every quarter following recent injuries – then you can be sure that he will still look and play like someone several years younger. “ The emphasis now is on skills, tactical and mental elements” Nick Matthew MATTHEW’S AIMS 2017 Compete in the World Championship in Manchester 2018 Compete in the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast 14 SQUASHPLAYER.CO.UK It would be a fitting end, of course, to a people I play, I could play to my strengths. “The court was hot and bouncy, it was 90 brilliant career. But the PSA World Tour’s On a good day, that would be enough. degrees and I was thinking ‘I’ve had a full statesman (he is the oldest player in the summer and I’m breathing out of my rear “You look at it now and I’m not going to be top 40 by three years) must first negotiate end - why is that?’” Matthew said. the most physically strong player out there, two seasons of full-throttle squash, which simply due to the law of averages. I need also includes another aim: the 2017 PSA He sided with a comment made by LJ to figure out what my strengths are.” Men’s World Championship in Manchester. Anjema, the 33-year-old Dutch player Since Amr Shabana retired, Matthew now who retired in June. “LJ said that ‘you “These are two things on the sees himself with a unique hand to play, could only bash your head against a brick horizon that really inspire me,” namely that “there is no one out there with wall so much’. I needed to find a way says Matthew. “Both of them feel as good tactical play or as much experience. around the wall, rather than go through it,” he explained. quite a long way off. When I was I need to start playing to that.” injured, it served a purpose to think He adds: “There will still be aspects of my Thus, Matthew counts the USA trip about those, to do all the right style in how I play, but the tactical knowhow as “two very important weeks”, things to help me get there and to needs to come to the forefront, using my more so now that he is a father, try and do what no one else has brain and really adapting. I’m glad I finally has his own squash academy in figured that out. done before.” Yorkshire and is setting himself By his own admission, Matthew hasn’t had “It has brought out a new enjoyment. It has up for the future. triggered the brain to problem-solve, instead an off season for the past two years due to “Life gets busy, in a good way,” he says. of going on autopilot, if you’re not careful.” the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow “Maybe squash isn’t the no.1 focus. It is and injuries, the most recent being a long- Matthew admits that the PSA World Series when you’re training, but it’s not every term ankle problem sustained at the 2015 Finals were “a bit of an eye-opener” in day now. El Gouna International. this regard. He says it was an “intense” “But at Williams College you get your Ahead of his two tilts Stateside at the period readying himself for the Dubai head down and it’s all about you. And NetSuite and U.S. Opens, he says: “If I was event, following his second-round exit at you carry that momentum through when going to have any longevity in the game, the Allam British Open, the first time he you get home.” then I was going to need an off-season had been beaten at that stage in a training period and consistency. World Tour event for five years. A typical day would see Matthew rise at 6.30am for a physical session, either on “In the season and the weeks in between the bike or a swim in the 50m pool. He events you can’t make up the gaps you feel I went out there playing might coach from 9-12pm and in the are existing and the focus has been on that.” “ how I’ve always played. afternoon go for a swim (one day easy, So the Yorkshireman set about changing the next day hard), before going on court the way he has approached the sport and I didn’t have the summer from 4-6pm, with Wednesday off due to maintained a top-five world ranking since behind me, but I was his new regime of four court sessions 2009. getting tired playing per week. Apart from on court, Matthew does no Mathieu Castagnet and In the evening he would stretch, use impact work and no running. Instead, he Mohamed ElShorbagy. the foam roller and watch the Olympics. does bike, swimming and rowing sessions, “It was like how it was when you were and now hits only four times per week on It wasn’t a position I have younger, when squash was the be-all court. been in, where you are and end-all,” he said. “Longevity is the key word – but I don’t want slowing down and really Refreshed and revitalised, Matthew is ready to have longevity at no.40 in the world,” he hanging on. Usually, for the stampede of tournaments before says. “I still want to get the balance between Christmas, albeit with a soft schedule. being competitive and not pushing myself I’ve had that effect on too far. It’s like I have been reinventing my opponents, not my- He now admits that thinking of those two myself as a player. big pinnacle events in 2017 and 2018 when self! It was a total role he was out injured was “demotivating” - “The training has been the easy bit: doing reversal. and is instead finding the happy medium. less and more sensibly. The hard part has ” “It’s about reassessing at Christmas, then been transferring it onto the court.” The old adage of ‘under pressure, revert to at Easter and so on,” he says. “Hopefully, However, with the season now in full swing, type’ rang true for Matthew. Now, he says, it will get me that longevity to those two it was only in the last throes of his summer the challenge is when to change the pace big events. training that Matthew hit upon his light- and when to be technical, though these “It’s got to the point where ‘what will be, will bulb moment. are two aspects that Matthew is figuring be’. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone. out with this month’s PSA Men’s World “It has only dawned on me that because I couldn’t handle not being successful last Championship in Cairo on the horizon. So I have trained differently, perhaps I should year. I’d rather go out at no.4 in the world to that eureka moment, which came during play differently to match that,” he says. rather than being healthy and losing. his traditional two-week training stint with “Emphasis is now on the skills, tactical former team-mate and pal Alister Walker at “If the body’s healthy and I have a few and mental elements of the game. For the Williams College, Massachusetts, a venue more losses than normal, I’ll keep working last few years I have been fortunate enough where the three-time world champion has hard to get past that. That’s the nature of to get into the position that 90 per cent of the travelled to since 2007. the beast.” SQUASHPLAYER.CO.UK 15.

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