In its season opening match, Andover Girls Squash fell short to Milton 3-4. Andover’s record now stands at 0-1.
In the few practices leading up to the match, the team focused on improving its fitness on the court. According to Liz Zhao ’24, certain workouts left some players feeling sore.
“We only had a couple days of practice before our match this time, so we worked a lot on fitness because, coming into the season, a lot of us had not really done that much exercise. We had to work on our cardio and especially our endurance. To do that we would often run up and down the stairs in [The] Snyder [Center] which made many of us sore coming into the match,” Zhao said.
Prisha Shivani ’26 noted confidence as one of the team’s core strengths leading up to the game. Shivani emphasized the importance of being confident in each other as well as yourself, especially since squash is an individual sport.
Shivani said, “Confidence was one of our strengths because going into the first match of the season we all went into it thinking we should all have fun. Squash is not a team sport, rather everyone plays individually which adds up to the score so it was important that everyone was cheering each other on.”
According to Zhao, the matches started off slow for Andover. However, Zhao was impressed by the team’s persistence and composure despite how tough its competition was.
“One important moment that I thought about was a common theme throughout the entire match where the opponent hits a really good shot that we don’t expect our teammate to get, but somehow makes the effort to get the ball and puts a lot of pressure on the opponent. For example, our number one, [Co-Captain] Migyu [Kim ’25], was playing a girl that was ranked very high nationally, maybe even internationally, she is good enough to be a pro player. Most of the shots that she hit were incredible and Migyu was able to return many of her shots which was very inspiring,” said Zhao.
Kim highlighted Devika Hajarnavis ’26, noting her spirit and ability. Despite playing her first match with Andover this past weekend, Hajarnavis maintained a strong attitude, according to Kim.
“I think one of the Freshmen, Devika Hajarnavis, stood out today because it was her first match with Andover. Even though it might have been a nerve racking situation, she came in with a really great attitude and was enthusiastic. I really appreciated her energy despite any nerves she could have been feeling,” said Kim.
Despite the loss, the team was able to identify various areas for improvement within its game. According to Kim, the team will be focusing on its serve returns and general mechanics.
“For the upcoming week, we had one very specific thing that we talked about which is practicing the return of serve because that caught us in a lot of situations. The return of serve starts off the point which is a very crucial part of the game so it is something that we are going to work on this coming week as well as footwork and movement in general,” said Kim.
Andover Girls Squash will face Groton away on Saturday and St. George’s away on Wednesday.
