Scots pair set for new season after two-month Oriam training stint.
Gold Coast 2018 doubles pairing Lisa Aitken and Alison Thomson are gearing up for the new PSA Tour campaign following a gruelling pre-season at Oriam, Scotland’s Sports Performance Centre, in Edinburgh.
The duo begin their 2019/20 season in September with Lisa heading out to the USA on Sunday to play some exhibition matches before her first tournament, the Open de France, in Nantes (September 9-14).
Alison begins her season in Canada with back-to-back events, the Nash Cup (September 17-21) followed by the Aspin Cup (September 25-28).
2019 Scottish national champion Aitken won three PSA Tour titles last season including her biggest yet at the $10k CSC Delaware Open and hopes to continue her form when she begins competitive action in France.
“It’s been a really good training block in Edinburgh this summer,” she said.
“I had June off and have been back at it since the start of July.
“The first half of pre-season I was trying to push myself physically before getting more squash specific.
“I’m now heading to America to play exhibitions against (Canadian professional) Sam Cornett in Los Angeles and San Francisco which will be a useful dress rehearsal for the upcoming tournaments.”
Lisa, who sits at a career best world ranking of 37, added: “I’m not going to set too many targets for the new season, just try and push the top 20 players even more.
“I learnt from my time off to focus on day-to-day things and if you do these fundamentals right then you should go okay.
“That’s what I did last season and it went pretty well.
“I play Farida Mohamed (EGY) in Nantes first up, someone I haven’t played before but Kylie Lindsay (Scottish Squash Performance Coach) saw her compete at the recent World Junior Championships so I will get some feedback from her.”
Alison is looking to build on her positive end to the 2018/19 season which saw her reach a first PSA Tour final at the Swedish Open and the last four of May’s International des Volcans in France.
The Scottish Under-23 National Champion (WR78) said: “I’ve been up in Edinburgh training for two months this summer and it’s been good, I’ve really enjoyed it.
“We mixed things up endurance wise like getting outside for some park runs in the first few weeks before transferring that work on to the court.
“I’m aiming to be more consistent this season and beat some more top 50 players.
“It’s also on my wish list to win my first $5k PSA event and from that hopefully my world ranking will improve.”
Listen to the Scottish Squash ‘2019/20 season preview’ podcast here with coaches Paul Bell, Kylie Lindsay and Kevin Moran.
The Scottish Squash Podcast is available to download and listen to on SPOTIFY, iTunes and Podbean.
