By Lucy Roberts
Squash star Gina Kennedy is set to represent England at the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and she’s setting her sights on winning medals.
Gina Kennedy by Sam Mellish, Team England.
Kennedy started playing the sport when she was just nine years old and she juggled that with running, something which she gave up as a 13-year-old to focus solely on squash.
She spoke to Female First about her thoughts ahead of the Commonwealth Games, revealed whether she agrees with the idea that she’s squash’s answer to Emma Raducanu and explained why she hopes to be a role model and get more children into playing the sport.
Q) How and why did you get involved in playing squash?
A) I started playing squash when I was about nine years old. My parents aren't sporty at all, but I was always a very sporty kid, involved in lots of different sports when I was growing up. I was quite a competitive runner and I also played football for Crystal Palace for a few years and a lot of netball as well at school.
My friend's dad was a keen squash player and wanted his daughter to take up squash, but she refused to play without a friend. My friend's dad asked my parents if I would be willing to play with his daughter and I begrudgingly obliged! How I got into squash was definitely an accident!
I decided to quit running and focus purely on squash when I was around 13 years old.
Q) What was it about the sport which made you want to give up running and focus on it?
A) I was quite a successful runner at the time but found the squash training and competitions a lot more enjoyable. I think this was due to having so many good friends in the squash world and these people are still my best friends to this day. Squash is such a small community, and it creates some amazing friendships that can last a lifetime.
I had this weird complex with running, no matter if it was training or a race, I just really didn't enjoy it. I was just so nervous, even if it was just a training session. I was ultra, ultra-competitive, I just wanted to win everything, but it was it was to my detriment, I just put so much pressure on myself. I never felt that way with squash training. I just enjoyed that.
“I had so many really good friends in squash, so I just loved going away to tournaments with my friends and loved playing against them. Obviously, some of my best friends are my biggest rivals, it’s a very, very interesting relationship!
Q) How does it feel to have been selected as part of the England team for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham?
A) It feels amazing to be selected for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. When I graduated from Harvard, one of my primary goals was to be selected for Team England for the Commonwealth Games, however, given that I was ranked 167th in the world at the time, I thought that this would be an extremely difficult task. I definitely did not believe that I would be ranked number two in the country and number nine in the world at this point in my career, so I am really proud of what I have achieved over the past year. Being selected for the Commonwealth Games is by far the biggest achievement of my career and it makes it even more special that it is going to be played in England.
The Commonwealth Games is once every four years, so everyone really targets the games, but after that, we still have a really good professional circuit and I managed to make it into the top 10 this year. My main goal is that I definitely want to win gold at the Commonwealth Games, but I'll be targeting other tournaments on the calendar.
Q) Do you see yourself as a role model for youngsters within the sport?
A) I'd love to play a role! I don't actually do any coaching, but where I train there's a lot of young kids coming through. I've got a lot of young kids who message me, parents who have messaged me saying that I’m a role model for their kids.
It's too hard to fit one-on-one coaching into my training but I hope that kids can look up to me and when I see them down the pub, I'll always be talking to them and finding out about what they've been up to!
If you look at a country like Egypt for example, there's just so many young kids who are just obsessed with the sport and so involved and that's why they're so successful and dominate the squash world. That all stems from getting kids involved at the grassroots level and I think there's no reason why England, with its new programme Squash Stars, can't do that.
We have a lot more kids who are pushed into football or other sports like tennis for example. Squash is such a great sport, it’s one of those active sports so it'd be great if we can see an increase in the number of kids who play as well.
Q) How did it feel to jump out of a plane and why did you want to do it?
A) Me and my friend went skydiving for my 18th birthday and it was really fun to jump out of a plane! I have always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so I thought this was the perfect activity for me! It was such an amazing experience and would love to do it again. I am actually going to New Zealand in November to play a tournament and I will definitely look into going bungee jumping there!
Q) Your rise in the rankings from 167th to 9th in a year has been likened to Emma Raducanu's success, so do you see any similarities between yourself and her?
A) It’s a huge compliment to be likened to Emma Raducanu. She is also from Bromley and we both train at the same club (Parklangley Club), so it’s really cool that we have both had some success on the pro squash and pro tennis circuit this year! Of course, her achievement of winning the US Open far outweighs anything I have achieved, so it makes being likened to Emma even more of a compliment.
From watching her play, it seems that she is physically very strong, and she wins a lot of points through her amazing retrieval skills and her speed around the court. This is similar to how I play as one of my biggest strengths is my physicality, so I think we are similar in that way.
Q) What are you most proud of in your life so far?
A) Outside of squash, I am most proud of getting into Harvard University. I had to study hard at GCSE and A levels, but you also have to do the American standardised exams.
Obviously, they are definitely lower for an athlete, but there are some absolute geniuses at Harvard as you can imagine. Standards are still very, very high and it takes quite a lot of academic work beforehand.
England Squash has launched its new campaign, Squash Stars, a nationwide junior squash participation initiative to attract thousands of girls and boys to the game.
The six-week programme, delivered by participating clubs and venues from June, will introduce children aged 5-11 to the fun game of squash. Children will be taught the fundamental skills to play squash, and develop hand-eye coordination, racket work, movement and match play through action-packed fun games and drills delivered by specially trained leaders.
Parents can now enrol their child onto the programme starting from 6th June via https://www.squashstars.co.uk All Squash Stars will receive six group coaching sessions, and a free racket, a ball, bag and goggles to help them get in the game.