Coming off two very impressive showings at the team national championships, Cornell’s men’s and women’s squash teams now send the best of their best to the national individual championships this weekend at Harvard.
The men are sending four of their top players including Rajat Khanna, Tim Nagle, Neal Soo, and Kenny Greer. The men’s tournament is broken up into two draws of 32 competitors, with the highest ranked players all being in the top bracket of the draw.
Khanna and Nagle will be in the upper division while Greer and Soo will be competing in the bottom draw. Nagle has arguably the toughest road ahead, facing the number four seeded player in the tournament from Princeton.
Rajat will also face one of the Tigers’ best in his first round match and is expected to go deeper into a very competitive field.
On the women’s side, all players compete in a very extensive and difficult 64-player field. The Red is sending six of its elite including Kellen Heckscher, Andrea McNeely, Melinda Lee, Kate Lytle, Megan Schwartz, and Olga Puigdemont-Sola.
Of course, as might be expected by now, all eyes are on Puigdemont-Sola. She finished third in last year’s competition and is the fourth seed this weekend.
Puigdemont-Sola is considered one of the world’s best young players and is viewed as a heavy favorite to take home the weekend’s top honors.
Many of the other women are also favored to win some matches at the tournament and should show well for this season’s very competitive Cornell team.
This season has truly been one of Cornell squash’s finest years in a long time. This weekend both squads look to end their breakthrough years in style with a little individual flare.
Archived article by Scott Jones