The preperations pt3: Nidaros Open

After 1 hr flight delay due to leaking aircraft, 1 missed plane, 1 extra stopover, and 45 min wait for luggage after technical problems, I was 2 hours late for my first match in Nidaros Open 2013.
This tournament is played in my hometown, Trondheim, at the squash centre where I started to play squash.

Coming late, I literally had to play 2 matches in a row. First one being good friend and president of the squash club, Øystein Kolstad, who has a previous norwegian gold medal in gymnastics. Ever improving, and enjoyable to play. Final score 3-0.

Next match up was the big talent in this club, Erik Holden, who trains hard and seriously. He clearly prepared well and had a clear gameplan and focus. However, the final score was 3-1 for me.

The following day was the semi finals, where I faced Vidar Iversen, who played the finals of the national student championships. It is always good to see these boys improve. However, a few too many unforced errors gave me enough points to sneak away with 3 games to 1.

Next up was the final versus the grand squash hero in Trondheim and the man to beat, Øyvind Salvesen. And he is indeed grand, with a very different style of play than me. He hits the ball very well, while I am more a physical player trying to push the tempo from the beginning, making him move. I did not start any of the games well, and small lapses in concentration gave away too many points for my liking. The rallies were quite short, which suited him more, but I managed to pull myself together towards the end of the games to take them 11-9, 11-9, 11-5.

Throughout the weekend, I struggled to push hard and keep my focus up. It is important that I can get that back for next weekend. There are many matches to be played and I need to use as little time as possible on court.

I am feeling that I am shaking the cold off, I rid the flu, my dead calf from doubles is healing and my ankle is still under my knee somewhere and pose not too many problems anymore.

Couple days of rest, some good training. Then its action time!!!

Take off for the nationals is Thursday morning. Play will start Friday afternoon :) Looking forward to it.

The preperations part 2: The training

Up until the nationals this year I have also been training with the usual suspects in The Hague. These boys  are swinging rackets like baseball bats on skulls, shooting squashballs like Tommy Guns, play slick, love their spaghetti and meatballs, and if you don't play fair, you might end up with a horse head in your bed the next day....

Squash memories pt.3: Meeting the queen

In 2009 I moved to Amsterdam to pursuit a career in physiotherapy and squash. In search for facilities and a club to play in, I started off looking at Amstelpark, where there are around 9 courts in a massive facility. I got a meeting with the local coach, who is now a great friend of mine: Annelize Naude, aka, DJ Nudie. We started training together and I played for her team in Dutch league. The women's team played top division, and this team consisted amongst others of my future girlfriend Cigany Sillevis and the not so famous Nicol David, 7 times world champion and world number one for 23 years in a row or so.

Annelize introduced me to Nicol the first time at squash city, where the professional girls train with Liz Irving. We met up on a Friday afternoon for some round robin squash matches. I arrived 15 min late after getting lost in Amsterdam on my bike...... I was looking forward to playing Nicol naturally. I think all guys can imagine the feeling, when you compete with a woman with mad skills in any sport. You know you're gonna get whhhhhhopped.....It's just how much its going to hurt your pride. I had all the respect in the world for this small bouncy Malaysian thing.

The thing I remember most of all from this meeting was during the "knock up" as we call it, where we hit crosscourt volleys to eachother to warm up the ball. I had already been hitting a squash ball for 7 years, but it didnt look like that at all. First ball: frameshot, second ball: frameshot in the floor, third ball: frameshot. When the ball came my direction the 4th time, I literally took it with my left hand, and threw it like a girl to the other side of the court.




This little thing has burned itself into my memory, and I don't think I will ever forget it. Now, 4 years later, I can safely say this woman is partially human. Apart from superhuman skills on a squash court, she is a great personality that is great to be around both on and off the squashcourt. We have been training partners for a long time now. Our first 10 encounters all ended 3-2, and off all encounters, I'm sure 70% of them have been 3-2's, and I am convinced we had one single rally that lasted over 4 minutes once.
Honestly, no one can drain me physically more than Nicol. We always have great matches and train well together. At the moment she is helping me prepare for my nationals as she just came home from winning her 7th World open title and her 2nd Super Series trophy. We played yesterday, and guess what the score was? yuuuurp: 3-2, in 80 minutes

The preperations: pt 1: Nimes, France

For what you might ask!!??

For the nationals

With what you wonder?

With training with legends, playing the world open and professional international tournaments.

For some reason, the nationals is my highlight of the year. Its the tournament I fear to play all year, and prepare best for. Some people will aim for my head after hearing me say this, as I should prepare just as well for every tournament and should really apply more pressure on myself playing the big tournaments as well as for my nationals.

The individual norwegian national squash championships is the only tournament I have come out on top in over the last years, and there is more pressure every year. It is the toughest mental struggle every year, and being the top dog is so much worse than being the underdog, like for example during the world open.

I will take you through my preparations leading up to the "NM 2013" from the start of January until it starts in the end of January.

Part 1: Nimes, France

5000K Open du Gard

Kimmie in the quallie, Friday 04/01/2013,  13.30 vs Mark Fuller (ENG)

Trying to make everything as cheap as possible, this time we fly with Ryanair. A company known for Male (boooo) stuard(esses??), little gasoline, and cheeky fotnotes... Oh, and its supposed to be cheap too. At every corner they are trying to hustle you, but I was aware of this, and think I got through it well, with only paying double the price listed online.

Travelling to Nimes takes me first to Marseille, where I have to locate a bus to take me to the trainstation in Centrum of Marseille. Here a train leaves for Nimes twice a day. Naturally I land in Marseille 20.30 in the evening, and so I need the back up solution fo travelling to Avignon first. After getting on the wrong train once, I find a more lightly train to take me to Avignon. This trip takes a while. I make sure not to fall asleep so I dont end up in Luxembourg. Getting to Avignon at 23.00, I immediately get chased out of the station as no more trains run for the night, and end up crashing at tge local hotel..... I already booked the one in Nimes for the night...... why do this keep happening to me? Bad luck? or stupidity? stay tuned for the next episode!!!! Positive side: The view over the castle from the hotelroom

Me and Mark shared a good long match in Prague in September 2012. It then ended 3-1 to Mark, after long and grueling rallies. I knew he was a grinding English player, who which you can never say die. I knew that to be able to beat him, I needed to play smarter squash.

We could not hear the score announced from the referee, and I frankly did not care, but tried to focus on point by point. My hitting was not that comfortable in the first game, but I played patches of good squash. In general, I was hitting better than before. I was moving well, but due to too narrow crosscourts I was brutally punished and had to give away the first game.

The second game followed a similar pattern, but I found a bit more confidence in some shots, but still made some silly shots when I was on top. I still competed well, and played some good rallies. It is just not consistent enough. My couch for the day Mr.Weenink told me a good point about thinking about where to hit the ball instead of how to hit it. My focus has been on how to hit it for over a year now, so it is difficult to shake that out of your brain. My length was better in the third game, and midway I pulled away with the game. My serves were good and my dropshots more effective.

In the 4^th game I was feeling a little bit slow, and without me seeing it, my lengths fell short. Doing this kept me under pressure and over the course of that little time frame, cost me the game. It is always good to have someone analyzing your game, so you can learn from it.

Overall not dissatisfied. It is things I need to work on and things that can be improved. Most of all I am glad I am healthy again and that my ankle feels good enough to play such a match.

World Open 2012 Doha, Qatar

World Open this year was arranged in Doha, Qatar from the 6.-14. of December. Lucky for me, I had already lived here for 3 months, so the tournament was just in the neighbourhood. Unlucky for me 3 months of solo training makes me kind of slow on court. Even more unlucky was the fact that I had an annoying ankle injury 2 weeks before my first match, that took 10 days to settle down. I had some quality training the last 3 days before my match, but because of all this, my expectations were not too high.

I had to play the first match against Oliver Pett from England in the qualification's first round on Thursday the 6th of December. This was a player I had not heard of before, seen play, or played myself. I was expecting english style squash, which is a very honest squash, in terms of having to play proper squash to win and being punished when I played badly.

The first game was competed well. I was glad my ankle was ok, and I pushed all I had, putting together some nice rallies and finding good length. In the crucial end, Olivers experience got the best of me and he finished the rallies a bit better than me, getting the first game 11-7.

In the second game I did not play to well, and lost my length a little. I was pinned in the back, and responded with poor shot selection, losing the game 11-3.

The third game was scorewise very poor, but I was actually not too displeased with the performance. The length were better, and the rallies longer, but Oliver did no mistakes, and seemed to be plucking away points. I lost it 11-0. Steve told me after the match that I only dropped slightly behind the T in the last two games, and that made a big difference. I did not notice this, but I will definitely take that into consideration for future matches.

Overall I am happy with my performance, and excited for the upcoming tournaments. Looking to knock in some good results soon!!! :)

My internship period has come to an end as well here in Doha, and I will be returning to Holland today, before celebrating christmas in Norway with my family :)

Squash memories pt.2: Toothless, alone and abroad

It was the year of the Lord 2003, when young mr Killingberg had been squashing for about a year and was invited with the netional team to Sweden to play the Nordic Junior Open in Malmø, Sweden

Proud as a Rooster to be included and to play on the National team. The feeling was intense. From what I remember, I was travelling with great company. Thomas, Steffen, Bjørni, Karianne, Majken, Eline, Stig, Lotte, Maren and Edvard I believe. This was 10 years ago, so please forgive me if I forgot someone.

I did not have a ranking going into this tournament, so I was put in the B-group of the under 19 class. Which was suitable, as I think I lost all my matches.

In one of my last squash matches I faced an English player named Ben. He has been known as Ben the "Dentist" after this incidence, and I will tell you why.

In the second game, Ben decides to fake a backhand drop shot, Killingclumsy moves forward as Ben decides to hit a hard length instead and throws his racket back...into my Face. My team mates sitting outside watching the match, said they could hear the cracking sound of my teeth. I remember something along the lines as lying horizontally in the air before lying on my back swearing hard.

There was blood and teeth everywhere, as my two front teeth were not chipped of, but in thousand fragments all over the squash court. I wanted to kill that player, but that would be the end of the squash career I guess. My opponent just walked off court as my coach brought me out.

I remember sitting in the stairs and people coming to watch.... they quickly turned away.
I asked my coach to go straight away to the dentist, but he said we had to wait until we returned to Norway. He didnt trust Swedish dentists, which is funny, as in Norway all the dentists are Swedish. I didnt like my coach either at this moment, and took my icepack firmly in my face and took off.

Looking forward to meeting some nice squash girls, but it was hard to work my game with 3 cuts in my lip giving me an Eddy Murphy look, and no front teeth, making my S" into an PH".

Pho... Where u from phuper phexy lady??

I actually went to the movies with the rest of the group.... It was embarassing

Showing up to the courts the next day to complete the match was equally embarassing as I could not run... If I got my pulse up I had to breathe through my mouth which meant cold air straight on my nerve... That was hanging loose in my mouth. Two words: Paaa--IIINNn
It was even worse that my opponent gave me a consolation game, before destroying me in the last one. I was over the whole squash thing anyway, and tried to get away as soon as possible.

The rest of the week consisted in a lot of porridge, a desperate attempt of eating lasagna...which failed, and a snack pack called risi frutti, which is basically ricepudding. I am not the most lactose tolerant person on the planet, but at this stage I was at my lowest so I didnt care.

Leading to next day: No teeth, Diahrrea, feeling sorry for myself, telling my mum over the phone who laughed hysterically made me feel like a million dollars. Sleeping in could be a perk as I thought I was done for the weekend. My coach called me as I was snoozing, telling me I had to go play my last match... 30 minutes ago. Guess what...I lost.. To an islandic player....

Returning to my hometown arranging a dentist appointment as soon as humanly possible, trying to avoid all human contact, I meet on the airport the only person I did not want to meet. The girl I had a crush on at that time.

FML...

I am trying to retrieve some pictures from that incidence but I can only show u the second round of toothache/break

This is what my teeth used to look like:                                   

 

This is what they looked like last week, with courtesy of  Geoff Hunt....

Squash Basics pt. 4: Crosscourt drop

Pack your bags, hold your horses and keep ur socks on!!! Finally the 4th video of the squash basics school is back.

A perfect beginners course to this wonderful game of ours, today covering another hit the bottle exercise, where the goal is to hit the bottle.

Instructions:

S et up the bottle in your favourite corner
W ear your Apple bottom Jeans and Boots with da furrrr
A ssess the wind direction, all Newton's laws of physics and calibrate racket v ball ratio interference
G row a mo, as it is Mo-vember and walk in slo mo at the end of the session