From January 3–7, Christian Capella ’25 and Hart Robertson ’26 participated in the British Junior Open for Squash in Birmingham, England. The two were top five in the country in their age group and therefore qualified to compete in the under 17 category.
On his results at the competition, Capella shared, “I had a fun time with the team but I didn’t really meet my expectations in the tournament. I was the five through eight seed and lost in the earlier rounds to an underseeded player.”
Robertson echoed Capella’s team aspect of the tournament and expressed, “I had a great time; I met people from all over the world. I had a lot of fun competing against people, it was really awesome to be part of team USA.” He explained that he had been thinking about this game for three years, as he was supposed to compete in the under 15 category that was canceled because of Covid-19, and he had spent time training to compete in the under 17 category.
Robertson explained that at Deerfield, he practiced in the morning and the evening, and that he played in Egypt over the summer to train. He decided to enter Deerfield as a new sophomore this year, pointing to his training partners, Capella and Read Kitchel ’26, and the coaching staff.
Capella also described his training and shared, “I always trained two hours in the morning and two and a half at night. I went to Barcelona to prepare with Hart Robertson over winter break.”
The Boys Varsity Squash Team, which the two are a part of, won their matches at their January 27 regular season game against St. Paul’s, allowing them to qualify for New Englands. Looking forward, Robertson said, “Hopefully we’ll have high school nationals and then I’ll play at individual nationals for the U.S.”
Both Capella and Robertson hope to further their career in college. Capella shared that he also hopes to play professionally.
In regards to the current season, Capella shared that because of his sprained ankle, his season has not “been going that well.” Robertson said, “The team itself had a rough start, but we bounced back and won several matches in a row. Everyone is playing really well and contributing at a really high level. I think that as we approach the end of the season, we’ll keep getting good results.”