Sam Cornett is one of our new coaches at Open Squash, with an incredible squash background, including being the four time Canadian Champion, and a highest world ranking of 23! Cornett sat down with James Green to talk through her journey in squash from starting out all the way to coaching here, at Open Squash.
Cornett started playing when she was around six to eight years old, and both her parents played squash in university. She jokes that the only thing to do in her very small town of Deep River, Ontario, was to play sports. Her parents would play on one court, and Cornett and her sister would play on the other court, which worked out perfectly.
When a traveling coach came through Deep River, when Cornett was around nine years old, she first realized that she could be serious about squash. “We started traveling two hours to Ottawa, which was a pretty big deal.” Once a week, Cornett and her sister went to Ottawa for training, until they ended up moving there for their father's new job.
Cornett began training with Heather Wallace, the Canadian National Coach at the time. Cornett feels that the combination of the coaching, and aspiring to match her sister (who is four years older than her) spurred her onto the national level. After traveling with her older sister to Nationals for the first time, she was inspired.
“That’s when I first started thinking about competing, and I still didn’t know where I could take it. It wasn’t until I made the Pan American Championships when I was about 14 when I realized.”
Cornett jokes that the difference between travelling to Northern New York for hockey versus Guatemala for squash made it a no-brainer to choose squash.
Cornett also loved that it was a family affair for her, with all of her family playing together. She reflects that she could feel her parents always willing her to train hard and win her matches, and as a teenager she found it annoying, but looking back she realizes how much parents just want the best for you, and she would love to let any teenage players know that.
Right out of high school, Cornett made the decision to play professional squash, and moved from Ottawa to Toronto. She took a job coaching to supplement her professional career, and laughs that she was “pretty bad” in her first year on tour. “I knew I would be better,” she affirmed.
Despite laughing that she wasn’t very good when she started out professionally, she is glad that she had experience playing lower-level PSA tournaments when she was still a teenager, and that her mother was there to help her out with flights and rankings, etc. “I would encourage teenagers to do that still, so you’re not always playing the same juniors.”
After around two to three years on tour, Cornett finally broke into the top 100 rankings. Her parents helped her greatly, always telling her, “We will make it happen, getting you everywhere you need to go, as long as you try the best you can.” Said Cornett.
Despite how difficult it can be on the professional tour, Cornett said she just absolutely loved it. “What could be better for an 18-year-old?” She laughed. Traveling around the world, playing squash and getting better.
Cornett says she eventually began to plateau around the 30 ranking mark. “The plateau really changed when I got injured (...) which took me out for years, and during that time I did a lot of sports psychology.” She had to learn how to become more "aggressive" to get her matches over the finish line of her matches.
Coming back from her injury, she was playing some of her best squash, enjoying her game more than she ever had, and just being happy to be on the court, although her ranking wasn’t showing it - she was still sitting at 30.
Then, in October 2017, Cornett’s father passed away, which was a really difficult time in her life. “I was skipping a bunch of tournaments because I was in such deep grief,” Cornett explains. However, after missing so many tournaments, her ranking finally moved up and into the 20s. She hadn’t been doing the math on playing less tournaments for her ranking to go up.
“I’m like, oh no, I can’t even enjoy this, but he would be really happy!” She said, pointing at the sky.
Cornett retired from professional squash in 2020, although not because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. She says that after the passing of her father, she found it hard to care about playing squash, and it was a horrible and unusual feeling.
“In October 2019 I played my last Challenger, and it was in the name of my dad at my home club, and I won. It felt great, and it was the perfect ending.”
Cornett, when looking for her next step, heard about Open Squash through Peter Creed. “I love how open it is here (...) everyone who comes here is here for squash.” As a coach, playing with people who just love the sport is one of her favorite things about her job.
“We all love this, and we are all here because of that.”