We started our probably last trip of the Squash World Tour 2020 pretty early –on September 26. At 8:30 I picked up Peter #teamyellow and our social media officer Jasmin at their home and we started our approximately 4 hour drive to Slovenia.

Boarders closed after our visit

Two days after our trip, visits to Slovenia have been restricted for Austrians. Our guess is that the Slovenian government wanted the Squash World Tour to visit and delayed the decision a bit to make our encounter possible as the world had to suffer anyways!

Sightsquashing in Ljubljana

We were early in Ljubljana and had some time left for our #sightsquashing! Peter knows the city quite well as he has family in Slovenia, so it was easy to find an appropriate spot. In this case we went to Metelkova, a small autonomous part of the capital city. There is a unique, rebellious and anarchic vibe there, definitely a great place for our warm-up-sightsquashing session!

 

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Eldorado for Squashers

After that we headed towards Squashland Ljubljana, a super modern building dedicated to our great sport. It is indeed the most impressive place to play squash we have ever seen!

More about that later when we’ll give a small tour through the building.

Match time in Ljubljana

But first, we had the pleasure to play on the court No 2. As usual, after our warm up, we started with one game to determine who begins with the serve.
I was keen on retaliating for the losses on the Squash World Tour 2020 so far – our training sessions showed that there is no big difference in strength.
This warm-up game was already promising on a high level for our standards which I could decide 11-9 for myself.

However, for some reason the start into the actual game was more complicated as I started down 0-3 fast with a few errors. Peter used that cushion and expanded on it by playing solid points without errors. The level was high, however in the important situations I couldn’t finish up the point while #teamyellow found the touch with both, long shots along the wall and well placed drop shots and thus took the first game 11-4.

I couldn’t find my touch, so I didn’t take a break, played a few balls in the meantime and focused on the second game with the intent to just get back into the match.

However, the second game was not much different. I just had the feeling, I can’t finish the point even when leading the rally. Great defense by Peter made it quite frustrating in those situations and took the game 11-5.

This time I took a few sips from my drink and tried to re-focus. The longer the match, the better for me – usually. So the tactic is to hang in there and let Peter run as much as possible.

However, on this day there was nothing to be done to stop #teamyellow, even though I came a bit closer in the end. He took the third game 11-9. Yet another victory for Peter #teamyellow this year which secures him the title of the Squash World Tour 2020 Champion!

Squashland Ljubljana is great

After our game we got a tour through the building. Not only the squash heart is pounding higher here: There is a gym, spinning bikes, a sauna (which we got to try afterwards) and a nice Café. We will show you a video later on… At Squashland there is not only squash to play, but also other fun games – some challenging your quickness, some your strategic thinking. We had a lot of fun trying them out and talking to Goran while completely forgetting the time.

We really enjoyed it here and we are sure that a lot of squash players will enjoy playing there in the next years as the people are very welcoming and there is plenty to do together even besides playing squash.

Some more Sightsquashing and Krofi

Before heading back home, we of course had to visit Ljubljana’s beautiful city center where the famous dragon bridge is located. On the way we got a few young kids fired up for squash, too! They put our stickers on their bikes. If you want stickers too, just write us!

Pro tip for everybody on a similar route: take the time to visit Trojanski bakery for their legendary doughnuts “krofi”!

Thank you Goran and Squashland for hosting us – it was a pleasure! Looking forward to meet again!