”I thought this was a lovely gesture from Paul”, said Nick afterwards, as we were having a little chat, “but then again, it’s not the first time he does amazing things, for the British Open final, we were playing on the Monday, and the weekend had been extremely busy, but the Monday was a bit like an “after event”, so Paul invited the club members from my two clubs, Hallamshire and Duffield. I’ll never forget that….”

”I will put this frame in a more prominent place once I retire, because I want to be reminded of this in a good way, because I want to achieve more events, and I want this event to be one of many… “

You can feel talking to him that he is, how can I say this in a second language, not worried, but concerned I guess is the best word, about not letting this British Open title be THE victory of his career. So quite rightly, he looks at other Champions and how they coped with victory.

”It seems that all the top players seem to struggle a bit the first time around at the top, look at Shabana, after he became World Champion, he struggled for about a year, and it’s only the second time around he’s been able to impose himself, same thing for Thierry, first time he became world number one, he stayed only two months. It’s only the second time he was able to stay for a whole year, it’s like the second time, you know what to expect, and you can manage the pressure better and be more consistent. I've just got to find that "second time round"...”

Now, I was there when he fell badly in Toronto, in the first round of the Canadian Classic, and his tough Yorkshire boy’s face was distorted with acute pain. I knew there and then it was bad. And when I saw him on crutches, I got extremely worried for his season.

But the same way he replies a “I’m fine, It’s not life threatening!” to people who ask him how he is, he’s got a no nonsense attitude towards injuries in his career. “ I’ve been pretty lucky with injuries really, I only ever had my back problem, which was more frustrating than anything else, and it was simple, I had a weakness in my body that could be strengthened, what was frustrating was that it reoccurred seven or eight times. And this one, which was a freak accident. One second you are running on the court, the next you are on the floor, unable to move… So, I consider myself as being pretty lucky.”

”I thought I was going to be off court for weeks, at least 8 or 10, so I tried and use my time constructively, I even wrote down what I was going to spend my time doing, reading, learning Spanish, etc. But thanks to the EIS guys, the recovery was so fast, in three weeks from walking on crutches, I was running on the treadmill!”

”So actually, it was a nice three week break, where I rested a lot, I slept, enjoying my life really, and then I started the training, gym, bike, session with DP, working with a psychologist, watching squash DVDs, doing all the things you normally don’t have the time to do when you are rushing to prepare for a tournament, I had the time to take a step back, think about what I was doing, about what I wanted to do, and preparing the long term.

Nick didn’t enter the ToC, and will make his reappearance in Malaysia, the 14th of March. “At the moment, I’m playing awesome! Of course, I train with players of my club, I’m having a few nice matches, where I don’t have to cover the whole court, and where I’m not fully extended. But I’m a couple of weeks away from being fully fit, and after a few matches, I’ll be all right, I’ll organise some sessions with Alister (Walker), and Beng Hee…I’ll be ok…

”I’m not far off…”
 

KEEPING THE SCORE

When one of the Manchester volunteers and SquashSite fan Arthur Caplan turned up in Belfast, it was a surprise and a godsend.

Arthur had made his own way over to Northern Ireland to watch the squash, he's a real fan of the English girls and was even wearing a special t-shirt printed with a photo of the four England girls collecting their World Team Champions trophy.

But he's used to working at events, not just watching, so he offered to help us out with the live scoreboard, which was a great help.

In fact, it was Arthur who suggested we get Nicky to allocate one of her volunteers at this event specifically to the scoreboard, and youcan probably guess who's been feeding you the scores from the glass court all week ...  thanks Arthur!