Egyptian inspiring squash success

by DWAYNE GIBBS

dwaynegibbs@nationnews.com

EGYPTIAN-BORN Wael El Batran is the mastermind behind the Barbados squash team’s senior and junior athletes’ success at both regional and international level this year.

He was brought in by the Barbados Squash Association (BSA) as the national coach in May, and in three months took the athletes to levels anew, re-establishing Barbados as one of the dominant forces in regional squash.

In June, he helped the senior women’s trio of Megan Best, Margot Prow and Amanda Haywood earn a team bronze at the Pan American Championships in Cartagena, Colombia, to qualify for the Pan American Games in Chile this October. This is the first time any Barbadian squash team has achieved such a feat.

He also coached Barbados to an overall win at the Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) Junior Squash Championships in St Vincent last month. The previous holders, Guyana, had taken the title away from Barbados last year.

In addition to the coveted overall title, Barbados earned nine individual and team gold medals, one silver and two bronze.

New challenges

The Barbadian trio of CASA Under-19 girls’ champion Sumairaa Suleman, and boys’ doubles champions Aidan Parris and Alex Stewart left last Friday with coach El Batran and team manager Josephine Haywood to compete at the Pan American Junior Championships in Pilar, Argentina, as the only country from the Caribbean to have qualified.

El Batran spoke with MIDWEEK SPORT to explain how he got the Barbados coaching job.

“Most people seeing my resumé get a little scared or wonder if I’m so good why would I want to come to them, but I always want to take chances and new challenges. I don’t want to play with the top player, I would rather work with a decent player and take them to the top. It’s a kind of self-satisfaction I get from doing so,” El Batran said.

“Barbados was announced on the international squash website, and I applied. I came here two years ago, and I saw a lot of potential. They said to me that although Barbados’ players are good, they need someone to make them very good. So, the structure was built and now anyone can see how we have developed both the junior and senior squads,” he noted.

El Batran, 59, said he was never a great player, but he had an intense passion for coaching. In 1990 he left Egypt and went to Germany to finish his master’s degree in machine engineering.

Then in 1994, he travelled to England where he joined the Professional Squash Association’s certification programme and worked his way to level four. In 2002, he spent one year in the United States and pursued a degree in sports science which would take his understanding of coaching and athletes’ needs to unprecedented levels.

Since 2002, El Batran has worked in Latin America, North America, Africa and Europe. His best ever student is now retired squash champion Simon Rosner, who is irrefutably the greatest German player of all time. El-Batran’s coaching took Rosner to number three in the world at the peak of his powers.

El Batran took some time to share how he has acclimated to life in Barbados over the last three months.

“In Barbados, the people are very relaxed, polite and peaceful, so it was easy to adjust to life here. The problems came on the court because I am a vocal coach and sometimes I can be hard on the athletes because I don’t keep my mouth shut during practice. Sometimes players would get hard feelings, but I am always pushing them to reach their best,” El Batran said.

The Egyptian maestro is a man of conviction and passion. He was seen with a broad smile as he embraced the players when they won, and aggressively voicing instructions when they were losing to an opponent. He said it all stems from his love of the game and his desire to see his players win.

Can be winners

“When you travel with 20 players and 16 excel, it’s a great result and it makes me very proud. My job is not only to give the players confidence but convince them that they can be winners. I believe in implementing a lot of mental exercises on and off court because the mental side is a huge part of a game plan. I tell my athletes that they can go with my game plan or go with theirs,” El Batran said.

He made it a point to distinguish the difference between a trainer and a coach, stating that although he operates in both capacities, the two roles have very different requirements.

“A trainer is like a hairdresser. The players come in, state what they want, and the trainer gives them what they ask for. A coach is like a doctor, they write the prescription which is the game plan and if you take it, you heal, if you don’t take it, then it will be a long process. I give players the strategy from my many years of experience, and I formulate a strategy for each player based on their strengths and weaknesses. I am a coach, but I am also a trainer and a developer,” El Batran said.

After the Pan American Junior Championships

in Argentina, El Batran will be preparing the senior squad for the CASA Senior Championships in the Cayman Islands from August 19.

Then the women’s senior team comprising Best, Prow and Haywood will head to Chile in October to compete in Barbados’ first ever Pan American Games in squash. After this, El Batran’s work with the Barbados national team will be officially done.

Almost every coach has a core philosophy or ideology they ingrain within their players throughout their time together. El Batran said his can be expressed in three words, “be a wolf”.

“I have my own academies in Paderborn, Germany, and Cairo, Egypt, named after that same philosophy. It’s called the ‘Be A Wolf’ Squash Academy. You can be a wolf or you can be a sheep, it is your choice. To win you must prepare yourself to be a winner, not just do your best.

“I teach all my students that confidence brings success, success will never bring confidence if it is not already there. I am not the best coach in the world but there is no one better than me and I tell my players the same thing. If someone wants to beat you, they must show they are better, but you are better than them. I told them before the tournament that they are not good, they are very good and no one can beat them,” he said.

(second right) with (from left) Margot Prow, Amanda Haywood, and Megan Best after the national women’s senior team earned a bronze medal at the Pan American

Championships in Colombia. (GP)