Czech
Champion Koukal Marks Historic Homecoming
When
Jan Koukal steps onto a court at Squash Club Praha this
week in a bid to win the inaugural PSA Challenger 5 SynotTip Open
in his home city Prague, the Czech champion will make squash
history by competing in his 25th PSA World Tour event of the
year.
The
28-year-old world No52 began his remarkable 2011 campaign in New York in
the third week of January when he attempted to qualify for the JP
Morgan Tournament of Champions, the first PSA World Series
event of the year.
Koukal
went on to play in five further Tour events in the USA over the next two
months before moving on to Canada, Hong Kong, Brazil, Paraguay,
Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Netherlands, Kuwait and Slovakia before
returning home to round off the year in the city of his birth.
During
the historic journey, Koukal picked up his 18th Tour title at the
Regatas Resistencia Open in Argentina, and reached his 32nd final
earlier this month at the Imet Open in Bratislava.
And
the highest-ranked Czech player of all-time still found time to
represent his country for the seventh year in the European Team
Championships in Finland - and bring his haul of Czech Republic national
titles to 12 in April.
What
motivates the sport's most prolific competitor to maintain such a
schedule? "It's pretty simple actually - I really enjoy playing squash
and competing," Koukal responded.
"I
don't really have much chance to train in Prague, so I'd rather play
matches in tournaments. I pick tournaments in nice places - I enjoy
going to most of them. And as squash is my job, thanks to my sponsors, I
don't see a reason to play just one tournament a month or so - I would
rather play every week, like tennis players, if that was possible!"
"In
fact, I would have played a few more if I hadn't had to pull out of
Malaysia and Australia due to injury!
"I had
a pretty unlucky start to the year when I went to the US for bunch of
tournaments and got bronchitis as soon as I got to New York for the ToC
- and it took a while to get rid of it.
"But
overall, my year was not too bad: I've managed to reach eight finals so
far, even only winning one of them. I can't complain."
But
can Koukal, who joined the Professional Squash Association in 2000 and
reached a career-high 39 in 2005, keep up this arduous schedule?
"I'm
definitely planning to keep it up next year and if 25 is the number for
2011, I'm sure I can beat that easily if i actually focus on it!
"I'm
sure my body can handle it, even though it's tough some time. I just
hope there are enough tournaments which I can connect without flying all
around the world for one event at time."
Koukal, whilst proud of his 12 national titles, has his eyes on further
domestic success in the sport: "It's pretty unique I guess, as I'm still
only 28 and I believe I have plenty left in me still. First I just
wanted to win the national title, then retain it. But once I got to
three or four, I was hoping five ... and at seven, I started believing
in 10!
"I
lost once after that, but I'm back on track again now. The competition
here in Czech is getting tougher every year, so I take it year by year -
and I'm now just curious about how many more titles I can manage to add
from now on."
When
asked about his remaining ambitions in squash, Koukal replied: "I just
enjoy playing this sport - I love the life-style, competing, travelling,
meeting people and just getting to experience things and places I
wouldn't even have dreamed of without squash.
"I'm
not too focused on rankings, as playing this many tournaments kind of
kills it. I just focus on tournaments.
"I
think I play squash a little differently from the others - and I just
treat the circuit and my life on the tour the same."
PSA
CEO Alex Gough paid tribute to Koukal's achievement: "We are
always talking about how many tournaments a player can play on the
circuit as squash is such a tough sport. What Jan has achieved this year
is remarkable and should be inspiring to his peers on the Tour.
"We
wish him the best of luck for 2012 and hope that he can keep it up!"
added the former world No5.
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