Angela Smith (squash)

Angela Smith (b. 3 July 1953 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) is a retired professional English squash player. Smith was the first female squash player to turn professional, doing so in 1979 in order to make a career from tournament play rather than coaching. She is widely recognized for changing the face of women's squash by becoming a professional. Her first overseas position was as squash coach at the prestigious Vertical Club in Manhattan, New York, where she rubbed shoulders with world's sporting greats such as Vitas Gerulaitis, the tennis pro at the club. The contract was said to be the most lucrative of its kind in the sport at that time. Here she coached many famous personalities of the time such as Jacqui Kennedy, the wife of the president of the USA. Following her successful period in the States and her significant input into the Women's Sport Foundation of America, she took up an even greater challenge in Nassau the Bahamas where she took squash from the realms of an ex pat sport to a sport also for locals. She was instrumental in Shell sponsoring the squash programe and several of the juniors that Angela coached later went on to play on the world circuit themselves. Following her six years in Nassau, she was based in Barcelona Spain at the Can Melich club where she was again a great success, helping to organise amongst other events the European Junior championships. She also coached and helped further develop the game in Hong Kong, Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, St Vincent and Kenya to name just a few of the countries. All this whilst jetting to and from the UK and World circuit to compete in the necessary events to allow her to represent her country and also maintain her place in the world rankings. Indeed, after Smith's immediate success as a professional, Sue Cogswell followed suit at the end of 1980 and the UK women's squash game was quickly forced to became "open"; the rest of the world swiftly followed suit and today's lady professionals owe a debt to Angela particularly and those brave enough to join her in those early days namely Sue Newman, Barbara Wall and Lyle Hubinger (all Australian)

Career

Smith was one of the world's top ranked squash players from 1979 to 1990. She was coached by the legendary Nasrullah Khan, who also coached Jonah Barrington. Angela enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top, appearing initially from nowhere to be ranked at 2 in Great Britain on her first entry into the list! She reached the semi finals of the British Open eight times, and won the Spanish, Portuguese, Canadian, USA, Norwegian, Israel, (a record six times) and Bermuda Opens. She was British champion, British professional champion on several occasions. British number one ranked player and a Great Britain and England International, representing her country many times. She also became a World champion with GB in 1979, and a World over 35, British Open and Masters champion. On two further occasions, when England reached the World Team Championships final, both against Australia, she won her matches whilst the team were defeated 2-1. Her pride in playing for her country was obvious and she was defeated only twice whilst on International duty throughout her career. Angela captained and played in the World International Team in test matches against South Africa. Along with Rhonda Thorne, she was invited to open the courts in Monaco for and in the presence of Prince Rainier and his family. She held dozens of English domestic and regional titles in her career. Smith coached the national teams for the Bahamas, Spain, and Hong Kong and was also the US men's squash team coach from 1980 to 1982. The US Squash team that travelled to South Africa to train and onto Australia included: Gil Mateer (Captain), Ned Edwards, Mark Alger and Jon Foster. She was also Britain's first squash representative in the Australia Games.

She had a long rivalry with Sue Cogswell for the British number one spot over many years, and her matches against Vicki Hoffman (now Cardwell) were felt to be pure theatre, especially those taking place in the British Open Championships. Smith was one of a very few players to win a game against Australian player Heather McKay, at the World Championships S/F Sheffield, 1979. Angela was considered to be one of the fittest players competing on the ladies circuit throughout her career.

Smith was also considered a pioneer in women's squash. She organised and promoted the first women's squash events in the Middle East, in Dubai and Bahrain. Along with Jayne Aston of England and Sue Newman, Barbara Wall and Lyle Hubinger of Australia, she formed WISPA, the professional ladies' body for squash, in 1979. To this day, WISPA remains the governing body of the ladies game. Away from squash, she is a life long fan of Stoke City Football Club.

External links

* [http://www.worldsquash.org/uploads/WomensWORecords.pdf World Women's Team Championship (pdf)]