I’ve Scot the desire to lift the standard
Perthshire squash player Rory Stewart is planning to replicate his Scotland form on the PSA Tour when the new season begins.
The country’s number three ranked male player, from Crieff, has been back out on the court after a lengthy period without action due to the coronavirus lockdown.
Last May, Rory produced some impressive squash to help Scotland win a bronze medal at the European Team Championships.
He fed off that energy just a week later picking up a PSA title in Argentina before claiming some notable scalps back in a Scotland jersey at December’s World Team Championships.
The 24-year-old admits he saves his best performances for Scotland duty and is desperate to translate that into more consistent performances on tour.
He said: “When playing for Scotland you have the support of your team-mates behind the court and I can feed off that passion.
“I go from the highs of playing in a Scotland jersey to playing for myself and can’t replicate these performances enough.
“Over the course of last season I had some good results but wasn’t as consistent as I wanted to be.
“That’s something I’ve tried to analyse.”
Earlier this month Rory made a welcome return to court at Oriam, the home of Scottish Squash, in Edinburgh, for the first time since lockdown began in March.
He’s been able to train with housemate and fellow squash professional Fergus Richards and has been pleasantly surprised with how he’s felt.
“It’s the longest I’ve not been on court since I first started playing so I wasn’t sure how far off the mark I would be,” he said. “But I felt pretty good and it helps being able to practice with Fergus.
“One thing that lockdown has taught us is to have a bit of patience. We’ve just been playing down the one side which is easier on the body and we know where the balls are going.
“So we’ve not been opening up the entire court, just building things up before we’re ready to play some practice games.”
Rory added: “I spent lockdown back in Crieff and fortunately we’ve got some country roads where I could go out running.”