By Nick Faris
Both in their early 20s, tennis player Dabrowski & squash athlete Cornett are strong Canadian Olympic team prospects, but Cornett still needs the green light from the IOC to include her sport.
Two local racquet-sport athletes are harbouring Olympic dreams, but they’ll each face unique paths and obstacles to get there.
Ottawa native Gabriela Dabrowski, 21, is coming off the biggest win of her young pro tennis career, while 22-year-old Sam Cornett is clambering up towards the top of the world squash rankings. Reaching the pinnacle of international sport would be a landmark for both burgeoning pros.
Dabrowski will be vying for a berth at the next Summer Olympics – slated for 2016 in Rio de Janeiro – along with her regular doubles partner, Toronto-born Sharon Fichman. To guarantee their place, they’ll both need to reach the top-60 in world doubles rankings. Dabrowski is currently slotted 67th internationally, while Fichman is ranked 90th.
“If Sharon and I could qualify for the Olympics… you dream of these things,” Dabrowski underlines. “If you happen to be the best team in your country, you can go for your country. We have a few years to get our rankings higher.”
Their performance at last month’s Rogers Cup in Toronto was a significant step towards attaining that goal. Unseeded to start the tournament, Dabrowski and Fichman reached the semi-finals and pulled off the week’s biggest upset – a quarterfinal win over Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, the world #1 doubles team and both top-10 seeds in singles.
“I honestly felt comfortable in the match,” Dabrowski recounts. “I didn’t feel like they were putting a lot of pressure on us, which means that we were so solid that they couldn’t really hurt us with anything that they had that day.”
Though Dabrowski acknowledged that Errani and Vinci were fatigued on the day of their match, her cohesion with Fichman has been crucial to their recent success. Their physical strengths balance out – Dabrowski has a stronger serve, while Fichman is a better returner. The two have also developed a rapport that extends to all facets of a match.
“We work well together. We sense what the other one needs – if they need to be pumped up, or a little bit of time to relax and regroup,” Dabrowski explains. “If we’re out of position, we find a way to get back in the point and sometimes counterpunch and take control, even when we were defending.”
A product of the Ottawa Athletic Club, Dabrowski is midway through her third year of full-time competition on the WTA Tour, after starting out as a junior in pro tournaments at age 14. For now, she’s hoping to qualify for all four tennis Grand Slams in 2014. Though she’s still somewhat focused on singles play, her doubles career has simply been more enjoyable, she notes, and could offer her ticket to an Olympics.
“You can still make a really good career out of doubles,” Dabrowski highlights.
Cornett, meanwhile, always competes alone, but her long-term objective is part of a much wider movement.
Born in Deep River, she moved to Ottawa at age 9, living and training here until turning pro at 18. Since then, she’s worked her way up the international squash rankings, earning a career-high world ranking of 33rd shortly after winning the Canadian Squash Championships in May.
Understanding the physical and mental traits required to excel professionally have been central to her progress, Cornett signals, noting that she’s currently looking to improve her overall presence on the court.
“I’m starting to get to a point where it’s taken me up a level in my squash game,” she details.
With a long-term objective of #1 in the world in mind, Cornett is more immediately concerned with cracking the top-25. An Olympic berth is another goal – but it’s not as simple as attaining a ranking.
On Sept. 7, the International Olympic Committee will meet to add a new sport to the 2020 Summer Olympics. Squash is one of three candidates, along with wrestling and a joint baseball and softball bid.Cornett has played a part in the grassroots “Vote for Squash” campaign, with the intention of catapulting their sport onto the world’s largest athletic stage.
“Even if we don’t get into the Olympics, I think everyone has been working so hard to raise the profile of squash that it can’t be ignored,” she says. “If I could work towards an Olympic event, it just takes everything up a notch – everyone’s working that much harder, because we all know there’s such a huge opportunity at stake.”