The Hindu : Sport / Squash : Peter Nicol calls it quits

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 20, 2006

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Sport - Squash

Peter Nicol calls it quits

LONDON: Peter Nicol, Britain's most successful international squash player, announced his retirement from the sport on Tuesday.

The 33-year-old Scot, a former World No. 1, will end his career at the World championships in Cairo next month.

"I have had a wonderful career in squash and have largely achieved all the goals I set myself, but I still feel I have two more titles in me," he said.

Nicol won 50 major international titles over a 12-year-career, including a World championship in 1998, two British Opens, and four Commonwealth Games gold medals — two each in singles and doubles.

He topped the world rankings for 60 months — the first British player to be ranked No. 1.

Nicol's breakthrough came at the 1998 British Open, with his first of two wins on home soil with a victory over Pakistan's Jansher Khan.

Highlight

"It was one of the highlights of my career — it was the first time I beat him after I'd been chasing him for several years," Nicol said.

The victory came on his 25th birthday, the culmination of six years of work where he "sacrificed all other aspects of my life — I became just a squash player."

"I even fell asleep tying my laces one morning," Nicol said. ``I missed out on everything else."

The six-time tour champion decided to play for England in 2001.

"I got a lot of stick in Scotland and my face was all over the front page of newspapers," he said.

Nicol led England to a World team championship in 2005. He will close out his career in Cairo, where he won his first world title.

"I loved playing in that sort of atmosphere, I thrived on it," he said of the court set up below the gaze of the pyramids. "On that day I walked out on the court, looked around at the surroundings, and smiled: I just knew I was going to win." — AP

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