Standing at approximately five-foot-six, West Vancouver 14-year-old Lucia Bicknell has an advantage over most of her opponents on the squash court the moment she steps through the glass door.
“I guess at this age it’s kind of more intimidating,” she says with a laugh, describing how her relatively tall stature draws some nervous glances from her mostly shorter opponents. “I wouldn’t say I’m intimidating, but I guess still at the younger age it’s kind of a good factor.”
Of course, once the ball starts bouncing around the box it’s not size that matters but skill and strategy, and Bicknell comes up big in those attributes as well. Her outsized game was on full display over the weekend as she won the U15 girls crown at the Canadian Junior Squash Championships held at West Vancouver’s Hollyburn Country Club.
The Evergreen Squash Club member played four matches without dropping a single game, capping her tournament off with a 3-0 win over Ontario’s Molly Chadwick in the final on Sunday. That win gave Bicknell her second career national title, her first coming two years ago when she defeated the same opponent in the U13 final in Calgary. Bicknell says she and her coaches had a simple game plan for Sunday’s final.
“It was kind of like see how the first game goes and then go from there,” she says. “My coaches told me to keep it in the backhand lanes and don’t open up the court too much with the cross. Actually it worked really well throughout the whole match.”
The plan worked, and Bicknell got to celebrate a national championship win in her hometown.
“It was so nice,” she says of playing at home. “It’s usually in Toronto. It was really nice, it was like five minutes away (from my house).”
Along with the two national titles, Bicknell has shown well at some international events, placing fourth at the 2015 US Open in the U13 division and 15th at the British Junior Open earlier this season.
So how does a 14-year-old West Vancouver girl go about becoming the top player in the country in a low-profile sport like squash? For starters, Bicknell credits the fact that she didn’t start playing the game until she was nine years old.
“From that age you can actually start developing skills,” she says. “Sometimes if you start too early you don’t progress a lot until you actually start developing skills and everything, which usually comes later. It came pretty quickly (for me).”
Bicknell played hockey and soccer before getting into squash, but once she picked up a racquet, she hit it hard. Her father Simon is heavily involved in the Evergreen Squash Club and Lucia followed him there, falling in love with the sport.
“I really like how it challenges you physically, but it’s also kind of like more strategic,” she says. “You actually have to think about how you’re going to play your opponent and what you have to do. It’s not just going out and playing like soccer – it’s more thought-out. As well, it’s great exercise and really fun.”
Bicknell still has high school to tackle, but once she’s done with that she’s hoping her racquet attack will help her find a place on a university team. Many American Ivy League schools have squash programs, as do some Canadian universities such as Queen’s and McGill. There are also opportunities to play professionally, although Bicknell isn’t banking on that.
“I don’t know if I’d go pro, but I definitely want to use this as an outlet to universities,” she says. “I definitely want to continue playing after high school.”
