It has been quite a journey. In Ireland in 1985 Nancy Gengler, Julie Harris, Karen Kelso, Nina Porter and Gail Ramsay secured a seventh-place finish for the U.S. at the World Championships, our best-ever result for women (the men also reached seventh, in 1981 and 1983). In the next quarter century, we switched to softball, built more courts, brought many more juniors into the game and yet our American ladies never topped that achievement. You'd think we'd do much better, considering the state of American squash, especially softball squash, in 1985, when there were just ten softball courts in the country. But no—other countries were also growing, at a faster rate.

Now we are back. In New Zealand, the women, seeded ninth, came in seventh. With two seventeen year-olds on the squad and all four ranked in the top forty in the world (for the first time), the U.S. ran roughshod and pulled out some classic matches. In their final dual match, the 7/8 playoff v. Ireland, Olivia Blatchford gamely came back from an 0-2 deficit to win in five, and then Natalie Grainger, on the verge of retirement, pulled out a five-gamer as well to notch the historic victory. (Grainger also saved a couple of match balls in her epic 12-10 in the fifth win against eventual tournament winners Australia in an earlier round.)