Estonia joins the European Squash circuit this week for the first time — and they’re doing it in style with simultaneous Junior and Masters competitions at a spectacular venue.
The inaugural Estonian Junior Open and Estonian Masters (both Bronze level events, running from 11-13 September) are taking place at the YOLO Club in Tallinn, which has seven courts including an all-glass show court.
The club, which opened only two years ago, is situated on the third floor of T1, a 60,000 sqm four-storey leisure and multi-sports centre which has a cinema, 10-pin bowling alley and even a ferris wheel on its roof!
Squash features alongside a host of other sports on the third floor including rock climbing, gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, martial arts, gym, dance, yoga, acrobatics, archery and trampolining; with padel, pickleball and basketball set to be added on the floor above.
“When we were asked if we wanted to move in, it was an offer we could not refuse!” said YOLO Club founder Andri Talts.
“We had been looking for this kind of place for a long time. It’s a private commercial building and has high ceilings, which squash needs, of course.
“Installing a glass court on the third floor was not an easy experience. We had to build a ramp system and take out a window. The margins for fitting the court in-between concrete pillars was pretty tight, about 7cm! It was an engineering task. But nothing broke and it was a lot of fun.”
This week’s Junior and Masters draws are relatively small which head coach David McAlpine says is “a blessing” so they can familiarise themselves with the process of running two ESF circuit events at the same time.
McAlpine, a Scot who has coached extensively in Denmark and Sweden, said: “We have two tournaments crossing over, and two separate software programmes, so it’s a bit of a jigsaw puzzle figuring out how everything fits together and overlap. We’re happy to start small and hopefully from next year, it will grow and grow.”
The Junior Open has attracted players from Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Finland, Spain, Cyprus, Czechia and Ukraine as well as home-grown Estonian juniors.
“Incredibly good motivation…”
The Estonian junior squash scene is on the up thanks in part to the YOLO Club, but also Andri and David’s ingenuity in planning events and competitions.
They run a schools squash competition for sixth grade pupils (aged 12-13) which culminates in a finals day, for which schools select their best players. The prize? A trip to a well-known theme park in Helsinki. “It’s incredibly good motivation,” explains Andri.
The schools competitions runs in parallel to junior groups at YOLO Club every weekday plus organised training throughout the summer holidays.
“The schools programme is all about making squash more visible,” says Andri.
“Squash seems like a relatively new sport to a lot of the kids, so it’s a battle ground to get them to move away from sports like football.
“Using the theme park trip as motivation and getting to experience excellent coaching with David will hopefully mean that some of the players will come back for more.
“If 10% come back [from the schools competition] for our training sessions that’s a great success. It shows the work we have to do to make it more visible, and invent new angles to onboard new players and also grown-ups.”
Speaking of grown-up, Estonia has had a national league for many years, but the club infrastructure was very limited until YOLO came along.
“It was declining gradually,” admits Andri. “But now, due to our new club and bringing David in to lead the coaching… I wouldn’t call it ‘lift-off’ just yet, but we are definitely moving in the right direction.”
