Jesse Engelbrecht

BIOGRAPHY

Jesse was born in Durban, South Africa on the 5th of January 1983. Shortly after, Jesse and the family left to go north to live on a farm just outside of Harare in Zimbabwe.

Jesse's upbrining was simple and he lead a very active outdoor lifestyle. He lived on a cattle farm and at the age of 6 he went into Harare to attend St. Johns Preparatory School. This is where Jesse first got involved with sports and competition. He was extremely active in all sports and it was sometimes difficult to get him into class to work.

Jesse won his first trophy at the age of 8 while playing in the Zimbabwe Junior Open under 10 event. Since this he has never looked back and won every age group event since. The pinnalce of his junior career was winning the Southern African Schools Championship at the age of 18, no other Zimbabwean had achieved this feat. Jesse also travelled to the UK to broaden his squash skills and peaked at the British Junior Open 1999 where he reached the quarter-finals, theortically putting him top 8 in the world for his age.

While Jesse was in his final year at St. Johns College he was offered a scholarship to attend Harvard University. Jesse chose to pursue a career in full time sport and within two weeks of graduating College, was living in the UK training to be a professional squash player.

Jesse's first professional base was at Broxbourne Squash Club in Hertfordshire. Under the guidance of coach John Milton, Jesse would regularly train with top professionals such as Mark Chaloner, Rodney Durbach and Alister Walker. This is where he received his first taste of a professional lifestyle and what it would entail to become a top professional.

Jesse's learning curve was extremely steep. Coming from a relatively simple lifestyle in Africa, he had to adjust quicky to life as a travelling squash professional. He enjoyed the challenges of tournaments and leagues and quickly established himself as one of the fitter players around. Jesse had relatively early success on the tour, managing to reach the finals of his second professional tournament, The Alcartaz Open in Switzerland in August 2002. This boosted his ranking off the bottom tier of the world rankings and he has progressively been climbing ever since.

During the early stages of Jesse's professional career he was selected for the Zimbabwe Mens Squash Team to participate in the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester. He had a good tournament, eventually winning the plate event on the final day of The Games. This is one of Jesse's most prestigious awards, being presented with the plate title by Prince Edward on the centre court in The Manchester Sport City Arena.

In mind 2005 Jesse uprooted from Hertforshire and travelled down south to Surrey to make this his new squash base. The standard of Surrey squash is high and the mens team had won the national title for a number of years running. Jesse based himself in West Byfleet for his squash while living with his sister, Claire, in Redhill. Neil Frankland guided Jesse for 2 years giving him valuable advice and together they had some great reults as a coach/player team.

During this period Zimbabwe was in a state of crisis. Jesse's parents, Ettienne and Diane, were struggling to hold together the farm while all around the counrty was being plundered and pillaged. Eventually it all became too much and Jesse's parents were forced to leave the country and start afresh in South Africa. Luckily some planning had been in place and his parents moved onto a farm to manage in White River, Mpumulanga. Seeing as now Jesse had no more ties with Zimbabwe, besides his granparents living in Bulawayo, he decided it was time to apply for South African citizenship and make it a goal to be a part of Squash South Africa.

Jesse obtained his South African citizenship in late 2006. His first tournament was the South African Nationals in May 2007, Jesse finished a repectable 3rd. He remained in South Africa for the squash season and managed to win The SAB Grand Prix in Johannesburg and The Western Province Open in Cape Town. He was also part of the winning team at The Jarvis Cup 2007 playing for Gauteng. Jesse had to win the deciding match on the final day of the event for the team to be victorious.

Because of his consistent results Jesse was selected for The South African National Team at the number one position to tour to India for The World Team Event in December 2007. The Team finished one position higher than seeded coming a respectable 11th. It was a young team and Squash South Africa has a bright future ahead.

Jesse took up a position at Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire in January 2008. Tony Eysele, Jesse's headmaster at St. Johns College in Zimbabwe, who works at Lord Wandsworth College, got in touch with Jesse and offered him an interview for a job. His role is to improve the standard and interest of squash in The College. Already the number of students playing has tripled and there are a lot of promising players. Jesse still has the freedom to travel and play all the tournaments he needs to so watch this space for all his travels and updates.