A Bit About Our Coaches
ANo other program comes close to the International Squash Academy. The focused level of coaching (with an incredible student-to-coach ratio) allows for focused squash training that can’t be found anywhere else. Athletes should expect amazing results from themselves after participating in any of the ISA squash camps.
ISA has forged an international team of top squash coaches, all of whom now dedicate their time and energy to help athletes reach their fullest potential within the game of squash.
Meet Our Coaches
SAHEL ANWAR
Owner & Director of Premier Performance Squash (PPS)
Connecticut resident, Sahel Anwar, has made a tremendous impact on the squash community in greater New York and southern Connecticut. As the owner & director of Premier Performance Squash (PPS), Coach Anwar has helped establish PPS as the Professional Squash Services Provider to area communities, high schools, and colleges, leading several teams to the Nationally Ranked Juniors.
Sahel is a member of the Coaching Staff of the US National Team. He travels with TEAM USA to international events, and assists in Regional Squads training sessions. He is a technical squash coach who brings awareness to the smallest details, helping players take their game to the next level. Coach Anwar has an extraordinary gift for communication. His ability to connect with students makes him a special part of our squash camp programs.
PAUL ASSAIANTE
LEGEND
Paul Assaiante enters his 28th season as Trinity College Head Men’s Squash Coach in 2021-22, having guided the Bantams to a 19-2 record and its 14th consecutive NESCAC Championship title two winters ago and through the COVID-19 pandemic last year. Trinity won back-to-back Potter Trophy Championships in 2017 and 2018, downing Harvard in both CSA Finals to increase its national title total to 17 crowns in a 22-year span. In 2014-15, Assaiante brought the Bantams to the CSA National Championship Finals for the 19th year in a row, and his charges came through with a win against St. Lawrence in the finals. Trinity had a 20-1 final dual-match record and Assaiante was co-winner of Trinity’s Athletic Department Coach of the Year Award that year. In 2012-13, Trinity won all 19 of its matches and downed Harvard in the CSA Finals to give the Bantams their 14th national crown in 15 years.
Assaiante coached Trinity to the 2013 national crown without a single First-Team All American selection on the roster, and was rewarded with the 2013 NESCAC Coach of the Year award and a Trinity College Trustee of Excellence Award. Assaiante guided the Bantams to 13 consecutive CSA National titles from 1999 to 2011 and 252 wins in a row before a 5-4 loss at Yale in January of 2012 closed the book on the longest winning streak in the history of intercollegiate varsity sports. Assaiante was previously the NESCAC Coach of the Year in both 2008 and 2009. He is 438-16 all-time as the Bantam head coach.
The team’s unprecedented winning streak, which began in 1998, captivated Trinity and beyond — followed by major media outlets across the globe and the nation, including Sports Illustrated, ESPN, the New York Times, and the Hartford Courant. The history of the team will forever remain a legendary piece of history at Trinity College, where squash has been enthusiastically embraced. The team remains one of the most feared in college sports.
From 1999-2003 and again from 2010 to present, Assaiante coached both the United States Squash Team, which dominated the 2019 Pan American Games with five gold medals this summer, and the USA Men’s Team, which finished a best-ever sixth in the World Championships in Germany in 2011. Twice named the United States Olympic Committee Coach of the Year, Assaiante was named one of Connecticut’s top sports coaches of the 20th century by The Hartford Courant and earned an award from the Hartford Business Bureau for his outstanding contribution to sports in the city. Assaiante also coached the U.S. Junior Team to an eighth-place finish in the 2012 World Championships in Qatar and the USA Men to an 11th-place showing in France. Assaiante coached the Trinity men’s tennis squad for 19 seasons, notching a 188-97 career record with the Bantams. His tennis teams were consistently ranked both regionally and nationally, and he earned NESCAC and Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Northeast Regional Men’s Tennis Coach of the Year in 2008.
Assaiante served as the director of athletic development at Trinity for seven years, spearheading the college’s effort to upgrade its athletic facilities. He played a pivotal role in the athletic department’s fund-raising efforts, which produced two new synthetic outdoor fields, the nation’s premier squash facility, a new boathouse, and a community ice skating center for the College. In all, more than $11 million was raised with ongoing projects that include new baseball and softball diamonds and a new field house. Trinity’s remodeled tennis courts were christened as the Paul D. Assaiante Tennis Center in the fall of 2010. He currently serves as the college’s associate director of athletic endowments, and was promoted to full professor of physical education in the summer of 2017.
Assaiante is a 1974 graduate of Springfield College and holds a master’s degree from Long Island University. His coaching experience includes stints at Army for eight seasons with a record of 98-54 and at Williams College from 1987 to 1989, where he was 13-10 to give him a 565-83 overall career varsity record. He was also a squash professional at the world-famous Princeton Club of New York and director of racquet sports at the Baltimore Country Club, the Apawamis Club in Rye, N.Y., and the Bellevue Athletic Club in Seattle, Wash.
Assaiante’s professional athletic career was nothing short of spectacular. He won the World Hardball Doubles Championship in 1988. He was one-half of the U.S. national doubles championship duo in 1994 and captured the USSRA 50-and-over men’s squash title in 2004. Assaiante is also an author of Championship Tennis by the Experts: How to Play Championship Tennis, with Vic Braden (Human Kinetics Publishers, June 1981) and Run to the Roar: Coaching to Overcome Fear with James Zug (Penguin).
NIKI CLEMENT
Haverford Head Coach
The men’s team has qualified for the Conroy Cup during each of the last three seasons and achieved a year-end ranking of 28th following the 2017-18 season. That ranking was the highest for the program in over 10 years. The Fords won College Squash Association (CSA) Team Championships under Clement’s watch with the 2017 Chaffee Cup and 2012 Serues Cup. During the 2013 season, the men’s team was presented with the 2013 Barnaby Award, one of three distinguished national awards voted on by College Squash Association coaches and teams, which recognized the varsity team that displayed the most improvement throughout the season.
After winning back-to-back CSA E Division Championships on the women’s side in 2013 and 2014, Clement has guided the Fords up a division to the Epps Cup during five of the last six seasons. Her women’s team posted a No. 28 ranking during the 2018-19 season, marking the program’s highest ranking since the 2005-06 campaign. The women’s squash team and Clement were additionally recognized as the winners of the Clarence C. Chaffee Award for the 2015-16 season, presented annually to a women’s squash coach whose team has demonstrated the qualities of sportsmanship, teamwork, character, and improvement.
On the national level, Clement has recently been appointed to the College Squash Association’s newly-formed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Coaches Committee as well as the Mental Health Committee. A well-respected coach on the national level, Clement previously served as the secretary for the Women’s College Squash Association (WCSA), which is the governing body for all national collegiate women’s teams.
Clement, who graduated from Radnor High School, played professionally from 2009 to 2012 and ranked as high as 78th in the world in the February 2012 rankings released by the Women’s International Squash Players Association (WISPA).
Her collegiate career foreshadowed the success she has achieved on the pro tour. A 2006 graduate of Bowdoin College, Clement was a two-time All-American (2003, 04) and four-time Most Valuable Player for the Polar Bears, who finished ninth in the country in 2003 and never lower than 13th during Clement’s four years as the squad’s No. 1 player. A team captain in her final two years at the school, she received the Lucy L. Shulman Trophy for Most Outstanding Female Athlete in 2006 after earning the Most Outstanding Female Freshman Athlete Award in 2003. Clement’s career wins total is the most in Bowdoin program history.
Clement’s coaching career began while she was still an undergraduate at Bowdoin. She received her level-I coaching certification in 2004 then coached at several squash camps over the next few years.
Following her graduation and an internship with the United States Squash Racquets Association (then headquartered in Philadelphia), Clement moved to California where she began work on her master’s degree in sport management at the University of San Francisco. She joined the staff at the Decathlon Club where she worked as a squash professional and also gained collegiate coaching experience working with Mark Talbott’s Stanford University squad during the 2006-07 season.
Upon completion of her master’s degree in 2009 Clement accepted a position as a squash professional with The Squash Alley in Stamford, CT, where she also serves as a regional representative for the women’s committee of U.S. Squash, and began playing on the pro tour.
The Clement family is not new to the Haverford campus as Coach Clement’s grandfather, Frederick T.J. Clement ’45, and great-grandfather, Dewitt C. Clement 1917, are both Haverford College alums. Dewitt excelled on the track for the Scarlet and Black, setting the two-mile school record, 10 minutes, 15.8 seconds in 1916.
SAT SESHADRI
Asst Squash Director, Harvard Club of NYC
Coach Sat Seshadri has been coaching squash players for over 17 years. He trained with Elite juniors and squash pros during his time as the National Junior Development Coach for Indian Squash Academy in Chennai, India, where he was recruited by Franklin & Marshall College. He played the top position for the private college’s squash team in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Following graduation, Coach Seshadri taught squash to inner-city kids at a Harlem-based youth enrichment program called StreetSquash. In 2009 he launched a career with the Harvard Club of New York City while pursuing an MBA from Goldey-Beacom College.
As the Assistant Squash Professional for the Harvard Club NYC, Sat teaches his favorite racquet sport to kids of all levels. His personable approach has enabled him to connect with young players on and off the court, making him an ideal addition to our summer squash camp coaching team.