On Sunday, Feb. 8, Irish squash star and Belfast native Hannah Craig found herself in an unfamiliar position at the Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club in Dublin.

Down two games to one in the three-of-five Irish Senior Nationals Women’s A final, Craig had put herself at risk of losing the No. 1 position that she had held for two straight years, and three times overall, to No. 2 Breanne Flynn.

After a quick break, the women stepped back onto the court for a 14-minute battle during which no more than two points separated them. Ultimately, Craig came out on top 12-10.

Flynn gained the first point of Game five, but Craig was quick to respond. With the game-winning point on the line in its final moments, the 5-foot-3 dynamo lunged to the middle of the court and banked the ball softly into the left corner. Flynn couldn’t react quickly enough to stop her and Craig claimed her fourth Senior National title.

“I really enjoyed this year because it was the closest match I’ve had in the final. I’ve always won three love,” said Craig, who won the Irish Senior National Squash Championship for the first time in 2017 when she was 17 years old.

After her title-clinching point, Craig turned to her brother, Michael, a former squash star himself and her coach, cheered, and threw her racket. Known for being feisty on the court, she showed another side of herself seconds later when she walked over to Flynn, who was slouched in defeat, helped her up, and hugged her.

“She’s a great squash player, and as a person it’s the same,” said Irish National Team coach Arthur Gaskin. “She’s world-class.”

A family driven to play sports

Craig didn’t become No. 1 in her country or be ranked No. 66 in the world by the Professional Squash Association (PSA) overnight. It took years of training to get there, but with a family as athletic as hers, her success comes as no surprise.

“When I was growing up, my grandfather and great uncle played on the Irish rugby team, and my grandmother and lots of my cousins played field hockey for Ireland,” Craig said in an interview with the Boston Irish. “It’s kind of a big history in my family to represent Ireland in some capacity in sport.

“I actually did try rugby and field hockey, and with rugby, definitely, I was a bit scared of, so that quickly became one I didn’t continue with,” joked Craig. “Field hockey, I did play up until I was about 13, but I was also playing squash.”

Craig, now 27, said she first picked up a racket when she was just five years old. “My dad played on the Irish squash team, and then I have two older brothers who played,” she noted. “So, I just kind of spent so much time around the sport and then was like, okay, I’ll get into this then,” shared Craig.

By the time she hit double digits, Craig was training multiple times a week and loving the results. “I made my first Irish national team around 13. We went away to Cardiff, Wales, for the Five Nations Championships. I just thought it was so cool,” she said.

Her key to success, she said, was training with men and always playing an age group up with the women. “I was playing on the [women’s Irish] under-19 team quite young, like 15 or 16, and I would train a lot with my brothers and a lot of men,” Craig said. “It definitely made me more physical. I’m used to longer rallies. I hit the ball very hard, so that got me to a certain level, I think, just to be able to outpower the females.”

She was quick to add, “Nowadays, on the pro tour, I can also view it as a detriment in a way. I’ve got to be able to develop the soft hands and the racket skills. You can’t just smash the ball as much anymore.”

Her last-minutes win against Flynn proved those soft hands are well underway.

Coming to America, and loving it

Though she hadn’t been to America, Craig had traveled widely in Europe. Having won the Irish senior Nationals at 17, she was sponsored for international play and participated in tournaments like the Swiss Junior Open and the French Junior Open.

In the fall of 2016, Craig hopped on a plane and headed to the US for the very first time and made official visits to Trinity College, the University of Pennsylvania, and, of course, Harvard. But it was Boston she fell in love with.

“I love Boston. I think it’s still my favorite place in the US,” she said. “I remember when I arrived, driving through the city and the Harvard campus, it was so beautiful, that kind of old England feel. It was starting to transition from summer to fall, which is still my favorite time in Boston. I just thought it was so beautiful, and it had a really nice charm to it.”

The other place she’s always felt at home is on the court, and the courts at Harvard were like mansions compared to those back home. “I’d never seen facilities like [Harvard.] There are 14 courts, ice baths, and trainers. Where I grew up, it was two courts; you got to put the money in to get the lights on. So, if you ran out of money, you’re playing in the dark.”

Though the pandemic cut short Craig’s time as a student-athlete for the Crimson, her teams acquired quite the accolades in three seasons. “She won three Ivy League titles and three national titles; she was on quite the squad,” said Harvard’s head squash coach Mike Way.

According to Way, Craig had a “bit of a reputation of being a feisty junior” and “brought her fighting Irish spirit into the program. Some of the moments were tough. Her fighting spirit, you could argue, brought her here; that fighting spirit gave her the success that she’s had, but her fighting spirit also was a block for her,” said Coach Way.

Even during the adjustment period, Craig never lost a collegiate match and by her junior year was elected team captain. “That does not happen if your teammates don’t have the utmost respect for you as a person as well as a competitor,” said Way. “She went from this over-the-top competitive beast to someone finding her way, and it helped her in every way. The character development for her was pretty profound, to be honest.”

Down to business, for a while

After her senior season was cancelled, she graduated and moved to New York City, where she began a career as a business analyst at Arthur D. Little, a Boston-based business management consultant firm. And for a while it was all work, but as the Covid restrictions eased and athletic clubs began to open, Craig found her way onto the court once again.

“I played on the side while also working and trying to save money. I got back into playing for Ireland because the coach reached out to me,’ she said. “They got a new national coach, and he saw me starting to play a couple of small pro events, and then that year, in 2024, I won my second Senior National title.”

It had been almost seven years since Craig’s first senior title, but she came back without missing a beat. Having rejoined the Irish squad, life became quite busy with training sessions scheduled around a full-time job.

By the summer of 2023, she had left the office for good. “There was a new club that opened up in the Financial District of Manhattan called Open Squash,” she noted,” and they approached me and said, ‘We would love to have you as a pro player and also as a coach.’ It was a big decision to leave consulting, but at that time, it was just like if I don’t do this now, I’ll never do it kind of,” said Craig.

She added, “Then I went from full-time coach to part-time, and then I was like, I’m just all in on training now. Now I’m just used to the training lifestyle.”

Craig has since moved to Canada and calls Calgary home base. Between court time, gym sessions, match analyses, and recovery, a normal day includes around five hours of training. All the coaching and hard work are paying off. Her list of recent career milestones is long, including wins and high finishes in Paraguay, Costa Rica, Egypt (where she qualified for one of the biggest squash events in the world and was the first Irish female player to play in an event of that scale in nearly a decade), Edinburgh, India, and Chestnut Hill as a quarterfinalist who defeated the world No. 37.

Last month, she was drafted by the Seattle Freeze, the only professional squash team on the West Coast. Her first tournament with her new team was held in Norwalk, Connecticut, on Feb. 28, where the Freeze was swept 4-0 by the SONO Sharks.

When asked how she stays motivated and grounded, Craig said, “I try to journal quite a lot and remind myself of the big picture. There are definitely periods where it’s pretty exhausting, so I think trying to be grateful for each thing and remind myself, this was your dream as a kid, you never thought this would be possible, and try to enjoy all the little things, whether it’s on court or off court. So that kind of helps me keep that perspective, but it’s tough sometimes.”

She added: “I have a two-year goal of trying to get as high up in the ranking, so I’d like to be at least top 40 around that level to be safe for the Olympic qualifications,” said Craig. The Game in 2028 will be the first year that squash is in competition, and only 32 athletes – 16 men and 16 women will be selected.

Said Coach Arthur Gaskin: “I feel like it’s a great opportunity for her. Hannah’s very well equipped to do it.”