A bit like a feline having fun with its prey, Mathias De la Colina is a player. Very playful. Since his beginnings in squash, the Mainvillois fully assumes this penchant, which has always taken precedence over pure efficiency.
“Some have fun going 11-0 at all costs when they are superior to their opponent. Me, I like to have the ascendancy in the game to play and to play”
Mathias of the Hill (French n°2 in the U15s)
Swimming, judo and BMX
Not necessarily the ideal philosophy to dominate head and shoulders in its category. It must be said that De la Colina, born to a Spanish father and a French mother, cantor of “freestyle” squash, had nothing predestined for the discipline. Passed by swimming, judo or BMX, it is sport “between four walls” that Mathias-Santiago, his full first name, fell in love with. “It happened in 2016, one day when I was going to the Salon des associations de Chartres. They lent me a racket and I was able to practice against a billboard! The following Wednesday, I did an introduction to the ASBC (Association squash badminton de Chartres). And I got hooked right away, ”observes the 14-year-old Drouais by birth.
Barely three years later, the student of Denis Bourret obtained his first convincing results with a 3rd place at the Swiss Junior Open in Zürich: “Mathias has enormous qualities. Technically, tactically. He has an almost too wide palette because he tends to abuse it! », Analyzes his mentor at the ASBC.
Injured in the French championship
Climbing the different levels of the national hierarchy, honoring a first selection for the French team (2019), until his beautiful 3rd place at the French championships in Lille (North), last November. Even if the memory remains painful: “It’s a disappointment because I was injured in the semi-finals. I already had pain in the Achilles heel of my left foot and there I got the right, after seven points, “says with a sigh the third-grade student at Jean-Macé College in Mainvilliers, beaten 14-12 at the 5th game by Amir Khaled, after saving three match points.
Meeting with Thierry Lincou
He who already saw himself donning the costume of national champion, benefiting from a flash of progress during the previous six months. An exponential curve which owes a lot to the somewhat fortuitous meeting with the reference of French squash: the former world No. 1 Thierry Lincou.
“I was able to face him in the framework of the International Tournament that I played, at the end of June, in Île-Rousse (Corsica), where I was training. I’m not a big fan of training and I consider that you only really progress by playing matches. And there, I had the additional chance to be able to speak with him.
After that, I progressed a lot, ”says the teenager, made aware by the former world champion of the importance of pre-match rituals.
“Mine is music and headphones on my head. His is to go to the toilet! “, laughs Mathias De la Colina, 228th French player, who will continue his progress at the start of the next school year within a Pole. It remains to be seen which: La Rochelle, where his current coach in the French team Stéphane Brévard works or Reunion, the island from which Thierry Lincou comes from.
David Berthelem
