By Connor Sheen
Greg Lobban has never felt more certain about where he belongs. It’s not on a squash court. Not really. Not in the way the clichés usually go — the comforting clack of the ball, the sealed silence of four walls, the sweet rhythm of repetition.
For Lobban, Scotland’s best male player in a generation, contentment never came with chalk dust and closed doors.
It came, instead, in June 2024, wrapped in a baby blanket.
“My first season on tour as a dad has been pretty hectic,” he says. “But no understatement to say that it’s the best thing to ever happen to me and far surpasses any squash achievements that I’ve ever had.”
Professional squash has always demanded a certain monomania. It requires you to live out of suitcases, across time zones and continents, all for a sport that lives mostly in the margins.
And yet here is Lobban, ranked inside the world’s top 20, winner of the Richardson Wealth Open and a career-high finalist at the Manchester Silver event, talking not about rankings or titles, but about planning family-friendly Airbnb bookings and remembering to pack a travel cot.
“They’ve managed to come to a few events while Donna’s been on maternity leave,” he says of his wife, former pro Donna Urquhart, and their son, Scott.
“He was with us in North America, Australia and Hong Kong. He’s ticked a few continents off already — not that he’ll remember any of it but it’s been great to have him with us to create those memories.
“It can be quite a lonely job at times so to have them with me has been amazing. If I can afford to keep doing it, I definitely will.”
What has changed, fundamentally, is not just Lobban’s routine but his reasons. The work remains gruelling. But the purpose is clearer.
“I used to dwell on losses a lot,” he says. “But with him there, I’m fine within 10 or 15 minutes. He has no concern for whether I’ve won or lost. He’s just happy to see me — and that resets me.”
You can hear it in his tone — a flicker of levity from a player whose career has often been described with words like “grinding” and “workmanlike”. His voice softens when he talks about fatherhood. It sharpens again when he talks about squash.
“I don’t feel comfortable on a squash court at all,” he says. “A lot of players feel at home when they step on court. I don’t. I’m there because it’s a job — a way to earn money.”
The paradox is stark: here is a man in love with competition, but not the arena. A man who made the top 20 in the world despite, by his own admission, not enjoying the game itself.
“I love the competitive side of it,” he says. “But I don’t really play squash for enjoyment. I don’t wake up every day wanting to go to the courts.”
And yet, what he does enjoy is giving. Giving everything. Giving to the people around him — his teammates, his family, the next wave of Scottish juniors training alongside him in Edinburgh. There is, in Lobban’s story, the quiet contradiction of the elite athlete: needing to be selfish enough to succeed, but self-aware enough to admit when that success feels hollow.
“I’m not one of those athletes who is dreading retirement,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about what comes next. Maybe I’ll go back into education. Maybe help others in performance sport.”
He speaks like someone already halfway into his second act. But don’t mistake this for disengagement. Lobban is still playing a full tour. Still training hard. Still drawing fire and possibly aiming at the Olympics in LA.
And there’s something almost ironic about how, since becoming a father, he’s loosened his grip on the game — and in doing so, perhaps found the best of himself. The freedom to stop over-analysing. The clarity to choose bedtime stories over SQUASHTV.
The peace that comes with knowing the sport doesn’t define him.
“If it’s a toss-up between spending an hour analysing a player or playing with Scott on the floor, I’m choosing Scott every time,” he says. “Some may view that in a negative way, but I enjoy my time with him far more than any squash training.”
There’s a quiet honesty to that. In an age of hustle culture and Instagram-fuelled grind, Lobban is choosing balance.
He’s still showing up, still chasing wins, still putting in the miles. But he’s also showing that joy can live outside the rankings, and fulfilment can be found in the everyday moments: a shared breakfast, a delayed flight, a baby’s first steps taken on a squash court in a foreign city.
In some ways, Lobban is playing the most free-flowing squash of his life — not because he’s liberated from pressure, but because he’s finally figured out where the pressure belongs.
