Amidst all the talk of nationality switches as players plot their path into squash's first ever Olympic draw at LA28, one flag change may have gone unnoticed.
Lucas Serme — winner of three European Team Championships trophies with France and two-time French national champion — quietly slipped on a Czechia jersey at the 2026 European Teams in Amsterdam at the end of April.
Serme, now 34, has lived in Prague for several years with his wife Anna, the four-time Czech national champion. Their young son Timmy has grown up in the Czech capital.
Both Lucas and Anna retired from the PSA World Tour, without much fanfare, at the end of December 2024.
But despite starting a career in marketing, Lucas couldn't resist another bite at international team competition.
"It wasn't really a plan of mine," he told Squash Player in Amsterdam. "But as I started to head towards squash retirement, the French team was a bit too strong for me to be selected.
"I had conversations with the Czech federation and they said, 'Maybe you could give us a hand?' They have a young team and I thought I could still get in at no.4 or no.5. I thought, 'Maybe I have a good shot with this team and we could make it happen?'"
So it proved. Serme's Czech team debut actually completed a 'full circle' moment for him. It was at the same venue, the magnificent 21-court Frans Otten Stadion, that he made his senior debut for France in 2013.
That tournament also marked the final European Team Championships appearance by the great former world champion Thierry Lincou, who is now on the French coaching team. Lincou and Serme had a great time discussing those memories when they saw each other again in Amsterdam last month.
France have only won the European Team title three times, and Serme was part of all three victories. In their first, in 2015 in Herning, Denmark, he hit the championship-winning shot against England's Chris Simpson to create French squash history.
"I have crazy memories of winning the last point and that will always be with me, for sure," Serme reflected. "To beat England three times was huge and it's something I'll always cherish.
"Now it's a new chapter, even if it might be a shorter one, because I have retired officially from the Tour."
So this nationality switch isn't motivated by the same reason behind the recent switches of Greg Lobban, Mazen Gamal, Elise Romba and Nicolas Serna, with several others strongly rumoured?
"The Olympics? No, not for me! Definitely not!" Serme laughs. "Playing for Czechia has nothing to do with that.
"Ever since the Olympics was announced, I knew I would never go, even if I was the only player in France! I felt it was a long way in the future and I already felt tired a couple of years ago. I knew I wouldn't have the energy to go anyway.
"I just wanted to enjoy another team tournament... hopefully more than one! They are so much fun.
"I still enjoy playing but it's like a different sport, physically and mentally, when you don't train as much as you used to."
His relative lack of training didn't show. Serme won both his matches (against 23-year-old Sebastiaan Hofman of the Netherlands and promising Spanish 18-year-old Oriol Salvia Ripoli) as Czech matched their best-ever European Teams performance of sixth place.
Then it was back to his desk job. Serme works in the field of 'transcreation' for a marketing agency in Prague. Their clients are big brands translating advertising campaigns so they work across different territories, not just in language but also visually and culturally.
"It's really interesting, it's in the field I've been studying for all my life," says the former world no.32.
"It's what I was looking for throughout my squash career, to have stability in terms of schedule and salary. It might be less exciting than squash at times, but it's also less travelling and I can be there for my family."
