Canberra product Christine Nunn will realise a dream when she represents Australia at the Commonwealth Games - but she admits that dream is "mildly terrifying".
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The squash star is firing ahead of the Commonwealth Games having won the Malaysian Squash Tour VI title last weekend - days after winning an Australian tour event in Brisbane.
World No.69 Nunn's Gold Coast preparations had already enjoyed a perfect start after she claimed the Australian championship last month.
But all the victories in the world might not be enough to help Nunn through the next month as she grapples with her final year of studying teaching in Melbourne.
"It's going to be madness, it's the calm before the storm at the moment," Nunn laughed.
"I just want to try and get a little bit ahead on stuff but we'll see. The first two weeks I was away for, most of the stuff is online so I can kind of teach myself but it makes it difficult with group assignments, and the placements are always at a crazy time, but we'll see.
"I'd like to get it done so hopefully I can power on through."
She admits she isn't sure what to expect from her maiden Commonwealth Games appearance but a recent run of success has Nunn stoked she took a punt on moving south.
Nunn lived her entire life in Canberra and battled to win a major tournament before relocating to Melbourne to follow her squash career - at which point she won three in a row.
Nunn is coached by former world No. 1 Sarah Fitz-Gerald and says relocating to Melbourne "six or seven years" ago was the perfect storm to kickstart her career.
Prior to that she had living at the AIS residence in Brisbane as part of the squash program since her late teens - but some big changes in the squash landscape forced her to relocate.
"We had a couple of changes in the program and we lost the house that we were all living in," Nunn said.
"The AIS changed completely so squash was no longer underneath the AIS umbrella. It was probably a couple of things that coincided at the same time.
"I was thinking about going to study anyway and I had family here in Melbourne, my partner was from Melbourne, and I had access to world class coaching here as well so everything aligned
"It's always a work in progress, as is everything in life. I'm happy with how my preparations have been going.
"I've got a lot of work-life-study-family balance here in Melbourne so that's been really nice, which is very different to how it was in Brisbane.
"It has made a bit of a difference to my performances on court as well which is good."
A Commonwealth Games on home soil has her family and friends champing at the bit to get to the Gold Coast and see her play - something of a rarity in a sport Nunn predominantly plays overseas.
