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/Heliopolis 2001

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Power roars past Heath; Palmer squeaks past White.

by Colin McQuillan, Sept 6 2001

Jonathon Power of Canada will play England's Mark Chaloner in the semi-finals of the 2001 Al Ahram International while the top seeded world champion, Peter Nicol of England faces the new world number one, David Palmer of Australia.

POWER-NICOL AGAIN?
It looks uncannily like chapter 24 of the Power-Nicol saga. Nicol beat Power in the Tournament of Champions in New York in February and brought the record to 12-11 in his favour in matches, 40-38 in games and 932-920 in points. Tonight they both progressed confidently through quarter-finals on the transparent showcourt mounted in the shadow of the Great Pyramids on the dusty floor of the Giza Desert, although it has to be said that, with no Egyptians in the Al Ahram quarters for the first time, the crowd watching them was pretty thin.

HEATH OVERPOWERED
Power defeated Scotland's Martin Heath 15-11 15-8 15-13 in 46 minutes. Heath has been a finalist in this event before, in 1998, but there was little chance tonight of his progressing against the Canadian who appears to be rediscovering his form after a bout of tonsillitis took him out of the Hong Kong Open last month, Palmer put him out of the Super Series Semi-finals in June and Del Harris removed him from the British Open second round before that.

DESERT SOUNDS
A winner last time out in Egypt, in the PSA Masters in Hurghada in April, Power's only apparent frailty tonight was a strange involuntary shout that he let out striving desperately for a short ball as Heath fought back to 10-12 in the third game. Heath wanted the point, explaining that Power had pushed him and sprawled full length on the floor after the shout. Power actually denied shouting. "I might have grunted from the effort," he insisted. It was a full blown shout. I would have stopped for it. Nasser Zahran, the referee, sitting a full court length behind the back wall, said he had heard nothing and refused even a let.

ROOMMATE RUMBLE
Nicol and Ong Beng Hee of Malaysia got on court well after Midnight, but made up time by finishing 15-12 15-6 15-6 in 35 minutes. The pair train together in London and are sharing a room at The Meridian Pyramid Hotel in Cairo. There was no chance of the young Asian Champion, the first Malaysian to break into the top ten, breaking the psychology of that situation, even if he had not finished legless the previous day after 90 minutes wearing down the talented Mohammed Abbas.

The defending champion is looking to resuscitate his reputation in this tournament after an extraordinary first round loss to Thierry Lincou in Hong Kong. He has a grand record on the open air showcourts of Egypt, although he went down to Palmer in the quarter-finals of the PSA Masters in Hurghada in April. He is looking for a fourth win under the Al Ahram banner in Cairo and Palmer might need to be better than he was against John White tonight to repeat that victory.

WHITE'S WHITEWASH
White stood within two points of victory in the first quarter-final of the night, only to be deprived of a famous victory by three odd decisions from the local referee, Walid Darwish, the elder brother of world junior champion Karim Darwish. The Australian born world number six who became Scottish number one when Nicol defected to England earlier this year, dominated the 83 minute match in phases, leading the first game 12-6 for instance, closing out the second from 10-6 in two hands and reaching 13-11 in the fifth. It was Palmer who constantly wrangled with the referee about his refusal to give lets often on impossibly distant drives down the forehand wall, and White who for most of the time looked the imperious superior performer.

But, just when it mattered, the referee leaned towards the world number one, giving a let on a well struck drop shot for 12-13, a no-let on a quite reachable drive for 13-13. and a penalty stroke on a blocked forehand backswing that Palmer himself admitted later was only worth a let ball. White was so intensely concentrating on the injustice of it all that he then threw in a huge tinned error just to complete the switch of fortune. The two played a few times as juniors in Australia, but had never before met on the PSA World Tour.

"I was confident all the way through that this was going to be a famous first meeting for me," White said "I really was beating myself in the early part of the match. Dave gets so much back that you tend to get a bit anxious to play tighter and tighter winners, until you start hitting the tin. Then I found the zone of the match and it was the referee who beat me in the end. It is the way things go sometimes, but a place in the Al Ahram semi-finals would have been a just reward for the balance of the match.

SAUNA SEMI
England's Mark Chaloner forced his way into the semi-finals with a 113 minute 12-15 17-15 17-14 15-9 victory over Australia's Stewart Boswell that owed much to the extraordinary amount of moisture the two players generated on an open-air transparent showcourt mounted in the desert beside the Great Pyramids of Giza outside Cairo.

Boswell, the maturing hope for Australia's squash future, was virtually waterlogged from the start of the third game, so hard was he sweating. A thin angular character, he was not equipped with extra socks and shoes and some players habitually are in this grinding game. He finished the match in English socks, supplied by the England National Coach, David Pearson, who was plainly anxious to see his man with a full victory rather than a walkover and stripped them off his own feet to make sure the Australian kept running all the way to his defeat.

The win takes Chaloner to the second seeded Canadian Jonathon Power, to whom he lost over five games in June's Super Series playoffs in London and over four games in April's Tournament of Champions in New York. "But Mark seems to be entering the best phase of his playing career," Pearson told SquashNow. "He was forceful and inventive beating Paul Price, the fourth seeded Australian, in the round before and against Boswell he was calm and patient through two hours on a hot court with his opponent spreading moisture all over the floor. Al Ahram International Squash Tournament Cairo, Egypt

Quarter-final Results:
David Palmer (Aus) bt John White (Scot) 15-12 8-15 15-10 11-15 15-13
Jonathon Power (Can) bt Martin Heath (Scot) 15-11 15-8 15-13
Mark Chaloner (Eng) bt Stewart Boswell (Aus) 12-15 17-15 17-14 15-9
Peter Nicol (Eng) bt Ong Beng Hee (Mal) 15-12 15-6 15-6

[Complete results on draw page]

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