First Round - Early Day One Report
April 4, 2005, Chief Reporter Martin Bronstein on the scene in Bermuda
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WHITE SCRAPES IN

John White and Alex Gough opened this very prestigious event with a noon kick-off time and despite a semi-respectable crowd in this girls high school gym, where the McWill glass court has been set up, could not really get the excitement going. It wasn’t exactly a bare gym surrounded as they were by a million dollars worth of high tech equipment courtesy of name sponsor Virtual Spectator who bring all sorts of pixel magic to a wide variety of sports. There were large screens all over the place showing instant replays by Horizon who also bombarded us with more statistics than we could use in several years.

It was a strange match with John White having spurts of his trademark brilliance only to have them nullified by some determined play by Gough who was putting in a few fine winners of his own. White should have won that first 20-minute game, having led most of it, but at 7-8 Gough strung together some fine rallies to squeak it 11-9

The second game was one of those strange reversals that happens so often. Gough played as though he wanted to go home and White put away same wonderful shots to lead 6-0. Although Gough got back into the game to reach 5-8, he really did not seem serious, and White had the game 11-5 in under seven minutes.

White continued his dominance in the third game, not so much by outright winners but by slamming the ball into the back two corners thus keeping Gough on his heels for most of the rallies. When Gough did venture frontwards he was caught out by some clinical cross court slams with enough width to leave him helpless in no-man’s land, two yards in front of the T.
So White took the third game 11-6 in ten minutes and looked set for victory. But Gough settled in for the fourth game and led 5-3. White pulled back to 6-6 and then alternated winners with errors. Gough was now playing very shrewdly and was reading White’s shots with amazing speed to send attempted winners flying to the back of the court. He won the game 11-8 deservedly, to leave the outcome of the match far from a foregone conclusion.
The fifth was point for point until White led 9-7. Gough put together three very good rallies ending with an unreadable backhand roll corner that left White flatfooted and facing match ball. He went back to his low hard drives, hit a beauty on his backhand that died in the corner to send the game into overtime. Another tight backhand left Gough scraping the wall with his racket in vain and then a rocket forehand drive – as only White can hit – gave the lanky Aussie the match 12-10.
Gough will not be very happy that he lost a match that he could just as easily have won. But Bermuda’s not a bad place to spend the next five days doing nothing.
White told me later that he though he had it all tied up in the fourth but Gough is capable of stepping up the court and using his flicks and top-spins to win points.

PALMER GETS VICTORY AT ROCK BOTTOM PRICE
David Palmer was on and off the court in 22minutes and 23 seconds in his match against fellow Aussie Paul Price. Not too long ago Price was a force to reckon with, threatening the top players with his crashing straight nicks and never-give-up attitude. Today he wasn’t even a shadow of his former self as he gave points away and didn’t even bother to chase some of Palmer’s volley drops. Was he ill? Should he have played? I know players ranked between 70 and 100 who would have put up a better fight than Price. Yes Palmer did play extremely well – almost faultless squash, but no match in a major tournament should be over in 22 minutes.

VIRTUAL SPECTATOR BERMUDA MASTERS.
FIRST ROUND [complete draw]
John White (SCO) bt Alex Gough (WAL) 9-11,11-5, 11-6, 8-11, 11-10 (2-0) (87mins)
Ong Beng Hee (MAL) bt Mohammed Abbas (Egy) 11-8, 11-3, 8-11, 11-2 (50 mins)
David Palmer (AUS) bt Paul Price (AUS) 11-6,11-2,11-1 (22mins)

a:

Note: Matches use the PSA 11 point P-A-R scoring, with a tiebreaker.

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