First Round - Second Report     [first report]
April 4, 2005, Chief Reporter Martin Bronstein on the scene in Bermuda
SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2005 all Rights Reserved;

POWER PLAYS,CHALONER CHASES
It was almost cruel, the way Jonathon Power drove Mark Chaloner out of the tournament. Their first round match was a masterclass on accuracy and the art of putting the ball where your opponent isn’t. Power’s speed of thought, movement and racket still amazes. Coupled with his impeccable shot selection, Chaloner didn’t have a chances, having to spend almost the entire 29 minutes on the back foot forced to play 80 percent of his shots at full stretch.

It has been said a thousand times before, but good players make it all look so easy. And we wonder, all of us, why we can’t find the game that simple: drop, drive, boast drive, drop and then watch you opponent hit the ball into the tin or miss it altogether. I lost count of how many backwall boasts Chaloner was forced to play to stay in the rally. It is the shot of last resort and it always leaves the other player in complete control.

There was never a time in this match that Chaloner was in control: there was the odd occasion when he was on level terms, but he could never gain the upper hand. When an opponent reads the game so well, reads your shots so quickly, there is little to be done. And even those occasions when Power mis-read, he was lightning fast in changing direction to still get to the ball and chop it down front, so reversing the situation.

After this 29 minute runaround Power has 48 hours to recover before facing that long distance player, Gregory Gaultier of France. Simon Parke, that wise old veteran of English squash had a long 71 minute match with Gaultier, a player who doesn’t believe in putting the ball away if he can prolong the rally for another 100 shots. Parke managed to win the second game but got pulled into Gaultier’s game and he too found it hard to put the ball away with finality. Parke lasted the distance better than his opponent who was looking the worse for wear even though he won in four. Parke has been selected to play for England in the European team championships later this month, the fifth man in the five man team. A puzzling choice considering that Adrian Grant is ranked six places above him. Perhaps Grant’s wavering formover the last year has the England selectors worried. Grant plays Azland Iskandar tomorrow and should use the game to give the finger to the selectors. He will only do that if he starts to volley more. His desire to take the ball off the back wall virtually ensures that every match he plays goes to five games.

SHABANA SHOWS CONTROL
Amr Shabana’s match against Frenchman Renan Lavigne ran on similar lines to Power’s match. Shabana may not be as sophisticated yet as the Canadian but he has the same racket skills, the ability to control the ball to within a centimeter of his target. He had Lavigne running diagonals as he dropped and drove, drove and dropped, using the softest stop volley in the game to take every bit of speed out of the ball so it just kisses the front wall before dying on the floor. This puts enormous pressure on his opponent who seems to spend an awful lot of time his nose an inch from the tin. Shabana showed great control over his own excesses for twenty minutes, enough time for him to win the first two games 11-7. 11-7

His control dropped in the third – he once again glimpsed the finishing line and tried to end the rallies too quickly. On came the errors and suddenly Lavigne, who had been outclassed, was leading, first 4-1 and then 7-5. Shabana controlled his urges and when Lavigne hit an error at 7-6 – a slider across the face of the front wall which hit the tin – it was the turning point. Shabana hit a wonderful backhand cross court cut that was too fast and too wide for Lavigne to win the next point and from that point the Fat Lady started to sing. Shabana cleaned up the last few points to win 11-8 after 3e minutes.

LINCOU WINS SHOW MATCH
Bermuda was given a wild card in the form of Nicholas Kyme, who has represented his country perhaps more than any other player, getting junior honours when he was barely into his teens. He drew world champion Thierry Lincou which was both good and bad. Bad in that he had no chance of a win and good because the first match of the evening – after an opening ceremony of a town crier and a drum band- was Lincou versus the hometown hero. Dignitaries were in abundance and the place was packed. It was all good fun with Kyme’s every point cheered as though it were the match winner. Lincou played shots he has never showed before and demonstrated how many ways you can hit a boast so that it grazes the front wall and almost dies. Kyme was game and hit a few nifty shots of his own. Indeed one rally was very good indeed with Kyme hitting a winning nick to bring on thunderous applause. Even though Kym got to game ball 11-10 in the third, we knew that Lincou would hit the ball a little harder and make his drops that little bit tighter so that he took the next three points to win 13-11 and the match 3/0 in 35 minutes. And a jolly good time was had by all.

NOTES
Fans of Ong Beng Hee will be delighted to see him get his first victory in six months on the PSA circuit. His 3/1 victory over Mohammed Abbas will give him some much needed confidence after a couple of years of miserable form. Here was the player that Peter Nicol dubbed ‘the next world champion’ just three years ago. His mysterious loss of form and, worse still, his lack of enjoyment, was a worry to his many friends (he doesn’t have an enemy in the world).
“I just have to be more positive when I player Nick Matthew,” he told me later that day at the Bermuda Squash Rackets Club. It’s the only club on the island and its four courts make up 50 percent of the total number. (There are private courts around but nobody knows how many).

The walls of the club are covered with championship boards listing the names of bygone winners. On the British Airways Bermuda Invitation Trophy board, the winner in 1980 was someone called Ron Beck. I wonder whatever became of him?


[Complete draw]
Thierry Lincou (FRA) bt Nicholas Kyme (BER) 11-3, 11-7 11-10 (3-1) (35 mins)
Amr Shabana (EGY) bt Renan Lavigne (FRA) 11-7, 11-7, 11-8 (33mins)
Gregory Gaultier (FRA) bt Simon Parke (FRA)11-4, 8-11, 11-6, 11-7 (71 mins)
Nick Matthew (ENG) bt Shahid Zaman (PAK) 11-8, 11-4, 11-4. (34 mins)

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

NEW ... Get the New Jonathon Power Instruction Video at the SquashTalk eStore!

Squashtalk.com All materials © 1999-2005. Communicate with us at info@squashtalk.com.
Published by Squashtalk LLC, 409 Massachusetts Ave, Suite 102, Acton, MA 01720 USA, Editor and Publisher Ron Beck,
Graphics editor Debra Tessier Send comments, ideas, contributions and feedback to the webmaster.
Copyright © 1999-2005 SquashTalk, all rights reserved, may not be reproduced in any form except for one-time personal use.