Day of the Long Matches    
April 6, 2005, Chief Reporter Martin Bronstein on the scene in Bermuda
SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2005 all Rights Reserved;

DAY OF THE LONG MATCHES
The second round produced a series of long matches to make up for some of 30 minute yawns of previous days. Top of the list must be the meeting of Anthony Ricketts and James Willstrop, the two player who provided such a memorable match at the Tournament of Champions in New York in February, where Ricketts won the 78 minute five game encounter.

Today it was the lanky young Englishman’s turn, but he had to work for it through 96 hard and - for the spectators – exciting and engrossing minutes.

WILLSTROP OTHER WORLDLY

Willstrop and Ricketts do battle, photo © 2005 Stephen J Line

For the first two games, Willstrop was simply inhuman; he hardly put a foot wrong and every shot was perfect. Almost from the word go Ricketts was under the gun and in retrospect he was fortunate to earn any points at all. Willstrop’s natural game is to attack and he took the ball short from every position on the court, his favourite weapon being a precise volley drop to the front left that dragged Ricketts right to the very front of the court to swipe at the ball only to find Willstrop waiting to paste it to the back of the court. Ricketts was good enough to pick up most of the fine drops and even reply with some of his own, but no matter what he did, he could not wrest control of the game from Willstrop. Even when Ricketts managed to produce a pressure shot, Willstrop’s lightning reaction shot was always to perfect length or tight on the wall. He gave away absolutely nothing after the error on the first rally of the game. Ricketts, rattled, demanded to know why there was an Englishman reffing, an indication of how rattled he was.

SUPERB SHOOTING WONDERFUL RETRIEVALS.
There were long rallies, an indication not of attritional rallies, but of wonderful gets from both players. Willstrop won the first 17 minute game 11-6 and then made three errors at the start of the second game to help Ricketts to a 4-0 lead. But then he hit three winners, including a stunning fast reaction stop volley that died in the nick. At this point Ricketts must have thought that this was not his day or he should have gone to church first.
Willstrop remained in charge, his weight of shot and length allowed Ricketts no chance to get on top and although he fought for the entire 19 minutes, Ricketts was powerless in to stop Willstrop winning the second game 11-8.

JUST HOW FIT?

White takes the measure of Palmer, photo © 2005 Stephen J Line

But Ricketts claims to be as fit as anybody on the circuit and he felt that he could finally overcome a tiring Willstrop. How better to do this than slow the pace and keep the rallies going as long as possible. So in the third, Ricketts started to slow-ball down the left wall, always aware that Willstrop loves nothing better to hit drops from the back of the court. The strategy worked and slow Ricketts pulled ahead but it wasn’t until around 7-5 that he could feel that he was dictating the action on the court. At 8-7 he hit a beautiful backhand straight nick and followed with lucky nick at the back to put him at game point. Willstrops could not resist a high ball and his overhead slam into the nick hit the tin instead and Ricketts was back in the chase. They had been playing for almost an hour and the fun had only just started.

RICKETTS TAKES OVER
The fourth game was all Ricketts, starting with a stroke to get his first point and then at 3-3 Willstrop’s touch deserted him and his languid long drop shots were now hitting the top of the tin. He made five errors in the game and Ricketts got four penalty strokes – which accounts for nine points out of the eleven. He was no longer complaining about the referee’s nationality although at one point he asked out loud why he was devoting his life to this game. My muttered response was stolen from Rocky –“because you can’t sing or dance.”

THE KIDS GOT BALLS – AS WELL AS STAMINA
The odds were on the older fitter Ricketts to take the deciding game but nobody told Willstrop. At 3-3 he hit five consecutive winners: a high backhand into the nick, a straight nick, a volley drop, a forehand slam and a forehand tight drive. He now led 8-3 and Ricketts must have wondered what happened to the ‘tired’ opponent. Ricketts hit a couple of outright winners of his own to get to 7-9 but then he tried a half volley drop that just shaved the top of the tin, to put Willstrop at match ball. A penalty stroke gave Ricketts a lifeline but then a forehand slam hit the top of the tin and Willstrop had the 21 minute game 11-8, and a memorable victory after 96 minutes of superb squash.

I thought the first two games were the finest I have ever seen Willstrop play while his father Malcolm said that they were almost the best he had played. Willstrop himself thought his shot selection in the first two games was “fantastic”, an unheard remark from this usually modest young man. When I asked him how he won the fifth he said “ I ballsed it out. I wasn’t going to stop attacking because that is my game.”

SIXTH TIME LUCKY FOR WHITE
Jonathon Power also had to work hard in overcoming Gregory Gaultier in five, a match that took 72 minutes but I was at the other venue to see a real titanic struggle between two of the tallest men in the game David Palmer and John White. In their previous five meetings Palmer had come out on top and most of those were 3/2 decisions.

White started slowly and was 5-0 down before Palmer gave him two points on errors. This was the sensible White, not the collector of nicks and winners that we all love to watch. They played careful squash for 20 minutes and Palmer kept the upper hand to win 11-7.

White was a little more adventurous in the second and was never headed as he worked diligently to win the game 11-9. So, one game apiece and the match starts from scratch again. White got to into fourth gear in the third game and simply took control, putting the ball around the court and making Palmer do circuits, which upset him and there were continuous glares at the referee. The fact was that White had the upper hand to lead 7-0 and there was nothing Palmer could do about it. It wasn’t as though White was hitting winners – he wasn’t – he was just playing very shrewd squash. He won the third game 11-4 but there had been such switches you couldn’t quite forecast what would happen next.

ROLL OUT THE WINNERS
John White decided it was time to open his magic box of tricks and demonstrate the art of finding the nick. In the course of the next ten minutes he hit six winners comprising of a whole mixture of shots from backhand drops to straight nicks. Against this sort of shooting there is not a player in the world who could do anything and so after 67 minutes of engrossing squash – any match between these two starts with a double dose of drama – White left the court a 3/1 winner – and a popular won at that.

SHABANA BEATS HIMSELF - AGAIN.

Shabana had Lincou but let him off the hook, photo © 2005 Stephen J Line

He may be the reigning world champion but Amr Shabana had Thierry Lincou in the palm of his hand, confused and discombobulated. Lincou was at a loss as to what he had to do to contain the Egyptian’s guile and skill. But then it all fell apart – as it so often does with this highly gifted squash player. To start from the beginning, it was all Shabana, full of confidence, prepared to rally when necessary but even more prepared to go for winners. The played more at the front of the court than at the back and for once Lincou was being outclassed. Five unforced errors indicated that he was less than ready to handle Shabana - if he could. Shabana took the first 11-6 and continued to befuddle Lincou with his left-handed trickery in the second game, quickly running up a 7-2 lead to suggest a route of the world champion. He was reading Lincou like a book and was ready for everything.

…AND THE WALLS CAME TUMBLING DOWN
And then it all fell apart dreadfully. Unbelievably Shabana never scored another point. Lincou took nine points in a row as Shabana’s head went and he hit six errors, silly, impatient errors that gave Lincou the game 11-7.

Shabana tried to make up for it in the third game and time after time worked Lincou out of position only to put the finishing drop into the tin. It was heartbreaking to watch. Lincou reached game ball 10-7 and then hit the tin twice and slipped to allow Shabana a lifeline to extra points. Once again, standing by the tin with the court at his mercy Shabana’s delicate drop shot hit the tin and the got a no let call to give Lincou the winning point.

Shabana’s head dropped in the fourth- six errors and little effort in the seven minute game, showed that he had lost the will to win. The game was won by Lincou 11-3 which was such a disappointment in a match that promised so much to begin with.

[Complete draw]

PASA MASTERS SECOND ROUND RESULTS
Thierry Lincou (FRA) bt Amr Shabana (EGY) 6-11,11-7,11-10 (2-0), 11-3 (53mins)
John White (SCO) bt David Palmer (AUS)7-11, 11-9, 11-4, 11-6 (67mins)
James Willstrop (ENG) bt Anthony Ricketts (AUS)11-6, 11-8, 7-11, 3-11, 11-8 (96mins)
Jonathon Power(CAN) bt Gregory Gaultier (FRA) 101-2, 11-1, 5-11, 11-3, 11-2 (72 mins)
Nick Matthew (ENG) bt Ong Beng Hee (MAL) 11-8, 11-9, 11-9.

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.