SquashTalk > British Open 2002 Squash Website > 2002 Feature: Natalie Pohrer's Streak

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[women's main draw]      [women's qualifying final results]

POHRER CHARGES INTO BRITISH OPEN
April 9 2002 ©2002 Squashtalk

Though her ranking is barely inside the top ten, Natalie Pohrer enters the 2002 British Open, whose main draw begins tomorrow, as the hottest player on the WISPA circuit.

The 24-year-old British native, who has spent most of her life in South Africa and now lives in St. Louis, flew to England late last week after an extraordinarily successful tour in Egypt, where she knocked off three seeds to reach the final of the Heliopolis Open, then exceeded even that feat less than a week later in Hurghada, an island right near the Red Sea, where she defeated three seeds in a row to win the entire tournament, her first major tournament victory since the Exterieur Open in August of 1999.

CONSOLIDATING HER MOMENTUM
Pohrer's performances in Egypt consolidated and expanded upon her previous praiseworthy results in New York in late January, where she advanced to the semis before losing to world No. 1 Sarah Fitz-Gerald, and in Houston at the Texas Open in March, where she avenged an early-January 9-7 in the fifth loss in Hartford to Rachael Grinham and then defeated Fiona Geaves to also reach the semis before losing to the eventual champion Carol Owens.

In the aggregate, this series of consecutive strong showings, which began at the outset of 2002 with a win in the Chass Open, are compelling proof of her return to the game's top echelon after the six-month hiatus she had to take after the 2001 British Open last June to tend to her dying younger brother Keith and to recover from a knee injury. The superbly proportioned 24-year-old, who recently married American Eddie Pohrer, has clearly found her return to the game as a catharsis after all the pain she endured last year, and has been thriving under the coaching she has been receiving from Michael Puertas of the Missouri Athletic Club, who who along with her trainers Skaggs Clayton and James Neuwirth have had her on a regimen that has improved both her fitness and stroke production, with results that speak for themselves.

Always known for her expressiveness on court and the luminous smile she frequently transmits, she is, in her own words, "loving being on the court" and her game has reflected the happy energy this recent winning streak has provided.

HELIOPOLIS HIGH

Owens Topped Surging Pohrer at Heliopolis

At the Heliopolis event in Cairo, Pohrer faced three seeded English compatriots, No. 8 Rebecca Macree, No. 4 Linda Charman-Smith and No. 2 Cassie Campion, and defeated them all with only one lost game, a first-game tiebreaker to Campion, whom she edged 9-7 in the fourth in the closest of the three pre-final encounters. The Charman-Smith quarter-final was the rubber match of their three meetings, all in the quarters, in the last nine months, with Charman-Smith winning in the 2001 British Open and Pohrer rallying from a 5-8 deficit to take the fourth and final game in New York.

By contrast to that taut outcome, Pohrer won much more easily this time, a second-set tiebreaker representing the only crossroads moment in an otherwise routine 9-2, 10-8, 9-6 victory. Then, after barely dropping the first game of her semi-final with Campion, who had defeated her the last time they had played in Las Vegas in 2000, Pohrer won the second and third games 9-5 and 9-3 and toughed her way through a competitive, grind-it-out fourth and final game.

That match took enough out of Pohrer to leave her too jaded to really contest the always tough-minded Owens, who was still riding the momentum of her triumph at the Texas Open, who had had a much easier time in her semi-final with Rachel Grinham and who was seeking her 20th career WISPA title. By her own subsequent admission, Pohrer let Owens take the first two games far too easily by revealing 9-1, 9-2 tallies, and though she was able to relocate the needed work ethic, win the third and take the fourth to 5-5, she lacked the ability to maintain the pressure and Owens won the match's final four points. On the last exchange, Pohrer had the whole court open after Owens had barely been able to retrieve a Pohrer forehand drop shot and was fenced in up front, only to be reprieved when a Pohrer attempt to stab what should have been a winning crosscourt rang loudly off the tin.

HURGHADA HEIGHTS
The Hurghada event was held on an open-air court built by the Egyptians specifically for this tournament, and Pohrer followed an opening-round walkover from an intestinal virus-ridden Stephanie Brind (who has now withdrawn with a two-game lead over Charman-Smith throughout which she seemed in total control.

Pohrer dodged the sand to win at Hurghada

She was hitting to very good length, even more of an advantage than usual on this glass court, which are slightly deader in the back and therefore exacts more of a price for not establishing front-court position. But Charman-Smith, understandably unhappy with the prospect of her third straight loss to her lower-ranked opponent, became much more aggressive in the third game, blocking and barging and shouting at the referee at some calls that went against her and completely disrupting the nice rhythm that Pohrer had established. Charman-Smith took the third game and was up 8-0 in the fourth. She wound up winning that game 9-7 and squaring the match at two games apiece, but the eventual outcome might have been sealed by Pohrer's rally in that fourth game, which Pohrer was able to carry over to a 5-3 lead in the fifth. Charman-Smith knotted the score at 5-all, but all that coming from behind had taken a toll and when Pohrer really upped the pace, she was able to finish the game off 9-5, a case of her being able both to respond to an opponent's changing tactics and to rely on other parts of her game when one aspect wasn't at top notch, something she hadn't always been able to do in the past.

Pohrer was ready for her semi-final with the top-seeded Owens, having watched a video of their match in Houston and with the memory still fresh of their six-day-old Heliopolis Open final as well. In both matches, she had been much too passive, as noted partly in the Cairo match due to cumulative fatigue, especially in the wake of her draining Campion semi, and had allowed Owens to grab early-match leads that had proven too much to overcome.

Mindful of the manner in which her opponent feeds off a fast and consistent pace, she was also resolved to change the rhythm, place the ball in spots that would crimp Owens's movement and give herself control of the tee. She also greatly benefited, both in her Owens semi and in the subsequent truncated final with Campion, by an unforeseen element, namely the court conditions. The new court had been painted red before the tournament began, and played quite well.

FEARSOME FOOTING
But it was re-painted before the semi-finals, in order to look better on the Egyptian television networks, and the footing became much more problematic in the wake of this occurrence. For whatever reason, Pohrer was much more comfortable in this environment than was Owens, who was leery in her movement from the start and in fact changed her shoes between games.

Owens also was going for winners much too soon, presumably out of distaste for prolonging the points due to the traction problems she was experiencing, a vast departure for someone whose zest for working her way through points had enabled her 17 months earlier to overcome a 2-0, 7-0 deficit and two third-game match-balls in the final of the 2000 World Championships against Leilani Joyce in Edinburgh. Owens did take the second game in a tiebreaker, but Pohrer dominated the middle of the court from there.

She did experience a brief "flashback" moment at 2-1, 8-3, since in an almost identical situation at the same tournament five years earlier (when it was called the Grand Prix), she had let a 2-1, 8-2 advantage over Owens slip away and eventually lost 9-7 in the fifth. That was not about to happen this time, as Pohrer won the match on her second try.

THE WIN
She then won an anti-climactic final 9-2, 9-5, retired from Campion, who slipped and fell three times during this 18-minute match on a court whose surface by this time had been compromised by sand carried in by the swirling winds. Campion takes long strides into the ball, a characteristic that cost her dearly in this environment, while Pohrer, who somehow never slipped or lost her footing even once, moves in a more compact fashion, and was able to keep her feet under her and to place the ball where she had more time to get back into position.

Campion is also only a few months removed from a serious back operation, and her understandable fear of re-injury no doubt exacerbated her discomfort level as well. WISPA Executive Director Andrew Shelley was summoned to inspect the court and declared that, since only one player was really having a problem, and with the TV cameras whirring and a big crowd present, including a number of dignitaries, the match had to proceed.

Shortly thereafter, a disappointed Campion reluctantly conceded and Pohrer was crowned Hurghada Open champion. Her British Open draw has her playing Denmark's Ellen Petersen in the first round, then probably eighth seed Vanessa Atkinson (Campion's semi-final victim in Hurghada) and fourth seed Fiona Geaves to get to defending champion Fitz-Gerald, who missed the last several events while recovering from a calf injury, in the semis. She is hoping to build on her recent wins, which have given her great momentum coming into the premier tournament of the entire WISPA season.