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NATIONALITIES?
London April 8 2002   © 2002 SquashTalk.
Photos special to SquashTalk by Fritz Borchert, © 2002

A MATTER OF ALL CHANGE , PLEASE.
There I was, speaking to Carol Owens, the Australian who is now a New Zealander, and I saw Peter Nicol, the Scot who is now an Englishman and wondered where John White was – he’s the Australian who is now a Scotsman – when I saw Carla Khan, the Englishwoman who is now Pakistani.

Mansoor Zaman (photo © 2002 M Muscatel)

Which is when I went up to watch Liam Kenny , the reigning Irish Champion, play Mansoor Zaman who Hashim Khan considers the best of the new young breed of players out of Pakistan. Kenny played beautifully, pinning Zaman in the back corners and volleying everything in sight.

There wasn’t a lot Zaman, nephew of the great Qamar Zaman, could do. Somehow he won that first game but Kenny came back to win the next two games 15-9 each and was totally in charge in the fourth to lead 13-10 only to start thinking too much about the outcome and he allowed a very worn-out Zaman to come back, take the game and then win the fifth. It was a hard 88 minute affair and Kenny had every right to be upset with himself.

Strangely, all the Aussies watching the match – like David Palmer – were cheering for Kenny. And when I spoke to Kenny after the match and heard the Aussie accent, it all suddenly clicked in. He wasn’t Irish at all, he was from down under and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Sport.

In fact the last time I saw Kenny was in Cairo back in 1996 in the Junior World Championships: mind you, I didn’t see much of him. He went out pretty early in the individual championship and then on an official outing before the team event, he got severe sunstroke and was unable to play, forcing the other three members of the Aussie team had to play every match. By the final, poor old Stewart Boswell, who had reached the final of the individual where he lost to Ahmed Faizy, was absolutely exhausted having played 13 days out of 14. Two years ago Kenny cashed in on his Irish heritage, got a useful little grant and is now a big fish in a small pond. But it means at the next world team champs he’ll be number one for Ireland instead of number seven for Australia.

HOWELL MAKES IT THREE IN A ROW

Jean Michel Arcucci got past Shahid (photo © 2002 F Borchert)

England’s Ben Howell disposed of the other Zaman, Shahid, son of Qamar, in an exhausting 80 minute battle that was far from pretty. Shahid was loose, chose his shots badly and despite leading 2/1 lost 17-15 in the fifth. Howell had already played two pre-qualifying matches over the weekend, so here is a kid who must really be fit.

He now faces Jean Michel Arcucci of France, who is a very tough customer; I shall be surprised if Howell gets past him . Arcucci had a real ding-dong with Joey Barrington, son of Jonah, who is rapidly improving. In the third game with the game tied 1/1, the had a freak collision, each limping around with a wounded knee. At the end of the third game, the referee gave them both an hour to get treatment and when they returned the Frenchman obviously got the better treatment because he took the fourth 15-12. Arcucci, together with world number four Thierry Lincou, Renan Lavigne and Gregory Gaultier, give France one helluva team for the next world champs.

VAIL OF CHEERS
The only other pre-qualifier left is Tim Vail of England who pulled off a huge upset when he beat Canada’s Shahier Razik in four. There are 120 ranking points between them and Razik (ranked 43) will rue this defeat for a very long time. Vail was also in Cairo back in 1996, a very lowly number six on the England team, so he has been around for a long time, getting nowhere fast. But in the last six months he has started to string some very good victories together. Maybe he is one of those late developers.

WAEL OUT OF HARMS’ WAY
There was a cracking match between Wael El Hindi, the Egyptian who put together some formidable wins to reach the quarters of the Tournament of Champions this year, and the best Swiss prospect for a long time, Lars Harms, who is being groomed by New Zeland number one Paul Steel, who is working hard to put a foundation under Harms’ natural talent.

El Hindi won in three but these two cracked the ball around at rocket speed and covered the court so well that it stopped you from breathing. El Hindi hits the ball beautifully: almost no effort and just a wave of the arm and the ball is sent with absolute accuracy at incredible speed. It wasn’t just speed – every ball was tight. I watched this match with Adrian Ezra, former US College champ and Harvard number one, and he said he’d forgotten just how good top squash was. And this was just the qualifying.

ROSS MUST WAIT ANOTHER YEAR
Stacy Ross, the Englishman who is trying to make a comeback at 28, will have to wait another year for his breakthrough. He went out to Nick Taylor 3/1 and once again showed that he was the equal of Taylor all over the court. Ross lost the first game but was 14-11 up in the second, only to lose the game throwing away one point on a silly attempt to end the game with a nick off the serve which hit the tin, and then being robbed by a couple of absolutely atrocious decisions. He won the third but fell in the fourth.

He has to remember at game ball, the pressure is on the opponent to save it, not on the leader to win it. It’s losses like this that drum the lesson home. Had he won he would have faced Italian champion Davide Bianchetti in the final qualifying round. Now that would have been an interesting match. Bianchetti had little trouble in dismissing Pakistani hope Amjad Khan in three straight, leaving all Pakistan’s hopes riding on Mansoor Zaman.