Beachill Beats The Joker
Top Four seeds move into Women's Semifinal
© 2004 Colin McQuillan to Squashtalk, all rights of reproduction reserved.
November 4, 2004

Lincou (R) was able to keep Ricketts at bay in the quarterfinals, © 2004 Fritz Borchert

England’s top seeded Lee Beachill today survived an audacious attack from Australia’s greatest joker, Joe Kneipp, to proceed 11-8 11-7 9-11 11-7 in precisely an hour to a semi-final of the Harris British Open Championship against the defending champion, David Palmer, perhaps the least jocular Australian ever to take to the squash court.

Later in the day Anthony Ricketts, a Sydneysider who suggests ambitions of becoming the toughest Australian ever to take to the squashcourt, found that at least one French man strong enough to deal with him. Thierry Lincou, the second seed, withstood the increasingly roughhouse tactics of Ricketts to apply his precise and disciplined brand of 11 point rallying to win his place in the semi-finals with a 64 minute 7-11 11-9 11-4 11-6 lesson in court behaviour.

That took Lincou into a semi-final against the World Champion, Amr Shabana of Egypt, whose 40 minute 11-3 11-8 11-8 dismissal of Nick Mattthew, the fourth seeded English No3, made his own fifth seeding appear rather understated.

“I have decided to grow up and take life more seriously,” said the often temperamental 25-year-old, who plans to marry his fiancé, Najla, in Cairo next May. “I have never taken my game seriously, never trained properly and never applied myself as I should. If I am to be married I have to mature.

“This is the first tournament I have ever taken seriously. I have lost the last two times to Nick, but now I have beaten him in the British Open.”

Can Serious Shabana Show Lincou?

Shabana, seriously ! © 2004 Fritz Borchert

The semi-final should be fascinating. Lincou lost the World Open final to Shabana in Islamabad, Pakistan, last December but beat him on the way to the Hong Kong Open title at the start of this season.

The top half semi-final between Beachill and Palmer is a potential classic between top seeded local hero and third seeded defending champion. They met in the non ranking Super 8 Grand Prix min Manchester last week, when Beachill withdrew with a strained abductor when two games down. Palmer also won the Bermuda Open final and in the US Open, while Palmer won in the PSA Masters and the Canary Wharf Classic.

All of these were intense, even grim battles, in which Yorkshire grit and New South Wales sternness were matched without quarter. Beachill loves his Pontefract home base, lives just yards away from his club and revels in the new family he has gathered around himself there. Palmer now lives in equally happy family bliss in Antwerp.

Kneipp scrambled but fell short against Beachill © 2004 Fritz Borchert

Kneipp, 31, left his Queensland roots long ago to settle in Amsterdam, perhaps in search of greater humour, and has talked his way through a thousand squash matches since. This time he took refuge in a smiling interchange or two with the referee as the more concentrated style of his Yorkshire opponent moved him steadily to a two game deficit. Then, after a scramble to pick up a drop shot in the top righthand corner for 2-2 in the third game, he suddenly discovered a pulled muscle in his buttock that required a three minute rest under the rules on self-inflicted injuries, then a whole new attacking approach that brought him back into the game with a vengeance.

“I have to admit I lost my concentration a bit while Joe was off court stretch,” said Beachill after the quarter-final. “When he came back on and started slipping quickly ing about the court and firing all sorts of funny little unexpected shots into the rallies, I had some trouble staying with him. He definitely played better after he went off injured than beforehand.”

Beachill’s rhythmic skillfulness has often suffered from Kneipp’s unpredictability. “He beat me in the World Open quarter-finals last year and in the Super Series finals last May. This time I decided to take the pace up and re-impose my own game plan before he took over the whole match. He is a tough opponent and he seems to be getting better as he gets older.”

Palmer came unsmilingly through a 54 minute quarter-final 11-6 4-11 11-2 11-2 against Gregory Gaultier of France, the young European Champion, but was tested only in the first two games as the mercurial 21-year-old Frenchman appeared to lose interest after a brilliant seizing of the second game.

Tall And Stern

Vanessa knocked out Jenny Duncalf © 2004 Fritz Borchert

Tall, strong and stern, Palmer grew up in the coal mining town of Lithgow in New South Wales and learnt his squash at the club owned by the family of Kevin Shawcross, a famously hard living former Australian international, gathering along the way an unrelenting competitive approach. He defeated Beachill in the semi-final of the 2001 British Open and went on to win the championship for the first time. Last year he returned from serious peritonitis to take a second title.

In both those finals he met exhausted opponents, Chris Walker in 2001 after the ageing former England captain had astonishingly played his way unseeded past a bevy of younger stars, and Peter Nicol last year after the England No1 had left everything on the semi-final court on which he fought back from then point of comprehensive defeat to frustrate Canada’s Jonathon Power.

It’s the Big Four In The Women’s Championship

Vanessa knocked out Jenny Duncalf © 2004 Fritz Borchert

In the women’s championship Holland’s Vanessa Atkinson yesterday defeated 21-year-old Jenny Duncalf of Yorkshire 9-4 9-2 9-4 in a 38 minute quarter-final and will meet either the top seeded defending champion, Rachael Grinham of Australia, or the Asian Champion, Nicol David, in today’s semi-finals.

Duncalf, the youngest member of the England squad that finished second to Australia in the Women’s World Team Championship in Amsterdam, has scored respectable wins in recent tournament action but against the steady rallying of the Dutch champion could hardly raise her game above reaction once the score advanced beyond 2-2 in the opening game.

There was more fast and mobile squash in the second women’s quarter-final of the day, but the top seeded defending champion, Rachael Grinham, just had too much in the her armourment for the Nicol David, the 21-year-old Asian champion from Malaysia. The Australian won 10-8 9-2 9-1 in 38 minutes.
These are the smallest players on the women’s tour, but the fastest. They cover the court like whippets. It is just that Grinham’s strike on the ball is heavier and more inventive than David’s, and it took her to 8-3 in the first game in two hands, to 9-2 in the second game essentially in three bursts of three points, and to 9-1 in the third with only momentary interruptions of control. The emergence of a first game tiebreak within this framework seemed tactical on Grinham’s part rather than a product of her opponent’s lighter attacking qualities.

Men's Draw
Women's Draw

Full Day's Results:

Men's quarter-finals:
[1] Lee Beachill (ENG) bt [7] Joseph Kneipp (AUS) 11-8, 11-7, 9-11, 11-7 (60m)
[3] David Palmer (AUS) bt [8] Gregory Gaultier (FRA) 11-6, 4-11, 11-2, 11-2 (54m)
[5] Amr Shabana (EGY) bt [4] Nick Matthew (ENG) 11-3, 11-8, 11-8 (40m)
[2] Thierry Lincou (FRA) bt [11] Anthony Ricketts (AUS) 7-11, 11-9, 11-4, 11-6 (64m)

Women's quarter-finals:
[1] Rachael Grinham (AUS) bt [7] Nicol David (MAS) 10-8, 9-2, 9-1 (38m)
[3] Vanessa Atkinson (NED) bt [10] Jenny Duncalf (ENG) 9-4, 9-2, 9-4 (38m)

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