Express Squash Makes its Debut
by Martin Bronstein in London, Mar 23, 2004 © 2004    Draw/results  

Squash notched up another cracking new venue when the Canary Wharf Classic got under way in London's tarted up docklands area.

The East Winter Garden is a glass palace dome and the court and seating fit the space beautifully. But with the brevity of the first match, due to the new scoring sytem, the East Winter Garden is offering fast food rather than gourmet meals. With a new scoring sytem due to start later this year for all PSA events, this tournament is using an even shorter version: point-a-rally to nine points, going into the deuce system if the score reaches 8-all.

Also, David Palmer had another match later in the evening in Birmingham, two hours away by taxi and train. So promptly at six pm Greenwich Mean Time, Palmer and world number one John White started warming up the ball while a taxi was ordered at 6.45. There was no way this match was going to last sixty minutes and the two players set a supersonic pace from the start. Nobody has to tell White to speed the game up — he can play no other way.

This was the opposite of slow motion: if you blinked you missed four shots. Sitting on the press table by the side wall reminded me again how fast the ball moves when hit by a pro and just how fast these guys move to cover the court. Palmer took the first game 9-7 with grim determination, trying to keep the loose balls to a minimum to stop White slamming them down the nick.

These guys grew up together and play to a similar set of rules, so the referee was rarely called in to decide a point — the rackets were doing it all. While the squash was breathtaking for the spectators, it was hardly that for the players. The first game was over in 7 ½ minutes, White took the second game 9-5 in just six minutes and the third in seven minutes 9-4. He was slamming cross courts into the nick and hitting sizzling straight drives. In this form he is unstoppable and so he went on to win the fourth 9-7, the whole affair taking 34 minutes, allowing Palmer to get his taxi with time to change.

So there was the appetizer, now the meaty main course, a revenge match between Nick Matthew and the man he knocked out in the first round of the Bermuda Open, Thierry Lincou.

LINCOU RAISES HIS GAME
It took 39 minutes for Lincou to regain some of his pride in defeating England's world number 10 Matthew.

Since he became world number one at the start of the year, the French champion has had some miserable results and his reign at the top of the rankings was brief - within a month he had dropped to number two behind John White. Lincou was in danger of becoming a flash-in-the-pan Number One and although this tournament will do nothing for his ranking, he could regain some of his pride.

Lincou was slow to start while Matthew was quickly into his all-court game, playing with great confidence choosing his shots well. With the scoring system being used slow starting is not a good option. This was attacking squash and the two players established a precedent - the game would be won at the front of the court rather than the back corners. Matthew was showing confidence on the backhand side and his drops were either too good or too tight, putting Lincou under pressure for the entire game. Matthew took a 3-1 lead, Lincou pulled up to lead briefly 4-3, but then Matthew's speed and accuracy forced errors from Lincou and Matthew had the game 9-6 in just seven minutes.

Lincou was now up to speed for the second game and the pace hotted up as both players drove tight length and volley-dropped to keep each other moving around the court. When Lincou is confident he uses his short game and as he took the upper hand his confidence grew. He was pulling Matthew to the front left and then belting backhand cross courts with enough speed and width to leave Matthew standing helpless in the middle of the court. He took the second game 9-5, to tie the match and then continued his domination into the third.

This was entertaining squash with left wall duels rarely longer than four strokes before one of the players boasted or played a low volley drop. They were level at 5-5 but Lincou crashed another backhand cross court past Matthew to take the lead. He did it again to end the next rally and won the next point with a stroke to put him at game ball 8-5. Matthew fought back with a beautiful long drop shot to get his sixth point but by now Lincou was in overdrive and he finished the game with a marvelous overhead cross court into the nick to win 9-6.

The fourth game suggested that Matthew was not yet over his jet lag from Bermuda and made four errors in the first six rallies. Lincou was now in charge, constantly sending Matthew the wrong way with some textbook deception to win 9-4 in just 8 minutes.

Lincou was icing his left ankle after the game and when I asked him about the backhand cross courts he said:

"In Bermuda he just kept volleying them for winners to I knew I had to get a new angle. I knew where he was standing so I found out how to get it past him."

On this form Lincou may well cause a few surprises and make my preview opinions of him very wrong indeed.

THE MOUNTAINEER WINS
Peter Nicol keeps getting meaner with his shots; tight as paint, lower than the floor, cleverer than six foxes. You had to feel sorry for Ong Beng Hee who played quite well, but Nicol recovered from impossible situations to not only get to the ball but play a totally offensive shot. Nicol, still suffering from the virus that affected him so badly in the English Open last August, and which has affected so many of his results, will soon be off to the Himalayas to do some climbing. This is not the Nicol of two years ago who could play a three minute rally and come up smiling. Now a rally of forty shots leaves him looking as though he'd rather stayed at home. But no matter how tired, he pushes himself to one more shot, and another shot, and yet another until I'm sure Beng Hee wished he'd left for the mountains yesterday. He got a game but Nicol is just on another plateau and he won 3/1 in 42 hard minutes.

Beng Hee is still a little lost; he leaves the Harvey stable next week to move to Northern England where he will train with the Yorkshire camp: Willstrop, Beachill and Adrian Grant. He was going to the Aussie base in Reading but with Anthony Ricketts back in Australia having knee surgery, Beng Hee had to change plans. He is desperately looking for a new start in new surroundings to resurrect his career.

BIG BROTHER WINS — JUST
James Willstrop almost beat his training partner Lee Beachill in a what turned out to be real squash match with long rallies and points won in the back corners. Willstrop was playing his usual brand of impeccable squash and showed that he was Beachill's equal and, at times, more than equal. He led most of the first game with some startling shots to the front and although Beachill caught up at 8-all to produce the first deuce of the evening (the marker's call prompting Willstrop to mime a tennis serve) Willstrop hit a cracking low cross court to get to nine and then took the game on a penalty stroke.

There was nothing between them again in the second but this time it was Beachill?s turn to win 10-8. Willstrop turned the screws again in the third and simply had Beachill on the hop for the entire game, with his sizzling drives and sudden drops. He won it 9-7 looking good to take his first win over somebody he regards almost as his big brother. But Beachill is now on his best ever streak and he upped the pace in the fourth to win it 9-3 in six minutes. By the fifth fatigue affected Willstrop's racket arm and four errors on low drives was a major factor in Beachill taking the game 9-4 and sealing the 60 minute victory. It was probably the best match of the evening and Willstrop is rapidly become the most entertaining player on the circuit.

CANADA GROUP
John White (Sco) bt David Palmer (Aus) 7-9, 9-5,9-4, 9-7 (34 mins)
Lee Beachill (Eng) bt James Willstrop (Eng) 8-10, 10-8, 7-9, 9-3, 9-4 (60mins)

JUBILEE GROUP
Thierry Lincou (Fra) bt Nick Matthew (Eng) 6-9,9-5,9-6, 9-4 (39mins)
Peter Nicol (Eng) bt Ong Beng Hee (Mas) 9-4, 9-7, 5-9, 9-7 (42 mins)

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