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[College News]

National College Tournament Wrapups
El Halaby (first) and Helal (second) win National Titles
By Rob Dinerman, SquashTalk staff © 2003 SquashTalk March 5, 2003 © 2003  

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Yasser El Halaby won the Intercollegiate Mens Singles. (photo © 2003 Debra Tessier)

Princeton freshman sensation Yasser El-Halaby and Trinity junior Amina Helal both fulfilled their No. 1 seeding with dominant performances in their final-round victories at the Ferris Athletic Center on the campus of Trinity College Sunday afternoon. El-Halaby conquered his Tiger teammate Will Evans by a score of 9-3, 0 and 2, while Helal, playing on her home courts, successfully defended the crown she had won last year with a 9-4 9-0 1-9 9-3 victory over second seed Runa Reta of Penn.

Helal's victory in her third Ramsay Cup Intercollegiate Individual final in as many years finished off a women's event that was completely according to form: not only was there not a single upset in the tournament's 31 main-draw matches, but only four of those matches---the final, two first-rounders and fifth seed Ruchika Kumar's
round-of-16 win over 12th seed Isa Restrepo (who needed a tiebreaker to win the third game)---even went to a fourth game, emphasizing a clear-cut pecking order.

Throughout the three-day event, players exited the draw precisely at their appointed times, usually without much resistance; even as late as the quarter-finals, Princeton's Kumar bowed meekly to her Yale freshman contemporary and fourth seed Michelle Quibell, 9-2, 4 and 1, as did Harvard's Lindsey Wilkins to Trinity's No. 3 seed and 2002 Ramsay Cup finalist Siu Lynn Leong, Quibell's teammate Amy Gross to Reta and Pamela Saunders to her teammate Helal.

QUIBELL TAKEN TO SCHOOL BY HELAL
Quibell originally was seeded fifth and slated to meet fourth seed Louisa Hall in the quarters in what would have been their third and rubber match in two weeks-Quibell had recorded her first-ever career win over Hall in Yale's Howe Cup 8-1 semi-final team win over Harvard before losing to her 10-8 in the fourth four days later in the deciding match of Harvard's 5-4 dual-meet win that had given the Crimson its third straight Ivy League title.

But when a flu-ridden Hall, a semi-finalist in last year's event, had to withdraw,
Quibell was elevated to No. 4, where she seemed well prepared to give Helal all she could handle based on their three previous 2002-2003 meetings. Quibell had defeated her in the dual meet and pushed her to five games in both the semis of the Betty Constable Invitational and the team final of the Howe Cup, which Trinity won 9-0 but in which Quibell took the first two games in the battle at the No. 1 slot.

Amina Helal Won her Second Intercollegiate Womens Singles in 3 Finals Appearances. (photo © 2003 Debra Tessier)

The Yalie's best hope to turn matters around came in the second, where after quickly falling behind 3-0 she was able to draw to 4-5, mostly on some daring volleyed drop shots and a few Helal tins.

But a flurry of winners-a backhand drop shot, severe forehand cross court and well-disguised backhand roll-corner-enabled the defending title-holder to move out to 8-4 and clinch a commanding two games to love lead. Quibell aggressively volleyed a rail winner on the opening exchange of the third game, but it was the last point she was to win, as Helal got the serve back and barged through the 9-0 final game in a single hand, burying a retreating Quibell under an avalanche of varied winners, collecting a few despairing tins and finishing it off in style on a sweet forehand drop shot
off a working boast that Quibell did not attempt to cover. Quibell had an
excellent freshman season and even a praiseworthy tournament, but this final
shut-out tally, like that her male freshman No. 1 counterpart Julian Illingworth had experienced a few hours earlier (see below), also proved with searing clarity how great a distance these two budding superstars still have to travel if they wish to attain the intercollegiate greatness that has been forecast for them.

RETA OUT-PLAYS LEONG

Runa Rena and Lynn Leong. (photo © 2003 Debra Tessier)

Leong's game is elegant and savvy, a Malaysian squash characteristic, and her exquisite natural touch made for an interesting contrast in styles with the comparatively blue-collar approach of Reta. The leading Lady Quaker stayed the course, however, even in the face of her opponent's occasional bursts of brilliance, and determinedly ground her way through two extremely competitive games. On the first of these, Leong saved several regulation game-balls and even earned one for herself at 9-8 in the ensuing tiebreaker, but Reta regained the serve on a stroke call, executed a perfect backhand straight drop to make it 9-all and clinched the all-important opening game on a length winner.

As in the prior women's semi, Leong rallied from a big second-game deficit (3-7 in this case) to almost even the score by drawing to 6-7, and as also happened with Helal-Quibell, Reta was nevertheless able to close out the game and race through a 9-0 final third over an increasingly demoralized opponent. This result prevented a repeat Helal-Leong Ramsay Cup final and was the first of three consecutive defeats Saturday evening by Trinity stand-outs on their home territory. The others, of course, occurred in the absolutely riveting and easily tournament-highlight pair of men's semis that followed, both of which came incredibly close (in one case as close as is theoretically possible) to having the opposite outcome.

EVANS OUT-LASTS SAMPER
That latter match was between Evans and Trinity No. 1 and defending Pool
champion Bernardo Samper, who achieved that status by virtue of his four-game
final-round victory over Evans at Princeton a year ago. Though he started
slowly in losing the opening game (as he also did in the 2002 final), Samper
appeared well positioned to duplicate his year-old triumph in a similar four
when he stormed through the second and third games, 9-1 and 9-3, and to a
commanding 7-2 lead in what overwhelmingly seemed to be shaping up as a
close-out fourth game. Throughout this prolonged stretch of the match, the
dynamism that fuels Samper's game was on full display, even in the face of
Evans's formidable size, mobility and determination. The New Zealander was
doing most of the retrieving, and it is to his credit that he tenaciously
hung in even as tenaciously as he did even as his cause appeared increasingly
hopeless in the face of Samper's sharpness and precision.

What neither Evans nor anyone else other than Samper and Trinity coach
Paul Assaiante knew about or could have been aware of was the furious war
against time that an ostensibly in-control Samper was waging internally, a
war that, by the barest of margins, he would ultimately lose. An upset
stomach that beset him from fairly early on led to a steadily advancing case
of dehydration that eventuated in severe cramps in the thigh muscles of both
legs that visibly arose at 7-2, whereupon a clearly suffering Samper was
allowed a three-minute time-out. Though a trainer strenuously massaged the
affected areas while Samper drank several pints of Powerade, when play
resumed it was clear that the match now hinged on whether the impressive
margin Samper had by that time established and the proximity to victory he
had thereby attained would be enough for him in his deteriorating physical
state to make it across the finish line.

Will Evans. (photo © 2003 Debra Tessier)

For while Samper and the packed Saturday evening gallery were still coming
to terms with the shot Evans had miraculously produced, the latter's
subsequent serve died coming off the front wall like a tiny bird that had
been shot in the heart. Samper caught the ball and contended that it had to
be broken (which the referee speedily certified that it was), and that the
previous point should therefore be nullified, giving him another match-ball
opportunity, which it wasn't and which he wasn't, properly in both cases, as
the rules state that for such a request to be granted the ball would have had
to be declared broken before the following point began.

The remainder of that game had a morbidly fascinating aspect to it as the
cramps inexorably re-possessed Samper's legs (to the point where he buckled
at the tee attempting to get to the forehand straight drop that Evans hit at
game-ball in the 10-8 tiebreaker) and his lead vanished without his ever
getting to a second match-ball. That he appeared at all for the fifth game,
on thighs that coach Assaiante later described as being "hard as rocks," was
a tribute to the pride of the champion Samper is, and was clearly a decision
of the heart rather than the head, one which Samper finally and prudently
abandoned after hobbling painfully around long enough to fall behind 5-0.

The whole montage of events that doomed Samper's one-year reign from his
seemingly safe 2-1, 7-2 position just 25 minutes before possessed the kind
of dislocating force mad dreams sometimes exert upon the just-awakened
sleeper. And by this time the semi-final session that Helal had begun on such
a sanguine note towards realizing the goal of coaches Assaiante and Wendy
Bartlett for an all-Bantam men's and women's pair of finals had taken a
calamitous turn for the repeat dual team champion Trinity program, which
would moreover absorb yet another tortuous twisting of the screw before the
evening was over.

FERREIRA DISPATCHES ILLINGWORTH
The remaining men's semi-final between El-Halaby and Trinity No. 2
Michael Ferreira was a scintillating preview of the magnificence the (barely)
victorious El-Halaby would display in the final the following afternoon.
Cited as the unsung hero of Trinity's 2001-2002 championship season by Coach
Assaiante for the grace with which he had accepted Samper's ascent to the No.
1 position that he himself had commanded as a freshman the year before,
"Mikey," as he is affectionately known to his coaches and teammates, had
routed No. 4 seed Illingworth in his quarter-final early that afternoon,
winning the second and final fourth games by shut-outs in a match in which
the freshman Illingworth had seemed to grow progressively younger with each
passing point.

The fourth game was a debacle, a stark mismatch that ended in under five minutes while Coach Talbott and Illingworth's Yale teammates watched helplessly from the front row, though it should be said that the only game won by a losing quarter-finalist that afternoon was Illingworth's 9-7 first, as neither Penn star Rich Repetto against El-Halaby, nor Trinity senior Nick Kyme (upset winner one round prior over Harvard No. 1 and sixth seed Will Broadbent) against Evans, nor 2001 Pool winner David Yik against
Samper were able to extend their respective matches beyond the three-game
minimum.

Buoyed by this win over Illingworth, and by the resuscitation it represented for his season after a sub-par February, Ferreira played beautifully in winning the first two taut games against the top seed, who has been a slow starter in several matches this season. El-Halaby responded to this adversity by taking the third game handily, but the fourth was replete with nicks and winners from all areas of the court by both players, until a rare look-away Ferreira cross-court backhand drop winner brought him to 7-all, just two points from what would have been both a career-highlight
victory and a stunning reversal in the Princeton-Trinity rivalry of what the
Tiger No. 2 Evans had already done to Trinity No. 1 Samper.

Though exceptionally well-conditioned, Ferreira was breathing hard by this time due
to the punishment El-Halaby had been inflicting; there was no question that
he couldn't let this match go to a fifth game. And he was so close to making
sure that it didn't, only to be stymied when a daring forehand smash aimed
towards the front-right nick, which even the fleet El-Halaby almost certainly
would have been unable to retrieve, and which therefore would have given
Ferreira a match-ball, instead clanged clamorously off the tin. Reprieved by
this fortuitous development, El-Halaby ended a pair of long exchanges with
untouchable front-court winners, following the game-ending second of which an
exhausted and frustrated Ferreira, knowing, as did everyone present, that he
had nothing left for the fifth game (which he swiftly lost 9-1), tossed his
racquet skyward and over the left side wall, causing it to land with a thud
on the other side.

EL-HALABY OUT-SHINES EVANS
A slightly dazed Assaiante, just three points from the all-Trinity final
he had fervently sought but rocked instead by a dual-dose of devastating
defeat, would later characterize the entire evening as "surreal," though he
graciously praised the black-clad Tiger stars who had indeed been the
unhooded executioners of his own six-time CSA champion team's best players on
their own home turf. Understandably in view of the pain it would have
elicited, neither of his battered and vanquished warriors attended the finals
the following afternoon, and the electricity that suffused the four hours
Saturday night's pair of men's semis had consumed was largely absent as well.
El-Halaby was simply much too good for Evans to defeat or even significantly
challenge, and much too familiar as well with the New Zealander's game, due
to their twice-weekly practice sessions at Jadwin Gymnasium throughout the
winter leading up to what became the first all-Princeton Pool Trophy final in
the 15 years since Jeff Stanley defeated Keen Butcher in '88 and the first
such final between varsity teammates since Crimson star Daniel Ezra
out-played Joel Kirsch seven years ago.

A beaming Princeton head coach Bob Callahan, his professional obligations
vacated by the progression of two of his players to the final, sat back and
watched as Evans and El-Halaby, two stand-outs at opposite ends of their
college careers, vied for the national intercollegiate individual championship. This was a title that the Evans wanted desperately, both because of the now-or-never urgency imposed by his membership in the class of 2003 and as a consequence of the final-round defeat he had suffered at Samper's hands one year before. If anything he may have wanted it too much and to a degree that worked against rather than for him. He was wound a little too tight, as evidenced in the match's opening moments by his angry vocal reaction to a bad tin he committed on the very first point. Throughout
the match he frequently vented his frustration with his play, with calls that
went against him and generally with the way the match (won by El-Halaby, as
mentioned, 9-3, 0 and 2) was going.

In spite of all that, right from the start a determined Evans pursued the
ball tirelessly, smashed his full-bodied ground strokes resoundingly and
competed with all of his considerable heart-that he still lost by such a
convincing margin was totally due to the absolute brilliance of El-Halaby's
performance, which featured incredible retrieving, otherworldly shot-making
and, perhaps most importantly, a degree of sophistication in his game that
neither Evans nor anyone else currently in the college ranks can even
approach, much less equal. The combinations he conjured up, the magical touch
complementing an exceptional level of deception (especially on a late
wrist-flick that transforms a straight backhand drop shot into a hip-busting
shallow cross court) and the anticipation and footspeed were all on prominent
display, almost to the point of reducing even a player of Evans's power,
athleticism and talent into an unwitting and definitely unwilling foil for El-Halaby's wiles and precision.

Evans drew to 3-7 in the first game on an unforced error, but his next
official point wouldn't be registered until El-Halaby led 7-0 in the third
game, having closed that game out on a pair of semi-forced Evans tins, raced
through the 9-0 second (which ended on what appeared to be an angry Evans tin
on a smashed forehand cross-court serve return) in just three hands and
feathered a series of delicate working-boast winners in building his
commanding lead in the third. He then seemed to let up a bit in yielding a
few Evans winners but closed the match out smartly on a forehand slam into
the nick to get to 8-2, match-ball, which he converted with a delicate
backhand cross court drop shot that Evans could not scoop back into play.

HELAL OVERPOWERS RETA
It would have been difficult for any match to live up to the standard set
by El-Halaby and Evans, and the subsequent women's final may have suffered in
the public perception both by its inevitable comparison to the match
preceding it and to the manner in which Helal dominated throughout most of
her successful title defense. In Reta, as was the case in the semi-final
match against Quibell, Helal was facing an opponent who had defeated her in
the dual meet and pressed her hard in subsequent Constable and Howe Cup
matches, but on this season-culminating occasion Reta had no more success
contending with Helal's aggressive and hard-hitting approach than had Quibell
one day earlier.

Helal forced the play with her pace and depth and kept Reta stretched
out and scrambling throughout, save for in a throwaway third game in which
she completely, though only temporarily, misplaced her otherwise excellent
focus. Reta had hoped to orient most of the action to the right wall,
pursuant to the tape she and Penn second-year women's head coach Jim Martell
had viewed of the Constable final, during which Helal had punished her on the
left wall. In addition to the expert mentoring she was receiving from her
current coach Martell, Reta was doubtless inspired as well by the supportive
presence in the gallery of Hall of Famer and record-setting USSRA women's
national champion Demer Holleran, a three-time ('86, '87 and '89) Ramsay Cup
champion herself, who had been Penn's coach during Reta's freshman and
sophomore years, and who had traveled up from her suburban Philadelphia home
to cheer her former protégé on upon learning of the latter's advance to the
final.

Helal, of course, had her own considerable legion of supporters, and they
had much more to cheer about, especially during a lengthy mid-match spree
(reminiscent of El-Halaby's against Evans) that began on a stroke call
against Reta at 8-4, game-ball in the first game and extended all the way
through the entire second, which Helal took 9-0 in a single hand during which
she buried her increasingly somber foe under an avalanche of severe rails,
backhand working boasts and volleyed drop shots before finishing the game off
on the match's only three-wall nick.

The action then took a complete about-face in the third, in which Helal,
facing a deficit for the first time after an early Reta lead, seemed first to
panic with several unforced tins and then to lose interest (declining to
abandon her deep-court position to pursue a gettable Reta drop shot at 8-1,
game-ball) once the game had gotten out of reach. In view of such wild
undulations in the prior two games, no one knew for sure what to expect when
the fourth game began, but Helal recovered from a first-point unforced tin to
embark on another one of those spurts that keyed her title retention all
weekend. She was out-positioning her smaller opponent, who was constantly
forced to peer around her from behind, and who always seemed to be trying to
work her way out of danger from the treacherous back corners. Three
multiple-point-producing hands got Helal to 8-1, match-ball, and a forehand
drop shot that barely eluded Reta's grasp brought down the curtain on the
2003 CSA Individual Championships.

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