Excitement but Usual Result in Kellner
By Rob Dinerman, Reporting live from New York; SquashTalk © 2005; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Apr 26, 2005     

Waite and Mudge Survive Early Flurry from Quick and Gould

The Champs were in trouble, deep and desperate trouble, and every one of the several hundred doubles-enthusiast spectators crammed into every crevice of the Racquet & Tennis gallery in last night's final round of the sixth annual $ 80,000 Kellner Cup knew it. Thoroughly out-played in every aspect of the game by challengers Preston Quick and Ben Gould (whose No. 4 seeding totally belies their ascent to the top of the list of contending teams in this, their first season together) in a one-sided first game, defending and four-time Kellner Cup champions Gary Waite and Damien Mudge had seen an ostensibly safe 12-7 second-game margin reduced to a single point when a floor-hugging backhand reverse from Quick died well in front of Waite to bring the score to 12-13. If Gould and Quick could win the next point, they would thereby force a tiebreaker the winning of which would have given them not only a two games to love lead but a degree of momentum that might well have proved unstoppable.

But Gould's ensuing serve from the left box was spectacularly responded to by Mudge, whose audacious and tin-defying volleyed three-wall return dead-rolled out of the front-left nick, averting the impending perilous tiebreaker and giving him and his veteran partner a double-game-ball opportunity that they swiftly converted on a tinned forehand rail by Gould that knotted the match at a game apiece.

Rarely if ever in the six-year history of the International Squash Doubles Association (ISDA) has the entire dynamic of a major-tournament marquee match been so emphatically bisected and affected with one dramatic racquet swing.
Buoyed by their narrow escape and the equalizing statistical effect it conferred after the 15-6 pasting they had absorbed in the match's opening game, Waite and Mudge broke the 15-7 third game open midway through, ending it on a 6-1 run that carried through a 4-0 start to the fourth game that speedily swelled to 7-2, 11-3 and, eventually, 15-5 and out. They thereby defeated Quick and Gould for the ninth time (of their 12 losses overall) this season, extended an undefeated run that began with last year's Kellner Cup to 18 tournaments and 59 match wins, preserved what will become their third unblemished wire-to-wire campaign (also 1999-2000 and 2001-2002) if they triumph at the season-ending tour stop in San Francisco next week and consolidated their standing as the best team in the history of doubles squash on this continent.

Rarely as well has a match that began with one team in such full control undergone such a total turnaround by match's end. Quick and Gould dominated the opening stanza, their nine almost evenly divided (four for Quick and five for Gould) clean winners coming on a variety of cross court drop nicks off both wings, a pair of nervy backhand roll-corners from off the back wall by Gould that caught his victims completely by surprise and two blasts by Quick that rocketed past Waite and died behind him. The latter had been seen icing his neck after all three of the pre-final wins (over Scott Stoneburgh/Jamie Bentley, Paul Price/Dean Brown and Michael Pirnak/Clive Leach) and the tardiness of his appearance on court for the warm-ups and brevity of his warm-up session (barely two minutes' worth, far below normal) made several aficionados wonder whether something was wrong with him physically, a bit of speculation that was further fueled by his listless performance in that first game.

Mudge seemed out of sorts as well, but early in the second, surely aware by this stage that he was going to have to raise his intensity level and cheered by the fact that his partner was starting to hit his stride as well, Mudge launched an assault on his foes that never wavered. He planted himself even further forward than usual, daring his opponents to pass him, then utilizing his wondrous reflexes, impressive wing span and explosive power to attack Quick and force him out of the comfort zone in which he had previously been operating with such immaculate efficiency.

Gradually but inexorably, Mudge's unrelenting battering-ram pressure bore increasingly-larger holes in the Quick/Gould defense and forced them back on their heels, causing them to eventually cough up loose balls and errors. The somewhat more subtle winners Waite hit included consecutive three-wall nicks shortly after a new, hence more shot-friendly, ball was introduced, one of four that the 75-minute match consumed, the first of which didn't even survive the warm-ups! Twenty-two days earlier, on the same court, Waite had single-handedly generated all five winners in the 5-1 match-closing run that had brought him and partner Morris Clothier from 12-14 to 17-15 in the fourth and final game of the U. S. National Doubles championship over Quick and Steve Scharff. But this time he willingly played a more complementary role in a match victory the primary cause of which was Mudge's commandeering impact on the competitive environment.

As the single-figure third and fourth games rolled along, Quick, as noted, was forced out of position and into a defensive mode. Gould, his influence on the match diminishing with every passing point, spent the entire last half of the match well behind Mudge on the right wall. Both he and Quick committed a number of tins in the final game, seemingly more out of frustration than for fatigue or any stroking deficiency. Once Waite and Mudge had absorbed their best shot and successfully made the necessary adaptations,their immensely talented opponents, who had encountered no difficulty in any of their trio of 3-0 prior wins over Noah Wimmer/Joe Pentland, ChrisWalker/David Kay and Scharff/John
Russell) were unable, at least on this occasion, to come up with a viable alternative plan.

It seemed fitting that Mudge, who had taken the most significant swing of the evening, would also take the last swing, a forehand cross court hit with such pace and angle that it cleanly passed Quick and nicked behind him. But as even the now five-time Kellner Cup winners acknowledged in their trophy-presentation speeches, Gould and Quick are decisively on the upsurge, especially given the late-20's vintage both enjoy, and there seems little doubt that a breakthrough victory on their parts in a final-round setting such as this is unlikely to be far away.

Final Recap

Gary Waite/Damien Mudge d Preston Quick/Ben Gould, 6-15 15-12 15-7 15-5.

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