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$100,000 Kellner Cup Closes 2000-2001 Pro Doubles Season
Kellner Cup Doubles By E. Stacey Miles
The International Squash Doubles Association concluded its inaugural year with a phat bomb of a tournament.
Pro doubles has had a viable tour in North America since the early 1980s, but the premise of the newly-formed ISDA was that it would take it to a new level. Nothing earthshattering occurred about the size of the fixtures list. The ISDA sanctioned one tournament they hadn't officially approved of the year before (the Hamilton Cup in Denver); unsanctioned (can one say that?) the Cambridge Doubles because the teams were handpicked by the tournament director Clive Caldwell, not by themselves; relaunched the City Athletic Club tournament after its initial and seminal run from 1969-1980; and added a new one, the Canadian Open, at the Mayfair Parkway in Toronto. So the official total number of ISDA events rose from eleven to thirteen. (There were also eleven pro-ams, mostly run simultaneously with the pro draw)
The bean-counters, though, were more impressed with the jump in total prize money. It was doubled up to $400,000. A couple of events had sponsorship from corporations, most notably the CAC which was bankrolled by the real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield, but the vast majority of funds came from private solicitations of squash supporters.
Certainly the dearth of singles tournaments to donate to and the charisma of ISDA leaders like Gary Waite and Morris Clothier are reasons for this sudden largesse. But in a troubled economy, the ability to come up with that sort of money is plainly an indication that North Americans have had a love affair with doubles since it was invented in 1907 and the disappearance of hardball singles has only seconded the emotion.
Six different partnerships won these thirteen events. Parity is unusual for pro doubles, so that statistic is good for the game, especially with youngsters like Mike Pirnak and Rookie-Of-The-Year Viktor Berg getting into the paint. But what would have happened if a bicycle messenger hadn't slammed into Damien Mudge on Fifth Avenue in mid-January? Waite & Mudge won four of the five tournaments they entered.
Willie Hosey & Jamie Bentley made the finals of twelve of the thirteen tournaments, and Waite & Mudge beat them soundly (all 3-0 or 3-1) in the finals of the four tournaments they won. It is probable that Waite & Mudge would have faced Hosey & Bentley in almost all the finals, if Mudgie hadn't busted his wrist, so most certainly the appearance of parity is deceiving. Since they have lost just one match in their years of part-time partnership, a full season of Waite & Mudge we still anticipate. It will be scary.
The predictable tournament-ending matchup of Waite & Mudge v. Hosey & Bentley did occur in the season closer in New York 19-23 April 2001. The Kellner Cup was most notable for its purse: $100,000. That is the most scratch ever for a squash tournament in North America and the third largest purse in the world of squash in 2001.
And the sell-out crowd of 110 was far and away the most impressive of the season. Not bad for a second-year tournament. Pirnak & Berg, shock winners of the Johnson, went down awkwardly in a five-game first-round battle with Blair Horler & Clive Leach. Such a match beautifully illustrated the new depth of pro doubles. Reaching the blistering heights of Waite & Mudge is one thing, but if you look at the Kellner Cup draw, you'll see twelve guys (out of thirty-two) who three years ago had never stepped on a doubles court and now are pretty good. Some are very good. Look for Scott Butcher & Brett Martin, both first-year players, to start making a lot of semifinals next season.
The semifinals saw three-love blow-outs, again indicating how much distance there is between Waite & Mudge and Hosey & Bentley and the rest of the tour. Scott Stoneburgh & Anders Wahlstedt had a good season, winning the U.S. Pro in Wilmington and making five other semifinals; both Scott Dulmage & Dean Brown and twenty-year-old Josh McDonald & David Kay reached eight semis, but neither partnership got to the finals. All three of these teams are solid and had a useful combination of velocity, quickness and finesse, but were still wet clay in the hands of the master-blaster sculptors.
The Monday evening final at the Racquet & Tennis Club, with $31,000 on the line, produced a brilliant match. Bentley was in fine form. With his shirt sleeves rolled up like a workman on a construction site, he played with hustle and hope. His winners/tins ratio was large and he led his team to a 15-14 first game win. In the third game he shot his way back from 10-14 to force an overtime.
But Waite & Mudge took the tiebreaker 3-0. Up two-one, one sensed the heart falter and the 15-6 scoreline was all but inevitable.
Ranked number one for the seventh consecutive year, Gary Waite won nine pro tournaments with three different partners, the half-century-old O'Reilly pro-am at the University Club in New York and the U.S. mixed doubles with Jessie Chai at the University Club in Boston, beating seven-time defending champions Keen Butcher & Demer Holleran in an exciting final 15-12, 10-15, 12-15, 15-10, 15-10. At some point injuries (he had knee problems this winter to go with his chronic groin pull) and age (he turns thirty-five in September) will begin to erode some of his trademark enthusiasm for winning. But one senses, with the expansion of the pro doubles tour and the arrival of the six-figure tournament, it will not be happening any time soon..
