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Grainger Debuts with Win in Pro Women’s Doubles
By Rob Dinerman, Nov 18, 2007    
Squashtalk Independent News; © 2007 SquashTalk LLC

Grainger And Dimauro Capture WDSA Field Club Open 

History was made this past weekend when the Greenwich Country Club hosted the inaugural tournament of the newly-launched Women’s Doubles Squash Association (WDSA). Sponsored by a half-dozen local companies and generous patrons, the three-day event offered a $ 20,000 main-draw purse and featured three pro-am draws as well as a Saturday evening cocktail party on the Nantucket Lightship docked at the nearby Delamar Hotel.

Grainger and Dimauro (red) defeat Krizek and Hewitt   (Dale Walker photo:© 2007)

Both the WDSA itself and the Field Club Open were the brain-child of Narelle Krizek, who with her husband Rob, the two head pros at the Greenwich Field Club (whose doubles court is currently being refurbished, which is why the matches were played at the Country Club with its spacious gallery and glass-back-wall), envisioned the potential for a women’s pro doubles tour as a counterpart to the International Squash Doubles Association (ISDA), the men’s tour that has been so successful during the eight years of its existence. In addition to bringing this vision to life in swift and highly praiseworthy fashion this weekend, Krizek nearly pulled off what would have been an exceedingly rare administrative/athletic “double,” but in Sunday afternoon’s exciting final round, she and partner Steph Hewitt, the reigning Canadian National champs, fell just short in a 15-11 12-15 18-17 15-8 (from 10-8) battle with Natalie Grainger and Jessica Dimauro that quite possibly swung on that riveting third-set best-of-nine tiebreaker, which ended when at simultaneous-game-ball after eight entertaining and evenly-divided points, Krizek, presented with an open forehand and seeing Grainger stuck well behind her, went for a shallow forehand cross-court winner which instead rang loudly off the top of the tin.

Current WISPA No. 4 Grainger and Dimauro had sailed to leads of 7-2 and 10-4 in the opening game against their top-seeded opponents, who were initially unable to cope with Grainger’s pace or the three nearly consecutive winners Dimauro hit on forehand rails that clung too tightly to the right wall for Hewitt to scrape them back into play. But during an answering five-point run to 9-10, Krizek (who made better use of the high ceiling with her lobs and whirly-bird high three-walls than anyone else throughout the match) and Hewitt clearly settled down and regained their momentum. They also hit upon the tactic of lobbing Grainger, and thereby make her stroke the ball while back-pedaling and reaching high over her head, rather than allowing her to move in, set her feet and tee off, as she had done with devastating effect in the first dozen-plus points. After thereby climbing to 9-10, the Krizek/Hewitt rally gave way to a pair of Dimauro reverse-corner winners, and at 13-11, Hewitt lost track of a caroming Philadelphia boast and Krizek tinned a drop shot from up front to conclude the opening game.

This late-game slump continued early in the second, which quickly became 5-0, as for the second straight game the quick-strike capacity of the Grainger/Dimauro duo put Krizek and Hewitt in a substantial early hole. But throughout the subsequent extended 22-10 run that gave Krizek/Hewitt the 15-12 second game and brought them to 7-3 in the third, they consistently lobbed Grainger, whose ensuing (and frequently extended) cross-court exchanges with Hewitt were occasionally interrupted when the latter stuck a series of nervy forehand reverse-corners, several of which caught Dimauro by surprise. Realizing by this stage that Grainger (playing in only her second-ever pro hardball doubles event) was both the most athletically gifted and the least doubles-experienced player on court (in each case by a wide margin), Hewitt and especially Krizek (whose brainy angles, sharp short game and in-point tactical adjustments kept sowing confusion and opening up the front part of the court for her or her partner to exploit) kept her off balance rather than attempting to out-hit or out-run her.

A trio of closely-spaced Hewitt reverse-corner winners finished off the second game and established an element of momentum that carried through the first half of the third, but suddenly Grainger came through with a pair of drop-shot winners and Dimauro asserted herself on the right wall, where she and Hewitt have battled so frequently and so competitively over the years in women’s and mixed Canadian national and invitational championship finals, including the last two Canadian Mixed events, both of which Dimauro and Scott Dulmage won over Hewitt and her husband James, as well as the ’07 Canadian Women’s last spring, where Krizek/Hewitt won a fifth-set tiebreaker over Dimauro and Alicia McConnell, and the Convenor’s Cup (a mixed event) just a few weeks ago, in which the Hewitts won over Dimauro and Jamie Bentley  .

A banner to celebrate the inaugural event   (Narelle Krizek photo:© 2007)

After drawing to 9-11, Grainger appeared to reduce the deficit even further on an irretrievable front-court winner, but their opponents appealed the serve, which was eventually ruled a fault, thereby nullifying Grainger’s shot. Angered by this reversal (and a few points later by a controversial stroke call against them), Grainger and Dimauro tied the game at 11, then at 12, and then again at 13. The tiebreaker session had a crucial feel to it, as both teams had battled furiously for control to this point. A pair of Grainger angled winners, three responding points for Krizek/Hewitt (the last two on a Krizek straight-drop shot and her backhand three-wall that nicked), a pair of Dimauro forehand rail winners (the first that nicked in front Hewitt, the second a rail that passed her) and a Krizek drop shot off a scramble up front knotted the overtime at four points apiece. All four players had been scattered helter-skelter on the game-deciding ninth point as well, and Krizek’s envelope-pushing shot selection on her last swing was both courageous and well-reasoned, but, as noted, it caught the tin.

Buoyed by the narrow outcome of that tiebreaker, Grainger and Dimauro sprinted to a 5-0 fourth-game lead in just two or three minutes --- on, sequentially, a hammered Grainger reverse-corner, a Dimauro re-drop from way up front on the right wall with Hewitt pinned behind the red line, a Hewitt tin, a Grainger mis-hit that trickled just over the tin and a Dimauro forehand overhead that creased the front-right nick. Grainger seemed liberated now that she and her partner led in both games and points, with the goal line in view, and she nailed consecutive mid-court three-wall nicks, the kind of shot she would have stayed away from had the score been closer. Down 10-4, and with everything seemingly going against them, Krizek and Hewitt made one last valiant comeback, painfully working their way to four consecutive points to draw to 8-10.

Had they been able to come up with success on the ensuing point, the noose really might have tightened on a suddenly nervous-looking Grainger/Dimauro, but Hewitt hit a lob over the front-wall out-of-bounds line, and Dimauro followed with a tin-defying shallow rail winner. A Hewitt tin and another Dimauro winner made it 14-8, at which stage the latter lofted a beautifully-arced lob serve that a by-this-time deflated (and four months’ pregnant) Hewitt was unable to return.

The Field for the first-ever Women's Pro Doubles Event   (Narelle Krizek photo:© 2007)

All four women are in their 30’s, as are all but three of the 16 quarterfinalists, a sign of the need for the stated WSDA goal of providing a competitive forum for the many young players who abandon squash after their varsity careers end with their college graduation. In their pre-final matches, Grainger and Dimauro had defeated first Marie Vlcek and ’95 Intercollegiate Individual champion Libby Welch and then, in the semis, second seeds Meredeth Quick and Karen Jerome, who after beating Lee Belknap and Marci Sier and losing the first two games against Grainger/Dimauro, had led 4-1 in the third before Jerome suffered a lower-leg injury that was too severe for her to continue. In the top half, Krizek and Hewitt won in four over the Belknap twins, Berkeley Belknap Revenaugh and Mary Belknap McKee, and in three (with a second-game tiebreaker) over Dana Betts and Emily Lungstrum, quarterfinal winners over Philadelphians Amy Milanek and Orla O’Doherty.

During the trophy presentations, all of the players expressed their excitement for the potential of the brand-new women’s pro doubles tour, which got off to such a rousingly successful start this past weekend. The most memorable and stirring speech of all was delivered by a visibly emotional Krizek, who was clearly overwhelmed by the support and encouragement she and her husband had received from all quarters (Greenwich-area club members, sponsors/patrons and players alike) in getting this formidable undertaking off the ground, as well as by the presence of her father (who is visiting from his native Australia and whom Krizek singled out for her gratitude) and by exhaustion from the grueling match that had ended just minutes before. Only time will tell how this tour evolves, but there is no question that the WDSA tour got off to an auspicious start with the Field Club Open, one which carries with it an uplifting sense of promise and of hope.

Tournament Recap:

Qtrs:
Narelle Krizek/Steph Hewitt d Berkeley Revenaugh/Mary McKee, 3-1;
Dana Betts/Emily Lungstrum d Amy Milanek/Orla O’Doherty, 3-0;
Natalie Grainger/Jessica Dimauro d Libby Welch/Marie Vlcek (prelims 3-0 winner over Jessica LeFevre/Lauren Doline), 3-0;
Karen Jerome/Meredeth Quick d Lee Belknap/Marci Sier, 3-0.

Semis:
Krizek/Hewitt d Betts/Lungstrum, 3-0;
Grainger/Dimauro d Jerome/Quick, 2-0, 1-4 retired (Jerome injury).

Final:
Grainger/Dimauro d Krizek/Hewitt, 3-1.

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