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ISDA Chicago Summary: Price And Gould Get Back On Track
By Rob Dinerman, Nov 12, 2007    
Squashtalk Independent News; © 2007 SquashTalk LLC

Still carrying the momentum of their Big Apple Open win six days earlier, top seeds Paul Price and Ben Gould confidently moved to victory yesterday afternoon in the inaugural Metrosquash Open in Chicago, defeating their October tormentors Chris Walker and Clive Leach 15-10, 11 and 13 in the final. In so doing, the two Australian stars recorded their seventh ISDA ranking-tournament title, evened their record this season against Walker and Leach at two matches apiece, extended their 2007-08 slate against non-Walker/Leach opponents to 7-0 and reestablished themselves as a true power on the ISDA pro doubles circuit after a shaky October.

Walker and Leach will nevertheless land the No. 1 team ranking when the ISDA rankings are finalized later today, since, although both they and the Price/Gould pairing have two tournament wins, one final-round loss and one semis loss, Walker and Leach won the only $ 30,000 event (in Baltimore) that has occurred thus far (the other three events, in St. Louis, New York and now Chicago, were all at the $ 25,000 level). Damien Mudge and Viktor Berg, whom Walker and Leach defeated 18-17 (on a shallow Walker backhand winner in front of Berg) 17-16 (when Leach pounced on a loss Berg drop shot and cracked the ball past him down the right wall) 15-11 in the semis, will be ranked third, and all three of these teams will be playing in an important though non-ranking event in Toronto this coming weekend, where they will be joined in a six-team round-robin format by Preston Quick and Gary Waite, Jamie Bentley and Willie Hosey and the winner of a four-team qualifying playoff that will be held later this week.

Quick and John Russell won three-love over Joe Pentland and Ben Howell to reach their third semi in the four ISDA events that have been played to this juncture; with the exception of the loss Russell/Quick sustained last week to Hosey and Scott Butcher at the New York Athletic Club, the top four seeds have grabbed every one of the combined 16 semifinal slots, though Matt Jensen and Jeff Mulligan (round of 16 winners over Michael Puertas and Jamie Crombie) looked like they might join the party Saturday morning when they took a two games to one lead over Walker and Leach, who however responded admirably to the threat by dominating the remaining pair of games. That was one of only two matches this weekend to go the five-game distance, the other being the Pentland/Howell round of 16 tilt against two-time defending U. S. Nationals A champs Whitten Morris and Michael Ferreira.

The latter duo, whose formidable dynamism was on full display in New York just five days earlier, when they surged unstoppably to their second Silver Racquets title in the past three years, seemed to have both the momentum and the draw to attain their first-ever ISDA quarterfinal, and when they erased an early two-game deficit by handily winning both the third and fourth games, they appeared to be on the verge of doing just that. But they tinned their way into a substantial hole right away in the fifth game and never recovered as Pentland and Howell finished off their well-earned victory with a single-digit close-out.

Tournament Recap
Rd of 16:
Paul Price/Ben Gould, bye
Michael Pirnak/Mark Chaloner def Ayman Kerim/David Kay, 3-1
Joe Pentland/Ben Howell def Michael Ferreira/Whitten Morris, 3-2
John Russell/Preston Quick, bye
Chris Walker/Clive Leach, bye
Matt Jensen/Jeff Mulligan def Jamie Crombie/Michael Puertas, 3-1
James Hewitt/Tyler Millard def Mark Heather/Stewart Ballard, 3-0
Damien Mudge/Viktor Berg, bye

Qtrs:
Price/Gould def Pirnak/Chaloner, 3-1
Russell/Quick def Pentland/Howell, 3-0
Walker/Leach def Jensen/Mulligan, 3-2
Mudge/Berg def Hewitt/Millard, 3-0

Semis:
Price/Gould def Russell/Quick, 3-1
Walker/Leach def Mudge/Berg, 3-0

Final:
Price/Gould def Walker/Leach, 3-0

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