Grant and Doyle Win the William White Doubles
By Rob Dinerman; SquashTalk © 2005; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Jan 10 , 2006     

Duo Upset Three Seeds en Route to Title
Unseeded forty-somethings Alan Grant and Bill Doyle overcame perhaps the deepest and strongest field in the history of the William White Invitational, hosted as always by the squash cathedral known as the Merion Cricket Club in suburban Philadelphia on the first full weekend of January. In successive fashion, they defeated Duncan Pearson and Steve Gregg, fourth seeds Whitten Morris and Ted Bruenner, No. 1 seeds and two-time (1998 and 2001) White champions Eric Vlcek and Morris Clothier 18-16 in the fifth in the semis and third seeds Tom Harrity and Imran Khan 15-10 15-11 10-15 15-11 in the final.

For Doyle, a former Harvard coach (1992-99) and North American Open Doubles finalist (with Huge Labossier in 1987) who had been based in New Orleans for a half-decade before forcibly relocating to Philadelphia post-Katrina, the win emphatically marked a noteworthy return to top-level tournament play in his first foray into competitive doubles since he last competed in 1997. And for Grant, a former (1989-91) three-time North American Open champion who along with Nigel Thain had badly lost to Harrity and Khan in a Thursday-evening qualifying match in an ISDA tourney in Wilmington, the White final-round victory over the same pair less than 72 hours later represented sweet vindication and revenge.

Twenty-six teams mostly very solid teams representing the best of New York and Philadelphia non-ISDA squash flooded the Open draw, which heated up in earnest in Saturday's quarterfinal action. Two top-four seeds fell at this stage, namely Bruenner/Morris, as noted, and the Eiteljorg brothers, Alex and Eric, who had reached at least the final round of this tournament during each of its prior three editions. They lost to Geoff Kennedy and Vlcek in '03, won in overtime in the fifth at the expense of Harrity and Vlcek in '04 (despite the Achilles-tendon rupture that befell Eric Eiteljorg on the match's final point) and lost to Harrity and Vlcek last year.

This time they lost in a close three to Doug Lifford and Ross Revenaugh, who had never previously been doubles partners but who had played frequently during the past several years at the University Club of Boston before Revenaugh moved to San Francisco after earning his MBA at Harvard Business School this past spring. In the remaining pair of quarters, Harrity and Khan dominated the last three single-figure games of their 3-1 win over Addison West and Noah Wimmer, and Vlcek and Clothier were able to assert control throughout most of their three-game win over three-time White winner ('91, '96 and '03, with Neal Vohr, Joe Fabiani and Vlcek respectively) Kennedy and his frequent partner and former Franklin & Marshall teammate Beau Buford. That powerful late-1980's F & M squad was led by Clothier and also featured Scott Brehman, who along with Dominic Hughes would win the White 40's this past weekend.

Both semis went the full limit, with Harrity/Khan barely out-lasting Lifford and Revenaugh in a close fifth game, following which Vlcek and Clothier, who won four consecutive U. S. Doubles crowns from 1998-2001, embarked on what proved to be a two-hour-plus undulating marathon with Grant and Doyle whose 18-17 17-18 18-17 8-15 18-16 graph compellingly summarizes how closely matched these two teams were. Vlcek and Clothier, who normally are excellent at closing out late-game leads (as they had proven the previous afternoon vs. Buford/Kennedy), consistently failed to do so on this rare occasion, as they were the first team to 13 in every game, yet they kept getting caught by their relentlessly rallying opponents. The 13-10 advantage the top seeds squandered in the third game was especially telling.

AGING WELL
So was the presence in the final round of such a talented and predominantly youth-driven tournament of three players each of whom was well into his 40's; indeed, Doyle and Grant had been politely but unmistakably encouraged by the tournament committee to enter the 40's flight instead of the Open. Harrity, who won both the singles hardball AND doubles in the '05 White, has always been known for his exceptional fitness level, and Khan is in his mid-20's and as fit and sleek as they come, both of which, along with Doyle's and Grant's lack of recent tournament play and the fact that theirs was the second Sunday-morning semi, all would have seemed to favor Harrity/Khan, who also were playing on their "home" Merion courts, where Harrity is a many-time club champion and longtime member and where Khan recently became an assistant pro.

But the final represented their seventh doubles match in less than 72 hours (given their progression to the quarters in Wilmington on Thursday evening and Friday before losing to eventual champions Ben Gould and Preston Quick) and the 11th match overall for Khan, who also played in and won the White open softball singles, and the attritional effects of so much squash in such a compressed period visibly made themselves felt as the final moved along. After taking the first two games and seeing a 5-1 third-game lead bypassed by a last-ditch nine-point run against them, Doyle and Grant were able to move out from 8-all to 13-9 in the fourth and reach the finish line from there.

The women's open went to Lissen Tutrone and Kat Van Blarcom, runners-up in '05 to Jess Dimauro and Demer Holleran, whose four-game final-round opponents, Amy Milanek and Dawn Gray, had reluctantly accepted a default win over Dana Betts and Emily Ash Lungstrum when Betts had inadvertently but violently caught her partner with a racquet follow-through to the left eye, necessitating an emergency trip to an ophthalmologist (who said she would be fine in a few days) and abruptly terminating the match at that early-second-game juncture. The women's 40's was won by second seeds Molly Pierce and Jen Edson, who in a reversed the '05 White 40's final by rallying from 13-8 down in the second game to 18-16, grabbing a 15-14 third game on a Pierce winner and making those narrow mid-match wins stick by salting away the final fourth in somewhat more routine fashion.

William White Open Double
RESULTS
Men's Open Finals
Bill Doyle and Alan Grant def [3] Tom Harrity and Imran Khan 15-10 15-11 10-15 15-11
Women's Open Finals
Lissen Tutrone and Kat Van Blarcom def Amy Milanek and Dawn Gray 3-1

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