Preston Quick & Ben Gould Capture the US Pro Championships
By Rob Dinerman; SquashTalk © 2005; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Jan 11 , 2006     

Preston Quick and Ben Gould jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the opening portion of the climatic fifth game of their back-and-forth final round Saturday afternoon and rode this early advantage to an exciting 15-11 15-16 17-16 12-15 15-11 victory over Chris Walker and Viktor Berg to annex the U. S. Pro Championships held as always at the Wilmington Country Club. In so doing, Gould and Quick banished the unpleasant memory of their four-game semifinal loss in last year's event at the hands of Blair Horler and Michael Pirnak and added a second title this season to the Big Apple Open crown they took in New York two months ago in early November.

In last year's narrow defeat, Gould and Quick had several game-balls in the third game to go up two/one but lost that crucial stanza in a tiebreaker; this time, by contrast, they were the team that prevailed in the defining tiebreaker sessions that cropped up in the pivotal one-point third games of first their four-game semifinal against Michael Pirnak (whose excellent forehand rail with Quick pinned against the left wall was somehow returned for a corner winner in a remarkable maneuver by Quick) and Clive Leach, and then the ensuing final, when Quick blasted a winner into the deep recesses of the court on simultaneous game-ball to give himself and his partner a two games to one lead.

Leach and Pirnak had won their quarterfinal opener in three solid games over Alex Pavulans and Chris Deratnay, who themselves were coming off an impressive 3-0 round of 16 versus the first-time partnership of Jamie Bentley and Scott Butcher. Deratnay in particular had been sharp with his pace and racquet-work, but neither he nor Pavulans (who has been flying to tournament sites all the way from his current base in Latvia) were able to fend off the firepower generated by Leach and Pirnak, whose subsequent bid against Quick and Gould was, as noted, thwarted by Quick's remarkable winner at 16-all in the third game preceding the close-out 15-8 fourth.

The remaining round-of-16 winners, namely James Hewitt and Tyler Millard in four over Rob Dinerman and Patrick Chifunda (with the latter demonstrating his well-known athleticism and racquet skills in making an impressive ISDA debut), qualifiers Tom Harrity and Imran Khan in a close three over Ayman Kerim and Joe Pentland and David Kay and John Russell in three over qualifiers Andrew Cordova and Tom Porter, all lost to top-four seeded teams, though Hewitt and Millard pressed No. 2 seed Horler and Willie Hosey to one point in the fourth (whereupon Millard hit his partner Hewitt with the ball on an "around" play) and Kay and Russell actually lead a rusty-appearing and tin-prone Berg and Walker two games to love before Berg regained his dynamic game and Kay became progressively more fatigued as the match wore on.

Like the Quick/Gould 3-1 win over Leach and Pirnak, the lower-half semifinal also was largely determined by a one-point game, in this case the first, which ended when Horler just caught the top of the tin at 15-all when he ripped what might have otherwise have been a forehand winner. Earlier in that game, Walker hit one of the most memorable shots of the tournament at 12-all, when he barely was able to track down a scorching Horler backhand rail and somehow conjured up a perfect three-wall nick that rolled out at a dismayed Hosey's feet. The five-game final similarly had a pair of one-point games, all of which compellingly points up how closely bunched the top four or five contending teams are at present.

Gould and Quick, who have now reached at least the final round of all four ranking ISDA events so far this season, were able to make good in their debut as a No. 1 seed in the wake of the notable absence from the Wilmington competition of Gary Waite and Damien Mudge, who have won this championships each of the past four years and five times in the last six. Waite will be partnering Berg this coming weekend in Boston (while Walker fulfills a coaching commitment) and he will be rejoined by Mudge the following week in Greenwich, where they will attempt to win the North American Open for what would be the sixth consecutive time.

US Pro Hardball Doubles, Wilmington DE
RESULTS:   [COMPLETE DRAW]
Finals: [1] Preston Quick/Ben Gould def [3] Victor Berg/Chris Walker 15-9 17-18 17-16 12-15 15-11
Semi Finals:
[1] Preston Quick/Ben Gould def [4] Mike Pirnack/Clive Leach 15-10 15-10 15-10
[3] Victor Berg/Chris Walker def [2] Willie Hosey/Blair Horler 15-9 15-11 15-7
Quarter Finals:
[1] Preston Quick/Ben Gould def [Q] Tom Harrity/Imran Khan 15-10 15-13 15-11
[4] Mike Pirnack/Clive Leach def Chris Deratnay/Alex Pavulans 15-10 15-10 15-10
[3] Victor Berg/Chris Walker def David Kay/John Russell 13-15 15-13 4-11 15-10 15-11
[2] Willie Hosey/Blair Horler def James Hewitt/Tyler Millard 15-6 10-15 15-8 15-11

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