Willie Hosey and Jamie Bentley Score U Club Upset
By Rob Dinerman; SquashTalk © 2006; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Jan 14 , 2006     

Last night's quarterfinal round of the annual ISDA pro doubles tour stop at the University Club Of Boston was highlighted by the lone upset of the evening, in which Willie Hosey and Jamie Bentley, who won a number of titles and reached several-dozen finals during three highly successful seasons of partnership from 1999-2001, reunited for this one event in the wake of the unavailability of their respective current partners (namely Blair Horler and Paul Price) this weekend and out-played fourth seeds Chris Deratnay and Alex Pavulans by a score of 15-18 15-11 15-9 15-7.

Hosey and Bentley will now face top seeds and '05 Boston finalists Preston Quick and Ben Gould, winners of the only quarterfinal to go the three-game minimum by virtue of their 15-9, 11 and 8 sweep past first-time partners Scott Butcher (a Boston semifinalist last year with Martin Heath) and Joe Pentland, who had won their qualifying match in four earlier in the day at the expense of host club pros Chris Spahr and Nadeem Osman. The latter team had won a Thursday-night first-round qualifying match against '05 U. S. 40-and-over champions Ed Chilton and Andrew Slater but were unable to avoid the late-game tins that doomed them in the first and final fourth games against Pentland and Butcher.

The bottom half of the draw also features a reunion of a marquee team from 2001 whose members, like Hosey and Bentley, hadn't played together in nearly five years, namely Gary Waite and Viktor Berg, who won all four ranking ISDA events in which they participated (defeating Hosey and Bentley in the final round each time) from February to early April of that year while Damien Mudge, Waite's regular partner then as now, was recovering from a severe left-wrist injury that he sustained just prior to Boston '01 while roller-blading in Manhattan. Waite has won all but one of the last six editions of this tournament (with Mudge in '00, '02, '03 and '05 and with Anders Wahlstedt in '01), his only mis-step having occurred two years ago when Berg and Josh McDonald took advantage of this tourney's utilization of the red singles hardball (pursuant to tournament chairman John Nimick's wish for a greater element of shot-making than the regulation blue doubles hardball allows) to sharp-shoot their way to a 17-15 fifth-game tiebreaker triumph.

Waite and Berg won in four last night over the "favorite sons" team composed of University Club members Doug Lifford and Pat Malloy (whose upset bid foundered when they dropped a close second-set tiebreaker), as did third seeds Clive Leach and Michael Pirnak over qualifiers Tyler Millard and James Hewitt.

The semis will take place early this afternoon, with an "open" day on Sunday (which will be devoted to pro-am competition using the "star" formula that guarantees at least three matches apiece for the 16 team entries) and a Monday night final scheduled for 7:00.

Tournament Recap: Quarters: Preston Quick/Ben Gould (1) d Joe Pentland/Scott Butcher, 15-9 15-11 15-8; Willie Hosey/Jamie Bentley d Chris Deratnay/Alex Pavulans (4), 15-18 15-11 15-9 15-7; Michael Pirnak/Clive Leach (3) d James Hewitt/Tyler Millard, 15-6 15-8 7-15 15-7; Gary Waite/Viktor Berg (2) d Doug Lifford/Pat Malloy, 9-15 18-16 15-2 15-12.

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