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Mudge/Berg Triumph In Boston
By Rob Dinerman, Jan 15, 2008    
Squashtalk Independent News; © 2008 SquashTalk LLC

Trailing one game to love in the final round this afternoon at the University Club Of Boston, second seeds Damien Mudge and Viktor Berg rallied to a 10-15 15-11 15-10 15-9 victory over third seeds Chris Walker and Clive Leach to win the first ISDA tour stop in 2008. This makes three consecutive finals (and four overall) for Mudge and Berg, who grabbed the U. S. Pro Championship in Wilmington early last month and lost a four-game final one week later to Paul Price and Ben Gould in Vancouver. Today’s outcome also narrowly justifies (and expands) the narrow edge that the Mudge/Berg tandem held over Walker/Leach when the ISDA rankings for the first half of the season were computed in mid-December.

Though Price and Gould came into this event as both defending champions and the No. 1 ranked team after their four autumn titles (in New York, Chicago, Toronto and Vancouver), it was widely known before this tournament even began that Price had been suffering from an intestinal-flu virus, and there was even some question as to whether he would have to withdraw. Price did show up, but was listless both in his and Gould’s quarterfinal win over the host club’s own Doug Lifford and Pat Malloy (round of 16 winners over James Hewitt and Ayman Karim when the former’s face was badly bloodied by a Lifford drive that fractured the orbital bone near his eye in mid-match, sending him to a hospital for stitches and resulting in a default) and in their truncated semifinal with Walker and Leach, who took the opening pair of 15-12, 15-4 games (following which Price became violently ill in his visit to the locker room after the second) and were leading 5-3 in the third when Price accepted the inevitable and defaulted. Though Price was clearly and visibly ill, it must be noted that this is the third time that he has defaulted in the past 13 months (preceded in Wilmington ’06 when Walker and Berg were ahead 2-0, 12-7, and Denver ’07, when Jeff Mulligan and Matt Jensen were up 2-1, 8-1) with various maladies (a knee problem in Delaware and a back issue in Colorado), in each case with the opposing team ahead in what would have been a match-ending game had it gone to completion.

In the remaining matches, all of which WERE played to conclusion, Chris Spahr and Nadeem Osman, the pros at the host club, scored a convincing and unexpected victory over ISDA veterans Ben Howell and Tyler Millard before meeting up with Walker/Leach; Jensen and Mulligan won 3-0 over Alex Langerhorst and Chris Nanda before running into Mudge/Berg; and Joe Pentland and Mark Price, after first subduing Rob Dinerman and Sandy Tierney, fell barely short of attaining their second consecutive ISDA semi (preceded by their quarterfinal exploits in Vancouver over Gary Waite and Mulligan) when they led ’07 finalists Preston Quick and John Russell 2-1, 14-10 (FIVE match-balls) only to drop all five points and fall 15-11 in an anticlimactic fifth game.

Reprieved but drained by that narrow escape, Russell and Quick then fell behind Mudge and Berg two games to love, made a brief comeback in the third but lost a fourth-set tiebreaker in the bottom-half semifinal. Mudge was then constantly attacked by Walker and Leach in the final (which featured many prolonged left-wall rail exchanges between Walker and Mudge) but held up increasingly well as the match moved along, until by the end he was carrying the play, ably assisted by Berg’s mercurial shot-making skills and daring forays, a parlay that gradually forced Walker and Leach into retreat during a downhill fourth and final game.

Tournament Recap
Rd of 16:
Paul Price/Ben Gould, bye
Doug Lifford/Pat Malloy d James Hewitt/Ayman Karim, 1-1, 5-5, injury default (Hewitt, eye injury) Chris Spahr/Nadeem Osman d Ben Howell/Tyler Millard, 3-0
Chris Walker/Clive Leach, bye
John Russell/Preston Quick, bye
Joe Pentland/Mark Price d Sandy Tierney/Rob Dinerman, 3-0
Matt Jensen/Jeff Mulligan d Alex Langerhorst/Chris Nanda, 3-0
Damien Mudge/Viktor Berg, bye
Qtrs:
Price/Gould d Lifford/Malloy, 3-1
Walker/Leach d Spahr/Osman, 3-0
Russell/Quick d Pentland/Price, 3-2
Mudge/Berg d Jensen/Mulligan, 3-0
Semis:
Walker/Leach d Price/Gould, 2-0, 5-3, default (Price, illness)
Mudge/Berg d Russell/Quick, 3-1
Final:
Mudge/Berg d Walker/Leach, 3-1

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