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Trevor McGuinness And Whitten Morris Capture US National Doubles Title
By Rob Dinerman, April 1, 2008    
Squashtalk Independent News; © 2008 SquashTalk LLC

Grainger And Dimauro Take Women’s Crown

Thoroughly out-played virtually throughout the entire opening game of their U. S. National Doubles Open final-round match Sunday afternoon by their top-seeded and multi-titled opponents, second seeds Trevor McGuinness and Whitten Morris engineered a highly improbable and indeed history-making 12-0 run from 5-14 to 17-14 from which their victims, nine-time U. S. National Doubles champion Morris Clothier and seven-time Canadian National Doubles champ Scott Stoneburgh, would never fully recover during the remainder of the 17-14 15-11 15-13 summit, held at the Fairmount Athletic Club in suburban Philadelphia. Morris, winner of the A Division of this tournament each of the past three years (with Ryan O’Connell in ’05 and with Michael Ferreira in ’06 and ’07) and McGuinness thus consolidated the Philly Boast and BIDS titles they won last season, as well as their advance to the ISDA Big Apple Open quarters this past fall and the William White title they had earned 12 weeks ago at the Merion Cricket Club, while capping off what has been a memorable doubles season on the American squash scene.

Never before in the 75-year history of this championship has a team managed to save nine consecutive game-balls-against in the Open final, and that first-game comeback, incredibly, represented the third straight match pitting Clothier against Morris over the course of the last five months in which Clothier, a “finisher” of formidable proportions throughout his career, has been unable to convert first-game leads of at least 14-7 against his Racquet & Tennis club-mate and right-wall counterpart Morris: previously, Clothier and Dave Rosen led Morris and Michael Ferreira 14-7 in the first game of the early-November Silver Racquets final before yielding the game’s last eight straight points in that three-game match, following which Clothier and Noah Wimmer similarly had a 14-7 edge get away against McGuinness and Morris in the first game of the early-January William White semi, which was the key to that eventual four-game outcome.

Clothier and Stoneburgh, who last season went two for two in annexing the Gold Racquets Invitational and Canadian Nationals, got off to that ostensibly insurmountable first-game lead by lobbing McGuinness, thereby stabilizing the pace and collecting nerves-induced tins and counter-shot winners. But when Morris started hard-serving at 6-14, and when both he and McGuinness began successfully going for broke with audacious winning salvos, the score swiftly tightened up to 12-14, after which Morris nicked a hard serve that Stoneburgh couldn’t handle and McGuinness cracked a game-tying winner down the middle, leading to a jubilant high-five between the partners and preceding a sweep of the best-of-five tiebreaker and a domination of the subsequent second game over their understandably deflated foes, who had endured five match-games-against in their pair of 3-2 pre-final Saturday wins (over first O’Connell and Hamed Anvari from 1-2 down and then Rob Whitehouse and Greg Park) and who had to have sensed how huge a turn in momentum the disastrous concluding stretch of the first game comprised.

To their credit, Clothier and Stoneburgh (who re-dislocated his left, i.e. non-playing, shoulder in the semis and had to have it strapped for the final) regained their equilibrium in the third game, while McGuinness and Morris (who had some pre-final travails of their own at 1-1, 12-all against Imran Khan and Rich Sheppard before taking that quarter in four and the semi in three against Geoff Kennedy and Addison West) lost at least some of the adrenalized energy that had powered them to their two games to love lead. Clothier in particular started scoring with his three-wall, and the score seesawed to 12-all, at which point McGuinness buried an overhead reverse-corner, a winner by five feet, and Morris hit a wall-hugging right-wall forehand winner for 14-12. McGuinness then tinned away the next point, but ended matters moments later by crushing a forehand cross-court for a clean winner past Clothier. In the final analysis, McGuinness (who by winning this tourney joined Diehl Mateer as the only players to have hoisted this trophy prior to their 21st birthday) and Morris were able to play the match at too high a pace for Clothier and Stoneburgh to have the time and room they need to execute at their maximum level.

The same may have been true of the women’s Open final, in which Natalie Grainger and Jess Dimauro out-played Demer Holleran, owner of the host club, and Narelle Krizek 15-9 8-15 16-15 15-11, thereby avenging the final-round result six weeks ago in the Briggs Cup WDSA pro tour stop at the Apawamis Club in Rye, NY. In that prior encounter, Krizek and Holleran had successfully lobbed their opponents, creating opportunities for Holleran to impose her deadly front-court game. But this time, Grainger’s pace and athleticism enabled her team to carry the play and Dimauro was less constrained about firing off her sharp reverse-corner than she had been in Rye, where her concern about Holleran’s counter-shooting skills had made her too tentative and tinny to be at her best. With all that, the match hinged on the third game’s simultaneous game-ball, which was decided when Dimauro’s forehand cross-court drive elicited a backhand volley tin from Krizek’s normally reliable racquet.

Dimauro and Grainger, winners of the WSDA tour stops in Greenwich and Denver, as well as at the recent Canadian Nationals, then took a 12-9 lead in the fourth game, which then had to be stopped for 10 minutes after a Holleran rail smacked into Dimauro’s face, following which a possibly shaken Holleran committed an unforced tin to make it 13-9, after which it became 14-10, then 15-11. Prior to the final, each team had encountered one strongly resistant opponent --- Kat Van Blarcom and her high-school teammate Lissen Tutrone won the first game of their quarterfinal vs. Krizek/Holleran and took the close-out fourth to a tiebreaker (following which the winners lost only 13 total points against Dana Betts and Susie Pierrepont), while Grainger and Dimauro dropped the third game of their four-game semifinal with Amy Milanek and Dawn Gray.

In the most memorable and exciting of the age-group finals, the women’s 40’s, 66-year-old (!)Joyce Davenport and Sara Luther barely survived a hair-raising 15-12 11-15 18-14 13-14 16-14 tally at the expense of Jen Edson and Molly Pierce in the determinative match of the five-team round-robin when Luther struck a pair of winners (a straight drop and a roll-corner) on the final two points of the best-of-five tiebreaker; the men’s 40’s had its most competitive moments in the semis, both of which (Tom Clayton/John Macatee over ’05 winners Ed Chilton and Andrew Slater and Dave Proctor/Bill Villari over ’07 defending champs Doug Lifford and Chris Spahr) went to five games before Clayton and Macatee won the final 3-0, thereby making Villari a frustrated three-time U. S. 40’s finalist (in the Mixed and Men’s Doubles and the softball singles) this season.

Other age-group final-round results were (men’s division) Alan Hunt/Mike Costigan over Geordie Lemmon/Jamie Heldring in the 45’s; Andy Nehrbas/Doug Rice over ’07 champs Tom Boldt/Jay Gillespie in the 50’s; Michael Pierce/Gordy Anderson over Victor Harding/Sean McDonough in the 55’s; Joe Fitzpatrick/Sandy Martin over Mike Downer/Tom Nederpel in the 60’s (in a fifth-set tiebreaker); Jim Zug/Maurice Heckscher over Tony Swift and Len Bernheimer (whose long-time partner Tom Poor is still rehabbing from knee surgery and expects to return next season) in the 65’s; and Fred Bracher/Barry Abelson over Ritchie Bell/Peter Holland in the 70’s; and (women’s division) Sandra Shaw/Lolly Gillen over Anne Hall/Wendy Berry (in five) in the 50’s, and Ann Smith/Sharon Schwarze over Louisa Dubin and Deming Holleran, Demer’s mother, in the 60’s.

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