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[Complete English Open Draw] and [Qualifying final]

Can Simon Parke raise his game again in this year's event? (photo © 2005 Fritz Borchert)

Joe and Dan Kneipp provide their usual insiders' view of the form of the English Open contestants. Daily play will be covered live and onsite by SquashTalk's Martin Bronstein.

INTERESTING MATCHUPS MARK 1ST ROUND
Sheffield’s Crucible theatre has become synonymous with the World Snooker Championships, an event they’ve hosted twenty-eight times. This year it hosts the English Open Squash Championships for the third time. Here’s how the first round pans out:

Top Half:
[1] Lee Beachill (Eng) versus Bradley Ball (Eng)
Beachill has spent most of the past twelve months ranked 2 and is the current titleholder of the English Open. Along with White and Palmer he has held the #1 ranking for a few months in between the transition of Thierry securing the spot permanently from Nicol.

Beachill made the final of the last Super Series event he played (the Bermuda Masters), but opted to bypass last month’s Pakistan Open.

Bradley Ball is currently at a career high ranking of 23. He recently won the Dutch Open – a tournament about a third of the size of the English Open. He has yet to win a main round match in a Super Series event but has begun to get league victories over top players. Although the English Open isn’t a Super Series event it has top players competing and it’s these players Ball needs to begin beating in PSA events to get his ranking from the low 20s to the crucial top 16.

The only previous encounter that Beachill and Ball have had was at the Bermuda Masters earlier in the year. Beachill won comfortably. The bookies will have Beachill as the roaring favourite for this match with Ball having to do well to hand Beachill his first first round loss since November 2003.

[5] Nick Matthew (Eng) versus [Q] Stewart Boswell (AUS).
Boswell has made a rapid run through a septet of lower-echelon PSA events. This will be his first big test against a top-ten opponent to gauge the strength of his comeback form. Boswell, with two qualifying matches under his belt, may have a slight advantage of crisp concentration to bring him into this tough matchup with Matthew. Rate this a tossup.

[4] James Willstrop (Eng) versus Ben Garner (Eng)
Willstrop is currently ranked eight but is a top 4 seed at Sheffield. The three players that are playing this tournament who trouble him the most, Beachill, Palmer and Nicol, are the other top 4 seeds so in theory he should be okay until the semi finals. Willstrop made the quarters of the last three tournaments he has played and the semis of this event last year.

Ben Garner’s wild card at Sheffield comes courtesy of his brother Tim who co-organises the event. We’ve previously been fervent supporters of wild cards and still don’t understand why John Nimick doesn’t use one at the Tournament of Champions or US Open to get more local interest. We’ve even supported Bermuda and Qatar having local wildcards, but in this situation it is absurd. Although England doesn’t hold either World Team Titles (that could change very soon) they are easily the strongest squash nation at the moment. With SIX English players already in this tournament’s main draw I can’t see how it is justifiable that they can include a wild card to increase local interest. (The situation is made more absurd with the expectation of more English players via the qualifying draw).

The strong English presence in the first round is diluted by an unfortunate draw that has pitted them all against each other, but provides a guarantee of at least three local quarter finalists, but if it wasn’t at the expense of other English players it could have been more.

Garner is currently ranked 40 – his highest ranking yet. He received the same wild card last year and did wonders with it, pushing the then reigning champion White to the limit in the first round, losing 15-11 in the 5th.

Willstrop and Garner have never played before in a PSA event. Willstrop will understandably go in as hot favourite for this match but will have his work cut out for him.

[7] Shahid Zaman (Pak) versus [Q] Peter Barker (ENG)

Bottom Half:
[8] Joe Kneipp (Aus) Versus [Q] Alex Stait (ENG)
This is our 2nd attempt at the English Open crown, our 2003 campaign stalling at the first hurdle. Along with Nick Matthew, Shahid Zaman and John White we’ll be watching the qualification results closely to see who has to play Boswell, assuming he makes it through (we predict he'll have to work hard for it, but will come through). You can guarantee that all of the players at the tournament will be ringside for that match. With Palmer’s disqualification from the World Team Championships later in the year, a recuperated Bozza gives Australia a hope of preventing an England versus France final.

Simon Parke (Eng) Verus [3] Peter Nicol (Eng)
Parke had a spectacular run at this tournament last year, getting past Chaloner, Matthew and Nicol before losing to Beachill in the final. He’s currently ranked 20 but was a permanent fixture at number 3 for a long time.

At the moment it seems his only limitation is his motivation, which at thirty-three years old is understandably waning.

Nicol hasn’t had a great track record at the tournaments he helps organize. He recently won the World Games playing exceptional squash, but hasn’t won a Super Series event for nearly 18 months, although he won a smaller tournament earlier in the year.

Nicol is leading the head-to-head encounters against Parke by a considerable margin, including victory in their last match in January, but Parke beat him at this tournament last year. Neither of them will be happy with this first round draw. Nicol will go into the match as favourite with Parke being a good outsider to bet on.

[6] John White (Sco) verus [Q] Mansoor Zaman (PAK)

Olli Tuominen (Fin) Versus\ [2] David Palmer (Aus)
Tuominen is finally getting closer to being ranked in the top 16, something that should have happened ages ago for this talented player. His reluctance to relinquish Helsinki as his training base means his best regular training partners are upcoming juniors – not an ideal situation for an aspiring top ten player.

At the 2003 English Open Olli lost to Nicol in the first round, and at the
2004 English Open Olli lost to Nicol in the first round. Since that loss twelve months ago he hasn’t been beaten once in the first round, making at least the second round of everything he has played, including the Super Series events.

Palmer made the final of last month’s Super Series event in Pakistan and is closing in on Beachill’s number two ranking, although both of them are still a long way from Thierry.

Palmer played in the inaugural English Open in 2003, losing to Power in the semis, but didn’t play last year.

Neither player would be happy with this draw. Olli would probably have a better chance of winning against most of the other seeds, and it’s a tough first round for Palmer, but he’ll be confident. Of their previous 10 PSA
encounters (which is a lot) Olli hasn’t beaten him once and although two of them have been close five setters, most of them have been three-love wins to Palmer, making him the heavy favourite for this match.

The English Open will be covered live on SquashTalk by Martin Brostein, with topical reports from Dan Kneipp.

Tickets are now are available from The Crucible box office on 0114-249 6000 and online at www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/buyit