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Cathay Pacific 2002

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Player reports from Hong Kong by Joe and Dan Kneip

By Joe and Dan Kneipp

After nearly four months to the day since the last major PSA tournament it is wonderful to finally have all of the best players gathered together. At the moment there are a handful of players who are capable of walking away with the title. Last year’s final being without Power or Nicol helped reinforce that the standard at the top of the game is tightly contested and very competitive. But before the championship match emerges there will be plenty of wonderful and unpredictable squash. The first round alone has some dynamic match-ups and some impossible to predict results that emphasize the appeal of the game.

Seedings
None of the major PSA tournaments so far this year have seen all of the top 16 seeds make their way through to the second round. There has been an average of three seeds per tournament who have lost their first round encounter. Matches this year that have gone against this seeding have included Anthony Ricketts over Ong Beng Hee, Graham Ryding over Alex Gough and Wael El Hindi over Paul Johnson in the Tournament of Champions. In the Pakistan open Amjad Khan beat Alex Gough and Amr Shabana beat Stewart Boswell. The British Open upsets were Peter Genever beating Dave Evans and Omar Elborolossy over Anthony Ricketts. In the PSA Masters I beat Chris Walker, Karim Darwish beat Del Harris, Shahid Zaman accounted for Dave Evans, Amr Shabana beat Paul Johnson and Nick Taylor beat Martin Heath

So upsets are common at the start of a tournament. Thank you to everyone who emailed us with their 1st Round predictions. Here is a brief run down of each match, and which seeds you thought would go through to the second round.(The match statistics don’t include qualifying tournaments or leagues.)

(1) Peter Nicol (England) vs Omar Elborolossy (Egypt)
Nicol lost in the first round last year and will want to make amends for that. Also putting a halt to Power’s stampeding year will be a priority. He has played Elborolossy three times in PSA tournaments, all of them occurring last year. Nicol has won all of them without conceding a game, but most games were closely contested with numerous going to 17 points.

Elborolossy is no slouch with a racquet. His current world ranking is 20 and like Power he is a former World Junior Open Runner Up (to Ahmed Barada in 1994). He has had a career high of 14 and has professional victories over many top players including David Palmer (1999), John White (1999), Stewart Boswell (2000), Thierry Lincou (2000), Ong Beng Hee (2000), David Evans (2001) and Paul Price (2001). SquashTalk readers have all predicted Nicol winning, but no one would have backed Lincou’s 1st round upset last year.

(14) David Evans (Wales) vs Joe Kneipp (Australia)
Evans has a career high of 3. He is the first Welshman to win the British Open title and has been in the top twenty for the past three years. We have played many times in different league matches, but only once in a PSA main draw. This year during the memorial US Open we met in the first round after I had qualified. Evans was ranked 6 at the time so I was happy to grind out a 15-8, 15-13, 15-6 win. We usually have tough matches. Most SquashTalk readers have predicted a victory for me.

(9) Martin Heath (Scotland) Vs Karim Darwish (Egypt)
Heath’s current ranking is 9 and he has been as high as 4. Darwish was the 2000 World Junior champion and is presently sitting at 17 which is his highest ranking to date. They have met twice in the last few years. Heath won in four in the second round of the 1999 World Open. They also met at the Hong Kong Open last year, but in the second round, with Heath also prevailing 17-14, 15-4, 15-4. SquashTalk readers are divided over who will win this match, with slightly more going for the Scotsman.

(8) Ong Beng Hee (Malaysia) Vs Del Harris (England)
A symbolic changing of the guard match here. Harris was the 1998 World Junior champion, while Beng Hee took the trophy a decade later. Harris’ current ranking may be 23 but he has been at 5 before and is a player that can beat anyone. Beng Hee hasn’t had the greatest year and has been unable to get past the second round in the big tournaments. As the Asian squash champ he may be feeling extra pressure due to the tournament’s location

Head to head these two have both won once. Harris won their first encounter in 2000 at the Greenwich Open, but Beng Hee’s win was in the second round of the 2001 Hong Kong Open where he made the quarter finals, eventually losing to Palmer. Predictions here are in favour of Beng Hee 6:2

(12) Chris Walker (England) vs Mansoor Zaman (Pakistan)
As far as I can work out they haven’t played each other in a PSA event. Chris is currently ranked 12 with a career high of 4, Mansoor is ranked 22 with a high of 21. Every SquashTalk reader has predicted a Walker win.

(15) Amr Shabana (Egypt) vs Oli Touminen (Finland)
This two are currently ranked 15 and 16 so theoretically the game should be close. Shabana is a shot maker while Touminen works more on fitness and court coverage. Touminen made the quarter finals last year so needs to do well to maintain a top 16 ranking. The winner will probably go on to play Palmer. Predictions are evenly divided as to who will win this match. There’s some doubts on Shabana’s fitness for this match. The two last met in the semi finals of the Mexico Open in 1999 where Shabana won a closely fought match in four: 10-15, 15-17, 15-13, 10-15.

(3) David Palmer (Australia) Vs Shahid Zaman (Pakistan)
Another pairing that hasn’t occurred in a PSA event. Palmer is the defending champion and ranked over twenty places higher than Shahid’s best ranking of 24. It would take a brave bet to back an upset here, which no one has done.

(2) Jonathon Power (Canada) Vs Paul Johnson (England)
Put simply 2002 has been Power’s year. He has only lost two matches and only one of them was to Nicol (Bonnie Johnny White being the other). Johnson is currently ranked at 21 but has been at 4. The two have met four times recently with Power winning all of them. The last encounter was in the second round of the Pakistan Open this year, with Johnson unable to get to double figures against the eventual champion.

Power is the favourite to take the Hong Kong title, and unanimously favoured by SquashTalk readers to win his first match. One foreseeable problem though is if Power spends the whole match looking at his shiny new shoes instead of the ball.

The remaining seeds are John White, Lee Beachill, Stewart Boswell, Anthony Ricketts, Mark Chaloner, Alex Gough, Thierry Lincou and Paul Price. They all face qualifiers in their first match so predictions haven’t been able to take each opponent into account. Watch out for Dan Jenson. Palmer played him recently in the quarter finals of the Australian Open and he assures me he is getting his game back to the level it used to be (#5) before he was injured.

Rankings are worked out over a twelve month period, so to improve you must do at least as well as how you performed for the same month the previous year. Players who need to make at least the quarter finals in Hong Kong to achieve this are Alex Gough, Mark Chaloner, David Palmer, Ong Beng Hee, Martin Heath, Stewart Boswell, Oli Touminen and Thierry Lincou.

With neither Power or Nicol making last year’s quarter final there will be some players whose ranking will slide in the wrong direction. In the meantime there should be some great matches and I am looking forward to seeing who causes the upsets at this year’s Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Open.

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