Cathay Pacific 2001 Women's Preview


SquashTalk >Cathay Pacific 2001, Hong Kong, China > Sarah Fitz-Gerald's Notebook

Cathay Pacific 2001 PSA Draw/Results WISPA Draw Reports Sarah Fitz Qualifier Day One Day Two Round of 16 Quarters Semis Finals PSA Profiles WISPA Profiles 2000 Cathay 1999 Cathay History	2001 Cathay Pacific Open: Sarah Fitz-Gerald's Notebook SquashTalk's reporter and WISPA prexy Sarah Fitz-Gerald summarizes women's play. (photo © 2001, Debra Tessier) *August 24th...* First news of the day was that Tania Bailey withdrew from today's match against Fiona Geaves still struggling with knee problems and has since decided to withdraw from Heliopolis, Qatar and World Open in favour of surgery. She will need 6 months to recover from the operation and rehabilitation... Fiona Geaves is in her first semi final of the new WISPA Grand Prix's... Carol Owens won without a fight from Rachael Grinham --- who put in no effort deciding she wouldn't and couldn't win over a top 4 player. My match was the toughest I had experienced against Stephanie Brind in the last 4 encounters! Stephanie fought me the whole way and played some excellent drops and drives from the backhand front corner putting me under pressure and forcing the weak return, but I countered her drives with pace and restricting her chances to play the front corners... Suzanne Horner played intelligent squash to push Leilani Joyce in the first two games leading 8-6 in the first and 6-1 in the second before succumbing under the pressure on Leilani's fantastic retrievals and hard straight drives. Tomorrow --- Sarah v Leilani at 3pm !! *Check the women's draw for complete quarterfinal results.* *August 23rd* ... My match today may have appeared easy according to the scores but I can report that it was quite intense due to Beckys style of play... I was completely wound up by her blocking, bumping and the antics that she engaged in after rallies and following adverse referring decisions... I managed to win in under thirty minutes (26) but I learnt a lesson today --- about playing squash and not mind games... Leilani Joyce had to fight in the first game to defeat Cassie Campion 9/6 but in the second and third Campion fell prey to too many errors and was completely unable to match the pace of Joyce, losing 9/0,9/0. Tania Bailey had to work hard to fight off young Natalie Grinham who played well and used creative and thoughtful squash to take 2 games from the World No 5. It was a clean well fought match. Vanessa Atkinson looked on course to defeat Rachael Grinham after leading 2-0 but was she was unable to continue in that vein, as Grinham upset her plans by playing some brilliant deceptive boasts and volleys which effectively manoeuvred the Dutch No 1 and tired her eventually. Atkinson had nothing left in the 5th and lost 9-0 to concede her place in the quarter finals. Fiona Geaves took an easy 1-0 lead over 36 year old Liz Irving, but Irving seemed to warm up in the second and take an impressive 8-3 lead before succumbing to a string of uncharactristic errors and good defensive play from Fiona to win the game 10-9 and the match. Carol Owens seemed under pressure from herself and consequently from her opponent who performed to a high level taking the World No 2 to the limit in the second game. Owens lost her cool and composure a few times before taking control winning 3-0. Shelley Kitchen is showing her improvement taking a game from World No 8 Suzanne Horner. Brind, newly awarded the No 8 seed due to Linda Charman Smith with drawing, proved too strong for the rapidly improving Northern Ireland No 1 Madeline Perry. *August 22nd*, Hong Kong -- On the women's side, there's not much to report in round one as all matches went according to seeding and expectations... My match with Tricia Chuah was a straightforward one for me. Tricia was nervous as well as excited to play me as it was our first meeting. She did well and really hung in there for the first game before my power hitting and placement put her off balance. I think she was pleased with her effort and has learned quite a lot in her recent competition. We are all looking forward to Leilani's matchup with Cassie tomorrow...	Squashtalk Pro Squash Headlines Event Engine Squash: Tourney of Champs US Open YMG Capital Classic World Men's Open Qatar Classic Cathay Pacific Superseries Qatar Masters '02 British Open Pakistan Open Macau Open Melbourne 01 Al Ahram Video recordings Player profiles Rankings Calendar
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