Waite takes Fifth Straight Hamil Cup

by Rob Dinerman

SQUASHTALK TODAY
WISPA Vassar
NAO Doubles
WISPA Greenwich CT
WISPA Rye NY

RECENT EVENTS
Junior Mens Worlds
Men's World Open
US 5 Man Teams
Weymuller US Open

CURRENT CONTENT
Hall of Fame
News Index
Club Links
Gear Links
E-boast Newsletter
    (sign up now free)

David Kay Breaks Through

Denver. Oct 1, 2001 © 2001 Rob Dinerman for Squashtalk.com

Reaffirming his unquestioned status as the greatest hardball player in the world, top-seeded four-time defending champion Gary Waite rolled to victory in the fifth Hamil Cup Invitational, hosted on the final weekend of September at the Denver Club, without coming close to losing a single game.

The 35-year-old Canadian, who last lost a hardball match at the Apawamis Open in January '95(in overtime in the fifth to Mark Talbott), eight pro hardball tournaments ago, capped off his triumphant sprint through the eight-man field with a 15-7, 8 and 11 Sunday morning final over Canadian compatriot Dave Kay, whose march to that stage was the highlight of the tournament.

KAY A SURPRISING STORY
Kay, whose simultaneous exploits in the concomitant ISDA season-opening Hamilton Cup Doubles event made his singles accomplishments all the more remarkable(with both his quarter- and semi-final wins occurring on a day when he also had to play, and was able to win, two doubles matches!), debuted by facing Viktor Berg, the dynamic young softball and doubles star who in a softball-court pro hardball tourney last spring had defeated Scott Butcher and come within a point of going up 2-0 in his ensuing semi with Waite. Berg rocketed off to an 11-2 first-game lead, and even led 13-9, but bowed to a game-closing six-point streak by Kay. Clearly shaken by this dramatic late-game reversal, and finding the 30-inches-narrower American court much less hospitable than the softball court he is so much more accustomed to, Berg never recovered his accuracy or focus, tinning frequently and dropping the subsequent pair of games in single digits.

MUDGE AMBUSHED
Waiting for David in the semis was an even more daunting obstacle in the imposing form of second-seeded Damien Mudge, the strapping Australian who had been Waite's co-finalist the previous two times the Hamil Cup (which is always played at this site in the fall and the University Club of New York in the spring) had been held in Denver. At the inaugural event two years ago, in fact, Mudge's semi-final thrashing of an out-gunned Kay had been so severe that it noticeably affected the level of Kay's play in the weekend's doubles competition, and Mudge had evinced his characteristic intimidating pace and court coverage throughout a routine quarter-final win over New Zealander Blair Horler, who was unable to duplicate the upset win he had engineered last September over former WPSA stand-out Todd Binns.

The Mudge-Kay bottom-half semi-final, the first time the two had met in singles competition since that aforementioned blow-out, was markedly different from the start. Kay was fitter and more focused than he had been at any time in his career, and, as importantly, was prepared this time for the ferocious Mudge hard serve that had caused so much damage two years earlier. The quality of play for most of their five-game battle was extremely high, all the more praiseworthy for the hot court conditions and the hyper-active behavior of the sea-level hardball in Denver's mile-high altitude, which made it extremely difficult to find a three-wall nick or lay down a length shot.

There were two defining moments in this nearly dead-even match. The first came late in the pivotal third game, following a split of the opening pair, when Mudge saved three game points to force a simultaneous game-point at 16-all. Neither the scoreboard nor the court conditions permitted any finesse at this point, and both men were rearing back and crushing the ball in a numbing but morbidly captivating display of raw heat. The last such swing careened wildly off Mudge's bat and soared over the back-wall end line, giving the game and a much-needed 2-1 lead to Kay. Then, at 8-8 in the fifth, following Mudge rallies from 0-5 and 5-8, with the momentum on the brink of swinging to his favor, Damien fell prey to a small smattering of racquet errors, enabling his foe to move to 12-9, 14-11(on a nick-finding three-wall)and a perfect crosscourt close-out to Kay's upset 15-12, 11-15, 17-16, 12-15, 15-12 victory.

While Kay was thus exhaustingly wending his way through the draw's bottom half, Waite was rampaging through the top. Following a swift quarter-final trouncing of an out-gunned USSRA No. 2 Rob Dinerman, Waite was scheduled to face former WPSA top-25 Jamie Bentley, who in his last prior hardball competition had defeated three-time defender champ Scott Stoneburgh and Scott Dulmage to win the 75th and final Canadian Nationals in February '95.

Bentley showed no rust from his extended hiatus from the hardball game in easily defeating James Hewitt, but a late-match lower-back injury, a repeat of a problem that had cropped up for him last spring, forced Bentley to withdraw from his impending semi with Waite, who played Hewitt in an exhibition match for the benefit of the spectators who showed up to see him play, and dominated that action as well.

ANTICLIMATIC FINAL
The final was well played but pre-ordained, with Waite's superiority augmented by the markedly differing courses the two finalists had taken en route to their Sunday morning match-up. Kay was valiant but understandably sapped by the six total matches(two of which went five games) he had played over the two previous days, while the much fresher Waite was inexorable, in a scenario similar to what played out at the immediately previous Hamil Cup last May, when another over-played unseeded finalist, Michael Pirnak, was too spent by a semi-final upset of Mudge and several accompanying doubles matches to muster the full strength necessary to challenge Waite in the next-day final. Another consolidation of his hardball supremacy by The Champ, but a noteworthy career-best performance for Kay, who at age 29 now seems on the verge of realizing the potential that his prepossessing talents have always portended.

Also see:
2001 Doubles Season

SquashTalk Opinion

Global Gallery
The Spin (Beck)
Rob Dinerman
Team Kneipp
Walker's Notebook
Sarah Fitz-Gerald

Clios Corner (Zug)
Guest Columns
Letters to Editor

What's New
News Index
Features Index
Web Links
E-boast Newsletter
   (sign up now free)

Contribute regional news anytime to: editor@squashtalk.com