Hamil and Hamilton Cup - Breakout Performances for Canadian David Kay

by Rob Dinerman

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Chris Walker show impact on hardball doubles

Denver. Oct 2, 2001 © 2001 Rob Dinerman for Squashtalk.com

The ISDA 2001-2002 season-opening tournament, the Hamilton Cup Doubles and Hamil Cup Singles Championships, hosted by the Denver Club during the last weekend of September, featured yet another dollop of double-domination by Gary Waite, who won the Doubles with partner Damien Mudge and the Singles on his own; the emphatic debut of the newly-formed combination of Willie Hosey and Viktor Berg, who reached the Hamilton Cup finals in their first foray together; a series of scintillating five-game matches, two of which, including the very first main-draw match of the tourney, were decided on simultaneous match point; and a level of depth and strength symbolized by the fact that there were more entries in the qualifier draw alone than had ever played in the entire tournament in its history.

David Kay (ISDA Photo)

With all that, probably the most noteworthy news of the entire weekend was the dual performance put forth throughout by David Kay, the 29-year-old Canadian who entered the fray Friday morning as a bit of a question mark who had never made it past the semis of a pro singles event and was playing with a new doubles partner after faltering in the closing stages with his previous partner last spring and having to qualify his way into the main draw.

By the time the curtain finally rang down on Kay's weekend well into

Sunday afternoon, he had advanced all the way to the finals of the singles-knocking off a rising young star and avenging a one-sided loss to a formidable opponent he had never previously beaten in either singles or doubles along the way-while partnering his new left-wall ally, the recent 2001 British Open finalist Chris Walker, through two qualifying and two main-draw matches and all the way to the semis. The six total matches Kay won in just two days(including four, two in each event, on Saturday alone!) was by far the best career performance for the power-hitting tour veteran, who has added fitness and focus to the mobility and firepower he has always possessed, and who seems to be on the verge of the stardom that he had heretofore been frustratingly unable to attain.

Now entering his fifth year as the head professional of the Union Club, located in Manhattan's upper east side, Kay had teamed up with Josh MacDonald throughout the 2000-2001 ISDA tour season, a pairing which reached a half-dozen semi-finals while each earned a No. 11 co-ranking in the end-of-season tabulation. They would have finished higher were it not for a subpar spring, which caused the season to end on somewhat of a down note and motivated each of them to seek out a new alliance for the future. Kay was taking a bit of a risk by playing with Walker, who, notwithstanding his solid career accomplishments on the PSA softball tour and his stunning march from the qualifying playdown to a 2-0 final-round lead in the most prestigious championship in the world last May, had played in only one ISDA doubles tourney in his life, was a relative novice in doubles and had a No. 55 ISDA ranking that consigned Kay to having to play in the qualifying rounds for the first time in his career.

Walker's quick learning curve and Kay's well-known doubles skills and experience--as well as a fortuitous upset that spared this new team the need to confront what seemingly loomed as the strongest opposition in their qualifying bracket-facilitated their march through two qualifying matches on Friday and into the ten-team main draw. But it was on Saturday, September 29th, that Kay's already solid though previously somewhat frustrating career was transported to a whole new level.

The ledger for that memorable day-long, four-victory, two-sport performance reads as follows:

9 am: Doubles round-of-16-Kay and Walker draw the other successful qualifiers, Brett Martin and Scott Butcher, who last year in their first season of collaboration became one of the most dangerous "floaters" on the tour, consistently reaching the quarters and often pushing the top two seeds right to the brink. Martin and Butcher lead 1-1, 12-9 but, in the first of a series of late-game comebacks that would characterize Kay's entire day, he and his partner rally to grab that pivotal game, then proceed to draw a number of frustrated fourth-game tins from their Australian opponents and win the match in four.

11 am, Singles quarters: Kay falls way behind to a confident and fast-starting Viktor Berg, swiftly dropping 11 of the first 13 points of the opening game and seemingly ill-prepared for his first hardball singles action in a year. Berg then lets up his guard, and suddenly Kay's game snaps into overdrive, as he comes all the way back to force an overtime at 13-all. Berg makes what seems like a panicky "no-set" call, drops both ensuing points, and appears flustered and demoralized throughout the remaining pair of single-figure games, his early-match bravado completely banished by Kay's relentless charge from 2-11 in the first. By the end, Berg seems chastened, too far behind to catch up, too bewildered to try to do so and definitely looking ahead to the doubles tourney that awaits him(and in which, in fairness, he and partner Willie Hosey would advance all the way to the Hamilton Cup final in their debut performance as a newly-formed team).

2:30 pm, Singles semis: The big breakthrough of the day, against the same Damian Mudge who had completely dominated their match of the same court two years earlier, and who in that match had manhandled Kay with his crushing hard serve, hitting aces and drawing weak responses which he could then put away. This time Kay is ready for his opponent's fearsome weapon, his serve return often wreaking the same havoc that had been inflicted on him back in '99. Kay and Mudge split the opening pair of games and, as had happened in the early-morning doubles match, the third game becomes pivotal. One gets the sense late in that game that if Mudge---who had overcome a ragged first game to win the second-can go up 2-1, he will be in the clear. Damien is serving for the game at 2-1 set-3, but Kay wins the next point and gratefully watches an overhit Mudge blast rocket over the back wall boundary line; it is he who grabs the 2-1 advantage. Mudge goes up 5-0 in the fourth, but Kay, rather than let that game go and save himself for the fifth, nearly catches him before Mudge weathers a few tense moments and squares matters at 2-2.

It is a sign of the professionalism and competitive ardor of both athletes that---even with important doubles matches still ahead of them that afternoon, and with far more money on the line there than the singles tourney provides---both are going all out for this match, come what may in the doubles. This time it is Kay who goes up 5-0 and Mudge who rallies and manages to tie the game at 8, creating a seven-point mini-match for a spot in the finals. A few errors by Mudge, a couple of difficult midcourt forehand three-wall volleys into the nick by Kay, and a 15-12 victory that had to be especially sweet in view of the bludgeoning he had taken at the hands of the same opponent the last time they had met.

6 pm, Doubles quarters: Kay and the increasingly rock-solid Walker hang in admirably with their two formidable opponents, the tenth-ranked Michael Pirnak and his superstar partner Jamie Bentley, but when they drop the third game 15-13 to go down 2-1, their disappontment is expressed by Walker, who slams the ball into the wall in frustration. By this time, the overworked Kay is starting to cramp slightly in his legs, but he and his partner force a fifth game, which almost conspiratorially goes all the way to a five-point tiebreaker and then ALL the way to a simultaneous match-point. Kay and Walker are briefly denied victory when a controversial call that would have ended the match goes against them, but Pirnak terminates a long and fierce exchange by tinning a forehand three-wall that Kay almost certainly would have been unable to track down. Kay has by now played two extremely tight five-game matches less than two hours apart and has played four gruelling matches in one 11-hour span, and won them all.

Although Sunday brought an end to David's magical run, it must be said that for the most part he hung in with the infinitely fresher world No. 1 hardball player Gary Waite better than anyone had a right to expect him to in their mid-morning singles final, and that he and Walker battled admirably against the second-seeded team of Willie Hosey and Viktor Berg(ranked co-No. 2 and 5 respectively)before grudgingly ceding the doubles semi that afternoon in four hard-fought games.

Kay's six-match winning streak in two days at the highest level of the hardball and doubles games-with Bentley, Mudge, Berg, Pirnak, Martin and Butcher,ALL vanquished by him in ONE DAY---must go down as one of the greatest USA squash performances ever, and it will be immensely interesting to see whether he will be able to consolidate these dramatic results in the long ISDA season that lies ahead.

Also see:
2001 Doubles Season
Hamilton Cup
Hamil Cup Singles

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