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Waite Takes New York '01 Hamil Cup

by Rob Dinerman

The Hamil Cup - A Marquee Prize Money event - Cornerstone of the surviving hardball season - dominated by Gary Waite.

New York. May 17, 2001 © 2001 Rob Dinerman for Squashtalk.com

Demonstrating his trademark verve and otherworldly athleticism throughout a hectic mid-May weekend, Gary Waite soared above an outstanding 15-man field to win his fourth straight Hamil Cup title and thereby leave an appropriately triumphant calling card to both his outstanding 2000-2001 season and his imminently-ending four-year stint as the head pro at the University Club of New York, which hosted this hardball event on their main softball court for the second consecutive year.

Waite, who will be departing in early June to his native Toronto, where he will become President of The Harrow Company, was byed to the quarters, whence he sandwiched two lop-sided victories around a pulsating semi-final with his frequent 2001 doubles partner Victor Berg in what was undoubtedly the most memorable match of the tournament.

VIKTOR BERG ADDS SPICE
The presence of the 23-year-old Berg as Waite's most prominent adversary was a fitting symbol for the change that has occurred in professional hardball squash in just the past year. For in 2000 the highlight match had been Gary's final with Mark Talbott, who, though several weeks into his fifth decade at the time of that event, had followed a rousing upset of the power-hitting and much younger Damian Mudge by pushing Waite all the way to 15-12 in the fifth in a two-hour struggle that had provided a fitting finale to a tourney that had been affectionately billed as the "WPSA Reunion Tour."

Luminaries of the WPSA hardball tour of the 80's and early 90's such as Clive Caldwell, Ned Edwards, Todd Binns, Kenton Jernigan and, of course, the greatest of them all, the aforementioned Talbott, had been major presences in that competition.But this year, all of those legends of the WPSA singles tour of the past had been replaced by stars of the ISDA doubles tour of the present, such as the precocious dynamo Berg-- whose comet-like midwinter explosion into the upper echelon of the ISDA ranks may have been the most noteworthy story of a hugely successful ISDA season--and Michael Pirnak, who teamed with Berg to win the Heights Casino Doubles this past February and who in this Hamil Cup tourney both won the handicap pro-am doubles and reached the finals of the singles, by which time he was too exhausted to contest Waite's inexorable march to the title.

SOFTBALL COURT EXHAUSTION
Both the concomitant doubles event, and more importantly the gruelling challenge of hitting and running down the hardball on the 80-square-foot bigger softball court exacted a noticeable toll on the contestants; in fact, a significant theme of the whole weekend was the phenomenon of players who survived a five-game match succumbing in the following round. Several examples occurred right away in the cases of Anders Walstedt, who won an entertaining and all-court first-rounder with Richard Chin 15-12 in the fifth, then was throttled in the quarters by Pirnak, whose lightning-quick responses to attempted Walstedt winners left the latter dumbfounded and unable to react to his opponent's pace and sharpness.

In the last match of Friday evening's first-round schedule, Scott Butcher rallied from 5-10 in the fifth to a 15-13 win over Clive Leach, victoriously battled through highly exacting second and third games of his Berg quarter, but then faded in the final two games before Berg's determined and focused close-out.

WAITE'S RESERVES
Viktor, who in addition to this route-goer with Butcher had also been forced to cover inordinate amounts of court in his several doubles matches that same overloaded Saturday, wound up paying for this excess in his semi-final with Waite. Berg took the first, moved to a big mid-game lead in the second, and was ahead in the vital five-point tiebreaker, which he was a single point from capturing. But Waite, who had bowed out early in the pro-am and further conserved energy by routing Denver Club pro David Rosen(first-round winner over Joe Pentland and one of more than a half-dozen denizens of that club, which hosts the "fall" portion of the Hamil Cup, to make the trek to New York)in his quarter, had enough in reserve to win that game 18-17 and romp through the third over his deflated and tired opponent.

Berg had one shot left, in the fourth, but Waite nursed a small lead to victory and a spot in the final early Sunday afternoon.

PIRNAK'S HEROICS
As noted, it was the dynamic southpaw Pirnak, who played and won by far the most matches of anyone that weekend, who had emerged from the draw's bottom half. Pirnak had followed his convincing quarter-final over Walstedt with a 3-1 victory over Mudge, who was nursing a knee injury incurred a few weeks earlier that would require arthroscopic surgery in late May.

Damian had dropped one game in his quarter with Jeff Mulligan in a slugfest pitting two of the ISDA tour's hardest-hitting right-wallers. Had he been healthy and at the top of his game, his semi with Pirnak would have been as riveting as the opposite-half Berg-Waite battle, but his movement was hampered just enough for Pirnak to win in four and move on to the finals--after first combining with Denver's Mark Hayden to defeat Leach and another Denverite, George Caulkins(co-finalist in last spring's pro-am event as well with Jamie Dean) to win the the doubles tourney. Though the latter result was obviously most welcome to Pirnak, it may have doomed his attempt to win the final, which went by very quickly to a relatively fresh and dominant Waite.

Gary is the bridge between the WPSA stars of the past(he was ranked No. 1 for the last several years of that tour)and the ISDA heroes of the present. Reprieved by his narrow escape with Berg one day earlier, still riding the crest of a springtime doubles surge that saw him win the last half-dozen tournaments of the season, and highly motivated to make his exit from his University Club tenure a victorious "ride off into the sunset" parade, Waite jumped on top and stayed there with an exhilarating sprint to the tape that left no doubt that he is still very much at the top of both HIS game and THE game.

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