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April News and Notes: Jr Men, World Doubles, MSRA Playoffs

by Rob Dinerman

New York. Published May 1, 2004© 2003 Squashtalk.com

U. S. Junior Team Trials - Participation at Pakistan Undecided
The U. S. Team Trials to determine the composition of the four-man squad that will represent America in the upcoming World Junior Championships in Islamabad, Pakistan took place at Westchester Squash In Mamaroneck last weekend. There were eight invitees, but one player was prevented from attending due to lacrosse commitments and three others declined due to their concern about playing in an event hosted in a region of the world that has become so dangerous in the current political and military climate.

In fact whether the U. S. team as a whole will even attend the event, scheduled for the last two weeks of August, is far from certain: coach Michael Callaway and the remaining members of the USSRA Junior Committee will announce a final decision in this regard on May 15th.

Under-19 U. S. champion Christopher Gordon, who played on the 2002 team that also included current Yale star Julian Illingworth, his Eli teammate Nick Chirls and Princeton stand-out Michael Gilman and placed a praiseworthy seventh in India, was awarded an automatic spot on the team. The remaining four contestants---Garnett Booth, who as a freshman played on Harvard's Ivy League champion varsity this past season, Ethan Oetter of Clayton, MO, and Chessin Gertler and Jon Barry, both of western Massachusetts----competed in a round-robin.

Booth, who contributed strongly to Harvard's end-of-season exploits after missing much of the season with lower-leg injuries, demonstrated the completeness of his recovery and the strength of his game in sweeping to victory in all three of his matches. His only close match was with Gertler, the eventual third-place finisher, who will be joining him at Harvard next year and who rallied from two games down to push Booth to a close 9-7 fifth game.

The four team members---Gordon, Booth, Oetter and Gertler----will train throughout the summer in Mamaroneck and Boston, and coach Callaway has also scheduled the players to enter two July tournaments on the European junior circuit (the Dutch Open and Pioneer Invitational in Germany) as part of their preparation for this important biennial event. There will be an Individual tournament during the first week, with the team event to then follow during the second week.

World Doubles In Philadelphia - Minus Open Division
Plagued by the $250-per-person entry fee it charged and time conflicts with some of the most popular events of the season (the Kellner Cup in New York and the Hunting Cup horse-riding competition in Maryland) in several crucial areas where doubles tournaments usually draw many entrants, the biennial World Doubles was held last weekend in several Philadelphia clubs. The Men's Open was cancelled in acknowledgement of the fact that, with all the top teams playing at the $ 80,000 Kellner Cup, a Worlds event would have produced a winning team well below the quality of past champions. Most of the flights had to be played as round-robins due to the paucity of entrants, and the Mixed 50 flight, consisting of only two teams, therefore was played as a one-match final.

Joyce Davenport, still as competitive as ever at age 62, teamed with Andy Nehrbas to win this latter event and with Julie Harris (another double winner given her triumph with Tom Harrity in the Mixed 40) in the Women's 40s.

Nehrbas and Doug Rice, who had won the '03 U. S. 45 draw in Denver, opposed '02 U.
S. 45 champs Peter Briggs and Peer Pedersen, who edged them out 18-16 in the fourth game in the World 45 tourney. Jamie Heldring a double runner-up, finished at that stage with John Nimick, with whom he had overcome a two-game semi-final deficit in the Men's 40 (one of the few events to have a straight draw rather than a round-robin) against Scott Brehman and Dominic Hughes before they then lost the final to the Canadian team of Al Hunt and Alan Grant. Heldring had played the Mixed 40 with Kat Van Blarcom, where they had lost in the final to newly crowned U. S. 40 Mixed winners Harrity and Harris.

The most exciting final of the weekend came in the Women's Open, normally dominated by nine-time U. S. Women's Doubles champions Alicia McConnell and Demer Holleran, who this time were pushed to a fifth-game overtime by Stephanie Richardson Hewitt, who with her husband James recently won the U S Mixed Open, and several-times Canadian Women's Doubles champion Karen Jerome.

Gordy Anderson and Michael Pierce won the 50's, Gul Khan and Bill Simpson took the 55's, Isabelle Benton and Sharon Schwarze won the women's over 45's, and Tony Swift and Maurice Heckscher triumphed over Len Bernheimer and Tom Poor in the 60's when the latter was hit in the eye by the ball and was unable to continue. The 65's, 70's and 75's went to Sam Howe and Don Mills, Charlie Stehle and Howie Rober and Michael McBean and Ed Helfeld respectively.

Princeton Club Takes MSRA League Title
Akihl Behl won the deciding match over Eddir Kapur this past Thursday evening in the MSRA A League final-round match between the Princeton Club and New York Sports Club E. 86th Street as the former squad clinched the '04 title two matches to one. Behl, who played on the Trinity championship teams of the early 2000's, edged out Kapur, one of the pros at the host NYSC club, 10-8 in the fourth game at the No. 1 position.

Behl's teammate Marshall Sebring supplied the other win at No. 3 over Kip Gould, while Doug Arrouet provided NYSC's only win at No. 2 when he persevered in five games over Alec Decker. It was a very low-key final, with no referees, few spectators in attendance and almost no MSRA administrative presence, summarizing this difficult low-energy period for the MSRA, which had to cancel its Nationals Warm-Up tournament in March and just announced the postponement of the Hyder event, which had been scheduled for early May and has been moved to June due to insufficient entries.