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Big Surprise: Lorentzen Topples Quibell
No Surprise: Waite & Mudge Win Again

by Rob Dinerman

New York. Published May 3, 2004© 2003 Squashtalk.com

First May Weekend Wrapup

Women's Team Selection Event In Greenwich Won by Latasha
The third U. S. Team Selection event to determine the invitees to the team trials in late-May was won by five-time and current U. S. National champion Latasha Khan, who was byed to the semi-finals of this seven-player event and consolidated her dominance of the women's game in this country by winning both her matches, while dropping only one game — to Meredeth Quick in the final.

The eventual four-player American squad, coached by Demer Holleran, will compete this summer in the Pan American Federation Cup and attempt to duplicate their exploits in the quadrennial Pan American Games in Santo Domingo last summer when for the first time the U. S, won the team gold and Khan won the individual gold as well.

Khan's achievements this past weekend were fully expected, but those of U.
S. under-19 champion Lily Lorentzen were both a major surprise to everyone involved and a highly pleasing result for the member/spectators at the host Greenwich Field Club, where Lorentzen learned and developed her already-formidable game. In her quarter-final match she defeated current Intercollegiate Individual champion Michelle Quibell, the Yale sophomore star who led her team to the Ivy League and Howe Cup championship this past winter and who soundly dethroned two-time defending champion Amina Helal in the Individuals final in March.

The five-game back-and-forth (2-9 9-0 0-9 9-6 9-1) thriller was the highlight of the weekend and by far the most exciting match of the tournament.

In other quarter-final action, Ivy Pochoda won over her fellow Harvard alumna Margaret Elias and Meredeth Quick did the same to Carlin Elias's former teammate Carlin Wing, both in straight games. Khan then won her semi-final 3-0 over Pochoda and her final 9-3 5-9 9-6 9-6 over Quick, who had ended Lorentzen's run in the balancing semi in three decisive games. Quick had previously been a runner-up both at the Harvard Club Invitational to Louisa Hall (who also had won the remaining team selection event a few weeks ago at Chestnut Hill Academy in suburban Philadelphia) and in the Nationals in Seattle seven weeks ago.

Khan's Sunday win over Quick was preceded by Pochoda's triumph over Lorentzen in the third-place play-off and Quibell's victory over Elias in the fifth/sixth match. The eventual determination of the squad will be determined via a formula that gives weight to season-end national ranking, performance in the Nationals and the results of the upcoming team trials later this month.

Creek Challenge Cup To Waite And Mudge
Gary Waite and Damien Mudge handily won their rubber match in straight games against an over-matched Willie Hosey and Clive Leach in Sunday afternoon's final round of the third annual Creek Challenge Cup in Locust Valley, Long Island. They thereby regained the title that had gone to Leach and Blair Horler last year, when Waite had to withdraw before the tournament began due to the impending birth of his third daughter and Mudge, playing with Preston Quick, sustained a significant concussion in the second game of the final and was unable to continue.

Waite and Mudge have now won 12 of the 14 ISDA events this 2003-2004 season, which still has one tournament left, a mid-week event in San Francisco that begins tomorrow and goes through Thursday. Their two losses, both in the finals, were to Josh McDonald and Viktor Berg in a fifth-set tiebreaker in Boston and to Leach and Hosey in the Big Apple Open two weeks ago, a setback they avenged in last week's Kellner Cup semi before then proceeding to out-play Berg and McDonald in the final.
Leach and Hosey, who debuted in the Big Apple Open, are in the bottom half of the San Francisco draw and hence could meet again in the final in three days.

In the semi-finals of this tournament, Waite and Mudge defeated Jeff Osborne and Scott Butcher and Hosey and Leach did the same to Jamie Bentley and Quick, both in three games. Waite and Mudge were on the attack throughout the final, as they had also been in the Kellner Cup final six days earlier, and there was nothing Hosey and Leach could do to withstand or repel their opponents'
determined march to the winner's circle.