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Quick, Walker Reach Quarters Of Pan American Games. Hall Loses
First-Round Matches, Quarters and Semis
By Rob Dinerman © 2003; all rights of reproduction reserved.
August 11, 2003 

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Reigning S. L. Green champion Preston Quick decisively subdued qualifier Sebastian Chacon of Ecuador yesterday to advance to the quarter-final round of the 2003 Pan American Games, which are being hosted this year in Santo Domingo. Quick's 9-0, 1 and 0 victory now leaves him positioned to take on Argentina's Jorge Gutierrez this morning in an unusually (and perhaps unwisely) time-compressed tournament in which the winner will then play a semi-final match this afternoon against either top seeded defending champion Graham Ryding of Canada or American Damian Walker, the only other U. S. men's entrant besides Quick, who eliminated Argentina's Robertino Pezzota in four well-played games in which Walker's storied steadiness proved the decisive factor. The finals of both the 20-player men's draw and the 12-player women's event will be held on Tuesday, with the team tourney to begin the following day.

The bottom-half men's semi-final will likely consist of second seed and recent Hyder Open champion Shahier Razik, the Egyptian-born Canadian who played a major role in Canada's victory in the 2002 Pan American Federation title in Quito last summer, and 2002 U. S. Intercollegiate Individual winner Bernardo Samper of Colombia and Trinity College, though Razik may face stiff opposition in his quarter this morning against Brazil's Rafael Alarcon, first-round winner over Mexico's Marcos Mendez, the "Mighty Mite" of yesteryear whose stand-out career in the WPSA culminated in his memorable defeat of Mark Talbott in the final round of the 1994 North American Open.

Mendez was in that group of wonderfully talented players-Jeff Stanley, Scott Dulmage and Hector Barragan would certainly qualify as well---who had appeared to have perhaps a decade of WPSA glory ahead of them, only to see it all wiped out when the WPSA hardball tour tragically and almost inexplicably collapsed in the early 1990's, a setback from which squash on this continent has yet to fully recover. Mendez did give the PSA softball pro tour a go for awhile, but with only mixed success, and his first-round exit is yet another example of both time's relentless passage and the changes squash, for better or worse, has undergone during the past decade.

WISPA tour veterans Latasha Khan, the four-time and current U. S. National champion, and 2002 Pan Am Fed Cup winner Samantha Teran of Mexico are the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds respectively in a women's field that also includes defending Pan American Games champion Melanie Jans of Canada, current Trinity College varsity member Isabel Restrepo of Colombia and Brazil's Karen Redfearn, a medalist in last year's Pan AM Fed Cup, who rallied to defeat American Louisa Hall in a back-and-forth first-rounder whose graph read 4-9 9-6 8-10 9-3 9-6. Redfearn will now face Canadian Marnie Baizley this morning, with the winner of this match to oppose Khan later today if the latter can get past her quarter-final against Karen Anderson of Jamaica.

The bottom-half semi will feature Teran against Jans, provided neither stumbles in what should be relatively routine matches this morning against Jamaican Marlene West and Brazilian Flavia Roberts respectively. This is the third time that squash is being included in this quadrennial competition, its predecessors having occurred in Argentina in 1995 and in Winnipeg in 1999. Logistical problems, ranging from electrical outages during the events to mismarked signs and overcrowded venues, have plagued the games since they opened on August 2nd, and two squash referees, Jose Gomez of Venezuela and Pablo Montoya of Ecuador, actually wound up in the wrong arena and wound up searching for hours for the proper location for a training session they were attempting to attend prior to the squash competition. It turns out that the squash matches were being held at two sites, both incongruously named "The Body Shop Gym," and the referees showed up at the wrong one.

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