Quarter finals
Aug 13, 2004, By Martin Bronstein at the
Crucible Theatre in Sheffield England.; SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2004

[draw]

A battle to the finish by James Willstrop and John White photo ©2004 Fritz Borchert

WILLSTROP RUNS WHITE TO STANDSTILL

John White started his quarter final match against James Willstrop full of revenge and steely determination, his racket carving the young Englishman down to size with alarming ease. In the first two games the more White cut and thrust the more Willstrop tried to stop him with fancy shotmaking and clever tactics - and came badly unstuck in the process. This was squash of the highest order played by two men who are giants in the game, physically and spiritually, both measuring 6 ½ feet and both possessing more shots than any other dozen squash players you care to name. It’s the sort of match where you not only dare not look away, sometimes you dare not breath or blink in case you miss something.

White overwhelmed Willstrop in the first game and continued into the second reaching game point at 14-10 and seemingly ready to put the young upstart away in three straight. But then he made the error of trying to end it too quickly and made three errors in a row, errors that could have been costly. Willstrop then hit a fine cross court drive to even the score at 14-all and was then cruelly penalized with a stroke giving White the game 15-14.

White shrugged off that lapse to lead 4-1 in the third when it suddenly all went pear-shaped as Willstrop started to dominate at the front of the court – he really can do amazing things under the most extreme pressure – and found a way to take control. As he said later, when White is leading he gets more and more confident, so the trick is take the control away, which is what Willstrop did by cutting out his errors and pushing White all over the court. When he led 10-6 the turnaround was complete and White’s effort dropped – he had obviously decided to keep his energies for the fourth game but then he managed to fight back from 7-13 to 10-13 before hitting the tin to put Willstrop at game point from which he took the game 15-10.

Both players were beginning to feel the effects of the exertions but it was Willstrop who maintained his level while White had to call on seem deeply buried reserves. It made the fourth game a tremendous spectacle, full of drama, huge rallies and impossible shots and retrieval. At 5-4 Willstrop hit a golden streak to move to 13-6 and just when it appeared that White had given up to save himself for the fifth game, he put together his own run 10-13. The next rally was simply breathtaking, Willstrop driving to the back, White, out of position diving to hit a backwall boast and then getting up to hare down to the front to pick up Willstrop’s delicate shot which he hit straight into the face of the retreating Willstrop. It was now 11-13 and White realized that he could win it if he fought every shot. He got to 12-13 when Willstrop was denied a point and then hit a backhand drop into the tin. He banged his leg with his racket in sheer anger…it could have been the error that cost him the match. Willstrop made no mistake in the next rally to win 15-12 to tie the match and feel that, judging by White’s state of fatigue, he had a chance to notch up another victory over the former world number one.

The fifth game was all about White’s pain and his unwillingness to give up. As the game progressed the look of duress on his face became permanent and he had to rest between points. He still put the maximum effort in getting to every ball but he was scraping along on sheer willpower. At 14-7 with Willstrop serving for the match, he was bent over his racket. Willstrop waited for him to stand upright. White, still bent over, croaked a barely audible: “Ready’” and Willstrop served, knowing that only a miracle could save White. There was no miracle and White was unable to pick up the final drop. The game was over and Willstrop was too tired for any triumphal gestures. The two players dragged themselves off the court to a prolonged standing ovation from the near-capacity audience.

BATTLE OF THE YORKIES

At the start of the tournament Simon Parke said despite being ranked 35 he was feeling good enough and fit enough to start challenging for a top ten place. That sort of bravado is commonplace but today he proved it was anything but as he brought off the first upset of the tournament by soundly beating Nick Matthew in straight games.

Matthew is one of the rising stars of British squash who has shot up to world number eight in the last 12 months, while the 32 year old Parke is one of England’s former stars and one of the most accomplished to come out of Britain for a long time.

Yorkshire natives have the reputation of being hard-headed and intractable. So when the two native sons faced each other they weren’t going to give an inch. Those opening rallies were head-butting rams hitting the ball tight to the back corner but Parke is the master of backhand tightness. And he also brings 16 years of world class shot to bear on every rally. Once the head-butting was over it was Parke rather than Matthew who went on the attack first. In fact as the match progressed it became apparent that Matthew was bereft of ideas as to how to get rid of Parke and his incredible court coverage. When Matthew did go short he was making errors and soon his confidence was looking a little ragged.

Matthews led the first game at 2-1 but never led again as Parke showed that he was equal or superior to his opponent all over the court. As Matthews errors mounted Parke raced ahead to lead 14-8, using all his guile and deception to win the rallies. Matthew staged a mini-comeback to get to 11-14, but Parke finished the game with another tight backhand which Matthew could not scrape from the wall and the 22 minute game was over.

Parke had been doing some concentrated training over the summer, so any thought that Matthew might have had that the first long game would have taken some of the legs away from his older opponent was pure optimism. Parke came back for the second game just as sprightly and just as skilled, led from the start and outplayed his opponent to win the second game 15-6. Suddenly things were not looking good for the Sheffield native and his band of followers, but he has come back from two down before so the third game was much anticipated. Except by Matthew who was still unable to read Parke’s shots and although he kept pace with him to 9-9, he hit four errors – almost as though he had lost interest. A lazy attempt at a winner from Parke’s serve at 9-12 was an indication that he was not prepared to put the work in and even before the final point we knew Parke had secured a fine win. Matthew’s backhand drop into the tin on the final point was symbolic his performance and Parke won the game15-10 in 15 minutes.

For those who thought Parke had had his day in the limelight, the tough Yorkshireman prove them wrong. It was a 58 minute performance of near faultless squash which, he said later, surprised even him. He was aiming to peak for the British Open later in the year and the result tonight was unexpected.
Sadly, because of his low ranking, he was unable to make even the qualifying rounds of the US Open in Boston in September. It will be remembered that Boston was the scene of his greatest triumph four years ago when he beat Peter Nicol and Jonathon Power on successive days to take the title.

RICKETTS IS BACK: NICOL IS STILL THERE

Anthony Ricketts showed that his knee was back in good health but the eight month layoff has taken the edge of his sharpness. He played an entertaining 75 minute match against world number one Peter Nicol - the man he beat in the quarter-finals of this tournament last year - and it finally came down to that missing 10% of sharpness. Mind you the infamous Ricketts anger is still one hundred percent present and his verbal broadsides at the referee finally earned him a conduct warning.

He was facing a Nicol in perfectly good health and with flowing locks more in keeping with the hairy ‘60s than the bald noughties. Nicol’s racket work was better than ever and even when caught with his racket round his ankles, a deft flick and the ball was in one of the four corners and nobody could read which one until it was there. He seems to have developed a soft volley which entails no movement of the racket whatsoever which had Ricketts scrambling to the front. Ricketts too, had his share of winners, but in the end the 100% sharpness wasn’t there.

Ricketts started too slowly and lost the first game 15-4, but by the second game he was played in and it became less a battle of stamina than one of wits with Ricketts trying to move Nicol around the court, using volley boasts to take Nicol to the front and then pouncing on the drop shot to drive it to the back. Despite some questionable decisions that had the smoke coming out of Ricketts’ nostrils, the Australian kept his composure to take the game 15-13 to put the spectators (as subdued as only Brit spectators can be) on the edge of their seats.

The two continued their mental fencing in the third game and it was level at 11-all but a couple of bad errors from Ricketts and Nicol was home. Not bad errors but the sort of errors that causes self doubt: he would read Nicol’s forehand drop come forward to counter drop and tin the ball. Or he simply couldn’t scrape the ball of the left wall – shots he would have no trouble with in normal times.

Nicol was also getting the breaks – a lucky bounce here, a freak nick there – which was also a thorn in the Ricketts’ confidence. In the fourth game Nicol seemed to flourish and was rarely caught short anywhere on the court. Ricketts seemed to lose his intensity from 6-6 while Nicol was still rampant and so it inevitably came to a conclusion with Nicol winnng 15-10 and a little relieved that he had survived one of the most dangerous men on the circuit.
Ricketts meanwhile need a few more tournaments under his belt and should be back to full sharpness come the British Open.

Results:

James Willstrop (ENG) bt John White (SCO) 8-15, 14-15, 15-10, 15-12,15-7 (90mins)
Simon Parke (ENG) bt Nick Matthew (ENG) 15-11, 15-6, 15-10 (58mins)
Peter Nicol (ENG) bt Anthony Ricketts (AUS) 15-4, 13-15, 15-12, 15-10 (75 mins)
[2] Lee Beachill (ENG) v [7] Adrian Grant (ENG) 15-5 15-8 15-9

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