USA's Seeding Plummets
Aug 22, 2004, By Rob Dinerman; SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2004; local reporting by Chris Smith, Team Asst Coach

[Team Pool Draws/Results]   [Team Medal Draws]
Slated to occupy the No. 9 seeding slot prior to the start of this past week's just-completed Individual portion of the 13th World Junior Championships in Islamabad, Pakistan, the United States entry saw its seeding instead fall into the No. 13-18 range for the start tomorrow morning of the Team event. This downward adjustment, made as a consequence of the Individuals results, means that in order to realize their goal of a top-12 final team placement, the Americans, only one of whom (Chris Gordon) won more than one main-draw Individuals match, will have to earn at least one victory over a favored opponent during the initial "Pools" segment of the Teams competition.

Team Opening Ceremony photo © 2004 Chris Smith

All 23 entered teams are assigned to one of six Pools for round-robin play tomorrow and Tuesday. The top two finishers in each pool then enter a 12-team championship tournament, with the remaining 10 teams playing off in what amounts to a Plate event for 13th through 23rd place. The United States has landed in the same pool as No. 3 seed England (behind Pakistan and Egypt), whom the American squad of Gordon, Garnett Booth, Joe Raho and Seleyman Saleem realistically has very little chance of defeating, No. 10 Malaysia and No. 21-23 Iran.

World Jrs 04 Islamabad Venue. photo © 2004 Chris Smith

The USA vs. England match is set for 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, followed by USA vs. Iran at 5:00 in the afternoon. In the likely event that those outcomes go as planned, Gordon & Co. will then play their showdown match against Malaysia at 10:00 Tuesday morning, with the winner almost certain to join England as this pool's pair of representatives in the championship flight.

The Prime Minister of Pakistan was on hand to witness today's Individuals final (won by Ramy Ashour of Egypt over the host country's star Yassir Butt) and the opening ceremonies of the team tournament. These were quite spectacular, with the presentation of the team colors and the playing of the Pakistan national anthem preceding four different Pakistani cultural dances featuring drummers, pipers and dancers who combined their various skills to produce a memorable performance.

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