Booth's Heroics Fall Short for US
Aug 24, 2004, By Rob Dinerman; SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2004; local reporting by Chris Smith, Team Asst Coach

[Team Pool Draws/Results]   [Team Medal Draws]
After expending everything he had in forging heroically from a daunting multiple-match-ball against predicament and miraculously forcing a fifth game in the deciding match against Malaysia today, U. S. No. 2 Garnett Booth was unable to dent the scoreboard in that pivotal stanza against Mohd Azfar Azan. The latter's 4-9 9-3 9-2 8-10 9-0 triumph gave Malaysia a 2-1 victory over the U. S. that qualified the victors for the Nos. 1-12 Championship flight and consigned a valiant but disappointed American squad to the "Consolation" bracket in which the Nos. 13-23 spots will be determined as this week moves along.

Malaysia was seeded No. 10, two spots higher than the Americans, and Azan had defeated Booth in convincing straight-game fashion just a few days ago when the two met in the Individual tournament that preceded the Team competition. But it became clear as this exciting meet progressed that neither of these backdrop factors carried much weight, especially after the opening match between the two respective No. 1 players, Mohd Adnan and USSRA under-19 champion Chris Gordon, whose 9-7, 10-8 9-3 victory in under an hour was a fitting consolidation to the upset win Gordon had posted over England's heavily favored Chris Simpson yesterday morning.

That unexpected outcome, the first time an American No. 1 had ever defeated his British counterpart in World Junior Team play, had positioned the U. S. for what would have been a landmark upset over the third overall seed.

Simpson's teammates Tom Richards and James Wright had been able to prevail over Suleyman Saleem and Joe Raho respectively, thereby giving England a 2-1 team win, but the U. S., and Gordon in particular, still became the talk of the tournament by the stalwart bit of resistance they had given to such an established squash power as England, a 3-0 winner later in the day over Malaysia.

So for the second consecutive day, an early win by Gordon had put the U. S. in a position where the team needed only a split of the remaining two matches to garner an upset team victory that would guarantee the team a slot in the Championship draw and hence a top-12 finish overall. And for the second straight day, that elusive remaining win would not be registered, though both Raho (who lost to Elvin Keo 9-7, 4 and 1) and Booth played undoubtedly their best matches of the entire tournament. The latter, still recovering from an illness that grounded him a few days ago, had to dig very deep to escape with the tiebreaker fourth game, and the effort left him too drained to repulse Azan's salvos early in the fifth. Once back in the saddle, and determined not to let up once he had established a quick lead, the Malaysian stand-out sprinted away from his exhausted American opponent and closed the match out with a flourish.

The strong U. S. performances against England and Malaysia has earned the team a three/four seeding in the Plate event and a first-round bye, which will be followed by a match against the winner between Iran and Singapore.

Ireland, Switzerland, Scotland, Hong Kong and the Netherlands are also in the Plate draw, and the U. S. is likely to play against several of these teams as the week rolls onward.

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