Adrian Grant and Kareem Darwish put on a show, Willstrop ousts Eyles

10.9.00 Birmingham, SquashTalk News by M Bronstein

[also: complete day one men's qualifying, women's qualifying]

WILLSTROP COMES OF AGE
Take one look at the qualifying line-up for the British Open 2000 and you see a list of names that any promoter would give his birthright for. These qualifying rounds just keep on getting tougher. Action started with young James Willstrop, hero of England's junior exploits in Milan. He is now longer a callow youth of 16, having celebrated his 17th birthday in the last month. But this is a player with immense maturity and a squash brain that comes from good genes and a father who is the doyen of British squash coaches.

He faced Rodney Eyles, a player of immense talent, a former world champion and almost twice Willstrop's age. Willstrop beat Eyles 3/0 in 37 minutes!! (And I never use exclamation marks). He admitted to me that when he normally faces a player of Eyles' reputation, he expects them to win and looks on the match as a learning experience. But, like I said, he's matured and decided to throw his inferior complex to the wind and go for it.

Eyles is not the player he was and is slower to the front; Willstrop exploited this with his meticulous drops on both sides of the court and Eyles simply didn't have the speed or the energy to counter this barrage. Not many players can, regardless of age. Willstrop will now face Davide Bianchetti, the Italian number one for a place in the first round proper on Wednesday. My money is on the tall skinny limey.

NEVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED
Adrian Grant is another England player, another hero of England's junior triumphs in the world team champs in 1996 and 1998. A leftie of immense talent, he is also blessed with a very fine temperament, the result of his Jamaican father giving him two kinds of hell as a young kid when he lost his temper on the court. Adrian hasn't done it since.

When the marker called an obvious tinned ball good, Grant's reaction was: "I beg your pardon?", which was sufficient to have the decision corrected. Classy stuff.

Good as he is, I have to say I did not reckon his chances against Karim Darwish, the magical Egyptian who was head and shoulders above the rest at the recent world junior champs. And when Darwish took the first two games, I thought it was all over and went to have a look at Ong Beng Hee on another court. When I came back the score was 2/2. Needless to say I watched the fifth game.

FAST, FURIOUS AND ACCURATE
This was squash worthy of the main draw; despite having played for seventy minutes, they didn't slacken the pace. And they did not stop going for winners either. Darwish was still earning points on his backhand short boast, but Grant was keeping him at full stretch. It was great stuff to watch as they traded point for point until 7-all and then Grant pulled ahead to have a cushion of three points; Karwish pulled up to 9-10 but once again Grant inexorably pulled ahead and maintained the pressure to win 15-11. It is still hard to concieve that players of this age can play such sophisticated squash and maintain it for 84 minutes.

[continued next column ------> ]

(photo of James Willstrop, © Stephen Line 1999)

OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE
Grant went on the court a little in awe of Karish's reputation, he admitted, and played in his 'comfort zone'. He was surprised by Darwish's pace and when he was two games down he said he realised he had to go for it. "I raised the pace, took the ball early and started volleying."

it paid off and now Grant has to play Ong Beng Hee for a place in the first round proper. Malaysia's number one player did not look good in his first game against England's Ian Higgins. Ong, who, as a junior, used to slow everything down to the pace of a slo-mo replay now just keeps cracking the ball - a variation of pace would help his game. But in that first game he was hitting balls down the middle of the court which must have given Higgins at least seven penalty strokes. Ong tightened up and drew within three points of Higgins but lost it 15-12.

HABIT-FORMING
The last time I saw Ong play, it was against Higgins and he beat him then and you knew, somehow, he would win again and so it was . Higgins took the second hard-fought game 17-15 and went on to win the next two. He will have to be much better if he is to get past Grant.

PAKISTAN ECLIPSED
There were four players from Pakistan in the qualifying and they were all knocked out, including the very talented junior Mansoor Zaman who went out, as expected to Juha Raumolin of Finland. Another Finn to get through was Olli Tuominen, who beat Simon Parke in the European club championships, so there could be a potential giant killer. Another could be Stewart Boswell who got to the semis of the Hong Kong Open.. He beat Jean -Michel Arcucci of France and will have to beat South African Rodney Durbach to get through to the main draw, and on present form Boswell is a good bet to do just that.

• Golestan Radwan: Egypt
• Tomas Barva, Czech Republic
• David Blick, Alaska USA
• Kim Tunney: Midwest USA
• Andre Maur: Atlanta USA
• Paul Ansdell: Massachusetts USA
  

  to become a regional reporter send mail to editor@squashtalk.com