Power revived:
... and WISPA doings ...

GLOBAL GALLERY February 2002 Martin Bronstein's astigmatic view of the world of squash.

© 2002 All rights reserved.
photos © 2002, D Tessier, R Beck and V Winchell

NEW YORK PUTS THE POWER BACK ON
We writers love Jonathon Power because he has a surname that gives us a thousand bad puns: Power Failure, Power Surge, Power Cut, Super Power, Power of Love, Glower Power and so on. Apart from that, I think that my fellow Canadian is the best thing that has happened to squash since Jahangir’s 5-year winning streak.

He is witty, outrageous, inventive, entertaining and articulate in two languages, as all good Canadians should be, which means he always has something interesting to say after a match. Alarmingly, over the last year there were signs that the Power era was over: he had hardly won a tournament and had not beaten Peter Nicol since the YMG Classic in Toronto in 2000. As you all know by now Power took a thundering (or as Alan Thatcher would say ‘stunning’) 3/0 victory over Nicol in the final of the Tournament of Champions in New York on February 1st.

To say he surprised everybody is to commit the understatement of the year: Nicol had been playing superbly and the betting in the press room wasn’t who would win, but how quickly Nicol would win. In a way New York is Power’s town and the Grand Central crowd inspire him. After his disappointing showing in the US Open in Boston two weeks earlier, it was great to see him back again once more to keep the Power versus Nicol confrontation on the boil. It threatens to become a longer set of head-to-heads than the Jahangir versus Jansher of a decade ago. (By the way you can find both sets of head-to-heads on SquashTalk).

DAT’S MY GIRL

Tessier on court with Martin Heath

Debra Tessier (initials:DAT) is not only SquashTalk’s chief photographer and assistant web-master, she is also a real techno-freak. In Grand Central Station she made the blokes in the press room look like mumbling troglodytes. If there was a problem with a laptop, e-mail or the web, we all went crying to Debbie who sorted it out in no time flat.

She has also gotten into movies, and you can find examples of her work on Squashtalk with the interviews of Power, Sarah Fitz-Gerald and Chris Walker in New York and Joe Kneipp at the US Open. But she is foremost a damn good photographer: see my report of the TOC final between Power and Nicol. The second photo shows Nicol at full stretch at the front of the court while Power stands upright, languidly watching the tortures he is putting his opponent through. Could be Photo of the Year. Steve Line, watch out!

THROUGH A GLASS BRIGHTLY
There is understandable nervousness about going to Pakistan to cover the Pakistan Open in March: the political climate between India and Pakistan is still simmering and the WSF is keeping a very close eye on the situation. Now that Finland have pulled out of hosting the Men’s world Team Champs next year, Pakistan are considering putting in a bid for the event.

The Pakistan Squash Federation have just purchased a sparkling new all-glass court from Germany (that’s about $120,000 worth of court), so they must be taking it all very seriously. And while we are on courts, I bumped into my old friend David Carr, who, with his partner Wolfgang, are putting up squash courts all over the world. Last year they supplied courts in both Russia and China. He was interested in my piece in the last Global Gallery about Anderson Courts all over Massachusetts. Carr’s company is also building courts in the US and says there is enough work for both companies. At a guess, he said, there were over 100 new squash courts erected in the USA last year. In England there were about 15. Guess where the squash growth is going to be?

NOTORIOUS JOURNALIST SUFFERS PRICE CUT
Chris Walker surprised everybody, yet again, by beating higher ranked players to get to the semis of the Tournament of Champions. First he beat world number two David Palmer, who refused to shake hands after the last point and then ten minutes later when Walker again offered his hand. (If Joe Shaw, Palmer’s Aussie mentor, reads this he will be furious at Palmer’s behaviour). And then Walker beat Paul Price, another Australian, 17-16 in the fifth. I offered my congratulations to Price on a good match and he turned and snarled at me, telling me to shut up and never to talk to him again. Strangely another Australian player said a similar thing to one of the referees, accusing him of national prejudice. Sorry, no names. But I do wish these young Aussies would take a leaf out of the great Geoff Hunt’s book when it comes to sporting behaviour.

JAP LIT 101
Trouble with squash, there is no great literature and in an effort to give the sport a little class, I think we should start a tradition right here with Haiku For Squash, which would also encourage Japan to really get into the sport.

Haiku is an ancient 17-syllable Japanese verse format composed of three lines with five syllables in the first, seven in the second and five in the third. Here is my first attempt:

Don’t hide in the nick
Oh little black ball. Bounce you
Sunnavabitch, Bounce.

Please send your Haikus to me at SquashTalk. Best one gets a copy of David Pearson’s new coaching book.

HAIL CAROL OWENS; NEW KIWI…
By the time you read this, Carol Owens will officially be a citizen of New Zealand. So highly regarded is Carol that the New Zealand Minister of Sport presented her with her citizenship papers in person in a private ceremony in his office. And you can be sure that New Zealand squash will give her the attention she deserves, the sort of attention that Squash Australia failed to give her – except every two years when they needed her to play in the world team championships. …

BUT JUST WAIT A MINUTE, NATALIE POHRER, NEW AMERICAN
Meanwhile, the former Natalie Grainger, now Mrs. Ed Pohrer, has to wait a little longer for her US citizenship. In my last Gallery I wrote that Natalie would be eligible to play for the US this year because she has not played for South Africa for three years. Well, the rules are a little different in the US: before they can represent the US an athlete must be an American citizen and her marriage to an American only gives Natalie the right of residence. So she is on a green card for a couple of years before she can apply for citizenship. As she is still only 24, and I feel with her best years on the court yet to come, Natalie will still be a great asset to the US team in a couple of years time.

TWO MORE FOR WISPA
Despite the present economic climate, WISPA chief honcho Andrew Shelley has added two more tournaments to the women's schedule this year.

He has now confirmed the Dunlop Telcel Mexico Challenge for Mexico City, May 29 - June 2. It's a 16 player draw with a 16 player qualification. Later in the year the French Open is back on the calendar from September 12 -15. The women's tournament is confirmed and there will be a men's tournament if it doesn't clash with the US Open in Boston.

On my latest calendar, John Nimick's event is slated for September 11-15 in Boston and he won't be inclined to change his dates again after the tragedy of 9/1l last year. So it looks like the men won't have a French Open unless the dates for Antibes, France are put forward. Andrew tells me that he expects the WISPA tour to total $850,000 this year, a healthy increase over last year's $3/4 million WISPA tour.

SADLY, NO RED SEA FOR ME
I had a wonderful time last year in Cairo and Hurghada, on the Red Sea, for the combined WISPA and PSA tournaments. In fact I have been going to Egypt since the first Al Ahram tournament held in front of the Pyramids in 1996. I was so entranced I took my lady on a week long cruise down the Nile the following year, a memorable vacation. I have lost count of the number of trips to this magic country and the number of WSF championships, (senior and junior), WISPA and PSA tournaments I have reported on.

And I have written many times on the amount of effort and money that the Egyptians have poured into squash in the last six years….sometimes it appeared as though they kept the squash boat afloat. Sadly, however, I will not be reporting on the WISPA tournament in Hurghada in March because the sponsor, al Ahram (Egypt’s leading newspaper) has taken a vicious editorial line that can only be described as a rabid anti-American/ anti-Semitic/ anti-Israel stance. Indeed they even throw in the HIV epidemic just to make sure their readers recognise just how evil Americans/Jews/Israelis are.

Having had my childhood destroyed by Hitler, (yes, I really am that old) I have no intention of supporting a newspaper that embraces similar repugnant policies and propaganda. I shall miss the warmth of the Egyptian people and my annual game with Andrew Shelley on the open air court in the mid-day sun. (Mad dogs and Englishman and all that).

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Power revived: ... and WISPA doings ...

GLOBAL GALLERY February 2002 Martin Bronstein's astigmatic view of the world of squash.

© 2002 All rights reserved. photos © 2002, D Tessier, R Beck and V Winchell

Power revived:
... and WISPA doings ...

© 2002 All rights reserved.
photos © 2002, D Tessier, R Beck and V Winchell