Princeton Secures Third Place
March, 2005, by Ron Beck
SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2005 all Rights Reserved;

[Nationals Main Page]
[also: Trinity Defeats Harvard 7-2 for National Championships]

When Yasser El Halaby took to the court in Cambridge Massachusetts, at about 5:30 in the evening, Sunday February 27th, he was in an unfamiliar position — he was playing for the team win over Yale. In most of his matches for Princeton over the past two years, the 2-time intercollegiate champion has been playing in a so-called "dead rubber", that is the team match had been decided one way or another when he came on court time and time again. A frustrating situation for a highly competitive guy. This time it was for all the marbles. And El Halaby responded with a vengeance.

Yasser El Halaby, who had fallen to Illingworth in five games in their meeting at Yale on January 29th, was back on court with one of his collegiate arch-rivals. Yasser and Julian have battled it out in New Haven and in Princeton, starting with their very first meeting in the fall of 2002. Some of those battles have been close. Not this time.

El Halaby, looking like a man with something to prove, came out on fire, fast, sharp and frenetic. With each and every rally, El Halaby was looking to take the ball early, force Illingworth into a scrambling mode, and show Illingworth an endless variety of offensive firepower. Though El Halaby himself felt his game not up to his own personal standards, he looked very sharp to everyone who was watching. And Julian Illingworth, one of the top three Americans in the game today, couldn't even get started. Whether it was El Halaby's signature volley nick or emphatic drives that repeatedly caught Illingworth flat footed, whatever El Halaby hit seemed to have Illingworth watching from his heels. Very soon it was over, and Princeton had a completely surprising 5-3 lead. "I struggled a slight bit at the outset to get into the groove, but I used my pace well," El Halaby said after the match, "and I was determined to do my best for the team." An exuberent El Halaby sprinted up the steep gallery to shake hands with an Egyptian he had spotted rooting for him in the stands.

To emphasize the victory, following El Halaby's decisive point, a resurgent Parker Sutton at #7, who had slumped through much of this season for Princeton, recovered after losing games 3 and 4 to Yale's Homing Chiu, shook off a blister and cut finger, and salvaged a five game win and that cemented the Princeton victory at 6 matches to 3.

This was the most remarkeable story of a remarkably National Team weekend. The Princeton Team had suffered through a horrendous fall, after losing fully six of its nine expected starting players to a variety of reasons - ranging from serious illness (Vincent Yu), serious injuries (Scott Callahan, Brendan Bascom, Michael Gilman), and a year off (Nate Beck and Dent Wilkens) the team suffered a crisis of confidence, reaching a low point in December when they lost for the first time in the program's history to Cornell and then fell in late January to Yale by an ignomious 8-1 score. For them to then climb so high this weekend, trouncing #4 Penn before finishing things off with this win over #3 Yale was a testament to both the commitment of the players to a team effort and the determination of veteran coaches Bob Callahan and Neil Pomphrey to bring this inexperienced squad together for a final best effort.

In addition to the fine wins by El Halaby and Sutton, iconoclastic Rob Siverd, playing his final Princeton match as a senior, scored an important win in the first round of play over an always strong Alex Tilton, and Tommy McKay, in the longest match of the afternoon, at number five, scored a tense and riveting five game win over Trevor Rees. But most surprisingly, Princeton freshman #2 Robert Hong scored a decisive victory over heavliy favored Yale senior Josh Schwartz.

Yale was handicapped by the depature from the team earlier in the week of captain Gavin Cumberbatch, but by any measure the Princeton win was an upset that was the measure of a determined team with strong character and commitment.

NEW ... Get the New Jonathon Power Instruction Video at the SquashTalk eStore!

Squashtalk.com All materials © 1999-2005. Communicate with us at info@squashtalk.com.
Published by Squashtalk LLC, 409 Massachusetts Ave, Suite 102, Acton, MA 01720 USA, Editor and Publisher Ron Beck,
Graphics editor Debra Tessier Send comments, ideas, contributions and feedback to the webmaster.
Copyright © 1999-2005 SquashTalk, all rights reserved, may not be reproduced in any form except for one-time personal use.