[Men's Tuesday Report]

Atkinson led the top seeds into round of 16 action. photo © 2006 Stocktonphoto Inc.

ECONOMY ON COURT

[The Draw]
The round of 16 of the women's Tournament Of Champions event was played on the four-glass-wall tour court at Grand Central Station, unlike last year, when that round was hosted by the Yale Club of New York.
This change hardly made a difference, as the six afternoon matches today consumed less than three total hours of match time, with every match going the three-game minimum and the losing player exceeding five points only three times in those 18 games.

It almost seemed as though the seeded players (five of whom prevailed, with the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds, defending champion Vanessa Atkinson and Vicky Botwright respectively, slated to go on this evening) were anxious to get their opening rounds out of the way as quickly as possible in order to conserve their energy for the quarters and onward, while their opponents cooperatively served as their foil. This was a marked contrast from last year, when there were a number of tense and occasionally combative five-game marathons and everyone was clearly playing their hearts out rather than meekly submit to defeat.

Tania Bailey over Annelize Naude, 2005 runner-up Linda Elriani over qualifier Pamela Nimmo, Madeleine Perry over qualifier Rebecca Botwright, and Omneya Abdel Kawy over Alison Waters all came and went in swift no-nonsense fashion.
Fourth seed and 2003 finalist Natalie Grainger, who led Carol Owens two games to love in that final before being passed by the now-retired two-time World Champion down the stretch, was equally abrupt with qualifier Fiona Geaves, who went down 9-0, 2 and 4.

Grainger's opponent Wednesday night in her third-quadrant quarterfinal will be Laura Lengthorne of England, who became the afternoon's only victorious non-seed when she rebounded from a lackluster 4-0 first-game deficit to demolish her British compatriot, eighth seed Jenny Duncalf, with a trio of 9-2 scores tallies from that juncture. Lengthorne hadn't defeated the much higher-ranked Duncalf in the nearly four years since the 2002 British under-19 final, and Duncalf with her fast start to the opening frame seemed well on her way to a quarterfinal match-up with Grainger, whom Duncalf had defeated in five games both in last year's TOC event and in the 2003 Weymuller tourney in Brooklyn.

But Duncalf hit the first of her many subsequent tins at 4-0 and her game mercilessly plummeted in a spiral that proved too fierce to be halted or even delayed. She is one of the most talented athletes on the WISPA tour, both with her racquet and her athleticism, and her performances are frequently a joy to behold. But this afternoon, as the points kept relentlessly and swiftly piling up against her, she seemed to become more angry at herself than interested in turning matters around, to the point where it almost looked be midway through the second game like what she most wanted was to get the match over with and thereby be allowed to leave the court.

To Lengthorne's credit, she realized what was happening and did everything she could to avoid giving Duncalf an opportunity to slake her negative momentum. Lengthorne stayed away from the tin, playing conservatively and maintaining the depth that was forcing racquet errors from her opponent. All of a sudden, and barely 20 minutes after Duncalf led 4-0 in the first game, Lengthorne was serving at 8-2 in the third, and though Duncalf survived four match-balls, she was too far behind by that stage to repulse the fifth.

So it will be Lengthorne against Grainger (and Elriani vs. Kawy, with the remaining two quarters pending tonight's Atkinson-Lloyd-Walter and Botwright-Isabelle Stoehr results), whom she defeated the last time they met in the round of 16 of last year's British Open.

The WISPA players waiting for the first round to begin. photo © 2006 Debra Tessier. more photos