ATKINSON SURGES INTO FINAL

[The Draw]  

In tonight's first semifinal of the Bear Stearns Tournament Of Champions, top seed and defending champion Vanessa Atkinson triumphed over her 2005 co-finalist Linda Elriani 9-3 10-8 9-10 9-7 in a thoroughly exhilarating hour-long display of skill, athleticism and competitive ardor that left both exhausted women embracing at mid-court at the finish. Atkinson will face the winner of the bottom-half semifinal later this evening between 2003 Tournament Of Champions runner-up (to the now-retired Carol Owens) Natalie Grainger and Madeline Perry.

Atkinson has improved virtually every aspect of her game in recent years in advancing to her current No. 2 WISPA world ranking. She held the No. 1 position a few months ago, and seems likely to regain that spot from Nicol David, its current occupant, when the next rankings are released later this month.

Atkinson's cat-quick court coverage and anticipation were on full view in the third and final game of her quarterfinal victory over Tania Bailey, and this trait, among others, enabled her to charge decisively through the opening game of tonight's semi and to a commanding 3-0 lead in the second. Elriani, at age 34 the oldest player in the world top-five and coming off a strenuous four-game win Wednesday afternoon over Omneya Abdel Kawy, seemed physically overmatched and unable to deal with a confident Atkinson's pace and precision.

But slowly the gritty British-born veteran began to work her way into the match as the second game progressed, utilizing her frequently nick-finding backhand cross-court drop shot to disrupt Atkinson's rhythm and drawing a few unforced errors as well. An accumulation of these small advantages eventually gave Elriani an 8-6 lead, only to have it erased by a late Atkinson charge to a through the tiebreaker, which the strawberry-blond Dutch woman finished off by swooping to the front left and feathering an unreachable roll-corner winner.

Elriani had played so hard and so well in that second game, only to come up short at the deflating end of a game she seemed to have needed to win, that she appeared to have no chance of extending the match past what began as an anticlimactic third game. This appeared to especially be the case when from 5-all Atkinson played brilliantly in garnering all three of the ensuing points to go up 8-5, match-ball. That Elriani somehow was able, through tantalizing lobs, tin-defying front-court thrusts and desperation retrieves of apparent Atkinson winners, to even the game at 8-all, save yet another match-ball in the tiebreaker and win her final two points of the stanza on Atkinson tins (one on a backhand drop shot and the other immediately afterwards when she smacked a forehand serve-return into the bottom of the tin) is a testament to her fighting spirit.

Elrian's comeback continued to fourth-game leads of 4-0 and 7-3, but she was being worked mercilessly by the 2004 World Champion, who seemed to realize that her constant attacks were exacting a terrible price on her four-years-older opponent, regardless of the numbers on the scoreboard. On one memorable rally, Atkinson kept Elriani running the front-right to back-left diagonal before finally finishing the point off on her FOURTH forehand straight-drop shot of the exchange. It took a nearly half-dozen hands-out, but eventually Atkinson evened the score at 7-all. Her final two consecutive subsequent tallies came after long, all-court points both of which ended when Elriani, forced by Atkinson's amazing retrieving and her own understandable fatigue to cut backhand drop shots too fine, caught the top of the tin.

This match enormously elevated what had heretofore been a fairly perfunctory women's TOC event and consigned to ancient memory a painful round of 16 Tuesday afternoon/evening that saw only one match go past the three-game minimum and was characterized by swift and meek 30-minute blow-outs. The quarterfinal action yesterday was noticeable better, but the Atkinson-Elriani clash this evening took this event to a whole different level and represented the WISPA squash at its absolute riveting best.

TOC WISPA Semi Final Results:
[1] Vanessa Atkinson (Ned) d [3] Linda Elriani (Eng), 9-3 10-8 9-10 9-7.