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			THE BARADA MYSTERY GLOBAL GALLERY April 2001 Martin Bronstein's astigmatic view of the world of squash. © 2001 All rights reserved. photos © 2001, D Tessier, R Beck and V Winchell
			April 10, 2001, CAIRO. © 2001 SquashTalk THE BARADA MYSTERY By Martin Bronstein and Golestan Radwan The big question in squash right now is What has happened to Ahmed Barada? He has pulled out of the last three tournaments and has split with Hashem El Attar, his charming and articulate (in three languages) coach. This is written on the eve of a major tournament in Hurghada in Egypt, the PSA Masters, and, once more, Barada will be absent. This would have been unthinkable a year ago; Barada is one of the great personalities of Egypt, inside and outside sport. No squash tournament of any note could have taken place without his charismatic presence. He was number three in the world and looking forward to taking over from the two players above him, Peter Nicol and Jonathon Power, who were both older than him. But then came…. THE STAB IN THE BACK It was just over a year ago that Barada was mysteriously stabbed in the back by an unknown assailant. It happened at night outside his house and the motive has never been established. He was rushed off to Germany for specialist attention where it was established the two knife wounds were not serious. Concern subsided when 10 weeks later he was in London playing the Super Series Finals and giving an excellent performance; it was, we were all assured, a matter of months before Barada was back in top shape and once more challenging Nicol and Power. After all, just seven months previously, he had beaten them both, one after the other, to win the Heliopolis title in Cairo. BACK AT THE TOP By August 2000 Barada was back to speed and pushed Nicol to four games in the final of the Al Ahram International. But then it all started to go wrong and nobody seems to know why. In the second round of the Hong Kong Open, he retired in the middle of the third game against Steward Boswell. A month later he lost to David Evans in the second round of The Eye Group British Open. A month after that, in November 2000, he lost to David Palmer in the Florida Open quarter-finals, retiring in the middle of the third game. In December he was in Toronto, playing in the first YMG Capital Classic where he beat Del Harris in four, whipped Paul Price, the surprise British Open finalist, in three straight before losing to Peter Nicol in the semis in four. Since then, nothing. Nada. Rien. Pure Zero. THE MISSING PERSON Amidst a Niagara of rumors, Barada has failed to play in one tournament in the year 2001. His absence, said the rumors were due to injuries in his leg, his lower back, his groin….in fact a complete tour of the Barada body parts. Nothing confirmed. He was suffering from depression, said another rumor. He had split from his future wife. Unliklely - they had only become engaged in January. The big Black Hole in Barada's life was caused by the disappearance of his long time coach, friend and mentor, Hashem el Attar. That is over dramatic. Hashem told me that he simply could no longer, nor did he want to, spend so much time away from his wife and two very small children (13 months and 3 years in age) who live in Turin. I contacted him by phone and he happily tried to solve the mystery. "Barada insisted on having me as a coach. I was with him for six years out of the last twelve. I started coaching him when he was a ten year old kid and I was one of the better players in Egypt. For the last four years I was on a 12 month contract and I tried to do two months at a time, but it never worked out that way. It couldn't go on forever, it was too hard for me and my wife. "I don't know what has happened over the last few months; I'm not sure that he wasn't stressed because he knew I was not going to carry on after Hong Kong. It was quite difficult for him knowing that things were not going to be the same. You must realise I had worked hard with him on and off court. I did the running with him and I pushed him so he must have been affected by not having me near him. "I still don't know why he stopped training. I got an e-mail from one of my former assistants in January saying Ahmed had stopped. I tried to phone him because I wanted to know why but he had his phone switched off. He doesn't want the hassle of the television and newspapers calling him wanting to know what was happening. "We parted on good terms. He understood perfectly well that I couldn't go on forever. The last time I spoke to him was when he called me in December to invite me to his engagement party in January, but I absolutely could not make it." PRESSURE ON PRESSURE I told Hesham that I found it strange that Barada would not call him after such a close relationship. "Once he has had two bad results in a row he will have all the papers calling him asking 'what's happening to you Ahmed?' and it puts more pressure on him, so he has another bad result and it gets worse and worse, so he switches off the phone," was Hashem's explanation. Did Ahmed recover mentally from the stabbing incident, I wondered. "I thought he played very well just twelve weeks later in the Super Series. I though he would only be back to normal when he trained sand started believing in himself again. But from Hong Kong he hasn't really played well at all - he had some stomach problems there and he wasn't feeling well before the match," Hashem responded. THE POINT OF NO RETURN? One top player, who shall remain nameless, thinks we've seen the end of Barada. "He's out of the top eight, protected seeding, so he could well meet one of us in the first round and he'll lose because he's rusty. And he won't like that. And he's going to marry a very rich woman, which will be another get out. I don't think we'll see him back again." THE NEW VALENTINO? Barada's smouldering good looks makes him a natural for the big screen and there are dozens of rumors floating around about offers for him to turn to acting. Another rumor has it that Barada is now in the US either to recover from injury or just for a holiday. Or talking to Speilberg about a remake of The Sheik? SUMMER AT LAST After one of the most miserable British winters since my return from Canada 16 years ago (rain, rail crashes, hoof-and-mouth disease, The Weakest Link) I'm off to Egypt for two days in Cairo and five days in Hurghada on the Red Sea to keep you up-to-date on the WISPA Grand Prix Finals (eight top women) and the PSA Masters. Sadly Cassie Campion won't be there as she has dropped out of the top eight, but everybody else will be. Will Sarah Fitz-Gerald show that she really is the best? Will Leilani Joyce manage to up her performance? Can Carol Owens repeat her world open triumph? Will the newly-married Linda Charman-Smith produce her best form? And will Nathalie Grainger get rid of her nerves and show the world just how good she can be? After a long lay-off, they will all be raring to go. Same thing with the men, another long layoff because of postponements…indeed only two tournaments of note this year so far, so everybody will be in Cairo for the early rounds. Two notable exceptions are Barada (but you already know about that) and Peter Marshall who is still suffering from an injury. With Power back on the number one spot, Nicol will be aching to get on court with him. David Evans will want to prove his British Open win was no fluke and Simon Parke must want to get his 3/4 spot back again. They won't be making the draw until April 12 and it will be right here on Squashtalk. THE NEW COMEBACK KID Well, hardly a kid. Damian Walker is 32 and just when we thought he'd disappeared into the American squash infrastructure, he jumps out as the new American champion. At 32! Furthermore, the man he beat in the final was another ancien (polite French word for old bloke) Richard Chin, who is also 32. Despite their combined ages being pensionable, they played for 1 hour and 45 minutes in the final - the longest match of the tournament. Marty Clarke was too busy playing doctors and nurses to enter so Walker cleaned up after about 10 years off the circuit. MOST UN-ENGLISH SORT OF PLAYER I first came across Damian in the mid-eighties, one of a mass of promising juniors. What first struck me was that he not of the run-of-the-mill English tradition of endlessly hitting the ball up and down the side walls through fear of making a mistake if he went for a drop. He enjoyed making his racket do the work, an attractive player to watch. He did well, representing England ten times at junior level. Then he discovered flying and the United States of America, probably at the same time. Soon he was taking flying lessons and the next thing he'd flown Mother England for Uncle Sam. That was ten years ago; since then he's plied his trade as a squash pro In Santa Barbara, Sacramento, (where he met his wife seven years ago), Atlanta, Maryland Naval Academy and now he's landed in Greenwich at the classy Field Club. He spent two years at the Naval Academy and left with mixed feelings. "I left because teaching is what you do at the end of your career. But it was very satisfying because those kids in the Academy were hungry. They really worked hard, for themselves and for the team. For a coach it is the best situation," he explained with genuine enthusiasm. Perhaps there was a hunger to get back to playing again, which a move to Greenwich allowed him to satisfy. "I haven't really played for four years because I just didn't have time to play. In the US championships I was winging it on what I learned when I was under 16," he say with an honesty that won't make him too popular with the other players in the US Championships. "I was scared witless by Julian Illingworth in the first round. He's very good and although I beat him in three, at one point I thought I was going to get beaten by a junior. I was very impressed with him and William Broadbent who is a member of the Greenwich club. He's got a lot of promise," Walker said. Now Walker is nearer the seat of USSRA power he feels he can start to achieve his main coaching goal - the US team. "I want to get involved in a national squad and I've put my name in the ring. I watch the American juniors and while they are fine technically, when it comes to strategy, they need a lot of advice. I think I can give them that advice," Walker claimed. As the new American Champion ( I bet the Keepers of Greenwich are very pleased with that) Damian will be more than welcome and the kids will want to see this experienced player in action. My advice to them is watch his racquet work and his feet. To Damian I say, Welcome back.

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