Walker and Crombie win in Semis
Finals Set for Sunday [quarters report]
Rob Dinerman © 2002 SquashTalk; all rights of reproduction reserved.
June 14, 2003      

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Damian Walker reaches another final with a win over New York's Richard Chin. Photo © Debra Tessier 2003

Top seed Damian Walker and co-No. 3 Jamie Crombie took markedly differing routes to what will be their second U. S. Team Selection event final of the 2002-2003 season tomorrow afternoon at 1 o'clock when they do battle for the U. S. Pro title in Los Angeles. Walker, whose three-match march to this stage has consumed only nine total games, dominated his semi-final with a pardonably spent Richard Chin, while Crombie trailed defending champion and recently crowned S. L. Green winner Preston Quick two games to love and 5-1 in the third before dramatically rallying to a five-game victory, his second over Quick in their four matches this season.

Walker has been in exceedingly fine form from the very outset of this tournament, and Chin was drained both physically and emotionally from his extraordinary quarter-final performance Friday afternoon, when he had pulled off an upset victory, and in three games no less, over Yale star and 2002 U. S.
Pro finalist Julian Illingworth. Throughout this eyebrow-raising win over his higher seeded and much younger opponent, Chin was at the top of his game, moving nimbly to the ball and controlling the action with his wily shot selection and accurate short game.

But, as often happens to players of Chin's mid-30's vintage in such a grueling sport, he was unable to replicate this level of excellence one day later. Both his mobility and his ball placement were way short of his prior level, and Walker is a deadly counter-puncher who thrives on the kind of open
balls that were consistently presenting themselves. As the match wore on, Chin's tin count rose as well, and Walker cruised into tomorrow's final, where he should be fresh and ready for a peak performance.

But he will not get the opportunity he doubtless craved to avenge his first-ever career loss to Quick, which came in their last encounter 14 weeks ago in the final of the S. L. Green championship. On that occasion, Quick won a match in which he fell behind two games to love and faced a daunting
four-point deficit (8-4 in the fifth) in a subsequent game----the exact opposite of what happened in his Crombie semi, in which he won the first two games (9-6 and 9-2), led 5-1 in the third but was unable to close out what would have been his third consecutive 3-0 win over Crombie.

Jamie Crombie reaches final with a 3-2 win over Preston Quick. Photo © Debra Tessier 2003

This same approach worked flawlessly for two and a half games, but this time Quick's normally high energy level began to flag and the doughty and exceptionally well conditioned Crombie seized this opening, relentlessly ground his way back into the match and benefited as well from a spate of Quick tins when his growing fatigue forced him to go for front-court winners earlier than he would have preferred. After dismayingly seeing that 5-1 third-game advantage dissolve into a 9-5 loss (though over the course of several hands) and letting the 9-1 fourth game go to conserve his strength for the decisive fifth, Quick battled all the way before eventually giving way to Crombie's momentum, which brought him to a 9-6 win and a slot in the final.

There he will have a chance to avenge the riveting five-game defeat he suffered at Walker's hands in their lone previous meeting this season at the Harvard Club of New York, where Walker came up with a magical fifth game after Crombie had won the fourth. A third-place play-off match at noon between weary warriors Quick and Chin will precede the final, after which the Team Trials will be held in Newport two weeks hence and the composition of the United States team for the mid-August Pan American Games in the Dominican Republic will be determined.

US PRO RESULTS:
SEMI-FINALS
Damian Walker (1) d Richard Chin, 3-0; Jamie Crombie (3-4) d Preston Quick (2), 3-2.

QUARTER-FINALS: [report]
Damian Walker(1) d Dylan Patterson, 3-0;
Richard Chin d. Julian Illingworth(3-4), 3-0;
Jamie Crombie (3-4) d Tim Wyant, 3-0;
Preston Quick(2) d Beau River, 3-1.

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