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Quick tops Crombie
Rob Dinerman © 2002 SquashTalk; all rights of reproduction reserved.
June 29, 2003      

Damian Walker and Jamie Crombie, the top seeds in their respective four-man pools, both suffered decisive upset defeats in last night's opening round of the U. S. Team Trials in Newport. In contrast to their
respective much-younger conquerors Tim Wyant and Julian Illingworth, each of whom showed no physical or psychological letdown in earning victories this afternoon, Walker again struggled before finally pulling away midway through his fifth game with Richard Chin, while Crombie suffered his second consecutive straight-game defeat, though this setback was at the hands of current S. L. Green winner Preston Quick, who avenged his month-old U. S. Pro semi-final loss to
Crombie and has now won three of the last four matches in their rivalry.

Wyant followed his first-ever career win over Walker by allowing only three total points, all in the second game, in his match with Dylan Patterson in a clash between Harvard captains (Wyant '00, Patterson '03). A victory over Chin tomorrow will clinch this pool for the former Crimson star, though this pair of 2001 U. S. teammates have split their results this season, which included a memorable Yale Club Invitational final in early January that went nearly two hours before Wyant eventually rallied to prevail in five.

This afternoon's five-game loss against Walker may have been more painful for Chin than that Yale Club marathon, and more costly: in pushing Walker to a fifth game for the first time since their 2001 S. L. Green final and coming back from an early 0-3 deficit to knot the fifth at 3-3, Chin expended an enormous amount of energy, which ran out in Walker's six-point (in one hand) closing charge to 9-3 today and may not have been replenished by the time he and Wyant do battle early Sunday afternoon.

Every match is crucial at this stage for both of these contestants (as well as for Illingworth) in their attempt to displace someone in the top three (Walker, Crombie and Quick) and claim the trio of available team positions. A hard-fought near-miss, while praiseworthy, can have devastating consequences as a compressed team trial like this moves along.

In that regard, tomorrow's match between Quick and Illingworth to decide the Pool B winner will be far more critical for Illingworth (none of whose five games today with River, oddly, had a score closer than 9-4) than it will for Quick, who as noted won the S. L. Green, placed third in the end-of-season ranking and now can finish no worse than fourth overall in this team trial.

Quick therefore appears to have one of the positions sewn up, as should Walker if
he can defeat Patterson tomorrow. But Crombie still needs to garner some wins
this weekend, beginning with River tomorrow, to avoid imperiling the standing
everyone thought he had locked up when he won the U. S. Pro final over Walker
in Los Angeles in early May.

IMPORTANT WOMEN'S MATCHES TONIGHT
The women were forced into a two-sessions-per-day regimen by Julia Beaver's medical withdrawal and the full seven-player round-robin format that ensued.

In the most significant match of today's morning session, Harvard No. 1 Louisa Hall ousted Yale No. 1 Michelle Quibell in three games while the Khan sisters Latasha and Shabana won 3-0 over Carlin Wing and Hope Prockop. All three vanquished women are now winless this weekend, and none at this stage have any chance of making the team. Hall, Meredeth Quick (who had a bye this morning after going undefeated yesterday) and Shabana Khan are now vying for the two slots that remain (Latasha having clinched one of the three positions), and their matches against each other, beginning with the Hall-Quick encounter this evening, will largely determine the eventual team composition.

MATCH RECAP
Men: D Walker d R Chin, 3-2; P Quick d J Crombie, 3-0; T Wyant d D Patterson,
3-0; J Illingworth d B River, 3-2.
Women: (Morning Session) L Khan d C Wing, 3-0; L Hall d M Quibell, 3-0; S
Khan d H Prockop, 3-0.

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