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Womens event in Dead Heat
Rob Dinerman © 2002 SquashTalk; all rights of reproduction reserved.
June 30, 2003      

Wyant Rallies To Win His Pool, Women's Event In Dead Heat

Trailing two games to one against his year-long rival Richard Chin in a match he absolutely had to have in order to preserve a realistic hope of making the U. S. Men's team in the upcoming Pan American Games, former Harvard star Tim Wyant duplicated his comeback exploits six months ago (actually from 0-2 in that earlier battle) against the same opponent in the Yale Club Invitational final and surged through the final laps by scores of 9-5 and 9-2. Wyant, who lost a monumental 9-7 fifth-game marathon to Chin in the quarters of the S. L. Green this past March, thereby captured Pool A and gained the right to face Pool B winner Preston Quick tomorrow afternoon for first place overall in the Trials, which conclude with tomorrow's action.

More relevantly for Wyant, who entered these trials ranked only fifth among its eight contestants, he has assured himself at least the No. 2 placement in this event, which counts for 40% of each player's overall quotient, and has thus put himself in position, especially if he win his upcoming match with Quick, to potentially earn himself a spot on the three-man roster for Santo Domingo.

Even a fourth-place overall standing would qualify him for the four-player squad that will represent the U. S. later this autumn at the biennial World Team Championships in Austria.

His narrow defeat, as well as his five-game loss to Damian Walker on Saturday, has dropped Chin to third in his pool and left him with a "crossover" match tomorrow against Pool B No. 2 Julian Illingworth, whose 9-4, 7 and 4 tally defeat at the hands of his 2002 U. S. Pro final-round conqueror Quick belies the length and competitiveness of their 90-minute struggle. The other crossover match will pit Pool B second-place finisher Walker (a 3-0 winner today over Dylan Patterson) against Pool B No. 3 Jamie Crombie.

The latter has been fighting an upper-respiratory problem all weekend, and his failure to win any games in his prior losses to Illingworth and Quick may come back to haunt him when the team composition is determined immediately after the completion of tomorrow's slate. Crombie did salvage matters today in a straight-game dispatch of Beau River, who will play Patterson tomorrow for seventh and eight place in the trials, but if the games-won tiebreaker needs to be applied it will surely work to his disadvantage.

WOMEN'S EVENT GOES TO THE BRINK
The mathematics involved in calculating the women's trials are even tighter, since this is an "off" year for their World Team Championships and hence only the top three will get the right to compete in international play in 2003. And tight aptly describes as well the nature of the competition among the four women who remain in contention for the three available team positions as of Sunday evening, with just one day's set of matches to go.

In fact, "deadlocked" might be a better word, at least as regards what has happened so far this weekend.

The Khan sisters Latasha and Shebana, along with Meredeth Quick and Louisa Hall have all posted identical 4-1 records, with Latasha's one loss coming yesterday at the hands of her older sister (and 2003 Nationals final-round victim) Shebana, who lost 3-0 this evening to Quick, whom Hall defeated yesterday before succumbing in four well-played games to Latasha this evening!

Michelle Quibell, Hope Prockop and Carlin Wing have all been eliminated, as has Julia
Beaver, whose series of strong springtime performances had earned her the No. 2 seeding (behind only Latasha) but who was forced to withdraw for medical reasons earlier this month.

Tomorrow's showdown matches will feature Shebana against Hall, whom she rallied from two games to one down to defeat in the semi-finals of the Nationals this past March, and Latasha against Quick, whom she defeated in the 2002 Nationals final in New Haven. As was true in last year's trials, when Beaver eked out a 10-9 in the fifth win over Ivy Pochoda to earn the final team position, this year's competition is coming down to the final day's play, and the composition of both the men's and women's teams will be calculated and announced within minutes of the conclusion of tomorrow's schedule.

MATCH RECAP

Men: T Wyant d R Chin, 3-2 (3, 3-9, 4-9, 5, 2); D Walker d D Patterson, 3-0;
J Crombie d B River, 3-0; P Quick d J Illingworth, 3-0.

Women:
Morning: L Hall d C Wing, 3-0; M Quick d H Prockop, 3-0; L Khan d M Quibell, 3-0

Evening: L Khan d Hall, 3-1; M Quick d S. Khan, 3-0; H Prockop d M Quibell, 3-0

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