SQUASHTALK TODAY
Qatar PSA & WISPA
Hyder Trophy
Super Series
Atlanta PSA
SLC WISPA
Kellner Doubles


RECENT EVENTS
Irish Open
Texas Open
Bright Lights
US Doubles

CURRENT CONTENT
Hall of Fame
News Index
Club Links
Gear Links
E-boast Newsletter
    (sign up now free)

COLLEGE USA
Schedules
Team previews

DEPARTMENTS
Latest news
Tournament Calendar
Bronstein Global Gallery
Player of the month
Videos
History
Pakistan Squash
School Squash
Camp Index
Features Index
Player Profiles
Worldwide Clubs
Worldwide Links
Rankings
Jobs

More Good stuff:
About Squash
   Just starting
Books
Juniors Squash
Women's Squash
Regional Reports

Louisa Hall ousts Shabana
QUICK EARNS STATISTICAL EDGE OVER SHABANA KHAN
Rob Dinerman © 2002 SquashTalk; all rights of reproduction reserved.
June 30, 2003      

The final day of the 2003 U. S. Women's Team Trials featured an all-or-nothing match between perennial team member and 2001 U. S. National champion Shebana Khan and Harvard co-captain Louisa Hall in a classic battle of experience vs. youth.

Both celebrated birthdays in the past week, Hall's 21st and Khan's 35th, and each was finishing off a grueling schedule that had required five matches (of which each had won four) in the three prior days.

This was also the rubber match between these two highly-regarded competitors, one a representative of the most renowned squash-playing clan in the world, the other the jewel of the vaunted Merion Cricket Club junior program that has produced so many national champions (including eight junior titles for Hall herself) over the years. Hall had prevailed in mid-January in the quarters of the Harvard Club of New York Invitational, which she proceeded to win via a fifth-set tiebreaker win over Khan's younger sister Latasha, but a little less than two months later Shebana got her revenge with a five-game comeback victory in the semis of the U. S. Nationals.

Both knew they were in a win-and-in situation regarding their joint quest for one of the three available positions on the American squash team that will compete in the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo this August, and they played each other to a standstill throughout the first pair of evenly divided games.

But at this stage Hall's superior and powerful ground attack inexorably asserted itself and a gallant but increasingly besieged Shebana buckled under the cumulative pressure. Hall took the third game 9-2 and surged through the fourth 9-0 in just two hands. Mixing her pace and depth with an deluge of accurate point-winning forehand straight drop shots once she had established front-court position, Hall ran off the final six points to claim a momentous victory.

Frustrated by a midseason mini-slump that befell her during the intercollegiate schedule, as well as by an upper-respiratory infection that sidelined her from the Intercollegiate Individuals and a few disappointing five-game losses in the American team selection events this past spring, Hall responded like the champion she is fast becoming by playing beautifully all weekend and fully earning her position on the U. S. squad.

Joining her on this prestigious roster will be the reigning national champion Latasha Khan, who defeated Meredeth Quick 3-0 today to finish first overall in the trials, and Quick, who ended up in a statistical tie with Shebana but was awarded the final spot by virtue of her head-to-head win over Shebana over the weekend.

A disappointing outcome for Shebana, who like Richard Chin on the men's side failed to make a national team for the first time in more than a decade, and whose pre-trials No. 4 placement compared with a No. 2 position awarded Quick cost her dearly in the calculation of the overall season-nationals-trials quotient that determined the final team composition. With the pre-trials ranking counting for 40%, the performance in the nationals worth 20% and the trials themselves valued at 40%, Shebana and Quick had a quotient of 3.2, behind Latasha's 1.0 and Hall's 2.6 (the lower the score, the better in this format) and well ahead of fifth-place finisher Hope Prockop's tally of 5.6.

The American women placed second, behind only Canada, in the Pan Am Federation Cup in Ecuador last summer, and the 2003 squad, which will boast a praiseworthy combination of talent, international experience and athleticism, figure to be strong contenders when the quadrennial Pan American Games commence a month and a half from now.

Squashtalk.com All materials © 1999-2003. Communicate with us at info@squashtalk.com.
Published by Squashtalk LLC, 95 Martha's Point Rd. Concord MA 01742 USA, Editor and Publisher Ron Beck,
Graphics editor Debra Tessier Send comments, ideas, contributions and feedback to the webmaster.
Copyright © 1999-2003 SquashTalk, all rights reserved, may not be reproduced in any form except for one-time personal use.