Men's Hyder Trophy Final:
[draw/results]
June 7, 2004, By Rob Dinerman; SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2004

Heather Takes the 2004 Hyder Trophy

Top seed Mark Heather solidly out-played an understandably weary Daniel Sharplin, the No. 3 seed, yesterday afternoon in a somewhat anti-climatic 15-11, 13 and 7 final round of the 36th Quentin Hyder Invitational.

Mark Heather wins the 2004 Hyder Trohpy; photo: © 2004 Debra Tessier

The outcome of the match may well have been determined Saturday evening due to the two greatly differing courses of the respective semis. In the first of these matches, Heather completely had his way with a rusty, tin-prone and slightly injured Clive Leach, whom he dispatched in three perfunctory games that combined barely consumed a half hour.

By contrast, Sharplin and second seed Damian Walker became locked in an exhausting nearly two-hour back-and-forth five-game struggle that began late, ended VERY late and proved a Pyrhhic victory (15-12 in the fifth) for Sharplin, who had little left in the tank when the final began just 18 hours later. It was not only the time-consuming course of that bottom-half semi (whose ending was delayed an additional 15-20 minutes when the lights abruptly went out late in the fourth game) that played a role in this phenomenon.
It was more the fact that the excellence of Walker's racquet sharpness and shot selection meant that Sharplin was doing the majority of the retrieving even in the points that he wound up winning, as had also been the case in his four-game quarter-final win Saturday morning over several-time U. S. 30-and-over national champion Francis Odeh. Certainly it is to Sharplin's credit that he is able to grind his way to this kind of enervating victory with such consistency, as he previously proved in winning the 2002 New Zealand nationals and, for that matter, in rallying from two games to one down to defeat Daniel Ezra in his Hyder first-round match two years ago. But this kind of approach does take its toll, on both Sharplin's opponents and himself as a long weekend wears on.

Dan Sharplin's 9 games on Saturday took their toll in the final; photo: © 2004 Debra Tessier

Heather on the other hand had been much more efficient in his pre-final wins over Jonny Smith and Leach, which made him relatively fresh for the final.

Especially when Sharplin's bid to take what would have been an equalizing second game fell just short, the outcome had been effectively decided, and the match ended quietly less than an hour after it began.

This has been the case a number of times in prior editions of this longest continually running softball event in the country. In 1979, for example, Hans Petterson of Sweden survived draining five-game battles with both Ted Gross and Tom Page in reaching the final, where he was crushed by Bill Andruss after the latter had easily defeated a legs-cramping Ned Edwards in the other semi.

And just last year Shahier Razik moved comfortably to the final and inexorably asserted himself over Peter Genever, who had been strongly pressed by Viktor Berg in his semi-final.

Dr. Quentin Hyder acknowledges the crowd's appreciation of his support of New York squash. photo: © 2004 Debra Tessier

The MSRA's decision to postpone this year's Hyder several weeks from its original Mother's Day weekend date (other than the women's WISPA event, which was played last month as planned and was won by Shelley Kitchen) did result in a near-doubling of the entries for the dozen-odd amateur draws, which wound up attracting 80 participants. It was therefore a successful gambit from that viewpoint. But this has been a difficult year for both the regional and national associations in terms of draw sizes for their various traditional tournaments, and there is no doubt that tournament participation is one of several issues that need to be addressed going forward to the 2004-2005 season.

2004 Hyder Trophy, Sports Club LA/New York
RESULTS; Finals:
Heather def Sharplin, 15-11 15-13 15-7

Mark Heather on his toes against Dan Sharplin. photo: © 2004 Debra Tessier

photo: © 2004 Debra Tessier

Zoë Brunson (MSRA VP), Alex Lau (MSRA Pres), Mark Heather (Winner), Dr. Quentin Hyder (tournament founder), Dan Sharplin (finalist), and Lianne Ritchie (MSRA Board Member) photo: © 2004 Debra Tessier

All photos: © 2004 Debra Tessier

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