Lorentzen, Gordon Advance
March 19, 2004 © 2004 by Rob Dinerman

[Men's Open Draw]   [Women's Open Draw]

Juniors Build on Success

Louisa Hall, #2 seed, Goes into action today. SquashTalk filephoto © 2004

Gordon won three tiebreaker 10-8 games from 2002 Nationals semi-finalist and2003 Pan American Games U. S. team member Tim Wyant, while Lorentzen ousted former Harvard stand-out Carlin Win in the only pre-quarters match in the women's nine-player draw.

Both Gordon and Lorentzen will now face the respective defending National champion in their quarter-final matches this afternoon. Gordon takes on Preston Quick (an easy winner yesterday over qualifier Ronn McMahon) and Lorentzen goes up against four-time champion Latasha Khan, who has won this event each of the past two years. Unfortunately, all three qualifiers (Lorentzen, McMahon and Ian Conway, a five-game Wednesday prelims winner over Jared Sandler who was then routed by 2001 and 2002 S. L. Green winner and top seed Damian Walker) were assigned the Nos. 1 or 2 seeds in their opening main-draw matches, making it nearly impossible for any of the three to build upon their successful qualifying efforts.

Only two of the remaining round of 16 men's matches exceeded the three-game minimum, and both involved successful comeback efforts by Dartmouth players past and present. Both junior Ryan Donegan and recent alumnus Beau River trailed their respective opponents Richard Chin, a three-time S. L. Green finalist, and 2003 Harvard captain Dylan Patterson before handily winning the fourth and fifth games. Chin's first S. L. Green final-round appearance was exactly a decade ago, in '94, and the years and his recent Achilles tendon strain may be starting to catch up with him, while Patterson played well in taking te second and third games against River, who then strongly reasserted himself in the 9-2, 9-1 close-out to their match.

The other men's Thursday results---Julian Illingworth over Alec Decker, third seed Jamie Crombie over 1996 winner Mohsen Mir and fourth seed Michael Puertas over Francis Odeh-were all fairly routine, as none of the losing players was able to muster up more than five points in any of their three games. So in today's quarter-final action it will be Walker vs. River and Donegan seeking revenge against Puertas (who defeated him last month in the Grand Open event) in the top half, and Crombie vs. Illingworth and, as noted, Quick vs Gordon down below.

The women's event gets started in earnest today. The winner of Khan-Lorentzen will face whoever wins between last year's finalist Shebana Khan and this year's just-crowned Intercollegiate champion Michelle Quibell in tomorrow's semis, while in the bottom half former Harvard teammates Louisa Hall, the second seed, and Margaret Elias will play each other, as will 2002 Nationals finalist Meredeth Quick and '98 Intercollegiates champion Ivy Pochoda.

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