Seeds Advance in Seattle
March 19, 2004 © 2004 by Rob Dinerman

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

No Four Gamers in Quarterfinal Action

Meredeth Quick Reaches the Semi Finals SquashTalk filephoto © 2004

With every match devolving into either a three-game blow-out or a five-game thriller, the top two men's and women's seeds all strode unscathed into the semis while the middle quadrants teemed with rallies, tiebreakers and excitement. In fact one of the most interesting questions awaiting resolution in Saturday's semi-final round will be the degree to which the survivors of those five-gamers have the emotional and physical energy to recover from their draining ordeals and challenge the rested higher seeds all four of them will be challenging.

Two-time defending women's champion and top seed Latasha Khan was much more than under-19 champion Lily Lorentzen could handle, and second seed Louisa Hall similarly made quick work of her former Harvard teammate and current coach Margaret Elias, who garnered only eight total points over the three games. Tomorrow Hall will face third seed Meredeth Quick, whom she beat in five games in their most recent match in the Harvard Club Of New York Invitational in January, and who after barely eking out a 10-9 third game was shut out 9-0 by Ivy Pochoda in today's fourth game before regrouping in the 9-5 fifth.

The remaining women's quarter, between two athletes at opposite ends of their careers who similarly went five games in the same round last year, featured 2001 champion Shebana Khan, the proud 35-year-old warrior, and the just-crowned Intercollegiates champion, Yale sophomore Michelle Quibell. After whitewashing Khan 9-0 in the first game, Quibell dropped the second in a tiebreaker and the third by a one-sided 9-2. It appeared at that stage that Khan might repeat her run to the 2003 final, in which she had defeated both Quibell and Hall in five games, both times after trailing two games to one. But Quibell's confidence is at an all-time high after her wondrous college season, during which she led Yale to the national team title, and she inexorably wore her 35-year-old opponent down in the closing laps, winning the fourth game 9-4 and the fifth 9-6.

SIMILARITIES ABOUND
As his under-19 champion female counterpart Lorentzen had done in her quarter-final match against defending champion Khan, men's under-19 winner England-based Christopher Gordon forced one tiebreaker in his match this afternoon against the men's defending S. L. Green champion Preston Quick, but was likewise edged out in that tiebreaker and fell in three games. And as Hall had done in her match with Elias, Damian Walker dropped only eight total points in his three-game quarter-final win over Beau River. Just like in the women's draw, it was the middle quadrants of the men's draw that contained all the excitement. But whereas in the women's draw the two collegians, Hall and Quibell, came through, in the men's event the two college stars, Dartmouth's Ryan Donegan and Yale's Julian Illingworth, fell just short in their respective quarters with 30-something tour veterans Michael Puertas and Jamie Crombie respectively.

Illingworth led Crombie two games to love, but ran out of gas and was badly out-played by the latter in the 9-3, 2 and 2 trio of match-ending games.

Crombie's fitness and tenacity have always been legendary, but possibly the demoralization of ending his college season with successive losses to Will Broadbent, his Harvard contemporary, whom he had heretofore always beaten, may have played a role in Illingworth's late-match collapse as well. As for Donegan, who rallied from 2-1 down to beat Richard Chin on Thursday and similarly trailed Puertas (who had dominated their match last month in a Grand Open second-rounder) 2-1, he came within a single point of a second consecutive successful rally against a well-respected and much more experienced opponent before finally yielding in a riveting 10-9 fifth game.

Puertas will now face Walker and Crombie will take on Quick, his conqueror in last year's semi, late tomorrow afternoon. The final is set for Sunday at
2 p.m.

Results, US National "Closed" Squash Seattle WA:
Quarterfinals, Mar 19 2004
MEN [mens draw]
Damian Walker def Beau River 9-4 9-1 9-3
Michael Puertas (4) def Ryan Donegan 7-9 10-8 9-0 4-9 10-9
Jamie Crombie (3) def Julian Illingworth 2-9 6-9 9-3 9-2 9-2
Preston Quick (2) def Chris Gordon 10-9 9-1 9-0
WOMEN [womens draw]
Latasha Khan (1) def Lily Lorentzen 9-6 10-8 9-2
Michelle Quibell (5) def Shabana Khan (4) 9-0 8-10 2-9 9-4 9-6
Meredeth Quick (3) def Ivy Pochoda 6-9 9-5 10-9 0-9 9-5
Louisa Hall (2) def Margaret Elias 9-1 9-2 9-5

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