Collegians Fall in Nationals Semis
March 20, 2004 © 2004 by Rob Dinerman

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

Quicks Rule in Todays Semis

Preston Quick has been dominating in Seattle; SquashTalk filephoto © 2004 Debra Tessier

Defending champions Latasha Khan and Preston Quick both took another step in defense of the respective women's and men's crowns they earned in Hartford last year in the annual U. S. National Championships, which are being played this weekend in Seattle.

Quick, who hasn't lost more than six points in any game in any of his nine pre-final games, will however NOT be playing top seed Damian Walker for the third consecutive time in the S. L. Green final.

This would have been a rubber match for them (Walker in three in 2002, Quick from two games to love down and 4-8 in the fifth last year), and it came within a single point of happening, but Walker was unable to cash in on any of the several match-balls he had against fourth seed Michael Puertas in the fourth game, lost that 10-8 and the fifth 9-4, and hence has now been eliminated twice in as many years from this tournament in matches in which he has held multiple match-balls.

Today's thriller was also the second consecutive match for Puertas which he won after facing several match-balls against him. Friday afternoon in the quarter-finals he edged out Dartmouth star Ryan Donegan (himself a first-round five-game winner over Richard Chin) 10-9 in the fifth in a marathon that was expected to work to Walker's advantage this afternoon. The latter DID prevail handily in the two games he won (9-0 in the first, 9-1 in the third), but, remarkably in view of his prior battle with Donegan, it was the 35-year-old Puertas who proved the stayer in this match between two British-born protagonists, taking a tight second game 9-7 and, as noted, rallying from the brink in the fourth game before grinding out the fifth.

In fact, the 26-year-old Quick was both the only American-born men's semi-finalist and by nearly a decade the youngest of the quartet, both of which have disturbing connotations regarding the effectiveness of the junior programs to which the USSRA has been devoting so much of its attention and funding during the past dozen years. There was nothing disturbing about his mercilessly efficient 9-6, 6 and 0 rout over the Canadian-born Jamie Crombie, except to the latter, who had been forced to face down a two-game deficit in his quarter with Yale sophomore Julian Illingworth and may have expended too much energy in mounting that comeback to have anything left in his tank for today's semi-final.

ITS QUICK VS. KHAN---AGAIN
Yale sophomore Michelle Quibell and Harvard senior Louisa Hall both lasted a day longer than their college counterparts Donegan and Illingworth, but neither was able to survive today's semi-final action. The third-place play-off match they will play tomorrow will be their third meeting in the past month.

Their dual-meet and Howe Cup matches both went to Quibell, who went on to win the Intercollegiate championship. The latter's draw would have forced her to sweep the Khan sisters Shebana and Latasha to reach the final, and she made a pretty good bid to do so, rallying from 2-1 down yesterday to out-last Shebana in five (a reversal of their outcome in this same quarter-final round and also in five games a year ago), then barely dropping a second-game 10-8 tiebreaker to Latasha and winning the third game 9-2 this afternoon before the four-time and defending champion closed out the fourth 9-5.

The remaining semi saw Hall courageously rally to take the second game in a tiebreaker from Meredeth Quick and save match-balls against her both in regulation (Quick led 8-5) and in the ensuing tiebreaker session, which she won 10-9. But Hall's struggles during the last few weeks of what has nevertheless been an outstanding college career, which ended with a loss to little-known Trinity freshman Vaidehi Reddy in the quarters of the Individuals, may have taken away a little of her confidence, and Quick (whom Hall defeated in five games a few months back in the Harvard Club Invitational final) has always played her tough. The 2001 Princeton alumna graduated to her second Nationals final in three years with a solid 9-2 victory in the fifth game, thereby creating a rematch of the 2002 final, which went to Khan in three well-played games.

Results, US National "Closed" Squash Seattle WA:
Semi finals, Mar 20 2004
MEN [mens draw]
Michael Puertas (4) def Damian Walker (1) 0-9 9-7 1-9 10-8 9-4
Preston Quick (2) def Jamie Crombie (3) 9-6 9-6 9-0

WOMEN [womens draw]
Latasha Khan (1) def Michelle Quibell (5) 9-1 10-9 1-9 9-5
Meredeth Quick (3) def Louisa Hall (2) def Margaret Elias 9-3 9-10 9-1 9-10 9-2

MENS 16-25 DRAW (Open) [16-25 draw]
Imran Khan (1) def Sid Suchde 0-9 9-3 9-0 9-5
Ilan Oren def Joe Russell (2) 9-3 9-4 1-9 9-5

[other age and skill group draws]

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