Nicol & Power set to Go
PROS CHAFING AFTER SLOW SPRING  
By Martin Bronstein © 2003; all rights of reproduction reserved.
May 11, 2003 

Although this high-profile annual event - the only major squash event to be held in London since the great British Opens of the Jahangir and Jansher Khan era – has lost the defending champion and world number five, there is still a lot to engage the speculative mind.

David Palmer, who won last year, is still recovering from his appendix operation and later complications, while Stu Boswell has sustained a leg injury. This was good news for Martin Heath and Ong Beng Hee who were brought in as replacements, not only for the chance to pick up a couple of thousand dollars but also as welcome match practise for the PSA Masters which follows next week in Qatar.

This is important in a season that has seen one catastrophe after another for the PSA circuit. Jonathon Power told me he had not played a match in two months before winning the Canadian Nationals on May 3. (Played, he tells me, on a glass court in front of 1300 people in Edmonton). You can be sure that Power will not be cruising through the Super Series, wanting to get some serious match sharpness under his belt before Qatar, which is a major ranking tournament. (The Super Series Finals is not).

Peter Nicol and John White (old Scot, New Scot) on the other hand have been kept pretty busy since the last tournament (Tournament of Champions in New York) what with loads of league action and the European Team championships at the beginning of the month.

HOT AS HELL
Peter Nicol is favourite to take the title again. My spies tell me that Nicol was in cracking form in the Europeans and took Thierry Lincou apart.

“It was so hot in Nottingham – I haven’t felt that bad for five years. I managed to hang in ‘til the end so Thierry must have been feeling just as bad,” Peter told me at the Super Series press conference.

Interesting point: although Nicol and Power have met in the final of almost every tournament around the world, they have never met in the final of this tournament. And it is not certain that they will both make it to the final this week. Nicol has Thierry Lincou, Lee Beachill and Martin Heath in his group (they have all chalked up victories over him) and Power will have to contend with the highly dangerous John White, the explosive Anthony Ricketts (who has returned from Australia where he spent four weeks training with Rodney Martin), and Ong Beng Hee.

Beng Hee had a dreadful tournament here last year, playing lacklustre squash and unable to engender any enthusiasm at all. This will be a chance for him to get himself into gear. Mind you, his first match is against Power tonight, which is a daunting prospect for any player at the beginning of a tournament.

BIG INSURANCE MONEY
Satinder Bajwa has been fortunate to find a new sponsor in Brit Insurance, a four- year-old company that making its first venture into sports sponsorship. This means that everybody is keeping their fingers cross for a good tournament and plenty of press coverage; sponsors are sparse on the ground in the present economic climate.The prize money is the same as last year - $60,000- which is also good news - and Peter Nicol played a good customer’s game when he played the Neil Eckhert, the CEO of Brit Insurance, allowing the generously built businessman a couple of points. We don’t kow whether that will be enough to ensure continued sponsorship for the next decade…..we can only hope.

I shall be here for the entire week, proving live coverage for Squashtalk.

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