Berg and Razik Advance in NYC
LATASHA KHAN LONE USA WOMAN TO ADVANCE 
[Men's Draw / Resuts] [Women's Draw/Result]

By Rob Dinerman © 2003; all rights of reproduction reserved.
May 17, 2003 

Damian Walker started out with an advantege over Viktor Berg - photo © 2003 Debra Tessier for Squashtalk

Forced to rally from two games to one down when his daring backhand drop shot caught the top of the tin on a simultaneous third-game
game-point, third seed Viktor Berg, the irrepressible young Canadian dynamo
out-lasted two-time S. L. Green champion Damian Walker 12-15 15-11 14-15
15-3 15-11 to close out an exciting evening of quarter-final action in the 2003 Quentin Hyder Invitational.

Berg will face second seed Peter Genever in tonight's second semi-final, which will be preceded by a battle between top seed Shahier Razik, the only straight-game quarter-final winner, and fourth seed Julian Wellings, last year's runner-up to Damien Mudge, who withdrew from this year's event earlier this week.

Viktor Berg (r) came back to beat Damian Walker, photo © 2003 Debra Tessier for Squashtalk

These qualities, especially his wondrous fleetness afoot and seemingly unlimited energy supply, have brought Berg to the top-echelon of the ISDA professional doubles tour with a variety of partners, and to his first career PSA singles title just this past weekend in Atlanta. Throughout his 95-minute match with Walker, these traits enabled Berg to escape from severe positional disadvantages and to out-run penetrating Walker salvos the great majority of which would assuredly have landed for winners against almost anyone else.

Other than in the one-sided fourth game, when Walker fell way behind right away and wisely decided to let that game go to rest up for the decisive fifth, the latter for the most part imposed his game and dictated the course of most of the points with his wall-hugging rails, well-directed cross courts and precise straight and cross court drops, especially his finely shaded backhand cross drop from way up in the court which he was frequently able to cradle into the nick. The problem was that, even though Berg was often wrong-footed on this play, he was still usually able to leg it down, and the ensuing response tended to create a helter-skelter dynamic that deprived Walker of the orderly combinations at which he so excels.

The irony of the whole match (which didn't end until 10:45, by which time only a dozen or so diehards were still present to witness the exhausting conclusion) was that on its most crucial point, after Walker had trimmed Berg's early 7-2 fifth-game advantage down to 8-7, it was Walker, an infrequent doubles player, who on consecutive swings tried a shot-the Philadelphia boast-that is unique to doubles and is virtually unheard of in singles, in a (vain) attempt to disorient the Berg, the ISDA doubles specialist.

Latasha Khan topped Canadian Katie Patrick, photo © 2003 Debra Tessier for Squashtalk

And Berg's compatriot Razik was able to win in three long and competitive games over the New York-based Egyptian Kerim Yehia, whose best chance came in the second, which he lost 15-14 to the graceful and sinewy No. 1 seed. The women's draw began last night, with all of the top eight seeds advancing to this morning's quarter-finals save No. 7 Meredeth Quick, who lost in four games to Melissa Martin. Quick's American compatriots Carlin Wing and Julia Beaver each fell in three games, but second seed Latasha Khan prevailed over 2002 Hyder champion Katie Patrick and will now face Beaver's conqueror Amelia Pittock of Australia. Other quarter-final match-ups include Martin vs. top seed Sharon Wee, Heidi Mather vs. fourth seed Dominique
Lloyd-Walter and third seed Wendy Maitland vs. Alison Walters, who in her opening round spoiled the professional debut of Runa Reta, the recently graduated Penn star who reached the final of the Intercollegiate championships in Hartford this past March.

The semis will take place later this evening and the final is set for early tomorrow afternoon.

Peter Genever stopped Kumail Mehmood in Friday's quarters photo © 2003 Debra Tessier for Squashtalk

Amelia Pittock (l) downed New Yorker Julia Beaver, photo © 2003 Debra Tessier for Squashtalk

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