Wee and Waters in WISPA Final
GENEVER AND RAZIK MEET IN MEN'S HYDER TROPHY FINAL
[Men's Draw / Resuts] [Women's Draw/Result]

By Rob Dinerman © 2003; all rights of reproduction reserved.
May 18, 2003 

Alison Waters breaks through quarterfinals and semis to make the final against Sharon Wee, photo © 2003 Debra Tessier for Squashtalk

Alison Waters, the surprise player who emerged from a bevy of upsets in the bottom half of the WISPA draw, will meet first seed and Malaysian pro Sharon Wee. On the men's side, Shahier Razik and Peter Genever, the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds respectively, both advanced through their semi-final rounds last night to qualify for this afternoon's 3 o'clock final at the host Sports Club/LA on Manhattan's upper east side. Razik's accuracy and acumen enabled him to rise superior to Julian Wellings, whom he subdued in three well-played but convincing games, while Genever emerged victorious from the night's showcase match against Canadian pro Viktor Berg, the winner of a quarter-final Friday evening over American champion Damian Walker.

#2 Peter Genever and # 3 Victor Berg amazed the capacity crowd with their incredible gets. photo © 2003 Debra Tessier for Squashtalk

#4 Julian Wellings and #1 Shahier Razik in the other exciting semi-final. photo © 2003 Debra Tessier for Squashtalk

At the last moment, realizing that such a call would not be forthcoming, Berg swung at the ball, but by then he had relinquished his control of the point, which eventually landed in Genever's column. A subsequent rash of three straight unforced tins got the rugged Brit to 14-8 and the game ended quietly on a stroke call when Berg hit a forehand rail right back at himself.

The third game was the key to the entire match. Unhappy at himself for fading in that second game, Berg was at his peak in seizing a commanding 10-3 lead in the third. By the end of that burst, Genever was looking progressively dour and discouraged by his younger foe's ubiquity and audacity. But this latter quality can be dangerously double-edged, and when a few tins interrupted Berg's spurt, Genever was back in business, extending the rallies and benefiting from both a few close calls that went his way and, even more, from the mistake-prone impetuosity those rulings elicited in Berg's game.

All of a sudden the young and immensely talented Canadian found himself besieged by a point-losing avalanche that held him scoreless through the entire remainder of that game and the opening three points of the fourth, a 15-0 combined run from which he would never fully recover. At this level of skill and fitness in a match-up between players in the No. 45-50 range of the PSA rankings, a lapse of concentration like the one Berg suffered during this period can often seal one's fate, especially, as happened here, when it befalls a player who is late in a long stretch of consecutive tournament weekends and drained (though exhilarated) by his first-ever PSA tournament title just six days earlier in Atlanta, where Berg won the final 17-16 in the fifth over Mark Heather.

After falling behind 7-3, 10-6 and 11-8 in the fourth game, Berg made a last charge to 10-11, but a Genever rail that clung too close to the right wall to be scraped back was followed by two long points both of which ended on Berg backhand drop shots that barely ticked the top of the tin as the predominantly pro-Berg crowd moaned in disappointment. Now finally securely in the saddle at 14-10, Genever converted the second of his quartet of match-balls by wrong-footing Berg on a backhand cross court length that died perfectly at the back wall.

The Berg-Wellings third-place play-off at 12:30 today will precede the women's final between top seed Sharon Wee of Malaysia and eighth seed Alison Waters of England.

Melissa Martin and Sharon Wee in their morning quarterfinal. photo © 2003 Debra Tessier for Squashtalk

Pittock, who had dispatched American Julia Beaver prior to her match with Khan, is yet another in a long line of products of the famed Australian Institute of Sport, run by the legendary Geoff Hunt, and, notwithstanding her subsequent loss last night
to Waters, she appears to have a long and productive WISPA career ahead of her.

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