Kitchen comeback...
May 9 2004 By Rob Dinerman, SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2004 
 [Hyder Trophy Main Draw Results]    [Qualifying Results Complete]   

Shelley Kitchen wins her first WISPA ranking tournament in nearly three years against top seed Fiona Geaves.(Photo © 2004 Debra Tessier)

Kitchen Rallies To Capture Hyder Final
Trailing two games to love against a higher-ranked opponent who has dominated their rivalry throughout the 2000's, second seed Shelley Kitchen launched an unstoppable surge that carried her to a fully earned 8-10 6-9 9-0 9-1 9-3 victory early this afternoon in the final round of the $ 10,000 Hyder Women's Open at the Sports Club/LA on Manhattan's upper east side. WISPA No. 14 Kitchen thereby won her first ranking tournament since the YTL Open in June 2001, reversed the three 3-0 losses she had suffered at the hands of her final-round opponent Fiona Geaves and took another step forward towards realizing the potential that has been apparent since the start of the talented 24-year-old Kiwi's career.

That Kitchen was able to reverse the match's momentum in spite of the very disappointing ending to the first game (in which Geaves had faced down a game-ball against her at 6-8) and a late-game fade in the second as well, is a tribute to her fitness and resolve. Both traits, especially the latter, were severely tested during the first two games of the match, in which Geaves stymied and significantly frustrated her hard-hitting opponent by slowing and softening the pace, counter-punching brilliantly with re-drops, beautifully angled lobs and look-away rails that had the lanky New Zealander constantly slamming on the brakes, scraping balls out of the corners and side walls and seething with anger at her inability to impose the advantages she enjoyed in youth, power and speed.

GEAVES VERY SHARP EARLY

Fiona Geaves (front) opened with her arsenal of delicate drops and artfully placed lobs to frustrate Shelley Kitchen's aggressive pace.(Photo © 2004 Debra Tessier)

It was almost as though Kitchen was punching herself out against a pillow for all the results she was getting, as Geaves in a magical display of experience, smarts and breath-taking touch was probing for openings and guiding the ball exactly to the perfect spot. This was especially true of her drop shots, particularly on her backhand, which seemed to almost drip off the front wall very low, very short and so close to the near side wall that even when Kitchen got to the ball in time there was nothing for her to swing at. In fact in the defining mid-game stretch of the second Geaves, trailing 6-3, got the serve back on a Kitchen tin and proceeded to hit all four of the winners that got her to 7-6 via backhand straight drop shots that Kitchen was unable to return.

Kitchen then tinned a backhand drop shot of her own and lost the game in very discouraging fashion when she tinned a backhand working boast with Geaves well out of position.

None of the spectators who spent most of the between-games break marveling at Geaves's accuracy and acumen could have had any inkling of the dramatic turnaround the match was about to undergo or of the extent of the physical toll that those two games had in retrospect exacted. She began the third game by tinning another of the backhand drop shots that her heretofore served her so well, and just like that Kitchen seized that small opening and wedged it much wider by racing off with five quick points. By this time it had become clear that Geaves needed a breather, and she pretty much conceded that game, in which would earn only one hand-out and no official points.

Fiona Geaves earned only one handout in the third game, with Shelley Kitchen dominating the entire way.(Photo © 2004 Debra Tessier)

Earlier in the tournament Geaves had successfully (though only barely) employed the same strategy in her quarter-final with Lauren Briggs, which she won in five games after letting the fourth game go. But in this case the third game infused a degree of hope in a previously demoralized Kitchen that would permeate the remainder of the match, as her swift course through the 9-0 third and 9-1 fourth games convinced her that her favored opponent, 12 years her senior, was running out of gas and could no longer muster the energy required to replicate the excellence she had shown during those first two games.

That is what ultimately proved to be the case, as Geaves wound up living through every aging veteran's biggest nightmare, i. e. that of being inexorably ground into the floor by a stronger and younger athlete in the deciding late stages of a big match. At this juncture of her outstanding 14-year WISPA career, Geaves has to work so hard for her wins and has such a small margin for error in her weekly battles against this current 20-something squash generation, that she no longer has the firepower to sustain a substantive drop in her energy level or stroke production, and coming into the fifth game she also faced the daunting task of having to regain the momentum that had been all hers after the second game but had been subsequently commandeered by Kitchen.

ONE LAST STAND
Say this for Geaves, she gave everything she had to salvage the match, especially in the fiercely-contested opening portion of the fifth game. Summoning one last burst of energy in a passionate attempt to hunt down her first tournament title since the "Bright Lights" Las Vegas Open three years ago, she moved from 0-2 to 3-2, and for the briefest moment it appeared that if Geaves could throw another few points on the pile she might actually be able to work her way to the winner's circle. Kitchen for sure wanted no part of a close ending to the match after what had occurred late stages in both the first and second games, and to her credit she was able to face down the early-game Geaves salvo and embark on a five-point spurt to 7-3 that effectively clinched the outcome.

A combination of hard volley drops and punishing length on her backhand drives, along with two Geaves top-of-the-tins accounted for this match-deciding charge. Geaves got the serve one last time, but quickly lost it back on a Kitchen cross court drop shot, and the latter then moved to match-ball on another drop shot and crushed a low forehand cross court that she angled too widely for Geaves to retrieve. It was a very satisfying victory for Kitchen, who hadn't surpassed the quarter-final round in any of her four prior 2004 tournaments and who will now probably move into the WISPA top 12 for the first time in her career. And it had to be a disappointing loss for Geaves, who played so valiantly and so well, only to be overtaken by Kitchen's determined rally from two games to love down.

Hyder Squash Open Championship final results:
Shelley Kitchen (NZ)(2) def. Fiona Geaves (ENG) (1)
8-1, 6-9, 9-0, 9-1, 9-3

The Sports Club/LA pro- Ben Desombre, winner- Shelley Kitchen, tournament director- Alec Decker, finalist- Fiona Geaves.(Photo: © 2004 Debra Tessier)

(Photos: © 2004 Debra Tessier)

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