Come From Behind Victory for Shahier Razik   [Draw]

Shahier Razik wins the 2006 Hyder Trophy finals. (photo © 2006 Debra Tessier.)

Fittingly for a weekend filled with comeback victories, second seeded Shahier Razik rallied from two games to love down to overtake his top-seeded Canadian compatriot Graham Ryding 8-11 8-11 11-7 11-8 11-5 this afternoon to capture the $2,250 winner's share of the 2006 Hyder Trophy at the Eastern Athletic Club in Brooklyn Heights. In so doing, Razik avenged his four-game final-round loss to Ryding in this tournament a year ago and accomplished a solid companion-piece to the 2003 Hyder Trophy he had earned at Sports Club/LA over Peter Genever. For Razik, it was also a repeat of his win over Ryding in the Canadian Nationals three weeks ago, and reaffirmed his position as the top active Canadian player.

Neither player had dropped a game in their respective trio of pre-final matches and former PSA top-15 Ryding was fastest out of the gate, imposing his superior firepower in the last half-dozen points of each of the first two games and proving the more aggressive contestant in his volleying and shot-making salvos. There was one taut cat-and-mouse left front-court exchange in which there were EIGHT consecutive backhand straight drop shots early in the second stanza, but most of the play involved all four corners of the court. As the second game concluded, Ryding appeared to possess just enough more weaponry to be well on his way to a fully deserved retention of his '05 crown and a solid consolidation of the edge he holds in the PSA rankings.

Shahier Razik wins the 2006 Hyder Trophy finals (top); his name is already on the trophy from winning the crown in 2003 (bottom). (photos © 2006 Zoe Brunson, Debra Tessier.)

But by early third, and almost invisibly, Razik succeeded in lengthening and "softening" the points, slowing down the pace and nullifying Ryding's thrusts by unflappably returning everything Ryding attempted and eliciting frustration- and eventually fatigue-caused errors. Especially in the mid-third and late-fourth portions of the middle games, there really didn't seem to be anything even Ryding could do that would generate a winner. Razik didn't seem to be even trying for winners himself, embracing the need for what in a between-games comment he termed "high-tin squash" (i.e. conservative play due to the use in this event of the standard 19-inch tin rather than the 17-inch hardball-length tin that the PSA has now adopted for most of its tournaments in recent years) and contenting himself with gliding to every ball and safely returning it into play.

There were numerous rallies that exceeded 100 hits, in some cases by large margins, and gradually but inexorably under the pressure of the small but meaningful deficits he constantly faced and the relentlessness of Razik's retrieving, Ryding began to go for riskier shots which almost inevitably started to ring off the tin. His best chance came in the fourth game, when he drew to 8-9 only to tin what possibly would have been a winning drop shot, then, revealingly, moved much too early for an anticipated cross-court that turned out instead to be a winning rail, ending that game on a deflating note that carried through a somewhat anticlimactic fifth.

By this time, Razik had the momentum and Ryding had shot his bolt. The title changed hands in convincing fifth-game fashion and the 38th edition of this longest-running softball event in the United States had ended with a praiseworthy if lengthy final between two of the top squash players in North America.

Hyder Trophy, Men's Open Finals     [Draw]

Shahier Razik (2) d Graham Ryding (1), 8-11 8-11 11-7 11-8 11-5