Walker Leads British Charge
By Beth Fenwick, Nov 11 2005
Squashtalk Independent News; © 2005 SquashTalk LLC

Brits Excel In Baltimore

 The semi-finals of the Baltimore City Squash Open will be all-British affairs after a Welshman and three Englishmen conquered their quarter-final opponents in the new PSA Tour event in Maryland, USA.

Favourite Alister Walker, from Gloucestershire but based in Leeds, ended the run of Egyptian qualifier Karim Yehia with an 11-2 11-3 11-8 win over his New York-based opponent in just 35 minutes. Walker controlled the match from start to finish .Yehia created some offense and postive momentum in the third moving Walker around more than the previous 2 games. It was all to little too late.

By contrast, Walker's semi-final opponent survived the longest match of the day.  Welshman Gavin Jones, the third seed, took 60 minutes to overcome England's seventh seed Sam Miller 11-8 11-7 9-11 11-7. These were two quick but defensive-minded players who battled away in a fairly attritional manner. All four games were closely contested with Jones' greater consistency seeing him through in the crucial points.

Second seed Ben Garner was also taken to four games before defeating Canadian Ian Power, the eight seed, 7-11 11-6 11-2 11-9 in 50 minutes.  Power played well, moving the ball from corner to corner. However, Garner who was not on top of his game, managed to grind the victory out in a close 4 set match, sneaking the 4th, 11-9.

The 25-year-old from Surrey will face Gloucestershire's fourth seed Alex Stait, the 11-9 11-4 11-9 victor over Colombian Bernardo Samper. Stait controlled the play for most of the match, moving the ball well. However Samper was very tenacious and showed great speed whilst retrieving the ball, frustrating Stait into making a few errors which kept the games close. Some timely winners though enabled Stait to close out the match in three.

Baltimore City PSA Open         [Main Draw]

RESULTS:        Baltimore City Squash Open, Baltimore, USA
Quarter-finals:
[1] Alister Walker (ENG) bt [Q] Karim Yehia (EGY)            11-2, 11-3, 11-8 (35m)
[3] Gavin Jones (WAL) bt [7] Sam Miller (ENG)                 11-8, 11-7, 9-11, 11-7 (60m)
[4] Alex Stait (ENG) bt Bernardo Samper (COL)                 11-9, 11-4, 11-9 (40m)
[2] Ben Garner (ENG) bt [8] Ian Power (CAN)                    7-11, 11-6, 11-2, 11-9 (50m)

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