Walker on Top After Injury
Alister Walker of England has just enjoyed a 12-place jump up the rankings to 32 and today proved why he was the top seed of the qualifiers.  He faced the dangerous Ahmed Hamza for a place in the main draw and showed that he could match winners with the Egyptian.  Walker played with confidence and always seemed to have bags of time to get to the ball and even more time to choose the best shot for the occasion. And he was rarely wrong in his selection. This was the sort of quality squash, full of precision, courage and imagination,  that we rarely saw 20 years ago. Now we see it in the qualifying event. If you think squash has not moved on from the attritional days, you haven’t been watching the present crop of players.

As clever and as accomplished as Hamza was, he came up just a little bit short as the final score – 11-9, 11-10, 11-9 – indicates.  The point was that Walker gave the impression that he was not at full speed but when it came to the closing stages of the match, he made sure that he took those final points.

Hamza is deadly on the forehand cross court kill shot and he took at least eight points with that killer of a winner. If the ball didn’t roll dead, then Walker was fast enough to get it and to caress a counter drop into the corner, making Hamza bend his large frame to save the point.

Walker, however, did not simply play a reactive roll and hit about ten super winners himself, showing  that he was not  of the traditional English mould.   Even when trailing towards the end of the third game, 7-9, Walker never seemed troubled and took the next four points to end the 34 minute match.

Although I thought he performed well, Walker told me he was not pleased with himself and hit too many errors. Also, he, like other players, are not happy with the sightlines of the permanent  four wall glass court that is now part of the Harvard facility. With the left wall facing the corridor and other courts there is always activity and movement. “ I couldn’t read it and the sightlines were bad,” Walker told me. I then asked him what was the cause of his jump up the rankings.

“I think it was mental. I had an injury in Toronto at the start of the year, a broken bone in my foot and while I was injured I started to think about things and felt I could make more of what I had.  So I am playing with more confidence now,” he explained.

He has drawn fellow limey Adrian Grant (they are good friends) in the main tournament and while Grant outranks him (number 13 in the world)  if Walker uses his guile and shots to interrupt Grant’s love of medium-paced rhythm, then he could find himself in the second round facing Lee Beachill. Regardless of the outcome I am quite sure that on this form, England will have another top ten player in Walker.

SELBY  MAKES IT TWO FOR ENGLAND
Darryl Selby is ranked 18 players below Walker but still bagged the number two seed spot. His match with American champion Julian Illingworth was quite different than the Walker/Hamza  battle. Indeed, Selby seemed beatable and there were times in all three games where Illingworth looked capable of winning, but he was unable to retain his domination.  Although he made very few errors, Illingworth made them at the wrong time (is there a right time to make errors?) – when he had opened a two point lead, for example, the error would  give Selby a lifeline – he was now just one point behind rather than three.

A lot of use was made of the back wall with the constant repeating patterns  of play that these two players  used.  And just when I was thinking that they both needed an Egyptian shot-makers course, in the third game Selby suddenly started to hit some wonderfully imaginative winners. In the middle of the game he calmly hit consecutive overhead volleys into the nick to put himself 6-3 ahead and from that point on a tiring Illingworth failed to muster the sort of fight he had  put up in the first two games. Selby went on to take the game 11-6, the final point on an Illingworth error that indicated that he knew it was all over.  It will be interesting to return to Boston this time next year to gauge Illingworth’s progress.

SIXTY MINUTES OR NOTHING
Eric Galvez of Mexico took on the remarkable Hungarian champion Mark Krajcsak (remarkable because who is there to play with in Hungary?) and once more  fabricated a long match. In fact I have a theory that this very likeable and very tough player will not allow a match to end in under 60 minutes. If you go back through the results over the last year, Galvez manages to play the longest match in every round.

Against Krajscak he won the first two games and looked all set  to wrap it up but lost the fourth 11-3. True, towards the end of that game he was not putting out 100% effort and allowed points to dribble away. However he came out for the fourth (probably now happy in his own mind that the mandatory 60 minutes would be attained) and almost overwhelmed  Krajscak with his determination.  Galvez hit some superb winners on the way to his 66 minute victory. His reward is a meeting with world number two David Palmer, a player who is even tougher than Galvez. I wonder if that match will go over an hour….

Qualifying final round matchups are:
Alistair Walker (ENG) def Ahmed Hamza (EGY) 11-9 11-10(2-0) 11-9 34min
Eric Galvez (MEX) def Mark Krajcsak (HUN) 4-11 11-4 11-9 3-11 11-4 66min
Shawn Delierre (CAN) def Raj Nanda (AUS) 6-11 10-11(0-2) 11-10(2-0) 11-7 11-6
Tom Richards (ENG) def Basit Ashraq (PAK) 11-8 11-6 11-4 30min
Omar El Borolossy (EGY) def Sid Suchde (IND) 11-3 11-9 8-11 11-7
Dylan Bennett (NL)def Tony James (ENG) 11-8 11-5 11-6
Aaron Frankcomb (AUS) def Wade Johnstone (AUS) 11-8 11-5 9-11 11-7 70min
Darryl Selby (ENG) def Julian Illingworth (USA) 11-9 11-9 11-6   43min.