World Team Championships: USA Fails To Advance

In the defining match of their Pools draw, the American women were denied a chance to finish in the top 8 when they were soundly out-played by New Zealand yesterday afternoon. With two teams from each of the four four-team Pools qualifying for the quarterfinal round, and with New Zealand and the U. S. in each case defeating Japan and losing to Malaysia, the U. S. vs. New Zealand showdown was for the right to accompany Malaysia into the quarters. The victorious Kiwis will now square off against No. 1 seed England while the Americans will be taking on Spain in the opening match of what is shaping up as a highly competitive "Consolation" tourney for the Nos. 9-16 places.

The New Zealand trio of Shelley Kitchen (ranked No. 12 in the WISPA professional standings), Jaclyn Hawkes (No. 29) and Louise Crome (No. 39) in each case held substantial world-rankings edges over their respective American opponents, with Kitchen's straight-game victim, U. S. reigning national champion and WISPA No. 24 Latasha Khan, the only American presently positioned in the top 40. Hawkes followed Kitchen's lead with a dominant (two shut-out games) 3-0 victory over three-time ('02, '04 and '05) U. S. Nationals finalist Meredeth Quick and Crome defeated Louisa Hall 9-1, 5 and 6 in the only reasonably competitive match of the meet, though even that match, like the other pair, ended less than a half-hour after it had begun.

The remaining quarterfinal pairings in addition to England vs. New Zealand are the Netherlands vs Ireland, Malaysia vs France and Egypt vs South Africa, with the first-named teams in each case being among the top four seeds. It is noteworthy that three of the Nos. 5 through 8 seeds (No. 5 Australia, No. 7 Canada and No. 8 Hong Kong) have all ended up in the 9-16 bracket and likely will be fired up to redeem their tournament after suffering upset losses in the Pools matches.

In fact, the defending champion Australians have never finished out of the top three in the 27-year history of this tournament prior to this week, though their entry was doomed before this '06 event even began when several of their top performers decided to boycott this event to express their displeasure over the team selection process, which became rife with political infighting when several coaches ignored the WISPA rankings and decided instead to pick the players whom they themselves are currently coaching.