Squash beats Pro Football to Hartford: A personal view of the 1999 Nationals.

1999, the last Nationals of this Century. Hartford, a new venue. 500 players of all ages. The players ranged from those who knew nothing but the international softball game, to those brave age-group players who had made the painful transition from the hardball game they played for the better parts of their lives to the softball game that is now embraced worldwide.

The play ranged from spotty, to sublime, to just plain courageous. The contestants were a polyglot. Transported commonwealth players, still uncomfortable with some of the American informality; some venerable American champions of the sport: Anil Nayar, Gordon Anderson, Demer Holleran; some future champions, Latasha Khan, Ivy Pochoda, Louisa Hall, Dave McNeely, Dylan Patterson; and the perennial core of the sport in the USA: Quentin Hyder, Warren Young, Fred Sadler, Tom Rumpler, Bill Kaplan, Gulmast Khan, Kevin Jernigan, and countless others; the new core of the sport for future years; Dave Kennedy, Charlie Johnson, and a dazzling variety of skill-level players.

Hartford CT, home of Mark Twain

The 1999 USA National Championships was a large event, hosting about 500 players, for the first time ever at Trinity College. Was it just me? There was a touching feeling about playing out the nationals in the practice courts of the new National Collegiate Champions. Trinity college represents a new order in College Squash --- the unspoken hope being, could part of this new order rub off on the greater squash scene?

In addition to dominating the draw for the men's 16-25 division, members of the Trinity team manned all the tournament venues, invisibly keeping the tournament on a smooth path.

Hartford is a city in transition, trying to reinvent itself. It has a mayor and governor who are trying really hard. The nationals perhaps caught the city a year or two too early for an event of this sort --- a horde of squash players who planned to bury themselves in squash clubs for three days and expected seamless service around that. The "tournament hotel" created a baseline of slight discomfort (only two of four elevators worked) that was hard to overcome.

But the city rallied around the event -- that was doubled in size about two months before the tourney -- through broad sponsorship and good efforts. Among the sponsors was the Mark Twain House, Twain being one of Hartford's most famous citizens. If any of the players had taken up the tournament offer for admission to the Twain House, they would have a glimpse of the proud grandeur that Hartford once boasted (and hopes to recapture).

The venues

Paul Assaiante and Trinity took on a huge task -- three concurrent tournaments -- the professional S.L. Green draws, the mens and women's age group tournaments, and the mens and women's skill level tournaments. All together, over 500 players came to compete creating a staggering number of matches in three days.

To accomodate this, Hartford Golf Club, Loomis-Chaffee School and Avon Old Farms school became satellite venues. With up to twenty miles separating these venues, the tournament was inevitably fragmented. For instance, most of the women's play took place at the Hartford Golf Club, with the other players seeing almost none of those matches.

Also, unfortunately, the tournament fell during the Independent School spring break, so both private schools were closed, with the corresponding absense of basic amenities such as water, towels, and food.

Invisibly, probably too invisibly, this huge and dispersed event was run extremely efficiently, the only lapse involving refereeing at the satellite sites. At Trinity, scores from the outlying courts were almost immediately updated on the master draw sheets, so observers could get a picture of the entire tournament easily. The matches ran on time. By the following tuesday, the complete results were all online on the USSRA web site. Paul, Craig Brand, and Mike should be congratulated for their efficiency. (Instead though, they have had to field a broad range of complaints, ranging from valid -- lack of water at the sites -- to ludicrous.)

McNally serves notice

In the marquee Men's Open (S.L. Green) championship, the anticipated showdown between Mark Lewis, of Boston, and Marty Clark, of New York. The two could boast of cover-story profiles in recent issues of Squash magazine, but instead it was Dave McNeely from Amherst who was steady, strong, and victorious. McNeely rid himself of an earlier tendancy to tire and fold late in critical matches. In doing so, he quite possibly signalled a change in the balance of power toward a younger generation of players. Are the best of the US College players now playing at a higher level than the US Pros? In the 16-25 division, Lefike Ragonste beat out team-mate Akhil Behl, and they probably could have done well in the open.

On the women's side, Demer Holleran improbably turned back the clock and notched yet another US championship, with both Shabana and Latasha Khan unable to solve the mystery of her game. Latasha and Shabana ended second and third in the tournament, signaling clearly their positions at the top of the US women's game; and in so doing daring the women's selection committee to yet again strain credulity by leaving them off the U.S. team. They are currently the two highest-ranking US players in the WISPA world rankings.

Legends Nelson, Nayar, Gulmast still have the magic

Jay Nelson, boasting an almost legendary record in age-group competition over the past decade, yet again arrived in wonderful condition and spirits, and essentially had no competition in winning the 55-plus category. In the 45-plus category, a crowded and competitive division, Anil Nayar first won a competitive match against court construction mogul and former Canadian champ Gordie Anderson, and then won comfortably in the finals despite "playing down" a division. It is probably well that Anil chose to play down to the 45's, as Gulmast Khan, in impeccable condition, was a formidable force in outclassing his 50-plus competition.

Beyond these age-group luminaries, Mike Solin in the 75-plus may have pulled-off the most impressive feat, winning the softball age-group several weeks after winning the hardball age-group in Boston. Several other strong competitors in the various age groups included Fred Sadler, with twin-brother Blair not competing this year but looking on, Taft Toribara, victor in the 85-plus group, Bill Kaplan, Mike Riley, Chris Burroughs, Tom Rumpler, Warren Young, and a host of other perennial nationals competitors.

Club pros have their day

Several of the outstanding pro's who have come state-side in the past several years put on stirring demonstrations. Richard Millman, in particular, exhibited his experience, fitness, even temperment, and will to win as he pleased the crowd with several close wins and victory in the 35 plus division. Francis Odeh won out in an extremely competitive 30-plus draw, with Benoit Desombre and Paul Ansdell falling in the finals and semis respectively. In the women's 35-plus event, Sharon Brady had an easy time. In the 25-plus event, Aiden Harrison from Dallas was victorious, though he probably would have wished to test himself in a draw stronger than the 9-person draw that turned up.

Nationals comes of age as international-ball event

The US Nationals is the oldest National Squash Championship worldwide, held first in 1922. It was a hardball tournament then, and strictly amateur.

The first Nationals I attended was in 1972 at Princeton, at the then brand-new Jadwin Squash Facility. I was a spectator then. The tournament featured extremely competitive amateur squash, the highlight that year being Victor Niederhoffer's return from "retirement".

Throughout the seventies, the US Nationals was most definitely the highlight of the year's squash calendar in the USA. Everyone came. Then in the mid seventies, the Boston Open pro tournament emerged to rival the pure squash value of the US Nationals -- clearly the level of play exhibited by Sharif Khan, Mo Khan, Khalid Mir and others was much higher.

The floodgates were opened, and the pro tour grew. By the early 80's the nationals was much diminished, with most top young players choosing to "turn professional".

Now, with squash "open", and the US transition to the international game virtually complete, the US Nationals seems to have rebuilt its momentum, importance, and intangiable cachet. This year's Nationals had a positive, indefineable spirit about it, that was much more optimistic, energetic than even Newport two years ago.

Embraced by both the "old stars", Nelson, Anderson, Nayar, ... and the new squash grass roots, the US Nationals this year seemed to represent the promise and growth potential of US Squash. It was a fun event!

additional nationals coverage

You may want to look at these other pages about this year's nationals:
SquashTalk would like to thank Vaughn Winchell for the effort he put in to recording a number of the Nationals matches, at various levels, on film.

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