SquashTalk note: To you international squash players and younger squash players in the USA, hardball squash may already be just a distant historical note to the game. To the North and Central American squash players, aged about 30 and up, it is the game you grew up with and its passing may provide mixed feeling and memories. For a dwindling but enthusiastic group of hardball players, however, the game is alive and well. There is this year an active hardball tournament circuit in the Eastern United States. Rob Dinerman will be reporting on this periodically for SquashTalk.

Hardball on the road - 1998/99
reported by Rob Dinerman, New York

The first two hardball tournaments of the season, Trenton and the Rockaway Long Island's Gold Racquets tournaments, were played on the first weekends of November and December respectively.

Trenton Invitational: For the second year in a row, the format was a twelve-man event and played during the course of a single day, Saturday, in order to build up to a good crowd at the Saturday evening final. The committee believed, with reason, that none of the non-byed players would be making it to the final round, hence alleviating the chance of anyone playing their fourth match of the day in the finals. But, of course, that unforeseen result occurred and the competitiveness of the final suffered accordingly.

Preliminary round results: Dave Steere def. Jim Anderson, 3-0; Bruce Horowitz def. Jason Ringer, 3-0; Alan Horowitz def Greg Burton, 3-1; John Winchester def. Walter Smedley, 3-0.

Quarterfinal results: Top-seeded and defending champion Rob Hill defeated Steere, 3-2 in a cliff-hanger: Rob won the last three points of the match after trailing 13-12 in the fifth game; Tim Kent def B. Horowitz, 3-0; Rob Dinerman def A. Horowitz, 3-0; Winchester def Jamie Dean (the winner two years back and the finalist the previous year), 3-1 in another exciting match with Dean failing to capitalize on leads of 14-10 in the third game and 13-9 in the fourth game, mostly on unforced errors.

Semifinal results: Hill def Kent, 3-0; Winchester def Dinerman, 3-1.

Final Round results: Rob Hill wasted a 13-11 lead in the third game, eventually losing that game but won finally in four, with a score of 15-8 in the final game. Hill has now assembled two straight wins in the Trenton event, and four in the last six years, all against different finalists. (Previously against Jeff Stanley in '93, Keen Butcher in '95 and Dean in '97.)

Gold Racquets Tournament: The final event! The Gold Racquets Tournament was in its day one of the finest of the hardball amateur circuit events, and one of the "top four" events of each year. Now the tournament was seeing its final year, as the Rockaway Hunting Club courts are slated for conversion to international size later this year. For the occasion, Ned Edwards traveled out to Long Island for a nostalgic appearance. Ned last played in this event nineteen years ago, when he was heavily favored to reach the finals of the event and meet eventual winner Mike Desaulniers but inexplicably squandered a 13-6 fifth-game lead to lose his semi-final match in overtime to Gil Mateer in the 1979 edition of this event. Ned last played in a hardball tournament in 1994. He marshalled his game together for one last shot, winning the tournament and in doing so probably becoming the oldest player ever to win the event.

Round of sixteen results: Edwards, bye; Ryan O'Connell def Bruce Horowitz 3-2, Dave Steere def Cyrus Mehta, 3-2; Reade Frank def John Winchester, 3-0; Dave Kaye def Greg Burton, 3-1; Anil Nayar def Alan Horowitz, 3-2; Jamie Dean def Chi Chi Ubina, w.o., Rob Hill, bye.

Quarterfinal results: Edwards def O'Connell, 3-0; Steere def Frank, 3-0; Kaye def Nayar, 3-0; Hill def Dean, 3-2.

Semifinal results: Edwards def Steere, 3-0; Hill def Kaye 3-2 (Kaye led this match 2-0 but couldn't close it out against the steady Hill).

Final round result: Edwards def Hill, 3-2; in this match Hill led by a score of two game to nil, but was playing his third five-game match of the weekend, while Edwards had had a simpler road to the finals. This match was a flashback of sorts; Hill had pressed Edwards several times on the old WPSA pro tour, holding a fourth game match-point against Edwards in Salt Lake City in 1989 and pressing Edwards to overtime in the fifth game in Denver in 1983, but he was never able to break through and defeat him. This time was no exception.

Upcoming Events. There are four events left on the hardball schedule; The William White, back for the first time with a hardball draw since '94, in early January, the perennial Atlantic City tournament, which this writer, Rob Dinerman, won in 1998; the Woodruff-Nee in Washington DC the third week in February, which was won last year by Tom Harrity; and the U.S. Nationals, which has been won the last two years by Rob Hill, in Boston one week later.

US Nationals - To Encourage Younger Entrants,The National will waive the entry fee for all players under the age of thirty in an effort to encourage hardball play among a younger generation of players.

Writing from New York,Rob Dinerman