Womens Pro Hardball Doubles Squash Tourney 2008

WDSA 2008-09 Tour Update: Hewitt And DiMauro Go Two For Two

Building upon an extremely impressive inaugural 2007-08 season, the Women’s Doubles Squash Association (WDSA) soared into the 2008-09 tour year with substantive increases in the number of tour sites (from three to seven) and overall purse (up more than 30%) from a year ago, as well as a markedly expanded and decorated player group that includes some of the truly historical figures in all of squash, complemented by a welcome infusion of youth representing some of the elite members of the mid-2000’s intercollegiate scene. A palpable sense of heightened expectation greeted the outset of the current season in light of how praiseworthy a debut the WDSA tour had made a year ago, and to this point the tour has fully lived up to that level of anticipation.

Both season-opening WDSA events --- namely, the early-November Greenwich Field Club Open and Indian Summer Open at the Commodore Squash Club in St. Paul, Minnesota, two weeks later--- finished up with Steph Hewitt and Jessica DiMauro, right-wall opponents in the Greenwich final a year ago, occupying the winner’s circle.

Indian Summer in St. Paul, Minnesota

Theirs has been one of a number of debuting or unusual partnerships cobbled together somewhat on the fly due to absence so far this autumn from WDSA competition of WISPA No. 3 Natalie Grainger (in Asia competing in WISPA pro-singles-tour events), winner with DiMauro last season in Greenwich, Denver and at the Canadian and U. S. Nationals; Narelle Krizek (pregnant with her and husband Rob’s second child), last year’s Briggs Cup co-champion along with Demer Holleran, and runner-up in Greenwich, Denver and at the U. S. Nationals with Holleran, Natarsha McElhinny (Krizek’s sister) and Holleran respectively; Holleran herself, busy with the new club (the Fairmount Athletic Club) that she owns in suburban Philadelphia, which is just completing its first full calendar year of operation; and all three Belknap sisters, namely Lee (hip surgery) and her twin siblings Mary McKee (who will be spending this year and next in Paris) and Berkeley Revenaugh (pregnant), semifinalists in Rye last winter.

In Greenwich, Hewitt/DiMauro, after surviving a pair of four-game challenges from first Tina Rix and ’08 Intercollegiate Individuals winner Miranda Ranieri (one of a number of new teams comprised of extremely recent collegians, including the Yale ’06 pairing of Amy Gross and two-time Individuals champion Michelle Quibell, whose presence is considered such an encouraging sign for the WDSA’s growth) and then ’02 Individuals finalist Lynn Leong and WISPA No. 44 Amelia Pittock, were leading Fiona Geaves (whose regular partner Meredeth Quick was attending a friend’s wedding that weekend) and her first-time partner Karen Jerome in a wildly undulating 15-5 5-15 10-6 tally when play was brusquely terminated as a consequence of a severe calf injury to Jerome as she maneuvered for position while her partner Geaves was hitting a shot.

Full Court Women's doubles pro action

In a cruel irony, it was a year ago in the same Greenwich venue that Jerome sustained what her Toronto orthopedic doctor would call “the worst muscle tear I have ever seen in a squash player,” also to the same calf, though closer to the Achilles tendon junction, that sidelined her for the remainder of that season. After a determined and lengthy rehab effort, Jerome was back in full form this time around and her shot-making was on fire throughout her team’s one-sided semifinal win over Adriana DiMauro and Emily Lungstrum (first-round winners over Amy Milanek and Orla O’Doherty) and in the second game of the final as well prior to her mishap, which is thought to be less serious than its predecessor and hopefully will heal up in time for her to return to the scene before the current campaign is over.

LAKES COUNTRY REUNION
Geaves and Quick were reunited in Minnesota, where they rolled to the finals without dropping more than 10 points in any of their games. Neither the Lauren Doline/Nadia Jomo nor the Dana Betts/Marie Vlcek pairings were able to offer serious resistance, even with first-time partners Betts and Vlcek coming off a good quarterfinal win over Milanek and Cairn Meek. Geaves and Quick have historically fared well in simultaneous-game-ball situations --- their 2007 U. S. Nationals final-round win was by a 17-16 fifth-game score at the expense of Krizek and Hewitt --- and this fortunate tendency rose to the fore in the second game of their final against Hewitt and DiMauro (semifinal four-game victors over the ascendant Canadian stand-out Marci Sier and her ageless first-time partner Joyce Davenport), who had double-game ball to go up two games only to have a parabolic cross-court lob off Quick’s racquet at two-all, set-three, sail over DiMauro’s head and stymie Hewitt’s effort to circle back for the ball when it dead-nicked at the back wall.

MASTERS OF MOMENTUM
However, just as they had done 14 days earlier in the Greenwich final, where after winning the first game and dropping the second they had been clearly reasserting control of the play prior to Jerome’s match-stopping injury, Hewitt and DiMauro ran away from Quick/Geaves in a 15-5 third game and established and maintained a small but definite advantage throughout the 15-10 close-out fourth, which DiMauro finished off by nailing a drive up the middle that caught both of her opponents by surprise.

DiMauro has now won four of the five combined WDSA ranking events (two each with Grainger and Hewitt) that have taken place during the organization’s brief but promising history, during which two significant presenting sponsorships (with TCW Crescent Mezzanine and Harrow Sports) have already been secured, as have commitments for tour stops this winter/spring in Denver, Chicago, Locust Valley, Vancouver and at the World Doubles. Several of these events will be benefitting squash-based youth-enrichment groups in their capacities as official charities (as has already happened with the Field Club Open and Squash Haven, based in New Haven), a formula that has worked so well for the ISDA men’s pro doubles tour in recent years.

It is a noteworthy testament to the depth of the WDSA player group that, even with the Hewitt/DiMauro duo winning in both Greenwich and St. Paul and Geaves reaching each final with her respective partners, eight different additional women have attained a semifinal slot (Pittock, Leong, Lungstrum, Adriana DiMauro, Davenport, Sier, Betts and Vlcek) already this season, six of whom (all but Lungstrum and Betts) did not reach any semis last season and three of whom (Pittock, Leong and Adriana DiMauro) didn’t even play in a WDSA event in 2007-08. This kind of increased interest and participation can only augur well for both the remainder of this season (which should be further enlivened when Krizek, Grainger, Holleran, WISPA No. 37 Susie Pierrepont, who just a few days ago won a singles event in Macau and was a U. S. National Doubles semifinalist last spring with Betts, McIlhinny and hopefully Jerome rejoin the fray in the next few months) and the long-term outlook of this Association.

Web	www.squashtalk.com

WDSA in Minnesota

NEW ... Get the New Jonathon Power Instruction Video at the SquashTalk eStore!