Tournament of Champions Squash at Grand Central in NYC

[TOC DRAW and RESULTS ] [Also Wenesday's TOC Men's Finals]

Out-Lasts Kitchen In Close Fifth Game

A women’s four-player tournament that desperately needed an entertaining and competitive final after two ragged, one-sided and desultory semis earlier this week got exactly that this evening as the Tournament Of Champions concluded its weeklong run in Grand Central Station. First Vanessa Atkinson, twice a champion in the mid-2000’s in this event, rallied from love/two down to force a fifth game with Vicky Botwright before the latter emerged with a 12-10 12-10 6-11 10-12 11-7 victory in a third-place playoff that may prove to have a lasting uplifting effect on both women after their sub-par, tin-filled straight-game pre-final losses, in which neither player got more than six points in any of the six combined games.

And then in the final Natalie Grainger, who had defeated Atkinson in both last year’s final and last night’s semi, barely survived a riveting 11-4 12-10 (from 7-10) 8-11 8-11 11-8 final against Shelley Kitchen, who seemed doomed to a 3-0 defeat when Grainger ran off nine straight points to go up 4-0 in what appeared to be a close-out third game but who rallied wonderfully to make the final three games a truly memorable performance and one of the highlights of the entire week.

Grainger has very much had her way with Kitchen in recent years, her 9-1, 4 and 3 victory the last time these two met in New York (last month in a Carol Weymuller semifinal before Grainger’s 3-0 final-round win over Jenny Duncalf being an illustrative case in point) and when she breezed through the first game in just six minutes, it appeared there would be more of the same. Kitchen was tight and tinny, and her slender frame seemed over-matched against Grainger’s imposing muscularity. The latter also has remarkably soft hands, especially on her midcourt drop shots, which complement her power beautifully and enabled her to score seemingly at will with a combination of depth and finesse that swiftly brought her from 5-4 to 11-4 in the first game, which ended when her forehand working-boast so stretched Kitchen out that the New Zealand star had no choice but to sweep the ball cross-court right onto Grainger’s waiting racquet, which muscled the ball down the open right wall for a clean winner.

Chastened by the way that first game had gone, Kitchen became more aggressive during the second game, moving to 7-4 by hitting earlier and with more conviction than she had previously shown. Grainger crept back to 7-8 on one of a number of reflex midcourt drop-shot winners that she struck throughout the match (a delicate maneuver made all the more impressive by the fact that she often executes it using only her hands, i.e. without setting her feet to get the required balance), but a Kitchen drop-shot winner followed by a forehand that she laced down the right wall made it 10-7, and hence a trio of game-ball opportunities to tie the match at a game apiece.

Grainger then conjured up three consecutive winners (two drop shots sandwiching a beautiful backhand working-boast from off the back wall), creating a tiebreaker which began controversially when Kitchen hit a drop-shot serve-return that either barely tipped or just eluded the tin. The referee said she had been unsighted, so a let was played, after which Grainger drove a forehand winner and beautifully disguised a forehand cross-court drop which completely wrong-footed Kitchen to end that game.

Buoyed by that late rescue of the second game, Grainger almost immediately strode to 4-0 in the third, seemingly only a few minutes from wrapping the match up. Kitchen appeared discouraged and out of answers, but Grainger gave her an opening with a few unforced tins (including two on serve-returns), leading to a surprisingly swift run from 0-4 to 5-4 and then, a short while later, from 6-7 to another 10-7 lead, which this time Kitchen converted when at 8-10 Grainger attempted a backhand drop-shot off the back wall that barely caught the tin.

Although Grainger then again jumped ahead 5-2 in the fourth game, this time there was more of a sense that Kitchen was very much still in the match (her whole demeanor was markedly different than it had been when she had fallen behind early in the third, while Grainger was showing signs of fatigue), and her surge from 2-5 to 9-6 was therefore almost unsurprising. Kitchen was by this time out-dueling Grainger in their backhand rail exchanges along the left wall, whipping the ball with noteworthy speed and even more noteworthy width, resulting several times in balls that clung too tightly to the wall for Grainger to return. The reigning U. S. National champion was still scoring with her deadly front-court game, and still retrieving admirably, but Kitchen was now dictating much of the play, and when she answered a pair of Grainger winners (to 8-9) with a backhand working-boast virtual-winner (Grainger barely got her racquet on it, but was unable to steer the ball to the front wall) with a daring volley nick, the match, which had seemed on the verge of ending in straight-game fashion 25 minutes earlier, was now dead even at two games all.

The fifth was terrific, with both players struggling desperately for supremacy through eight evenly divided points before a quartet of consecutive Grainger winners (an amazingly deft forehand drop-shot serve return, another midcourt drop shot, a shallow forehand rail and a widely-angled backhand working boast) gave her an 8-4 lead that she would never fully relinquish, though Kitchen courageously rallied first to 7-8 (on her volley nick in between two Grainger tins) and then (after failing to cut off a cross-court, which died behind her) to 8-9 when her forehand rail caught Grainger moving for an anticipated cross-court.

On the crucial succeeding point, it was Kitchen who guessed wrong and could only watch in dismay as a softly-hit Grainger rail from the back wall caught her with her entire weight moving for a cross-court. Perhaps flustered by that mental miscue, Kitchen then hit her ensuing backhand serve-return so widely into the middle that the referee felt she had to call a stroke when Grainger was unable to take her proper backswing. It was a disappointingly anticlimactic ending to what was nevertheless a magnificently played match and a true showcase for the excellence of women’s professional squash.

Recap

Final: Natalie Grainger d Shelley Kitchen, 11-4 12-10 8-11 8-11 11-8

Third Place: Vicky Botwright d Vanessa Atkinson, 12-10 12-10 6-11 10-12 11-7.