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Top Maestros of Squash Back in Action         [English Open]
The Hong Kong Open is usually staged in August and signals the beginning of the new season following summer's hiatus. The outbreak of SARS caused the cancellation of this year's tournament, so the English Open has become the touranament that gets the season started. The summer months can be strange for a squash pro. Last year's calendar wasn't very busy so June and July became an inconvenient drawn out time of no tournaments, exhibitions or leagues. As this year is much busier, particularly for the second half of the year, summer became either a time to rest your body, or to get a lot of base training done. Which means that the first tournament of the new season should provide some very interesting results and upsets.

There are very few tournaments around the world that are staged in a country that has a genuine contender for the title. Aside from the British Open and the Canadian Classic there isn't a substantial sized tournament where the home crowd can realistically hope to cheer a native to victory. Over the past 12 months we've had tournaments in the States, Pakistan, Qatar, South Africa, Hong Kong, Belgium, Sweden and Spain. Most of these countries don't have players strong enough to be competitive in the first round, let alone push for a final berth. Ten of the main draw players in the English Open are British (including McWhitey who has trekked down from the Scottish Highlands just for this event). The six non-British are Bengy, Ricketts, Palmer, Kneipp, Tuominen and Power. Bengy and Ricketts are both based in England, Palmer, Kneipp and Tuominen are all based in Europe. Which means this should be a tournament that has the most vocal and supportive crowd. Every player should have some fans or fellow countrymen that turn up out of the woodword and create a vibrant atmophere. If a vibrant atmosphere can't be created at the Crucible it won't happen anywhere.

[1] Peter Nicol (Eng) verus Olli Tuominen (Qualifier)
Nicol, the world #1 is one of the co-organisers of this event. It will be interesting to see if that added responsibility and attention of helping organise the tournament will ensure that he wins this tournament, or make it more likely that he will exit early. A betting man should note that extra attention hasn't appeared to hinder Nicol's performance over the past decade and will be bloody unlikely to here. Last year only three players beat Nicol - Jonathon Power, David Palmer and John White. In June at the Spanish Open Nicol lost for the first time to Egypt's Karim Darwish. The loss also meant that Nicol has exited the past two tournament's at the semi final stage. A lot of players would be happy with that, but Nicol will hope to stop that trend at this tournament.

Tuominen is the best player from Finland and currently ranked 28 in the world. He has had to fight his way through two qualifying matches including a 90 minute battle in the first round to come back from 2-1 down against Englishman Peter Barker. His reward for that is no rest day and a match against the top guy. Tuominen hasn't beaten Nicol yet, but if you watch this match you'll get the impression that the Fin believes that he can. Their last encounter was in Pakistan last year with Nicol winning comfortably in three, not letting his opponent get to double figures in any game. Tuominen is not afraid to play fast and he can be one of the hungrier players on the circuit - always willing to volley or chase a ball down no matter how tired he is. Tuominen's ranking has see-sawed quite a bit over the past year and he'll hope to start getting more consistent results that can drag his ranking back into the teens.

[5] Anthony Ricketts (Aus) versus Alex Gough (Wal)
Anthony Ricketts is currently ranked 7, compared to Gough who is 16. Ricketts' last tournament was the Spanish Open where he was a first round casualty to Amr Shabana, the Egyptian who worked his way through the field to win the tournament. Ricketts has been extremely consistent over the past 12 months, making the quarter finals of most tournaments he has entered. He will still have the nasty taste of the recent first round loss, a dish he won't want to order again. Ricketts and Gough last played each other six months ago in Dayton in the semi finals. It was a long, tough match with Ricketts eventually winning in five on the way to claiming the tournament title.

What will be very interesting is if Ricketts can win this match. Then once again the freakish Ricketts/Nicol quarter final draw will probably rear its head. In theory if you are a player seeded 5 – 8 in a tournament then you could get any of the top 4 seeds in the quarter finals. It is drawn out of a hat. Ricketts has made the quarter finals of 7 major tournaments over the past year or so. He has made the quarters of the Pakistan Open, Hong Kong Open, US Open, Qatar Classic, World Open, Tournament of Champions and Qatar Masters. For six of those seven tournaments the reason that he hasn’t progressed beyond the quarter finals is his inability to beat Peter Nicol. When there’s only a 1:4 possibility of drawing the #1 player in your quarter, and you’ve done it six out of the past seven times, you’d feel fairly comfortable that it wouldn’t happen again in the English Open. Sorry. Make that seven out of eight. Ricketts isn’t the type of guy who would dwell on this too much. Instead he would get motivated for the next encounter and try to work out how to beat him.

[3] John White (Sco) versus Simon Parke (Eng)
McWhitey is currently ranked 3, Parke 15. There is a big buffer between White and Power, the player ranked fourth behind him. Even if Power wins this tournament he can’t catch White, which will help the wee lad concentrate on catching Messers Palmer and Nicol. White won the most recent major tournament in Qatar.

Simon Parke hasn’t been able to replicate the form he showed in last year’s world open where he won through to the quarterfinals. Aside from that tournament he has only beaten one other top 20 player over the past twelve months. He’ll be looking to use this tournament to get some more consistent results under his belt or will risk having his ranking jump in the wrong direction.

White and Parke played three times last year - the British Open, Memorial US Open and World Open. White won every encounter and will be confident going into his first round match here. He trains with Parke and knows his game and ability too well to underestimate him or take the match lightly.

[6] Ong Beng Hee (Mas) versus Tim Garner (Eng)

Malaysia's Ong Beng Hee is currently ranked 8. England's Tim Garner is ranked 61, but as the co-promoter of the tournament has given himself the wild card. Why wouldn’t you? Earlier in the year at the Swedish Open the tournament organiser, Freddy Johnson, was rounding up some extra entertainment for the final. He secured me and Martin Heath, the losing semi finalists to partner up and play a game of doubles. To create more crowd participation our opponents were to be a couple of the top Swedish player. Freddy is a great player himself and I was asking him why he didn’t get on court. All of the sponsors obviously know him very well, and it would create a lot of interest. But Freddy was embarrassed at the thought of doing it. I couldn't see John Nimick playing a round of lightning squash alongside the top pros as a curtain raiser to the final of one of his events, despite the fact that it will undoubtedly delight the sponsors and crowd. Garner had the chance to give himself a leg up and there wouldn't be a single player in the pro game at the moment that wouldn't do the same for themselves if they had that opportunity. There’s also the other argument that the deciding factor was that Tim Garner is currently ranked below his younger brother, and if putting on a tournament and giving yourself a wild card can rectify that situation…then so be it.

I wonder who would be more excited about this draw – Bengy or Garner. Obviously Bengy is going to be very glad to be playing an opponent who otherwise wouldn’t have made the entry list for the qualifying tournament. But Garner is no slouch on court, and his current ranking isn’t indicative of his standard of play, but it does reveal how few tournaments he is playing . On the other hand these two players are part of the same training stable and have extensive knowledge of each other’s game. That surely has to help Garner’s belief in his ability to cause an upset. The only time these two played previously in PSA was at the Pakistan Open in 1999. Bengy didn't drop a game.

[8] Joe Kneipp (Aus) versus Nick Matthew (Qualifier)
I'm currently ranked 11 compared to Matthew's 25. He is another player that will be hoping for a good result at this tournament to impress the English selectors. Obviously he'll have a huge number of supporters cheering him on which always help you dig deep during the painful rallies. We've only been on court together once before, earlier in the year for the first round of the Tournament of Champions. I won in three but it was a tough match and I was impressed at how he kept up the intensity throughout the match and never gave up on a rally. Matthew has the disadvantage of having to qualify and having played two matches already, but unlike poor Olli Tuominen he gets a rest day prior to our encounter.

[4] Jonathon Power (Can) versus Nick Taylor (Qualifier)
Power is currently ranked 4. This is his lowest ranking for numerous years. He lost in the second round of the most recent Super Series event and had to withdraw from the Spanish Open with injury problems. Thierry Lincou is breathing down his neck for that crucial top 4 ranking. Power has plenty of motivation to do well here. He always says that he doesn't play well in England, his sole British Open title occurring in Scotland. Last year's Commonwealth Games gold medal may have changed that mindset. I played an exhibition match against Power last month at Dartmouth College. He was playing very well and wasn't showing any signs of injury problems.

Taylor should win some kind of prize for time spent on court during the qualifying tournament. He had a 90 minute battle in the first round, but that was a walk in the park compared to last night's two hour marathon. It's not so easy to have overwhelming belief in your ability to win your first round match when you've given your opponent a three and a half hour headstart. Taylor hasn't beaten Power yet. He lost twice to him in 1999, and again in their most recent encounter in November in Qatar.

[7] Lee Beachill (Eng) Mark Chaloner (Eng)
Beachill is ranked 10. Chaloner is ranked 14. For the first round these are the two players that are closest to each other in ranking. In theory it should be the closest match. It doesn't usually work like that, but it should be a good encounter.

There are two players at this tournament that I'm very interested to see how they go. The first one is Chaloner. The Qatar Masters were originally scheduled for April earlier this year, but were postponed to May due to the war in Iraq. Unfortunately for Chaloner the altered dates clashed with his wedding/honeymoon plans. So he was forced to sit out one of the biggest tournaments of the year. He was also plagued with injury problems earlier in the year and at the Tournament of Champions in New York was unable to progress past the first round. I image he has been training bloody hard since May and will be very hungry for a victory over Beachill. There also might be England selectors that need impressing for October's World Team Championships. Australia has already picked its team, but England's team is less clear-cut with a lot of players ranked from the teens to the high 20s.

These two haven't played in a PSA event for a couple of years. In 2000 at the Italian Open Chaloner won their encounter in 4. Beachill reversed the result the following year in Qatar.

[2] David Palmer (Aus) versus Adrian Grant (Qualifier)

Palmer is the second player whose performance at this tournament will be very interesting. He is always a player that is extremely hungry on court and able to push through pain and fatigue. He hasn't been in a tournament since February because of appendicitis. We had a training match last week and he was so keen he was bouncing off the walls. It wouldn't have surprised me if he started doing his service ball toss a body length away from himself, just so he could do an extra lunge. His movement was great and he was volleying everything

Palmer is still ranked 2 in the world, despite his extended lay off. His English opponent is ranked 22 in the world and had to make his way through the qualification touranament. Grant hasn't yet faced Palmer in a PSA tournament.

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