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TOC 2003 NYC Draw/results

Lingering at the Scene of the Crime

Feb 27 , 2003 by Team Kneipp

After Losing at the TOC

There is always a dilemma when you finish a tournament. Of the thirty-two players that make up the tournament only two have playing commitments until the very last night. Everyone else has staggered departures from the event. Which creates the dilemma of what to do once you lose. The most common (and arguably sensible) response is to leave town on the next horse.

THE UPSET HAPPENS
Picture this scenario: A seeded player has arrived at the tournament with his own high expectations and those of the squash fans. Obviously he will be
at least expecting to make the stage of the tournament expected of his seeding, i.e. 2nd round for top 16, quarters for top 8, semis for top 4 etc. Then imagine he has the added bonus of playing a qualifier in the first
round. The qualifier, who is ranked many places below him would normally struggle to beat him, now has to battle for two days to win the honour of playing the seeded player who is as fresh as a daisy. The seed now has a long way to fall. So the inevitable upset occurs. It has happened to everyone and continues at every tournament. Not only does he have to deal with the mental anguish associated with this loss, but also wake up to the web headlines the next morning reminding him of what went wrong.

RETURNING TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
If you’re masochistic enough to go back to the court after an upset it takes on a whole new look, becoming what feels like the scene of a psychological crime - conjuring up emotional storms and creating mental scarring. You are reminded of your failure by seeing how your victor is progressing in the slot that you should be in. People want to talk about your match. This can be very positive but it makes it impossible to work past your bad result, learn from it and begin preparing for the next event.

This is the reason that most players once they lose will be frantically phoning the airline so as to exit the city and country on the quickest possible flight. We’ve already done an article on the psychological minefield connected with booking return dates - finding a compromise between being positive about the tournament yet financially responsible (see YMG report). Should a qualifier be extremely positive and book their return flight on the day after the final, putting a few hundreds dollars in jeopardy if his plane ticket has to be changed? Leaving the tournament as soon as you lose doesn’t just save money but also avoids the ‘Beaten Player Doldrums’ caused by having a feeling of failure in the company of successful players.

ON TO BERMUDA
We have an invitational tournament in Bermuda directly following the Tournament of Champions, so we were aware that regardless of how far I progressed in the tournament we would still be around. Which ended up being the 2nd round – what was expected of my seeding but still not as far as I wanted to go. So what do I do while I am at the tournament?

RELAXING, TRAINING

Even though you are trying to deal with what went wrong, or could have gone better, the time after the tournament is usually a mixture of relaxing a little and enjoying the moment and taking advantage of the player pool to prepare for the next tournament. If a top 20 player wants a really tough competitive training match it is usually ideal to have it against a similarly ranked player, preferably someone ranked higher. Which often isn’t either geographically possible or able to be coordinated due to clashing schedules. The best time to organise training hits is at a tournament. There’s a wealth of great players, many of whom have taken an unwanted tournament exit and are happy to lunge their troubles away with you.

We are based in Amsterdam which fluctuates between being a hot bed of squash
action and competitiveness, to having no one. Graham Ryding and Olli
Touminen have both recently moved out of Amsterdam, but luckily have been
replaced by Amr Shabana. It seems a little dumb that there is only one guy
at the moment in the top 40 that I am able to train with virtually daily,
and I fly half way around the world to end up being on court together having
training matches. But it is also preparation for my participation in the
Lightening Tournament that is being held alongside the final of the TOC.

There are of course many advantages of remaining at the tournament - seeing
some great squash and getting to meet more people within what is a tight
knit community. It is quite likely that Team Kneipp will be spending summer
training at one of the Ivy League Colleges. Watch this space for details.

Kneipp's SquashTalk Forum
Feedback: if you would like to discuss our columns or introduce questions or comments, please email us at dan@teamkneipp.com. We will post the good comments and question here on our SquashTalk column together with our responses. We hope to get a good dialogue started!

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