SquashTalk>Columns>Team Kneipp > Spanish Open 2003 Preview

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A tournament’s entry closing date is typically about a month before the event starts, and the draw is usually done a week after the entries close.

This system is very different to how the tennis tour deals with their entries and draws. The draw of most major tennis tournaments isn’t usually done until a few days before the event gets under way. This is to avoid the situation of players having to withdraw from the tournament due to injuries and creating problems with a redraw.

Which is exactly what has happened with the Spanish Open. The second seed and world #4 Jonathon Power has withdraw with a back injury only days before the event’s commencement. The PSA has special rules to deal with this situation and I think the way they organise draws and entry dates is better than the tennis. You know well in advance who you are going to play, and in the unfortunate situation where a top seed
has to withdraw, as has happened with Power, then a redraw is done.

Some players have benefited from this situation, others haven’t. Here’s how we see the first couple of rounds of the Spanish Open including how Power’s withdrawal affects different players.

The 1st quarter

[1] Peter Nicol (Eng ) vs Qualifier
[5] Joseph Kneipp (Aus) vs Borja Golan (Esp)

Nicol already had a qualifier in the initial draw, and does again for the redraw so the only change for him in the first two rounds is his scheduled quarter final match is now against me and not against Simon Parke. Seeing as Parke beat him last week in straight games in a non-ranking tournament final, Nicol will probably be happy about the change. He certainly won’t mind playing in a medium sized tournament that has no Power, White or Palmer, meaning that the only player in the tournament that has previously beaten Nicol in a PSA event is Parke and that was way back in 1999.

I wasn’t over the moon when I saw the redraw. I initially had a qualifier in the first round, and if I won that Jonathon Power in the second round. The two things I hoped for with the redraw was that I didn’t have to play the local wildcard entrant in the first round, and that I wasn’t in Nicol’s quarter. So of course both of these happened.

We’ve written quite a few times about how advantageous it is to have a local wildcard for a tournament. It greatly increases the local interest, the media attention and
presumably the tournament’s sponsors. But it isn’t usually fun to be playing against an over-enthusiastic local player who is quite often able to play a few grades higher than usual because of the support, an overwhelmingly biased crowd, and a situation where the referee is often lenient on the local hero because of the crowd pressure. But that’s what I can probably expect on Thursday afternoon when my match with Borja Golan begins.

Borja and I play on the same Dutch league team. He is the Spanish national champion and has very deservedly been given a wild card for the Spanish-Seville Open. He has had a meteoric rise up the PSA ranking. He played his first PSA tournament in January of last year, and within twelve months went from 243 to 52. He is now sitting at 45. He managed to make such a ridiculously fast climb up the rankings ladder by winning four out of his first twelve tournaments!

David Palmer played 16 tournaments in his first two years on the circuit and won only one of these. Peter Nicol played 21 and won 4. Jonathon Power played 30 and won 2. John White played 26 and won 2. Golan has played 12 tournaments in his first year and a half of being a squash pro and has won four of them. Some of the scalps that he has accumulated along the way include James Willstrop, Davide Bianchetti, Tim
Garner and Tommy Berden. I’m currently ranked 11, so I will be the highest player he has met in a PSA match so far by a reasonable margin. I’m hoping and planning to be able to show Borja the difference, and certainly don’t want to be added to his list of scalps. Obviously we’re not taking this match lightly.

The 2nd quarter
[4] Karim Darwish (Egy) vs Stephen Meads (Eng)
[8] Nick Taylor (Eng) vs Qualifier

Meads is the person who benefits most from Power’s withdrawal and the subsequent redraw. He was the #1 ranked qualifier and probably would have had a match against a local player in the first round of the qualifying tournament, and then a tough second round qualifying match again someone like Davide Bianchetti, Tommy Berden or Lars Harms. And if he won that then he would have played against Nicol, Parke, Bengy or Kneipp. He has been excused from the two matches in the qualifying tournament, something I’m sure he is very happy about, and now meets the top Egyptian and fourth seed Karim Darwish in the first round.

Darwish will probably be reasonably happy with his draw through to the semi finals, having to get past Meads and then probably Nick Taylor whose first round opponent is a qualifier. But if Darwish underestimates either Meads or Taylor then his tournament will be over quickly. Both players are very tough fighters and are willing to battle away for hours for a victory.

Darwish is currently ranked 8 and had his best PSA result to date at the Qatar Masters last month, beating Power in the second round 15-14 in the fifth set. Meads is currently ranked 31. These two have played 3 times over the past few years. Their first meeting was back in 2000 at the Mega Italia Open. At that time Darwish was the underdog, ranked 58 to Meads’ 37. The match went to seeding with Meads winning in four. The following year in Canada their rematch went to the Egyptian, by which time he had narrowed the ranking gap and was only two positions behind the Englishman. Their most recent match was in December of last year at the World Open in the second round. By this time Darwish was ranked 13 compared to Meads who was 27 and
the match again went to Darwish in four.

The 3rd quarter

[4] Ong Beng Hee (Mas) vs Qualifier
[7] Mark Chaloner (Eng) vs Mohammed Abbas (Egy)

Bengy had a qualifier in the initial draw and does again in the redraw. The main change for the Malaysian is that he goes from the tournament’s fifth seed, to the all important fourth seed. His initial quarter final opponent was going to be Anthony Ricketts, a player that he lost to twice last year. Bengy will be happy that he’s not facing a fellow top 10 player until the semi finals (if all of the matches go to seeding, and they never do).

Mark Chaloner’s opponent changes from Nick Taylor, to Egypt’s Mohammed Abbas. Chaloner is ranked 14 compared to Abbass’ 24. Chaloner has had some injury problems at the start of the year, and missed the last big tournament due to it clashing with his honeymoon. He will be hoping to use this tournament to help get his ranking back into the top 10. Chaloner and Abbass haven’t yet played each other in a PSA match.

The 4th quarter

[6] Simon Parke (Eng) vs Qualifier
[2] Anthony Ricketts (Aus) vs Amr Shabana (Egy)

I’m not sure if Parke will be happy with his change of draw. He initially shared a quarter with Nicol and now has Australian Anthony Ricketts instead. Most players would prefer to play Ricketts than Nicol, but Parke won his recent encounter against Nicol, and lost his recent league match against Ricketts.

Before that rematch can happen both players must get past their first round opponents. For Ricketts this means the Egyptian shot maker Amr Shabana.
There is a reasonable ranking gap between the two, with Ricketts at 7 and Shabana at 20. Shabana probably has more shots and is definitely more deceptive than Ricketts, but he can’t compare to the Aussie’s fitness and on-court hunger. One of the top Dutch players first played Shabana in the qualifying tournament of the British Open quite a few years ago. Shabana was only about 15 at the time, and the Dutch player expected an easy win. He won in three, but not after about 15 ‘taxi’ points throughout the match, where he went the completely wrong direction and was left so far from the ball that he needed directions or a taxi to get there. Ricketts hasn’t played Shabana in a PSA tournament before. This should be the best match of the
first round.

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