SquashTalk>Columns>Team Kneipp > Liverpool'08 Open Preview

The Liverpool08 Open Venue

That’s one thing you’ve got to love about squash. Sure we mightn’t have the money and prestige that tennis has, and it’s very annoying that both table tennis and badminton are Olympic sports and we’re not, but none of the other racquet sports have the spectacular venues that squash have. It’s lovely to come to a new city that you don’t really know and find your work venue for the week (at least hopefully for a week) is some beautiful, culturally significant building. This week’s office is Liverpool’s Saint George’s Hall, a grand building in the centre of the city that is over 150 years old and whose past regulars include people like Charles Dickens. I doubt he went there to play or watch squash though.

His loss.

There has only been one major ranking event since February’s Tournament of Champions (Bermuda) yet it seems like there hasn’t been time to stop and breath. Once you include WSF events and non-ranking events, like league matches, the Commonwealth Games, the European team championships and such, it has been a lot of squash lately. Which is probably why the draw looks like it does. Normally any decent-sized UK-based event gets strong entries because players don’t have to travel so far. No Shabana, Ricketts, Nicol, Abbas or Ryding indicates the players need a break, particularly considering Ricketts, Nicol & Iskandar are all based in the UK. But if they want to give up valuable points then the rest of us will happily take them. Here’s what the first round matches look like:

1st Quarter

Will Palmer and White meet in the quarters (photo from their January meeting in Chicago © 2006 Debra Tessier.

[1] David Palmer (AUS) v Qualifier
Palmer, currently ranked 2, has lost to Jonathon Power or Peter Nicol in three of the four big tournaments this year (including the Commonwealth Games). He won’t mind that neither of them are here.

[15] Ramy Ashour (EGY) v Alex Stait (ENG):
Ramy Ashour, the 18 year old Egyptian wiz kid has only been a PSA member for a year and a half. At the start of last year he was ranked around 100, but now sits at 23. In 2004 he became the youngest World Junior Champion in history and he’s showing that he’s not going to wait around before he breaks into the senior ranks. He has already had victories this year over Bengy, Razik and Touminen in the Dayton Open, losing to White in the final. None of this boads well for Stait, who is the 26 year old Englishman who receives a wild card entry into the event, hence his ranking is 57.

Stait and Ashour haven’t played each other before.

[6] John White (SCO) v Simon Parke (ENG):
Whitey is currently 9, where he has been sitting for the past year and a half, although he was #1 two years ago. He has won two medium-sized tournaments this year so far, but hasn’t gotten past the 2nd round of any major events.The main reason for that is he’s ranked outside the top 8, meaning in the past two tournaments he came up against Lincou & Shabana (Team Kneipp is suffering the same problem, but in the first round because we’re ranked outside the top 16 – a tough handicap to give yourself).

Parke spent most of last year in the low 20s, but is now back in the low 30s.

White leads Parke 4-1 in their PSA head-to-heads, with Parke’s only victory being their first match together, in 2000 when Parke was ranked 3 and White 14. They haven’t played each other in PSA since the scoring has been to 11.

I don’t know who this will favour. In theory it should favour White, but I suspect it would motivate Parke more. In the last three years Parke has only had one first round victory in a 32 draw tournament. This has to put White as the firm favourite, considering in the same space of time White has won 12 first round matches.

[9] Olli Tuominen (FIN) v Qualifier:
Tuominen is at a career high best of 13, and looks like he may finally break the top 10. Although he's only 3 places away from that, the ranking point difference is so big he virtually needs to win this tournament to close the gap, so that elusive top 10 will continue to remain elusive.

Quarter Finalists:
Tuominen should be the only hiccup stopping Palmer and White meeting each other in the quarters. Olli has beaten White before (and Palmer), but he’s got a battle on his hand. If Palmer and White meet in the quarters as they should (nothing is certain with White, never be surprise when he annihilates someone, or loses surprisingly quickly) then we should see Palmer moving through to the semis. Although Palmer and Whitey always have tough close matches, in PSA they almost always go Palmer’s way, with the tally being 7-1 in Palmer’s favour.

2nd Quarter

[4] Nick Matthew (ENG) v Davide Bianchetti (ITA):
Matthew is currently ranked 7. He has been bouncing between 8 and 12 for a few years now. He has shown that he can beat anyone, and his fitness and physical determination on court can be astounding to watch. When your ranking has been reasonably stable (or stagnant, however you want to look at it) and you’ve shown that you can beat the players above you, then there has to come a point where you need to try new training techniques or tournament tactics. Not to dismiss Matthew’s success, his current ranking is a few points higher than Team Kneipp’s best, but a couple of years at the same spot justifies some analysis and change. Matthew was rested for Saturday's European Team Championships final with a sore hip, so we’ll soon see if that has recovered completely.

Bianchetti is currently ranked 33, but has spent about a year of his career in the 20s. Bianchetti is a bit like Guinness – more potent in the homeland and doesn’t travel so well. You always get a sense with Davide that ever minute that he’s away from Italy is painful for him and is such an overwhelming thing that it is a major hurdle for his squash success. The European players that have a problem with this (add a few Dutch players to that list, virtually all the Germans and the #1 Czech player who has just won something like his 6th tournament hosted in Prague in a row, but struggles to qualify in other countries) get absolutely no sympathy from us Aussies who have had to uproot everything and move to the opposite corner of the globe to succeed at squash. A quick trip home for us involves mortgaging the house to pay for a flight and buying 42 dvds to counter the ludicrous flight hours.

Bianchetti has played Matthew twice, both times in 2004, but one of those was a walkover. Matthew didn’t drop a game in their first encounter.

[11] Adrian Grant (ENG) v Qualifier:
Adrian Grant is currently ranked 15, a few places off his best ranking. He has spent the past few two around 15 and will probalby need to beat Bianchetti and Beachill to do something about to improve that, a tough ask.

[5] Lee Beachill (ENG) v Cameron Pilley (AUS):
Beachill has been ranked 8 for all of this year, which is his lowest ranking since 2003. Beachill has only progressed past the quarter final stage once in the past 12 months, hence his ranking is moving backwards. Pilley is at 28, one off his career best. Pilley will be learning that the toughest move in PSA is going from around 30 and 40 into the top 20, and more importantly the top 16. There’s a reason that it takes most players a long time and mainly stall at that hurdle.

These two haven’t played each other in PSA before. I won’t be surprised if Pilley takes a game, but will be pleasantly surprised if he does more.

[13] Alex Gough (WAL) v Jonathan Kemp (ENG):
Gough is currently ranked 19 and is making a last push to get back into the top 10. Kemp is ranked a career high 25. There’s a lot of players missing in this tournament. Normally for an event this big Kemp would have to qualify to make the main draw but instead he was the 17th main draw entrant, just missing out on being a seeded player. I’m sure given the choice of Palmer, Lincou or Gough, he’d prefer the draw that he has. The only time these two have played in PSA was in New York in 2004. Gough won, but it was a close 5 setter.

Quarter Finalists: Matthew versus Beachill. Grant has beaten Matthew before and Gough has beaten Beachill before, but this quarter should go to the seeds. And if that happens it’s anyone’s guess who comes through.

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