1st Round Day 2, Zaman Escapes

by Martin Bronstein
All content © 2002 Squashtalk

Dec 7, 2002

It looked like Scott Handley of England was going to pull off the second upset of the first round when he pushed Mansoor Zaman to a fifth game in their first round match, but had to withdraw due to injury when trailing 5-10 in the fifth to allow the Pakistani hope to go through to a second round meeting with Welshman Alex Gough. Handley, a regular training partner of Frenchman Thierry Lincou, is a fine all-round player who should be well above his present ranking of 57, but persistent injuries has seen him yo-yo between his highest, 49th to the low 70’s.

Italian champion Davide Bianchetti, a qualifier brought off the first surprise by knocking out Derek Ryan of Ireland. Bianchetti is wonderfully gifted shotmaker, but lacks the concentration and loses to players much less talented than himself. Earlier this year he lost to Borja Golan of Spain in the Mega Italia Open in Brescia, a match that he should have won with ease considering the difference in skills between the two players. This win will do something for his ranking but as his next match is against Peter Nicol, he cannot realistically be expected to go much further.

Lee Beachill, the great English hope – and there aren’t many right now – is another player who has been hampered by ill health. Not injuries so much (although he did have a nasty car accident last year) – but he seems to be prone to any virus looking for a home - either a cold or flu. He picked up another unwelcome virus in Qatar which again affected his performance recently, but proved he was well over it and back to full health with a 26-minutes straight games defeat of Ajaz Azmat, the up-an-coming Pakistan player.

Del Harris, now in his 30’s, showed that he can still compete at the top level and gave the young legs of Gregory Gaultier of France a 76 minute run before losing 15-8 in the fifth. Gaultier was a tough junior who never gave up and is proving to be just as determined in his senior years. Gaultier has ‘mature’ Englishman, Chris Walker, in the second round, and if he beats him, which I think he will, he earns a meeting with Jonathon Power, who took 45 minutes to beat Farrukh Zaman of Pakistan.

The second round will show whether Ong Beng Hee has recovered his composure and elan after a disappointing year and whether Stefan Casteleyn will ever get back into the top ten again. He will be playing John White, who can carve any player to bits with his arsenal of shots, but can also suddenly go off the boil to lose easily. But as this is the first Open for three years, White will be going hard for the big one. This the tournament which if you win, means you call yourself world champion. And everybody wants that, don’t they? Martin Heath feels very strongly about the importance of the World Open so we should see a vast improvement in his form in the second round after a so-so year that has seen him slip out of the top ten.