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Stage set for Weymuller
By Rob Dinerman © 2003 SquashTalk; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Oct 12, 2003

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[Qualifying Draw - results] [Main Draw - starts Monday]

Chiu, Duncalf, Botwright and Perry Advance To Weymuller U. S.
Open Main Draw

They took different paths to get there, but by the end of this evening's play Rebecca Chiu (who saved a game-ball against her in the first), Vicky Botwright (who was out on her feet by the end of the third and final game), Madeline Perry (who was unable to convert three game-ball opportunities in the pivotal second before finally cashing in her fourth) and Jenny Duncalf (who lost the first game to an opponent who had handily defeated her just one week earlier) had all emerged from two days of grueling qualifying action at Heights Casino this weekend. All will now join the dozen who were already into the main draw, which begins tomorrow evening at 5 o'clock.

Chiu was on the defensive throughout most of her first game against the powerfully built Isabelle Stoehr, who was manhandling her with drives and cross courts. Stoehr stormed to a quick 3-0 lead and eventually served for the game at 8-6, only to be thwarted by a tinned backhand volley drop that launched a deceptively swift Chiu run to and through a 10-8 tiebreaker. The first half of the second game was also a dogfight, but this time the game-ending Chiu spurt occurred earlier, at 5-all, whence a combination of Chiu drop shots and impatient Stoehr errors gave the former the game 9-5. By early in the third, it was apparent that Stoehr had become demoralized by the way those two games, especially the first, had gone against her down the stretch, and the points, especially on increasingly close-cut drop shots and widely angled working boasts, started to come more easily. Stoehr is an excellent athlete, strong, supple and able to change direction when she is wrong-footed with remarkable ease and grace. But her racquet is still erratic, especially on backhand volleys, and her
concentration had left her by the time her 10-8 9-5 9-1 loss had concluded.

Duncalf's 6-9 9-7 9-4 9-4 win over New Zealander Shelley Kitchen was, as noted, as reversal of the outcome of their British Open match earlier this month. Duncalf said afterwards that part of the reason for the differing outcomes may have resulted from the way the Heights Casino court holds the ball better, especially on front-court shots, than the more lively court on which they had played in London. As it was, Duncalf had to battle her way through a close second game against her lithe opponent, but in each of the last two stanzas early-game leads gave Duncalf both the cushion and the confidence to go for winners, aided by both the court conditions and Kitchen's
growing fatigue, a result, perhaps, of the visible effort she exerts on practically
every swing. By the end, Kitchen had punched herself out, and Duncalf's excellent
execution on open balls had enabled her to take fairly decisive control of the action.

The Perry-Amelia Pittock match was defined first by a prolonged Pittock slump from a three-point mid-game advantage in the first to a 9-7 Perry rescue of that game and a 5-0 lead in the second, and then, most importantly, by a crossroads tiebreaker in the second. Pittock's play was well below the high standard she had set one night earlier in a 3-0 win over top qualifying seed Steph Brind, and the energy and accuracy she had displayed in that upset victory had deserted her against Perry. The latter opportunistically collected Pittock's tins and scored a few winners of her own, but when Pittock finally found her rhythm in the latter portion of the second game, it became clear that the match's outcome might well hinge on the tiebreaker session. Pittock had put a great amount of effort into making up her substantial early-game deficit, and it appeared, especially on her hands-out, that the cumulative effect of playing from behind really took its toll: in saving a total of four game-balls, Pittock kept grimly boot-strapping herself into the points, only to then lose almost immediately on her serve. Twice in a row, in fact, Pittock chose to serve from the left box to Perry's strong forehand; Perry hit a wide cross court that Pittock lost on the left wall on the first attempt and then hit a cross court drop nick on the second. A Pittock top-of-the-tinned drop shot, the same weapon that had been so effective against Brind one round earlier, sealed the second game, and a reprieved Perry was home free in the 9-5 third.

If Chiu, Duncalf and Perry were running away from their respective opponents by the end of their matches, the fourth winner, Botwright, was just managed to make it across the finish line in hers. She was known to be a bit under the weather due to stomach trouble, which made the manner in which she won the first two games, the second in a tiebreaker, against the endlessly gifted Nicol David a tribute to both her courage and court-wisdom.

Botwright was able to nurse a small lead through most of the third game, but as the
end of that game approached, it became visibly apparent that her tank was almost
empty, and that if David could salvage, or even prolong, that game Botwright might not be able to continue. A backhand error on a David straight drop brought Botwright
to match-ball, at which juncture an extraordinary David front-court retrieve
preceded a Botwright forehand that nicked out near the back wall, following
which a fully spent Botwright, who could hardly muster up even the energy to
get through the handshake, sank almost to her knees before staggering off the
court, looking for all the world like a fighter well ahead on points who sustains a
damaging combination before being saved, barely, by the bell.

Tania Bailey, a finalist in last year's Weymuller, will face Chiu, the Grinham sisters, Natalie and Rachael, will oppose Botwright and Perry respectively, and Duncalf will go up against No. 2 seed Natalie Grainger in tomorrow's round of 16.

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