Womens US Open 03

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Duncalf Stuns Grainger
By Rob Dinerman © 2003 SquashTalk; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Oct 13, 2003

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[Qualifying Draw - results]        [Main Draw - complete results]

It happens almost every week on the WISPA circuit---four successful qualifiers emerge with hard-fought victories from two demanding days of preliminary-round play, having in effect won a tournament just to get INTO the tournament, only to swiftly succumb both to fatigue from those cumulative efforts and to the talents of their well-rested and (by definition) higher-ranked opening-round opponents in the main draw. So extensive was the totem-pole mentality that pervaded last year's Weymuller U. S. Open, in fact, that of the 20 combined qualifying and round-of-16 matches, every one went according to ranking form and only three even required a fourth game. The four 2002 qualifiers-Omneya Abdel Kawy, Pamela Nimmo, Vicky Botwright and Jenny Tranfield---were all swept aside in their opening main-draw matches.

A REVERSAL OF FORM
Not this time, however, not at all. Botwright, noticeably drained by the
dehydrating effects of an intestinal virus that almost prevented her from
closing out her final qualifying match against Nicol David 24 hours earlier, was
unable to muster up the energy to stay with Natalie Grinham, who prevailed
without difficulty. But Madeline Perry surprised third seed Rachael Grinham by
jumping out to a 5-0 first-game lead and bringing a concerned what's-going-on-here look to the newly crowned British Open champion before she righted matters, eked out that game 9-7 and controlled the match from there.

CHIU IN A WALKOVER

Rebecca Chiu moves to quarters on a default (photo:©2003 Debra Tessier)

Rebecca Chiu became the first Weymuller qualifier in several years to make it to the quarter-final round when her seventh-seeded opponent Tania Bailey, a finalist in this event (as well as the British Open) last year, had to
default after two games due to an upper respiratory problem.

The strength and physical conditioning that propelled Bailey past Natalie Grinham, Natalie Grainger and Linda Charman to last year's final deserted her within a few months thereafter, and she has been plagued ever since last winter by a series of viral
infections that for months were misdiagnosed.

After having to withdraw either before or during a series of WISPA events
throughout the spring, she finally underwent sinus surgery late this past
summer and was making her return to the WISPA tour in this event. But she became
ill during the plane ride over from England a few days ago and, after taking
the first game from Chiu, Bailey visibly downgraded her effort in dropping the
second game 9-2. By this time, her breathing had become badly labored and she
wisely accepted the inevitable and retired. Ironically, Bailey herself had
received a mid-match walkover a year ago in this event in her semi-final with
Charman, who sustained a re-injury of a calf muscle pull while leading two games
to love and was forced to concede early in the fourth game.

JENNY DUNCALF BREAKS THROUGH
But Chiu's advance to the quarters was dwarfed by that of the fourth qualifier, 20-year-old Jenny Duncalf, a preliminary-round loser at the 2002 Weymuller, who might have presaged what was to follow in the last round of this year's qualifier Sunday night when she reversed her one-week-old British Open loss to her higher-ranked opponent Shelley Kitchen in a well-played four games.

Duncalf's shot making, especially in the match-ending pair of 9-4 games against
Kitchen, had drawn high praise, but no one was expecting her to have much of a
chance against the second-seeded Grainger, who has won two tournaments and
reached six finals, including the World Open and Tournament Of Champions, in the
past 12 months.

Even when Grainger's apparent early edginess and Duncalf's continuing hot hand gave the latter the opening game, an upset of this dimension seemed unlikely. And when Duncalf's 4-1 lead in the fifth gave way to a Grainger run to 5-4 in a single hand, it appeared to indicate that the world's No. 2 player was finally on her way to snuffing out the threat; surely her superior experience would carry the day. But Duncalf kept hanging in and fearlessly firing away and, amazingly, the final and decisive run (from 4-5 to 9-6) was hers. A stroke call against Grainger brought Duncalf to match-ball, and a deft forehand re-drop clung so closely to the side wall that Grainger was unable to scrape it back, enabling an admittedly and deservedly "thrilled" Duncalf to come away not only with her second upset of the tournament but by far the best win of her
young and clearly very promising career.

DATE WITH VANESSA
She thereby inherits the second seed's draw, which in this case entails a quarter-final meeting tonight at 7 o'clock against fifth seed Vanessa Atkinson, a first-round four-game winner over Fiona Geaves. A spate of early-match nerves (possibly borne in part by her disappointing first-round ouster at Botwright's hands from the British Open) cost Atkinson the first game, but that was pretty much it for Geaves, who in each of the subsequent three games fell too far behind early on (5-0, 7-0 and 5-0 respectively) to have any realistic chance of catching up.

Atkinson was especially successful with her sharply angled backhand working boasts, which forced Geaves badly out of position, and with her un-volleyably high lobs, which she has improved greatly over the past year, due largely to how low she now stays when tracking down a front-court shot.

The three remaining round-of-16 matches---top-seeded defending champion Carol Owens over Tranfield, 2003 British Open finalist Cassie Jackman over her English compatriot Rebecca Macree and Charman over U. S. National champion Latasha Khan---were all convincing three-game matches.

The Charman-Natalie Grinham match at 5 o'clock opens tonight's quarter-final action, and will be followed by Jackman-Rachael Grinham (a rematch from the British Open final), Atkinson-Duncalf and Owens-Chiu.

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