| October
15, 2002 from Martin Bronstein in Odense
SCOTLAND TOO STRONG FOR
US
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| American
team courtside (photo ©2002 Fritz Brochert |
US coach Sharon Brady decided
to rest her number one, Shabana Khan, for the match against Scotland
which meant it was felt that Scotland was just too strong and they
would rather save their strength for the match against Hong Kong.
This put Julia Beaver, the 22 year old New Yorker, in at number two
against Senga Macfie, a player who has entertained, amused and baffled
observers for almost twenty years. Macfie is a gifted squash player,
the squash racket an extension of her arm – she can do anything
she wants with the ball. She is just as well known for her seemingly
scatterbrained approach to life, her constant dialogue with herself,
her head-banging and hair pulling.
Although Beaver played well for the first two games, she simply had
no way of dealing with the enigma that is Senga Mcfie. She lost the
third 9-0 and left the court somewhat puzzled.
“It was difficult,”
Beaver told Squashtalk. I’ve never played someone like her
before. She is so relaxed on court and yet she can make this big
gets. I don’t know what happened in the third – I wasn’t
tired.”
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| Latasha
Khan (photo ©2002 Fritz Brochert) |
Latasha
Khan was promoted to number one and faced world number 14 Pamela Nimmo,
who lives and trains in Nottingham, England’s unofficial centre
of excellence. Once more Nimmo had too much in her ammo box. She read
Khan’s game well, was on to the ball quickly, and simply put
too much pressure on Khan to allow her to get the upper hand. Wendy
Maitland, the Scottish number three had too much experience for Meredith
Quick and finished the tie off.
IN THE VILLAIN’S
ROLE AGAIN
The whole match was closely watched by Egypt who are due to play
Scotland later today. I had written that Egypt were easy favourites
to take Pool D and the Scottish team were not amused, surrounding
me on the bus to the courts this morning and giving me a good-natured
ribbing. When I offered to put money on Egypt finishing above them,
none of them wanted to take the bet. Should Scotland win tonight,
I think I will have to go into hiding.
CANADA GAINS
SECOND VICTORY
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| Canada's
Lauren Wagner breezes through her 20 min match.
(photo ©2002 Fritz Brochert) |
Margo
Green is a tough Canadian cookie. She may never hit any scintillating
winners but she doesn’t give much away either. Come to that
neither did her opponent Mekhala Subedar , the Indian number two.
Between the two of them they give the back wall a thorough testing
over the 60 minutes. In its own way it was a fascinating struggle
with Subedar winning the first game and Green keeping her head to
win the next three. There were perhaps a dozen ‘easy’
points in the entire match: every other one was hard graft.
The Indian number one
Joshna Chinappa was brought back into the team to face Melanie Jans
and despite assurance from the India’s national coach that
she was pretty tough, proved nowhere near as tough as her number
two and, from where I sat, the slim Jans hardly broke sweat in winning
in three in 20 minutes. Lauren Wagner closed out the match with
another 3-0 win over the 16 year old Vaidehi Reddy who did not look
anywhere near as determined as she did yesterday. It was an expected
victory for Canada and they now wait for the crunch match this evening
when the take on South Africa who lost, as expected, 0-3 to Australia.
ENGLAND WIN,
DAVID FIGHTS
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| Linda
Charman and Nicol David in their early afternoon pool match
(photo ©2002 Fritz Brochert) |
There
was no doubt that England would beat Malaysia in their final pool
match, but the interest was on the meeting of the number ones. After
Tania Bailey had disposed of Sharon Wee in 22 minutes for the loss
of five points, Linda Charman, world number five, sought to do the
same to Nicol David, the world junior champion. Charman started well,
established her superiority with length and pace and took a 6-3 lead.
David, who seems to start slowly, began to read Charman’s game
a little better and fought back to 6-6. This was high grade squash
played at a tremendous pace with the all four corners being used as
well as the height of the court. Charman had the edge on errors and
deserved the 9-6 victory. She was totally dominant in the second game,
reading David’s game like a book and hitting superb volley drops
to win 9-4.
David cut down her errors
and took control of the third at 3-3 to forge ahead. Charman seemed
unable to regain the T except for patches but she managed to pull
level at 7-7. David kept her head, pounced on loose balls and took
the third game 9-7.
Rattled, Charman committed
three painful errors in the fourth on easy drop shots at the front
and suddenly David was 5-1 ahead. Charman went up a gear and put
her opponent in the back court before chopping the ball short to
finally regained control to run out a 9-6 winner.
“I simply
lost my length in the third and Nicol is very fast at jumping in
on short balls. She feeds of hard shots so I had to vary the speed.
Those errors at the front? Stupid. Very junior….I’m
30 years old, not 13! I didn’t even think about a fifth game,
I just said ‘there is no way I’m going to lose this
[fourth] game,” she told Squashtalk with her usual laugh.
Stephanie Brind took the third string from Tricia Chua for the loss
of two points and now England will have to wait for the evening
draw to find out their quarter-final opponents
[full
pool draws/results]
Full Day 3 Results:
Pool A:
Austalia 3 South Africa 0
1 Sarah Fitz-Gerald bt Farrah Sterne 9-0 9-0 9-1 (21 min)
2 Rachael Grinham bt Sjeanne Cawdry 9-1 9-1 9-0 (20 min)
3 Natalie Grinham bt Siyole Lusaseni 9-3 9-1 9-4 (24 min)
Canada 3 India 0
1 Melanie Jans bt Joshna Chinappa 9-3 9-1 9-4 (20 min)
2 Margo Green bt Mekhala Subedar 5-9 9-4 9-6 9-7 (60 min)
3 Lauren Wagner bt Vaidehi Reddy 9-5 9-7 9-1 (22 min)
South Africa 2 Canada
1
1 Farrah Sterne lost to Melanie Jans 0-9 5-9 0-9 (22 min)
2 Claire Nitch bt Lauren Wagner 4-9 10-8 9-5 10-9 (42 min)
3 Sjeanne Cawdry bt Carolyn Russell 10-8 4-4 9-1 (49 min)
India 1 Spain 2
1 Joshna Chinappa lost to Elisabet Sado 9-10 0-9 8-10(28 min)
2 Mekhala Subedar bt Olga Puigdemont Sola 2-9 0-9 9-7 9-5 9-4 (71
min)
3 Vaidehi Reddy lost to Laia Sans 3-9 10-8 6-9 7-9(44 min)
Pool B:
England 3 Malaysia 0
1 Linda Charman bt Nicol David 9-6 9-4 7-9 9-6 (59 min)
2 Tania Bailey bt Sharon Wee 9-0 9-1 9-4 (21 min)
3 Stephanie Brind bt Tricia Chuah 9-0 9-2 9-0 (18 min)
Germany 2 Ireland 1
1 Sabine Tillman bt Madeline Perry 9-0 9-2 9-0 (22 min)
2 Karin Beriere bt Aisling Blake 3-9 9-6 9-4 9-0 (36 min)
3 Simone Leifels lost to Aisling McArdle 7-9 0-9 10-8 4-9 (39 min)
Pool C:
Netherlands 2 Denmark 1
1 Vanessa Atkinson bt Ellen Hamborg-Petersen 9-4 9-2 9-5 (35 min)
2 Annelize Naude bt Line Hansen 9-1 9-3 9-1 (20 min)
3 Daphne Jelgersma lost to Julie Dorn-Jensen 7-9 6-9 1-9 (38 min)
France 2 Japan 1
1 Isabelle Stoehr bt Chinatsu Matsui 9-2 9-0 9-3 (20 min)
2 Corinne Castets bt Mami Nishio 6-9 9-1 9-6 9-6 (63 min)
3 Laurence Bois lost to Eri Tsuchida 9-2 3-9 3-9 4-9 (35 min)
New Zealand 2 Netherlands
1
1 Carol Owens bt Vanessa Atkinson 9-1 9-2 9-4 (26 min)
2 Shelley Kitchen lost to Annelize Naude 7-9 10-8 0-9 6-9 (46 min)
3 Sarah Cook bt Saskia Kuijer 9-4 9-5 9-1 (22 min)
Denmark 1 France 2
1 Ellen Hamborg-Petersen lost toIsabelle Stoehr 3-9 6-9 1-9 (42
min)
2 Line Hansen lost to Corinne Castets 3-9 1-9 9-4 7-9 (42 min)
3 Julie Dorn-Jensen bt Mylene Demuylder 9-2 9-2 9-0 (21 min)
Pool D:
Scotland 3 USA 0
1 Pamela Nimmo bt Latasha Khan 9-2 9-1 9-0(21 min)
2 Senga Macfie bt Julia Beaver 9-3 9-4 9-0 (26 min)
3 Wendy Maitland bt Meredeth Quick 9-2 9-6 9-3 (23 min)
Hong Kong 3 Austria 0
1 Rebecca Chiu bt Pamela Pancis 9-0 9-0 9-1 (22 min)
2 Christina Mak bt Ines Gradnitzer 9-6 9-5 9-0 (36 min)
3 Karen Lau bt Birgit Coufal 9-4 8-10 9-5 9-6 (42 min)
USA 1 Hong Kong 2
1 Latasha Khan lost to
Rebecca Chiu 9-6 4-9 1-9 0-9 (45 min)
2 Shabana Khan lost to Christina Mak 3-9 5-9 5-9 (28 min)
3 Julia Beaver bt Elise Ng 9-1 9-1 9-2 (20 min)
Egypt 2 Scotland 1
1 Omneya Abdel Kawy bt Pamela Nimmo 9-6 9-0 2-9 9-4 (36 min)
2 Maha Zein lost to Senga Macfie 7-9 3-9 9-6 9-10 (58 min)
3 Salma Shabana bt Wendy Maitland 9-4 9-3 7-9 9-5 (50 min)
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Women's
World Team 2002> Day Three First Session
