U. S. Women's Team Falls To Egypt, Defeats Austria In Pool Play
By Rob Dinerman

Dateline October 13---

The U. S. Women's team performed precisely to their No. 12 overall seeding in the opening day of the pool portion of the 2002 Women's World Team Championships in Odense, Denmark, today with a 3-0 loss to fourth-seeded Egypt and a 3-0 win over Austria, the 19th and last-place seed among the 19 team entries. The U. S. women have been placed in Pool D along with Egypt and Austria, a well as No. 14 seed Hong Kong, whom they face tomorrow, and No. 5 seed Scotland, with whom the Americans have an absolutely crucial match this Tuesday, the outcome of which will almost certainly determine whether or not they can advance to the Cup portion of the competition later this week.

The reason for the foregoing is that only the top two finishers in each of the four pools qualify for the eight-team Cup tournament to determine the winner of this the 13th edition of this biennial championship. A strong Scottish contingent led by world No. 14 Pamela Nimmo at the top slot and No. 26 Senga Macfie behind her breezed by Austria in their only match today and figures to be the main roadblock to the aspirations of the United States to join virtual shoo-in Egypt and make cut into the round of eight, just as Australia, England and New Zealand, the top three overall seeds in that order and the respective top seeds in the A, B and C pools respectively, are prohibitive favorites to make it into the elimination tourney. The match between the second and third seeds in each of the four pools, namely No. 8 South Africa vs. No. 9 Canada in Pool A, No. 7 Malaysia vs. No. 10 Germany in Pool B, No. 6 Netherlands vs. No. 11 Denmark, the host country, in Pool C, and the U. S. vs. Scotland in Pool D, should in each case determine who the second qualifier from each pool will be.

Three of those four matches are scheduled for Tuesday, with the Pool B match the only exception, so whoever survives this preliminary round will have plenty of momentum going into the Cup event, which begins wit the quarter-finals on Thursday, the 17th, with the semis and final set for Friday and Saturday respectively. There will also be a 9-16 tournament for the third- and fourth-place finishers in each of the four pools and a 17-19 round-robin event for the three teams winding up in last place in the various pools.

Against the powerful Egyptians, U. S. National champion Latasha Khan, who along with her older sister Shabana is ranked just inside the fringes of the world top 30 in the WISPA pro standings, met up with the outstanding teenager Omneya Abdel Kawy, currently the world No. 16, whose graceful game and sweet shooting touch has galvanized squash aficionados all over the world during her swift climb over the past year after a sparkling junior career. Khan has been playing well in recent months, as witness the way she led her teammates to the silver medal in the Pan American Federation Cup competition in Ecuador this past summer, where they dropped a competitive final to Canada, but she had no answer for Kawy's brilliance and lost in 19 hard-fought but dominant minutes, 9-5, 3 and 1. At No. 2 Shabana recovered from a poor start to press Maha Zein, the world No. 26, but still fell 9-1, 4 and 4 in 21 minutes.

The best opportunity for an American win came at No. 3, where Julia Beaver battled Eman El Amir for nearly an hour in a back-and-forth struggle replete with tiebreakers and clutch points. Beaver is no stranger to this type of match, having qualified for the last spot on the U. S. team with a 10-9 fifth-game win over Ivy Pochoda last June in the deciding match of the Team Trials in Seattle. In this case, she was on the verge first of taking a two games to none lead, then to winning in four, and then to winning in five, but El Amir finally prevailed by a 4-9 10-8 8-10 10-8 9-7 score which fully reflects how closely matched the two contestants were.

The fact that no Hong Kong player won more than five points in any of the nine total games, five of which were shut-outs, in their match with Egypt would seem to be a good sign for tomorrow's U. S. vs. Hong Kong match, but certainly nothing should be taken for granted, though both Khan sisters won handily in the later match against their Austrian opponents, as did Meredith Quick, the fourth member of the American squad, who replaced her former Princeton teammate Beaver at No. 3 and thus allowed the latter to recuperate from her grueling and ultimately disappointing match with El Amir.

The other 12 total team meets all also went to the higher seeded squad, all by 3-0 scores, in fact, save Denmark's 2-1 win over Japan in Pool C. The action should get more competitive in the next few days as every team attempts to survive this first segment of the tournament and move on to the Cup competition later this week. Squashtalk will be on hand throughout to provide draws, reports and analysis as this prestigious team tournament moves forward.

Pool D Results:

Egypt 3 USA 0
1 Omneya Abdel Kawy bt Latasha Khan 9-5 9-3 9-0 (19 min)
2 Maha Zein bt Shabana Khan 9-1 9-4 9-4 (21 min)
3 Eman El Amir bt Julia Beaver 4-9 10-8 8-10 10-8 9-7 (59 min)

Scotland 3 Austria 0
1 Pamela Nimmo bt Ines Gradnitzer 9-2 9-1 9-3 (21 min)
2 Senga Macfie bt Birgit Coufal 9-1 9-3 9-3 (20 min)
3 Lisa McKenna bt Sissi Colli 9-4 9-3 10-8 (22 min)

Egypt 3 Hong Kong 0
1 Omneya Abdel Kawy bt Christina Mak 9-0 9-2 9-0 (15 min)
2 Maha Zein bt Karen Lau 9-2 9-5 9-0 (19 min)
3 Salma Shabana bt Elise Ng 9-5 9-0 9-0 (18 min)

USA 3 Austria 0
1 Latasha Khan bt Pamela Pancis 9-4 9-2 9-3 (23 min)
2 Shabana Khan bt Ines Gradnitzer 8-10 9-5 9-5 9-5 (39 min)
3 Meredith Quick bt Birgit Coufal 9-1 9-4 9-4 (27 min)