U. S. Women's Team Falls to Scotland 3-0, Relegated to Cosolation Bracket.
By Rob Dinerman October 15

In a meet to determine whether they would qualify for the eight-team Cup competition in this year's Women's World Championships, the American women were solidly out-played by a favored contingent from Scotland, which won all three matches 3-0 to join Egypt as the two Pool D representatives in the championship draw. None of the matches lasted even half an hour, as a Scotland crew led by world top 20's Pamela Nimmo and Senga Macfie dominated this confrontation right from the start and never looked back.

The decisive loss consigns the U. S. to the second-echelon flight for the Nos. 9-16 overall placement, which is slated to begin Thursday afternoon after a rest day for all 19 teams tomorrow.

Nimmo has been pressed though never defeated in recent years by American
No. 1 Latasha Khan, the reigning and three-time U. S. national champion,
whose impressive ball-striking capabilities have given the slender Scot all
that she could handle in several competitive encounters. But Nimmo has been
playing much better of late after being sidelined for months in 2001 with a
serious blood clot in her lungs that even required hospitalization. She had
remarked before the U. S. match how much the American players had improved in metamorphosing into a team that no opponent out of the top four can afford
any longer to take lightly.

She and her teammates therefore prepared carefully for this meet and were primed for battle when play began. Nimmo herself overwhelmed Khan 9-2, 1
and 0 in just 21 minutes, displaying her characteristic graceful court coverage and accurate execution and keeping her opponent on the defensive throughout teir one-sided battle. Khan is at her best when she has the time and room to impose her powerful ground strokes, but she is reluctant to cut the ball off and ill at ease when forced to scramble, shortcomings in her game which Nimmo exploited in racing to victory.

Khan's older sister Shabana normally plays at the No. 2 position, which this time was filled by Julia Beaver, who had had a fourth-game match-point
opportunity two days ago against Eman El Amir of Egypt before eventually
losing that game 10-8 and the fifth by a score of 9-7. Beaver's Scottish
counterpart, Senga Macfie, can run very hot and cold with her sometimes
brilliant but occasionally erratic play. This match found her on the "up" side of that pendulum, however, as she worked the lanky three-time Intercollegiate champ Beaver mercilessly around the court throughout the 26 minutes it took for the 9-3, 4 and 0 tally to unfold.

Beaver's former Princeton teammate and '01 classmate Meredeth Quick,
Khan's co-finalist in last spring's U. S. Nationals, succumbed to Wendy Maitland, like Nimmo and Macfie a regular on the WISPA circuit, by a count of
9-2, 6 and 3 in 23 minutes. Scotland's significant edge in world-class level
of experience came strongly to the fore this afternoon and demonstrated the
degree to which the acknowledgedly young, talented and fast-improving
American players are still not quite ready for prime time.

They still have the opportunity to match or even exceed their No. 12
pre-tournament seeding with a solid effort in the 9-12 tournament later this
week. Egypt and Scotland, both of whom shut out an American team that placed third in their pool by hammering the other two pool entries Austria and Hong Kong, will meet later today, though both are already assured of joining the top two teams in the other three pools in Thursday's quarter-finals. The
semis are set for Friday and the final will take place on Saturday. Australia
and England, the top two seeds, have met in the finals in each edition of
this biennial championship since 1992, with England the current defending
champion.

FINAL SUMMARY: Scotland d U. S. 3-0
(1) Pamela Nimmo d Latasha Khan 9-2 9-1 9-0
(2) Senga Macfie d Julia Beaver 9-3 9-4 9-0
(3) Wendy Maitland d Meredeth Quick 9-2 9-6 9-3