Mysteries of the Pyramids Solved
Sept 28, 2004, Martin Bronstein; SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2004;

MARTIN BRONSTEIN REPORTING FROM THE FRANS OTTEN STADION IN THE SUBURBS OF AMSTERDAM      [pools draw]    [pools detailed results]

Tuesday Report # 2   [first report]

Watching the Egyptian Juggernaut. photo © 2004 Fritz Borchert

Watching Egypt dispatch France tonight on the center court, I solved the centuries old mysteries of the Pyramids. Egyptians have a special gene that allows them to think in quite different ways from all other humankind. We may now speak of ‘thinking outside the box’ but the Egyptians manage to think outside the universe. This special gene, which I have called A.N.D (ANother Dimension), allowed them to build pyramids while the rest of the world was still mastering mud huts and congratulating themselves on discovering cube-shaped architecture.

While other cultures buried or burnt their dead, the Egyptians invented mummification ensuring that we had very old dead people to look at and something to put in our museums three millennia later.

This gene is now used in the playing of squash. From Amr Bey onwards Egypt has produced a line of squash players who hit the ball differently and in different directions in fact, I think they have invented directions other than North, South, East and West.

Even little girls from Egypt go on the court and make grown men look like mobile cabbages with a brain to match. They make squash a game of three shot rallies, where they hit the first and third shots. They think the back wall is only necessary because something has to support the door to the court.

All this brilliant mental breakthrough occurred as Omneya Abdel Kawy, a woman with pigeon toes and knock knees, and who shouldn’t be able to run at all, ambled around the court, waved her racket like a magic wand and beat Isabelle Stoehr, the French number one. Now little Isabelle is as tough as they come, as she showed the other night when she gave Nicol David a good pasting. So she is nobody’s fool and spends six days a week in Manchester practicing hard with other pro squash players.

But as much as she fought, Stoehr simply could not read where the ball would end up. Even when she drove it deep into the back corners, Kawy would reply with a sublime drop shot that traveled the length of the court. Kawy seems to have a sixth sense that tells her which way her opponent’s bodymass is leaning and sends the ball the other way. When she sticks out a racket to foil a passing shot, the ball ends up tight to the wall, not sitting up in the middle like the rest of us.

Even though Kawy’s movement may not be the best, her brain moves extremely fast – and her racket moves even faster than her brain. As you may have gathered, I get a great delight of watching Egyptians play.

Kawy won in four, two of the games going to extra points, which shows just how hard Stoehr pushed her. But the fourth game was one where Stoehr’s motivation, determination and strength had ebbed and she lost it 4-9 as Kawy dropped, cut and wrong-wayed to victory.

Engy Kheirallah, who has a face that could launch a thousand space-ships, was in the same mould and put away Celia Allamargot for the loss of five points. Raneem El Weleily who is surely less than five feet high and looks about nine years old, finished the rout with a 9-3, 9-0, 9-1 victory over Soraya Renai. El Weleily simply put the ball where her opponent wasn’t and at the slightest chance went for the winner. If it hit tin, she waved her racket in frustration and then made sure the next shot from her opponent’s service went down the nick. She does this with assurance and nonchalance and it makes me want to throw away my rackets.

OMENYA AND NICOLE TO MEET AGAIN
Tomorrow Egypt will meet Malaysia for top spot in Pool D and that should be a terrific fight. Malaysia dispatched South Africa tonight 3/0 but after Nicol David had beaten Claire Nitch for five points and Sharon Wee had lost just 12 points in beating Farrah Sterne, young Tenille Swartz playing three for South Africa, pushed Tricia Chuah all the way to five games and had three match points before going down 10-8 in the fifth, which despite losing was a terrific result for the young South African.

Tomorrow’s match will pit Kawy against David and these old foes will almost certainly put on a terrific fight. I saw David wipe the floor with Kawy when she won the world junior championship in 2001 in Penang. Kawy got revenge a year later in a WISPA event, so there is no love lost. As Kawy is still the world junior champion, it is apparent how advanced she is .

PREGNANCY MAKES YOU FIT TOO
Pamela Pancis, the Austrian number one who has both mother and baby daughter in attendance (one to babysit the other) showed a tremendous level of fitness in going down to Ellen Petersen of Denmark. They played for almost ninety minutes, a type of squash that is reminiscent of the days of Hunt and Barrington. Neither player can put the ball away, but they can drive and lob it to the back of the court endlessly. While this may at first sound boring, when it gets to two games all and 6-all in the fifth, the spectators are holding their breath in excitement. Pancis seems as though she can run all day and when she led the fifth 6-2, the Austrians, seeded 19th (last) cheered with vigour. But Petersen suddenly took four quick points and it was 6-6 and then 7-6 and then 8-6 and she was serving for the match. Pancis never stopped fighting and running and got back to 7-8 to save yet another match point, the fifth. But she finally put a ball into the tin and Denmark had won.

Engy Kheirallah, who had already finished her match, was standing next to me and she looked puzzled, wondering why these players insisted on such long, tiring rallies, when they could have finished it quickly with a winner. I was going to tell her about the A.N.D gene but thought better of it.

So dear readers, it all comes down to the final pools matches tomorrow. The scabbards are thrown away, the flintlocks primed and I’ll be there trying to watch four matches at once.

Getting ready to play. photo © 2004 Fritz Borchert

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