USA Powered to Victory by Hall
Sept 29, 2004, Rob Dinerman; SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2004;

     [pools draw]    [pools detailed results]

Reach Coveted Final Eight   [Wednesday Bronstein report]

Trailing two games to love in the deciding match of the USA vs. Hong Kong meet to decide which team would advance to the eight-team championship draw, recently graduated Harvard star Louisa Hall staged a roaring comeback en route to a 2-9 5-9 9-2 9-5 9-4 victory over Joey Chan that avenged the 2-1 loss the U. S. had suffered to the same opponent at the same stage of the last World Team Championships two years ago in Denmark (on their way to a No. 15 overall finish) and guarantee for the jubilant Americans and their first-year coach Demer Holleran a placement well in excess of the No. 10 seed they carried into the tournament.

Louisa Hall - happy in victory photo © 2004 Fritz Borchert

Hall had been put in position to clinch the team victory when Meredeth Quick led the meet off with a brisk, no-nonsense 9-2, 0 and 6 win over Annie Au at the No. 2 slot. Throughout the fast-paced 28-minute match Au showed a tendency to go for the shot, often to her detriment, as Quick would race to the front-court and put pressure on Au with her response. This was especially true in the shut-out second game, though Au recovered to make a match of it in the third. Quick herself had been down two games to love in the Pan American Games gold-medal match against Canada a little over a year ago before bootstrapping herself to a stirring rally, and she was in no mood to let Au do the same to her. Instead, the Princeton alumna now based at Heights Casino re-asserted control in the end portion of the third game and closed the match out with a flourish.

The American camp knew it needed this initial point, as everyone was aware of the challenge that awaited Latasha Khan at No. 1 against Rebecca Chiu, who is currently ranked four positions higher on the WISPA pro tour (No. 17 compared with No. 21). The two had not met since the 2001 Japan Open final, when Chiu rallied from two games to one down to win the fifth in a 9-8 tiebreaker.

The outcome of this return engagement was not in doubt for nearly as long, as Chiu prevailed 9-4, 1 and 7. Khan was aware of how dangerous her slender opponent can be when she is free up front, but the five-time and current U. S> National champion was unable to muster the depth on this day to keep Chiu in back where she is much more vulnerable. Finally in the third game she abandoned the volleying tactics that had gotten her nowhere and instead began attacking off the back wall, but this change came too late, as Chiu was able to narrowly slip away with that close third game and even the meet at one match apiece.

By Hall's own post-match admission, she began her crucial encounter with Chan too revved up for her own good, going for low-percentage winners and getting sucked in to her opponent's fast pace. After the second game, Coach Holleran convinced her your charge to slow the pace, work for her openings and mix it up a bit, and this multi-part adjustment immediately swung the match in her direction. Hall is a veteran of this type of clutch team situation, having rallied to victory over her Yale counterpart Michele Quibell in the deciding match of Harvard's 5-4 win that earned the Crimson the 2003 Ivy League title, and she never relinquished the momentum once she had seized it. A series of early-game forehand volley drop shots gave her a lead in the fifth, and she was able to repulse Chan's rally to 4-5 by running out the remainder, ending the 44-minute battle with yet another drop shot that Chan was unable to retrieve. All in all, a vindicatory moment for the U. S. squad, which is set on causing a few more upsets in the championship-draw play that will commence tomorrow.

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