Pere et Fils:First-Ever Father & Son Is a Great Success |
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For many squash players, their initial introduction to the game came from their fathers. It was a paternal hand teaching the grip and tossing practice balls, a voice explaining the rules, a pair of legs chasing down mis-hit balls resting near the front wall and an arm wheeling the car down a winter road towards another tournament. To celebrate that critical inter-generational moment when a parent passes along the love of a game to a child, and the decades of support that follow, the USSRA this year founded a national Father & Son doubles championship. It was a surprise it took this long. Doubles was invented in 1907 and yet it took nearly a century to have a national father & son. In other racquet sports, national father & son tournaments are a long-standing tradition. There are four in tennis: grass courts in Boston (founded in 1920), clay courts in Cincinnati (1973), indoor in Cherry Hill and hard courts in La Jolla. Tennis also has a number of other permutations of the event, including national grandfather & grandson, mother & daughter, etc. Table tennis and court tennis have also had annual father & sons for years. In May 2005 the Racquet & Tennis Club hosted the inaugural US Father & Son in New York. Thirty pere et fils teams entered the three divisions, a robust number considering the novelty of the tournament. There was a solid geographical diversity, with players from Cincinnati (three teams), San Francisco, Washington, DC (which has no doubles court), Denver, Hartford, Boston and Toronto, as well as the expected groups from doubles hotspots Philadelphia and New York City. The sons ranged in age from 11 to 50 and the fathers from 46 to 72. The tournament not only provided fathers and sons the opportunity to play competitively with each other, but it brought to a national tournament a new segment of people: less than a fourth of the 60 players had entered the 2005 national doubles or national junior doubles. Directed by Morris Clothier and Simon Aldrich, the tournament included buffet luncheons on both Saturday and Sunday and a Friday evening exhibition given by Noah Wimmer & Preston Quick v. Josh McDonald and Scott Butcher (in typical fashion Wimmer & Quick won by one point in the fifth). After the exhibition, there was a sumptuous dinner downstairs. Palmer Page, the USSRA's former CEO who helped catalyze the tournament, spoke about the invaluable relationships fathers and sons develop on court. Aldrich discussed honorary chairman Sam Abernethy, who has done so much to revitalize squash in New York. James Zug, Jr. ran through the remarkable achievements of honorary chairman Diehl Mateer (Not only did Mateer win a record 11 national doubles titles, but he was the first and only father to play with a son in the national doubles; Diehl played with Drew and Gil a total of 10 times, reaching three finals with Gil). In the Future Stars division, for sons 13 and under, four young teams battled it out in a round-robin held mostly at the Union Club. Will Greer, chairman of the USSRA's Junior Committee, and his 12-year-old son Xander cruised to an easy victory. Three-time finalists in Merion Cricket Club's annual parent-child, the Greers did not lose a game enroute. Xander came in fourth in the U13 division at the National Junior Doubles in Wilmington and clearly knows the game. The finals of the eight-team junior division, for sons aged 13 through 17, saw the best match of the weekend, (7-15), 15-6, (12-15), 15-3, 18-15, in favor of Simon & Dillon Aldrich. The Aldrichs are veteran partners, playing every year in the national court tennis and lawn tennis father & sons. Down 2-1 to Rob & Robbie Berner, they blasted through in the fourth and brought it into a tiebreaker in the fifth. At 1-all, Dillon went on a hot streak and hit four consecutive dead-ball nicks. Eighteen teams entered the open division. There were some illustrious names in the draw: six-time national champion Eric Vlcek; two-time champion James Zug, Sr.; Ashton Crosby II, grandson of the Franconia Notch legend; and Tim Wyant, director of CitySquash. There was also Pete Bostwick, Jr., former world champion in court tennis who had just become, by winning the national hardball squash 70+, the first person with two artificial hips ever to win a national singles title. Pete and his son, Pete III, have four artificial hips between them, so their matches were studies in perseverance. Taylor & Preston Quick were the most fancied team, seeded number one, with two-time champion Preston giving up a chance to play in the Pan-Am Fed Games this summer in order to try to win his first national title in 2005 (the playoffs for those trying out for the 2005 US Men's Team were held in San Diego the same weekend as the Father-Son). The Quicks went down in five tough games to Bill & Will Broadbent in the quarters. Will, going into his senior year at Harvard, is proof that the National Junior Doubles can help a game: he played in the NJD every year growing up, winning eight age-group titles. Since then he has twice reached the finals of the Ketcham Cup, the annual intercollegiate draw played at the University Club of New York. Will displayed precocious shot selection and court coverage. The Quicks switched sides at the beginning of the fifth game, with Preston moving to the right wall, but could not overcome a 9-2 deficit to lose 15-9. Opposing the Broadbents in the final was the surprise team of Robert & Noah Wimmer who survived a titanic quarterfinal against the Wyants. With Tim and Noah covering three-quarters of the court, there was some comical poaching once Noah appealed for a let as he collided with someone only to learn that it was his father causing the interference. A seesaw, tie-breaker-filled match, it ended 15-12 in the fifth in the Wimmers' favor. The Wimmers took out the Vlceks in the semis with three straight 15-12 games; the Vlceks were slightly worn out, not so much by their tight 3-1 victory over the Zugs in the quarters two hours earlier but by a freak kitchen accident that morning that led to a deep cut in Eric's playing hand and a long visit to the emergency room. The big excitement of the finals came at the end of the second game. At 14-all and Noah receiving serve, the Wimmers called no-set. But Bill Broadbent slugged a reverse three-wall that rolled. Much fist-pumping ensued, yet the Wimmers were too tough and won going away in four, 15-8, (14-15), 15-5, 15-11. The consolation draws, played like many of the opening round matches at the University Club, were highly competitive. In the open Scott & Will Simonton ran roughshod over Steve & Ben Mandel, while in the junior division Hoyt & Rees Taylor bested Terry & Brian O'Toole. The 2006 Father & Son Championships will be back at the Racquet & Tennis. It is hoped that concurrently there will also be Mother & Daughter and Father & Daughter draws. |
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February 9, 2012
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