No Beach-Bumming Allowed
Power Returns Full Force in Bermuda
By Martin Bronstein
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The first question that comes up is: how come this small bit of volcanic rock sticking out of the Atlantic staged the second biggest squash tournament of the year? Bermuda is a banana-shaped island with a controlled population of about 60,000 and just six documented squash courts, yet the Virtual Spectator Bermuda Masters, held in April 2005, was a superbly run $125,000 tournament that attracted the top 32 players in the world.
(Jonathon Power - foreground - vs. John White; photo by SquashPics.com)
The answer is that Bermuda’s biggest production is balance sheets. It is a tax-free island that attracts, for reasons of high-finance that are impenetrable to a mere squash journalist, large corporations and mountains of the green stuff. As one of the 150 volunteers who helped run the tournament so efficiently told me, “Bermuda is like a village community—when a big thing like this happens everybody wants to get involved.” Including major insurance, telephone and video corporations.
The tournament director, Ross Triffitt, is an Australian who knew exactly what was needed to run a professional tournament; he had worked with the tennis boys in Australia and had spent time in England at the Commonwealth Games in 2002 to see how the people in Manchester ran the squash side. He obviously learned well.
The second question is how come that old “has-been” Jonathon Power (he’s reached the big three-oh) not only won the tournament; but outlasted and outran all the other 31 players? There’s not a definite answer although there are rumors that it is all down to one word: food. He is on a new diet and hopes to get down to five percent body fat. On finals night I sat next to a man who turned out to be Power’s traveling nutritionist, so perhaps the rumors are founded.
The gymnasium of the Bermuda High School for Girls was packed not only with the sparkling McWil Courtwall all-glass court, but enough technology to launch a space shuttle. Huge screens and cameras were everywhere as Virtual Spectator, who specialize in 3-D animation and other mind-boggling technology, were testing their talents and writing new programs for a possible entry into squash televising and webstreaming. There was an infrared camera that showed how hot and sweaty the players were getting (Feet get very hot). (Read more about VS here.)
From the beginning nobody knew who was going to win. The Chinese curse of “May you live in interesting times” for squash is a blessing. Unlike in the older days when only a couple of possible outcomes existed, now any of the field could realistically win the title. Thierry Lincou, Lee Beachill, Anthony Ricketts, James Willstrop, David Palmer, Peter Nicol, John White and Power are all capable of beating each other.
There was a huge turnout for the first-round match between local wild card Nicholas Kyme and world champion Lincou. The ‘village’ was there in force, the proceedings started by an ‘olde Englyshe’ town crier who must have been 6’8” tall—so when he said “Oyez! Oyez!” you listened.
The biggest ovation of the tournament must have been when Kyme won his first point against Lincou. Luckily for the girls of Bermuda High, the roof stayed on. Lincou went into exhibition mode and a good time was had by all despite the 3-0 scoreline.
The best match of the tournament was not on the glass court but at the four-court Bermuda Squash Club. Ricketts and Willstrop put on a truly fantastic performance of pyrotechnic, attacking squash in their second-round meeting. Willstrop took control and had Ricketts in reaction mode for the first two games, showing that he could retrieve almost anything. But then Ricketts worked his way back into the match to win the third and walk away with the fourth 11-3 from a tiring Willstrop who had taken 64 minutes to beat Rodney Durbach in the first round. Against all expectations, Willstrop went on a rampage, hitting winners all over the place to chalk up a healthy lead in the fifth, and Ricketts never recovered as Willstrop took the game 11-8 to win the longest match of the tournament—97 minutes of wonderful, take-no-prisoners squash.
The effort had been too much for Willstrop, though, and in his quarterfinal meeting with Nicol, he could summon up just enough strength to win one game before folding in the third and fourth.
White had to work hard in Bermuda. Welshman Alex Gough, ranked No. 25, pushed him to a tie-break in the fifth, which White just scraped home after 88 minutes. In the second round White beat Palmer, the world number two, in four games but took 68 minutes to do it. He was then faced with a very determined Nick Matthew in the quarters: another five-game marathon lasting 97 minutes with Matthew constantly showing a sneering disrespect for the referee.
Top seed Lincou could have gone in the second round when Amr Shabana led by one game and 7-2 in the second. But Shabana had another of his mental blanks, tried too many winners, and lost that game and the next two. Shabana’s stretches of sheer brilliance were once again interrupted by, to put it kindly, stretches of lack of thought.
Meanwhile second seed Beachill was swanning through the lower half with ease, hardly breaking a sweat to reach his quarterfinal meeting with another Egyptian. Karim Darwish is more serious than Shabana and played perfect squash to take the first game from Beachill. He led the second game and then, before our very eyes, simply unraveled. It was quite inexplicable and Beachill coolly won in four.
Beachill’s semifinal against Nicol was eagerly anticipated, Nicol having looked like his old self up to this point. But Beachill quickly showed that the old Emperor was nearly naked: almost from the word go Beachill ruled the court and within a very short space of time had Nicol lunging after disappearing balls. The match, in essence, had lasted one game; from the beginning of the second Nicol looked ragged and there was never any doubt that his run had finished and that Beachill would defend his Bermuda title in the final.
So what of Power? We hadn’t seen much of him, his matches being confined to the club, which was a good 20 minutes from the high school venue that housed the glass showcourt and the press room. I did see him beat Mark Chaloner in 31 minutes in round one and noticed a different Jonathon Power: focused, business-like and prepared to rally all day if need be. But there was no need as he won in three in half-an-hour. His second round match was a different story, the tough Frenchman Gregory Gaultier making Power work for 72 minutes for his five-game victory. The scoreline should tell us something: (10-11), 1, (5), 3, 2. It was the older Power who had outlasted and outrun the younger man.
In the quarters Power and Lincou played the unloveliest match of the tournament, full of body contact, barging, arguments and a consistent blockage of entente cordiale. It was hard to gauge the squash through all this, but once again it was evident that Power was there for as long as it took to come out on top. After 96 minutes he did just that.
Now the two hard workers, White and Power, met in the semifinals and suddenly all the barging and argument disappeared as Power set about reducing White’s openings to zero. Again, the changed Power showed his face: gone was the running repartee with the referee, gone was the flashy racquet work, and gone were the wondrous shots. In its place was a player who might have survived from the bad old days of the ‘70s: long rallies, tight to the wall with just the odd shot thrown in to keep White on his toes. White was pulled into this game—he had no option—but as Power had chosen the weapons, White was on the defensive. Power won the first game 11-5, White the second on a tie-break (15-13!), Power went ahead again 2-1 and again White fought back to win the fourth on a tiebreak. The fifth was all Power, still hitting tight length and beautiful cross-court angles while White wilted from the strain of four hard matches in a row and succumbed 11-4 after 89 minutes. Power left the court with the sort of determination that indicated he would have gone on for a sixth, seventh and eighth game if that was what was required.
Beachill (L) and Power clash in the final; photo by SquashPics.com
The final was a surprise and a sad anti-climax: Beachill had spent 171 minutes on court to attain a spot in the final. Power had played for a total of 288 minutes—four hours and 48 minutes. No one expected Power to last the distance, no-one expected him to win, no-one expected Beachill to be obliterated three games. To say Power played well is a vast understatement; he was almost frightening in his accuracy and command of the court. He simply outplayed Beachill in every square inch of the court. There was nothing Beachill could do to wrest control of play because almost every Power shot put him under pressure. The referee and marker could have gone to the bar—they weren’t needed as a quietly determined Power destroyed the world number three in just 51 minutes. It must have been the longest 51 minutes of Beachill’s life and afterwards he admitted that he was outmatched.
“Jonathon didn’t allow me to play my game. I wanted to get him under pressure, but he got me under pressure. He was quick, scrapped for every point and didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t allow me any rhythm. He was too good,” Beachill said, summing up the situation.
Power was a worthy winner and if he can continue in this frame of mind there is no reason why he should not return to the very top of the pile. Welcome back, JP.
Photo gallery (all pictures by SquashPics.com):
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