Break Out the Champagne
First Frenchman Wins Men’s World Open
By Colin McQuillan
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Thierry Lincou, the 28-year-old Franco-Chinese player from the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, became the first French player to win a World Squash Championship when he defeated top-seeded Lee Beachill of England (5), 2, (2), 11-10 (2-0), 8 in the 83-minute final of the Qatar Men’s World Squash Open in Doha in early December.
It was the conclusion of a year-long campaign for Lincou. In last year’s World Open Final in Lahore, Lincou lost to Egypt’s Amr Shabana after spending too much time talking to admiring French journalists the night before about being promoted that day to World No. 1 for the first time (Everyone wanted to congratulate the first French World No. 1 and perhaps leech a little of his glory). Since then Lincou has emerged as the leading exponent of the new PSA 11-point format, blending front court speed with nagging accuracy to all quarters to succeed.
The first man to shake his hand outside the Qatar showcourt was Jahangir Khan, the President of the World Squash Federation who was six times a world champion and 10 times a British Open Champion for Pakistan in the 1980s.
The championship was launched in 1976 with the first four titles going to Geoff Hunt of Australia. Jahangir took six and his Pakistani compatriot Jansher Khan took over to accumulate eight. Rodney Eyles of Australia won in 1997, Jonathon Power of Canada in 1998. Peter Nicol won for Scotland in 1999, David Palmer for Australia in 2002 and Amr Shabana for Egypt in 2003 (see “Men’s World Champions” for complete list of records).
In 2004 Beachill was the first Englishman to be top-seeded for the title and there were moments in the fourth game, when he led 6-4 and then 10-9, that it seemed he could become the first English winner of the title. But the strong and accurate French second seed produced a supremely measured wrong-footing forehand delivery from midcourt to save the match ball and then took the tiebreak with a forehand drop-shot directly into the top right-hand nick and a backhand drive into the deep left-hand corner.
In the fifth, despite Beachill taking the early initiative, it was Lincou who commanded the court. He drove Beachill down from the center of the court and dictated the shape of the rallies while the top seed ran with gradually increasing desperation in search of another winning edge. Lincou looked stronger as he moved up court to launch an early ball attack that carried him from 4-5 to 9-6, with four Beachill errors in the count, and then to 10-7 with another of the precision backhand drives perfectly placed into the deep left corner that are becoming his hallmark. It was almost inevitable that the last point of a magnificent final would come from a tinned error, a backhand straight into the middle of the sounding board, from the frustrated Englishman.
“In the vital parts of the match we were rarely more than a couple of points apart,” Beachill said later. “I thought we both played well, but Thierry played the big points just a bit better that me.
“I am disappointed to have got so close and not won the world title, but I think I did everything I could and didn’t do much that was wrong. It just wasn’t quite enough in the end.”
Lincou said he was determined not to repeat the disappointment of the previous year. “I guess I carried that with me right through the year. I was not playing at my best here. I had troubles all week playing my own game and controlling the court the way I like to. Lee started well and I had to work hard to stay with him in the first game. When he eased off slightly in the second I went ahead easily, but then I started making errors in the third.
“I had the same trouble in the final as in the semifinal with Graham Ryding,” Lincou said. “I could not take the front court enough in the early part of the match so I had to return to basics of line and length to the deep court until the opportunities began to return later to mix front court attack in with the deeper approach.”
Ryding may look back on that semifinal match, and that week, with mixed feelings. Earlier in the tournament he defeated Nick Matthew, Alex Gough and Peter Nicol with increasing speed and skill, and he missed a fifth-game win over Lincou by a single point. It clearly was his best tournament performance. A lifelong second fiddle to compatriot Jonathon Power, Ryding mastered the unforgiving Doha court as well as any player in the field. Rallying with extraordinary speed and dominating the front court with outrageous racquet skill, he dismissed Nicol from the quarterfinals in 47 minutes of forceful front-court domination. (The previous day Ryding had watched England’s 31-year-old Scot play magnificently to defeat Power over four games to register a 22nd win in their career record of 40 confrontations.) In Ryding’s match versus Lincou he started in the same spitfire mood against the much-fancied Frenchman.
“I was very nervous and off my game with the tension,” admitted Lincou. “Graham played here as I have never seen him play before. I simply could not beat him in the front court, which is where I expect to score many of my points. In the end I was forced to play into the back of the court to win the rallies there. It is very hard to win a match playing just into the back of the court.”
With control switching to and fro between the pair through the first four short, sharp games, it was the 25-minute fifth game in which the heart of the second semifinal lay. Lincou was struck on the trail hand by Ryding’s racquet when leading 3-1 and had to take three minutes to tape up a split in the little finger. He returned to find the Canadian in complete ownership of the front court again and himself contributing to the opposition cause with repeated tinned errors.
Ryding advanced to matchball at 10-9 with a backhand straight kill, a deft backhand drop-shot at full extension and a forehand drop that Lincou could only push into the tin once more. The second seed stopped the rot in the next rally with a forehand cross-court drive of such perfect length and direction that it actually rattled around in the back left corner while Ryding scrambled at it with his racquet. A penalty stroke for a deep midcourt scuffle in which the players clashed racquets gave Lincou the advantage and he finished off with a backhand straight drop into the smallest of vacant spaces to the left of his opponent.
Beachill reached the final with a 70-minute 8, 6, (5), 11-10 (2-0) win over David Palmer of Australia that is likely to be a talking point among both players and referees for years to come. The Yorkshire based 27-year-old dominated the first two games of his semifinal but allowed the tall Australian to force his way into the front court in the third game. He was game ball down at 8-10 in the fourth, but reached a tie break at 10-all when the referee, Ray Gingell of Wales, twice penalized Palmer for interference. A marginally missed backhand pick-up in the top left corner put the Australian match ball down and he was dismissed when both the referee and the marker, Jack Allen of Ireland, agreed that a forehand volley drop-shot from Beachill was above the tin while Palmer was insisting loudly that it was down.
The situation was an extraordinary reversal of last month’s British Open semifinal in Nottingham when Palmer reached the final, and eventually the title, thanks to a brace of questionable penalty strokes from the referee that wiped out a 9-7 lead held by Beachill in their fifth game.
There was no doubt that when he returned to speak to the press in Doha that Palmer felt this match’s decision was equally questionable. “It was definitely down and everyone outside the front wall knew it was down,” said the triple British Open Champion who won the 2002 World Open title in Antwerp from matchball down to John White. “I understand the referees’ position to some degree. They are not on top of the court and they have to call things as they see them. But players know if balls are up or down and it’s on them to make the right decision.
“I kept Lee on court and asked him if he really thought it was up, and he said he was unsure but people he trusted said it was up,” said Palmer, who took three minutes to leave the court following that final point.
“There is nothing I can do about it now,” continued Palmer. “I don’t really know how I feel about losing that way. I have never experienced it before. This will be on his conscience.”
Beachill was content immediately after the semifinal that he was the rightful winner. “I was bitterly disappointed at the British Open and David will be bitterly disappointed here,” he said before Palmer made his opinion clear to the press. “We have no choice but to live with the outcomes and perhaps tonight evens things up.”
Palmer’s progress to the semifinals had been equally sensational. He defeated the defending champion, Amr Shabana of Egypt, 2-0 in a fifth-game shootout after trailing by two games at the outset. Palmer benefited from an extraordinary relaxation by his opponent in the third game and then a three-minute rest when Shabana called for an injury break when 9-10 down in the fifth.
“He let me back in the game and I did for him,” Palmer said afterwards. Shabana confessed that letting the third game go cheaply was a tactical blunder. “I have improved almost every area of my game, but the head still lets me down,” he said. “Now I will have to become World No. 1 to prove to the so-called experts that I am worth including in their lists of top players.” Shabana had a fair tussle in the first round with England’s Mark Chaloner, winning after 51 minutes from a 1-2 games deficit.
Another resounding result of the first round was the 11-10 (2-0), 5, 2 defeat of Scotland’s John White by Olli Tuominen of Finland. White was off form enough to withdraw from the subsequent Pakistan Open in Islamabad, but Tuominen played with his customary hard-running persistence to take advantage of it and went on to give Anthony Ricketts a 55-minute five-game scare in the next round.
Also in the first round was the last appearance of Omar El Borolossy on the PSA World Tour. The elegant Egyptian lost (4), 9, 3, 3 in 51 minutes and admitted afterwards that the pain in his knees was bad enough to convince him that he should stop now rather than finish up with serious mobility problems further down the line. “I may coach a bit and I now have a son starting to play, so I will have plenty to do. But my playing days are over,” said El Borolossy.
Men’s World Champions
1976 Geoff Hunt (AUS)
1977 (not held)
1978 Geoff Hunt
1979 Geoff Hunt
1980 Geoff Hunt
1981 Jahangir Khan (PAK)
1982 Jahangir Khan
1983 Jahangir Khan
1984 Jahangir Khan
1985 Jahangir Khan
1986 Ross Norman (NZ)
1987 Jansher Khan (PAK)
1988 Jahangir Khan
1989 Jansher Khan
1990 Jansher Khan
1991 Rodney Martin (AUS)
1992 Jansher Khan
1993 Jansher Khan
1994 Jansher Khan
1995 Jansher Khan
1996 Jansher Khan
1997 Rodney Eyles (AUS)
1998 Jonathon Power (CAN)
1999 Peter Nicol (SCO)
2000 (not held)
2001 (not held)
2002 David Palmer (AUS)
2003 Amr Shabana (EGY)
2004 Thierry Lincou (FRA)
Photos: Top: Lincou (with clenched fists) celebrates his first-ever World Open title, as Lee Beachill grits his teeth with disappointment. Middle: Beachill (L) gave his all but did not have enough in the tank to beat the fiery Frenchman. Bottom: Graham Ryding (R) had a fantastic week before finally losing, by 1 point in the fifth, to Lincou in their semi. All photos by SquashPics.com
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