Squash Magazine: TOC 2005

Sweet Victory Anthony Ricketts, Wise and Winning in New York By James Zug Photos by Steve Line/SquashPics.com

Anthony Ricketts, victorious. “If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1844, “thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods.” For seven consecutive winters, Gotham commuters and East Coast squash fans have filled their brains and stimulated their senses with a glass-court pro tournament in Grand Central. The Bear Stearns Tournament of Champions is now the oldest annual portable court pro tournament in the world. The 2005 edition was actually the eighth in Grand Central Terminal. The inaugural event, sponsored by New York Sports Clubs, was held in June 1995 in an unrenovated Vanderbilt Hall. Back then homeless people slept under the bleachers, prize money totaled $65,000, daily commuter traffic was estimated at 20,000 and Jansher Khan, at the zenith of his zaftig career, rocketed through the draw without losing a game. A decade later the radiance of wisdom glowed on the ToC, though it was usually pretty subtle. Commuter traffic was pegged at half a million. Dunlop hawked a special ToC signature racquet. Individual ticket prices topped out at $130. Jahangir Khan, squash god turned WSF president, was sighted on consecutive nights. Family Day, modeled nicely on the U.S. Open tennis counterpart at Flushing Meadows, included clinics for StreetSquash and CitySquash kids and a radar gun contest in which John White hit a ball 111 miles per hour; the first junior on the court, a young girl named Olivia Blatchford, immediately matched it. Media attention in 1995 was limited mostly to an article in Sports Illustrated. This year a half-dozen websites provided daily reports and more than 70 featured the tournament. The World Journal News, the nation's largest Chinese-language newspaper, ran a front-page article and the Washington Post ran a long, provocative piece in its Styles section. Dave Price, “The Early Show's” weatherman, hit squash balls with CitySquash players live at CBS Plaza. The most exhausting coverage came on WB11, the New York television station. Under the direction of media maven Beth Rasin they filmed three players—Chris Gordon, Tim Wyant and Annelize Naude—playing on the tour court at 4:15a.m. and then used the footage during two-minute segments throughout their morning show. The crowds seemed as knowledgeable and excitable as before and standing ovations were rare but well deserved. The last-minute loss of 33 seats, due to new safety regulations, only slightly dampened the intense theatre-in-the-round atmosphere. A recent innovation, a video screen behind the sidewall and visible to spectators, was replaced with something better: a giant screen over the bar in the commercial wing of Vanderbilt. So while sipping Juan Valdez coffee or making a meal of a pint of Guinness, bystanders could watch the current match live, complete with instant replays and occasional statistics appearing on the screen. Adrian and Fiona Boothsby, the Horizon Software gurus, did more than throw images around Grand Central. The lack of courtside television cameras might have worried the average spectator, but Horizon was providing live streaming video, commentary, replays of controversial points, an ocean of statistics, and an interactive chat room on the Internet. The 2004 ToC, where live streaming video was launched, had room for a mere three hundred people to log on; this year, Horizon estimated that 40,000 different computers around the world logged on for live feeds during the week. For the last two nights Adrian gave live commentary, which included answering questions posed in the real-time interactive chat room. After the tournament the PSA and Horizon Software announced that everyone—including one very dedicated viewer in Iceland—would from now on have to pay for the live streaming, replaying and chatting. No doubt in 10 years' time this system will seem as archaic as Jansher Khan is to us today. But the tremendously high quality of play in the 2005 Bear Stearns ToC will probably never be surpassed. There were 84 players from 26 countries in the tournament. Of the 46 main draw matches, 11 went to five games—24 percent. In 2004 it was 16 percent. Much of the tension came on the distaff side. History: there was a four-woman exhibition in 2001, and 16-woman draws in '02 and '03; last year nothing. In 2005 the 16-woman draw was back. No American women made the main draw, although Latasha Khan beat fellow American Lily Lorentzen in the first round of the qualies. Lingering local hopes died when Natalie Grainger, a Washington, DC, resident, squandered a 2-1 lead to unseeded Jenny Duncalf in the opening round, losing 9-1 in the fifth. In the two years since the last time women played in Grand Central, WISPA has searched for someone to take over from retiring Sarah Fitz-Gerald. One by one her old rivals failed to sustain any dominance, as first Carol Owens and then Cassie Jackman retired. The last two women from that era, Rebecca Macree and Linda Elriani, both 33, came to Grand Central eager to jump into the breech. Macree was noted for her fierce competitiveness, her long, loping swing and for the fact that, born deaf, she usually played with a marker signing her the score and referee decisions. Macree survived a five-game tester with 20-year-old qualifier Alison Waters before running into world champion Vanessa Atkinson in the quarters. She flew to a 2-1 lead before going down in five. After the tournament, Macree announced her retirement. She won eight titles in her groundbreaking 17-year career and reached a high of seven in the world in May 2003. Elriani (L) vs. Atkinson in the final; photo by SquashPics.com Elriani appears far from retirement. Rejuvenated by her marriage last summer to French squashman Laurent Elriani, she took the Greenwich and Dayton titles in January. At Grand Central she pulled off a rare feat in women's squash. In consecutive rounds she beat both Grinham sisters, surviving a five-game thriller against Natalie and then smashing world number one Rachael in four. The match against Natalie was a masterpiece of tactical play, as Elriani sent up exquisite, skyscraping lobs that pushed Natalie to the back wall. The match turned in the third game. Elriani lost it 10-9, but she climbed back from a 8-1 deficit, saving a half dozen game points and emphasizing that she might be down 2-1 but the match was far from over. In the final, Elriani's tactics proved ineffective against the tall and strong Atkinson. While Elriani was hobbled by major blisters on both feet, Atkinson floated around the court stinging deceptive cross-court drives and keeping Elriani on the defensive. Atkinson made just four errors in the match and won in three. She noted that she had not played a tournament since winning the World Open in Kuala Lumpur in December and it had taken her a few days in New York to get used to being world champion. “There is nowhere to go but down after becoming world champion,” she said. Now dating Laurens Jan Anjema after an earlier relationship with Billy Haddrell, Atkinson is still proving that WISPA-PSA romance is good for one's game. Lincou & Ricketts forget, momentarily, that squash is usually played while standing; photo by SquashPics.com The story of the men was also one of a search for a new dominating player. No American is in the discussion. The best domestic result in the qualies was from two-time national champion Preston Quick, who stayed on court with Australia's Cameron Pilley for 38 minutes before losing 11-9, 11-2, 11-8. Two notable names in the main draw were Rodney Durbach, who has made all but one of the last seven ToC main draws, and Dan Jenson, who knocked out John White. Joining the ever-increasing gaggle of former PSA stars in the US, White this spring is moving with his wife and four young children to Nazareth, PA. One can only shudder at the thought of where a few months on the Saucon Valley doubles court will take the hard-hitting Aussie. Eleven-point scoring was new to the ToC. All four semifinalists from 2004 were replaced in this year's semis and two of them, Thierry Lincou and Amr Shabana, have thrived on the new system. Both are brilliant sharpshooters who can string together a streak of feel-good nicks and snap-up quick games. Lincou, the 2004 world champion, rolled into the semis with the loss of just one game, having spent more time worrying about his parents who were on their first visit to the US. He took on David Palmer, who had overcome four-time ToC champion Jonathon Power in a classic overtime-in-the-fifth, chair-kicking quarters. After Lincou and Palmer split the first two games, Palmer slashed to a 7-3 lead in the third. When his lead evaporated, he tossed his racquet into the air and it awkwardly landed on Lincou's face. Lincou laughed it off and took the game and the next 11-9, 11-9. He had never beaten Palmer before in a PSA tournament. “I had not figured him out before,” Lincou said after the match. “He was one of the last guys I needed to overcome.” Lincou, however, did not anticipate Anthony Ricketts. Not since Power's maiden triumph in 1996 had such an unexpected giant-killer appeared at the ToC. Seeded 10th, Ricketts was on the comeback trail after his January 2004 knee surgery. He hunted down balls with a fierce scowling intensity, his left hand splayed out flat as if he was testing the heat of a slice of pie. He bulldozed past James Willstrop, still hailed as the next great thing, in a tie-breaker marathon that finished on the dark side of midnight. Beating the best of the future was one thing, but Ricketts then vanquished the best of the present (or past?) in Peter Nicol. The opening point of the match lasted for more than 100 strokes. The crowd roared and even a passing dog barked. In each game Nicol took early leads—8-4 in the first, 6-2 in the third—only to see Ricketts up the pace and pugnaciously fight back. Nicol might have been suffering from the flu, but Ricketts deserved to win and he did. In the semis, Ricketts took on Amr Shabana, the World Open champion in 2003. Shabana had escaped from a five-game battle with Olli Tuominen and then downed Lee Beachill in three fantastic games in the quarters. The Egyptian, who has a tattoo on his left ankle, then was tattooed by Anthony Ricketts. Shabana and Ricketts split games and at 9-all in the third, after Ricketts fought back from a 5-1 deficit, the match was poised to go either way. Ricketts took the next two points, the second coming when Shabana hit an obvious tin that the referee saw as up. After a very pregnant pause, Shabana did the right thing and conceded the point and the game and in the end the match. Ricketts, seeing the chance to win his first major PSA title, did not blink. His ability to create streaks was the difference in his final against Lincou. He jumped to leads in the first and third games and barely held on. In the fifth, Ricketts ignored the memories of his 11-3 in the fifth loss to Lincou in December's World Open. The cool Aussie reeled off eight straight unanswered points to take an insurmountable lead. After 89 minutes, one of the longest ToC finals in history—11-point scoring or not—Anthony Ricketts allowed himself a radiant, wise smile. Photo gallery from the 2005 Tournament of Champions

Sweet Victory

Anthony Ricketts, Wise and Winning in New York