Finding Netherland

Dutch Star Makes Her Mark

By Colin McQuillan

Vanessa Atkinson

For the first time in the history of the event, the KL Women's World Open Squash Championship went to a player from outside the triangle of England, Australia and New Zealand when Vanessa Atkinson of The Netherlands defeated Natalie Grinham of Australia 1, 1, 5 in a 33-minute final at the Malaysian National Squash Center in Kuala Lumpur.

Atkinson is an English-born 28-year-old redhead who has played all of her squash from The Hague after moving there when her civil engineering father took a Dutch contract in 1976. Vanessa Atkinson arrived in Kuala Lumpur fresh from dominating the Qatar Women's Classic in Doha in December and cut straight through the top half of the field past England No. 2 Linda Elriani and World No. 1 Rachael Grinham of Australia, the elder sister of Natalie.

The real nature of the shifting hierarchy of women's international squash was emphasized just days after the end of the World Open when WISPA announced Atkinson had been voted their player of the year, while Cassie Jackman declared that problems in Doha and Kuala Lumpur were bad enough to force her premature retirement from the game.

Jackman had stopped after two games against Atkinson in the Qatar Classic and was rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties and chest pains. In Kuala Lumpur she was beaten in straight games by Shelley Kitchen in the second round. Later examination revealed more damage in the spinal disc on which she has twice had surgery and fresh fissures in the disc above it. “My playing days are over,” she acknowledged dejectedly.

The Grinham sisters have led the women's international scene along with Atkinson and Jackman since the retirement of the last world champion, Carol Owens of New Zealand. While Jackman was breaking down physically in the bottom half of the draw, the tall third-seeded Dutch No. 1 relinquished only one game, to England's Vicky Botwright, in the top half and accounted for both Grinhams in less than an hour of play collectively for the cost of just 11 points.

Natalie Grinham played what she described as “the most grueling match of her life” in her 88-minute semifinal against Nicol David of Malaysia. Grinham escaped by two points after standing 0-4 down in the fifth game to the local favorite, but while Grinham finished with skin on the bottoms of her feet, the match took its toll on the little Australian who would go on to fall rather short in her final match with Atkinson.

The semi was certainly the match of the tournament. The fourth-seeded 26-year-old Natalie Grinham had the incentive of reclaiming family honor after Rachael's complete failure against the all-court competence of Atkinson. Nicol David had the state of her nation to consider, with a fair portion of their squash enthusiasts in the National Squash Centre at Bukit Jalil to make the point.

Nicol David thronged by the local press

At 21 the diminutive Malaysian carries such pressure with ease. She has twice been World Junior Champion and there is no reason to doubt that her speed, temperament and skill could not one day take her to a senior championship win. In this year's World Championships she missed a place in the final by two points, but she lost none of her star rating in Kuala Lumpur in the process.

This was a perfect match of two fast and increasingly knowledgeable players who raised their performances for the occasion and gave an enthusiastic and understanding audience perhaps the best contest of the tournament, of the year—of an entire spectating experience for some.

David (L) vs Grinham.

Fast it was. Both the Grinhams are tiny by squash playing standards and David is scarcely as tall as either. Natalie and Nicol combined would barely make up a single Vanessa. But they both cover the ground at a startling pace and their sense of adventure seems to grow as the tension mounts.

Natalie Grinham started at a phenomenal pace with which she covered everything the young Malaysian could bring against her and opened spaces, particularly in the top left-hand corner, into which she played shots of nagging accuracy.

“All I could do was hang on and try to hold to my own game plan,” Nicol said later. “I thought she might slow a bit eventually and I would be able to move her back off the center of the court so that my own shots might start to make a difference.”

She was tight at the start, probably tense in front of a crowd that had watched her decimate Shelley Kitchen the night before and wanted more of the same: shots that had slotted the nick in the match with Kitchen now bounced out fetchingly on the lively glass court; drops that slid beguilingly above the edge of the tin dropped this time into the sounding board; errors crept above a dozen in the first game, less in the second but not all of them unforced.

Grinham was clinical by comparison. Her work in the top left corner was centimeter-precise, the drives tight and deep, her angles and reverses well timed and telling. After half an hour she looked in complete command.

A noticeable drop in the Australian pace allowed David to run through the third game in just four hands for a couple of points. Her stance was more aggressive as she moved up the court. Her racquet delivered more authority. Her choice of shot began to vary and invent. The Malaysian audience was loud in its appreciation and demanding of more, and their prayers went answered. “They make me proud and I play better for them,” David said.

The fourth game was a 23-minute battle of total movement, astonishing retrieval, marvelous front-court racquet skills, and enthusiastic crowd noise. Only in David's opening 3-0 lead were the scores ever more than two points apart, and the tiebreak was settled only when Grinham—for the first time—missed a reaction volley in midcourt as David yet again insinuated her racquet between the ball and the floor at full extension to lift a backhand drop-shot across the court. How such a small frame can contain such energy, such willingness, such positivity is a mystery.

Grinham looked finished at that point and a dispirited reaction to half-testing shots in the opening phase of the fifth game suggested that she thought so too. But she cut off a low lob in the backhand court to retrieve the service, and the mere possession of the ball seemed to inspire a dip into the deepest well of her physical reserves. Here was another woman discovering depths previously unshown, perhaps even unknown to herself.

A series of determined attacking shots in the front court on either hand brought her back into the match and into a 7-4 lead in three hands. David responded in kind to reach 7-7 with a ruthless backhand drop-shot into space created by a long and deliberately widespread rally. It seemed David needed only to keep the ball running to delight her fans with a first Malaysian World Open finalist to match Atkinson's first for The Netherlands.

Instead she hit a backhand pick-up into the tin, and then lost control of the penultimate rally as Grinham scraped up a drive from the backwall nick and David could only swing at the ball behind her back to mis-hit soaringly over the front wall. Match ball disappeared in a scrambling forehand retrieval deep in the right-hand corner of the court.

The two players fell into each other's arms, partly in exhaustion, partly in relief and perhaps partly in celebration of a job well done on both sides. “That is what we train for,” said Grinham later. David later admitted sadly that she wanted those last two points more than anything else ever before.

Atkinson must have just smiled from her hidden observation position. It was plain from the determined outset of the final that it would take an extraordinary happening to stop her becoming the first Dutch world squash champion. She delivered her own destiny by carving her way to 9-1 in nine minutes, then 8-0 in the second game before closing out game two in just eight minutes. Her coverage of the court, turning in the center, reaching into the corners and recoveries to center court were all sublime. Her shots were strong, free-swinging deliveries that sent the ball unerringly into the spaces and gaps that Grinham's increasingly labored rallying produced.

Four unforced tinned errors and a tired leaning wave at a ball passing her on the forehand side showed just how spent Grinham was as she relinquished a brave 5-1 lead in the third game. She retrieved service at 5-5 when one of her trademark backhand drops evaded Atkinson's racquet, then served again at 5-6 after a flashing backhand crosscourt drive died in the back corner. But that was it. Atkinson cruised on to take her first World Open title finishing with a classic backhand volley drop-shot and the skinniest of backhand boasts.

“This tournament went perfectly for me,” Atkinson said. “I hope this is just the first of many world titles for me. Next I want World No. 1. Then I want the British Open. Then I want the grand Prix Finals. Then another World Open.”

Women's KL World Open Squash Championship
Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Final Result:
[3] Vanessa Atkinson (NED) d [4] Natalie Grinham (AUS) 1, 1, 5 (34m)

Semis:
Atkinson d [1] Rachael Grinham (AUS) 0, 2, 2 (23m)
Grinham d [6] Nicol David (MAL) 3, 7, (2), (9-10), 7 (88m)

Quarters:
Grinham d [10] Jenny Tranfield (ENG) 1, 1, 7 (42m)
Atkinson d [5] Linda Elriani (ENG) 7, 1, 3 ret (35m)
Grinham d [8] Rebecca Macree (ENG) 6, 3, 0 (32m)
David d [12] Shelley Kitchen (NZ) 7, 3, 4 (29m)