ISDA Squash Tour 2008

PRICE AND GOULD GO TWO FOR TWO

Writen by Rob Dinerman
Date: November 11/06

Only two of a scheduled 14 ranking tournaments have been played so far on the 2006-07 ISDA professional doubles tour, but already the competitive landscape that has held sway for so long has been profoundly transformed by what has occurred on-court so far. The domination that Gary Waite and Damien Mudge have heretofore been able to exert throughout the seven-plus years of their trophy-laden partnership, encompassing virtually the entire seven-year history of the ISDA's existence, has been emphatically punctured by the pair of convincing consecutive losses they have already suffered at the hands of Paul Price and Ben Gould, who, by winning the tour stops in early October in Baltimore and then one month later in New York, have loudly announced themselves, at least for the moment, as the premier team in the game.

Never prior to these two events had Waite and Mudge lost twice in a row to the same team; indeed, they have historically been merciless in exacting revenge against any previous team that had had the temerity to knock them off the next time the two teams faced each other. But in the semis of the Maryland Club Open, a well-disguised forehand roll-corner winner that fooled Waite on simultaneous game-ball in the pivotal second game prevented the three-time defenders from garnering a two games to love lead.
Buoyed by this favorable turn, Gould and Price then ran away with the single-figure third and fourth games, barged through a straight-game final over John Russell and Preston Quick, proceeded through two pre-final wins this past weekend at the Big Apple Open and then forcefully consolidated their four-week-old victory over Waite and Mudge Monday night in a one-sided 15-11, 11 and 7 final that consumed only 45 minutes and wasn't even as close as the decidedly not-close statistical tally, which incidentally was only the second 3-0 loss Waite and Mudge had ever sustained (the first having come when Waite had a severe wrist injury), their ninth loss overall (in 80 ISDA ranking-tournament appearances) and the only time they had ever been held under 35 points, let alone 30.

Whether the drubbing they absorbed will ultimately serve as the wake-up call that both Waite and Mudge later acknowledged they probably needed and certainly deserved, or as a sign of a permanent albeit reluctant surrender of the No. 1 standing they have held so zealously for so long, will surely be an important story line as the tour moves on to Vancouver (which Gould will have to miss while attending his brother-in-law's wedding in St. John), Toronto and the early-December U. S. Pro tourney in Wilmington, the next event in which both Waite/Mudge and Price/Gould are entered.

Other developments that have already emerged and bear watching lie in the progress of what appear to be the next three leading teams, namely John Russell and Preston Quick, who reached the final in Baltimore with sequential wins over first Scott Butcher/Clive Leach and then Chris Walker/Viktor Berg; Butcher and Leach, who avenged their Baltimore loss with a decisive 3-0 quarterfinal win over Russell/Quick in New York before bowing out in a highly competitive (two tiebreakers) semi to Waite and Mudge; and Walker and Berg, champions in Cleveland last winter, who have been eliminated in the semifinal round of each of the first two events, but only after forcing a fifth game with Price and Gould in New York.
Though these five teams have filled all of the semifinal slots so far, there are several additional teams that have had their moments as well. Jeff Mulligan and Matt Jensen have qualified their way into both events, as have Steve Scharff and Joe Pentland, who in New York then pushed Michael Pirnak and Martin Heath (semifinalists last spring in San Francisco, where they defeated Russell/Quick) to the brink in a four-game (three tiebreakers, including two one-point games) round of 16 battle in New York. Willie Hosey and Jamie Bentley, reuniting after a five-year hiatus after being the No. 2 ranked ISDA team in 2000 and 2001, edged Ayman Karim and David Kay in New York in a close four before falling to Waite and Mudge. And Tyler Millard has reached both quarterfinals, the first with Pirnak in Baltimore and the second with James Hewitt by virtue of their comeback win after trailing two games to love against Doug Lifford and Pat Milloy.