ISDA Squash Tour 2008

A Clear New No. 1 Post-Greenwich

Writen by Rob Dinerman
Date: January 15/07

In rallying from two games to love down and overtaking six-time defending champions Gary Waite and Damien Mudge in yesterday's final round of the North American Open at the Greenwich Field Club, second seeds Paul Price and Ben Gould accomplished several impressive and important milestones: they moved to 3-0 this season against Waite and Mudge (previously a Maryland Club Open semi and a Big Apple Open final), who never before had lost either three times in one season or three times to the same team ever, much less in single season; they wrested this most prestigious of doubles titles on this continent from its six-year captivity with Waite and Mudge; and they firmly displaced The Champs from the No. 1 position that they had held ever since the ISDA's inception at the beginning of the decade.

More important than any of these statistical accomplishments was the change in the dynamics of the pro doubles circuit that occurred during the inexorable and determined Price/Gould rally through the third- and fourth-game overtime sessions and the ensuing grueling 15-11 fifth game. Twenty-four years ago, when Mark Talbott was embarking on his first break-out WPSA pro hardball singles season in autumn of 1982 he won the first three tournaments, the last of which was at the final-round expense of incumbent No. 1 Michael Desaulniers, who was thrashed on his "home" Montreal courts. Still, Desaulniers had been clearly way off his game in that match, tinning heavily and awry with his ball-striking, and, though there was growing respect for Talbott's error-free attritional style, the overwhelming conviction coming into the next-week Boston Open (a major stop on the WPSA tour), both in the young Canadian's mind and in the public perception, remained that Desaulniers at his high-paced gun-slinging best was too much for anyone, Talbott included, to handle.

When the two titans met in the semis before a packed gallery at Harvard's Hemmenway Gymnasium, Desaulniers threw his vintage full-court blitz at Talbott, volleying everything in reach, forcing his punishing three-wall and maneuvering his slender opponent throughout their high-octane eighty-minute shoot-out. But Talbott unflappably weathered the constant barrage, lobbed and extemporized his way out of trouble, coolly glided to virtually every Desaulniers salvo and pocketed two slightly desperate Desaulniers tins to seal the match-ending fourth-game best-of-nine overtime session by an 18-16 tally.

For Desaulniers, who had truly put himself on the line and yet seen one of his greatest all-time efforts come up short, albeit barely, the myth of his at-his-best invincibility had been permanently and publicly punctured, and it would be years before he would regain his early-1980's bravado, while for Talbott (who conquered Mario Sanchez in straight sets the following night in an anti-climatic final), the win would bestow a legitimizing stamp on his early-season exploits from which he would never look back while compiling a career resume that tops that of every other American player in the history of the sport.
Whether that now-distant Desaulniers/Talbott phenomenon is reprised nearly a quarter-century later on the ISDA tour remains to be seen, but it should be noted that Waite and Mudge, visibly chastened by their ragged performance in the 15-11, 11 and 7 pasting they absorbed at the hands of Gould and Quick at the New York Athletic Club 10 weeks ago, expended all the physical, tactical and psychic energy they possessed in their attempt at a successful defense of the coveted North American Open crown. In both the third and fourth games, they led 13-12, just two points away from what would have been a tenth such title for Waite (who won three straight with Talbott before Mudge arrived on the scene), but in neither case were these two historically such formidable closers able to get any nearer to a victory that they clearly desperately wanted. A daring Mudge volley drop-shot in the first point of the best-of-three fourth-game tiebreaker would have created a double-championship-point opportunity, but it rang off the top of the tin, following which a Price drop shot clinched that game and he and his fellow Aussie moved out to 4-1 in the fifth and were never seriously threatened thereafter.

The question now has become whether in the wake of such a deflating near-miss, Waite and Mudge can find the motivation to muster up an even greater effort against their current nemesis, or if they are doomed to suffer the same fate that befell Desaulniers when he was in a similar position two decades-plus ago. It bears mentioning as well that both finalists arrived at their Sunday summit only after surviving 2-1 semifinal deficits; Waite's six match-ending winners from 9-all in the fifth accounted for his team's 15-11 score over Chris Walker and Viktor Berg, while Price and Gould first trailed Scott Butcher and Clive Leach 12-9 in the fourth and then let a 14-10 fifth-game lead get completely away before winning 17-16 on their sixth match-ball when a Price rail clung too tightly to the left wall for Butcher to handle. These four teams, as well as two-time (Baltimore and Vancouver) autumn 2006 ISDA runners-up John Russell and Preston Quick have compellingly emerged as the top-tier of the current campaign, and it will be interesting to see how these leading lights and their pursuers react to the Greenwich weekend as the tour moves on to Boston this weekend and the $ 100,000 Briggs Cup in Rye early next month.