ISDA Squash Tour 2008

Waite/Mudge Over Price/Gould In Brooklyn

Writen by Rob Dinerman
Date: March 04/07

In finally breaking through, and doing so in decisive 3-0 fashion, in their fifth attempt this season against the Paul Price/Ben Gould team that has become their nemesis, Gary Waite and Damien Mudge accomplished several things. They became the first team ever to win the Heights Casino title six straight years, they extended their undefeated 2006-07 mark against the non-Price/Gould rest of the field to 17-0, they won their milestone 75th ranking ISDA tournament (more than 10 times the total of their nearest pursuer) and they captured their third ISDA ranking title of the season (preceded by Vancouver and Wilmington this past autumn).

More important than any of the foregoing, however, was the role their devastating 15-10, 9 and 10 final Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn Heights played in altering the dynamics of the tour by puncturing the aura of invincibility that Price and Gould had generated with their wins in Baltimore, New York, Boston and especially Greenwich and Rye (sites of the two most prestigious and lucrative tourneys on the circuit, the $ 50,000 North American Open and $ 100,000 biennial Briggs Cup respectively), in both finals of which Waite and Mudge had threatened to take command of the action (they led 2-0 in Greenwich and 13-12 in both the third and fourth games, and were a second-set tiebreaker away from taking a 2-0 lead in Rye) only to have Price and Gould overtake them down the stretch and eventually win going away.

In Brooklyn, however, unlike those previous events, Waite and Mudge were finally free of the physical ailments that had shadowed them all season (beginning with a shoulder injury Mudge incurred last summer while surfing, and including a later shoulder re-injury in January and leg and rib injuries to the now 40-year-old Waite), while, conversely, it was the Price/Gould team that was hurting, Price with a sore back and Gould with a sore right foot, maladies that their pair of five-game pre-final travails with first Scott Butcher/Clive Leach and then John Russell/Preston Quick (who fell barely short in that 15-13 final frame) only exacerbated.

In Brooklyn as well, and (as noted) unlike those prior meetings between the sport’s two top teams, Waite and Mudge left nothing to chance, accentuating their early lead by pounding their way through the final game and not allowing Price and Gould to mount any type of rally. The latter tandem has gone an amazing 6-0 in five-game matches this season and has won almost every tiebreaker session they have faced, but the success they have experienced in this kind of clutch situation was never given a chance to surface last weekend.

It should be noted that the Heights Casino defeat was only the second of the season for Price and Gould (preceded by a semis loss in Wilmington to Chris Walker and Viktor Berg) and that, with the big-money tourneys now in the books and only Denver, Philadelphia, Long Island and San Francisco remaining as the tour enters its final two months, only a clean Waite/Mudge sweep (and maybe not even that) would threaten the substantial lead Price (who also combined with Narelle Krizek to win the U. S. Mixed Doubles title one week prior to Heights Casino) and Gould deservedly enjoy in the ISDA point standings; if anything, the rare defeat that they sustained points up how triumph-filled their season has truly been.
But though Waite and Mudge will therefore almost certainly be unable to attain the No. 1 end-of-season team ranking that they have held throughout the history of the ISDA (now in its eighth season), what the Brooklyn event proved is that when Waite and Mudge are physically “right” and fully on their game, they are still abundantly capable of capturing any crown that they set their formidable sights on.