ISDA Squash Tour 2012

Tournament Results:

Mudge/Berg Prevail In Boston by Rob Dinerman

Zero for three against Clive Leach and Chris Walker throughout the pre-Thanksgiving portion of the 2007-08 ISDA schedule, Damien Mudge and Viktor Berg are now two for their last two against their talented British rivals, having followed a 3-2 victory (from two games to one down) in an early-December Wilmington semi with a four-game win at the University Club Of Boston in the final round of this tournament. Both members of the winning team have played some of their best squash in the friendly confines of this two-court arena, where Mudge triumphed four times (in 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2005) with Gary Waite and Berg won in 2004 with Josh McDonald on a shot-making spree that carried them from 11-14 to 17-15 in the finals that year against Waite and Mudge. Mudge and Berg have now also reached the finals of the last three-straight ISDA tour stops, having defeated Preston QUici and John Russell in the Wilmington final and lost the Vancouver final one week later to Paul Price and Ben Gould. The latter pair of Aussies entered this 11th edition of the Boston tourney both as defending champions and having regained their No. 1 team ranking, but it was known even before play began that Price was suffering from a touch of intestinal flu, a condition that was exacerbated by the plane ride from Toronto and an unexpectedly testing four-game quarterfinal opener with Boston denizens Pat Malloy and Doug Lifford. By the time that Price and Gould encountered Walker and Leach, who had already defeated them twice this season (in the October stops in St. Louis and Baltimore), Price was visibly wan and listless, and after Walker/Leach had followed a reasonably competitive 15-12 opening game by running off with the 15-4 second and moving ahead 5-3 in the third, Price bowed to the inevitable and defaulted. Walker and Leach had previously defeated Chris Spahr and Nadeem Osman, the host club’s pros-in-residence, who had delighted the crowd with their somewhat unexpected and thoroughly convincing 3-0 round of 16 win over Tyler Millard and Ben Howell. That latter result was one of what should have been two major upsets that weekend, as in the draw’s third quadrant, Mark Price and Joe Pentland, after forcefully subduing Rob Dinerman and Sandy Tierney, moved to a 2-1, 14-10 lead over reigning U. S. National champions Preston Quick and John Russell. But Quick and Russell, who had similarly successfully rallied from seeming oblivion (with an 8-0 match-ending fifth-game run from 7-12) against Pentland/Mark Price three months ago in St. Louis, were able to repel all five match-points against them to rescue that game 15-14 and win a more routine though still competitive 15-11 fifth. Quick and Russell had one more rally in them, when after falling behind two games to love they took the third game against Mudge/Berg and forced a best-of-nine tiebreaker in the fourth. But Mudge and Berg swept all five points of that session to clinch that match, then overtook Walker and Leach in the final after dropping the opening game. Mudge, the primary focus of the Walker/Leach attack, held up admirably, while Berg, his autumn-long hamstring problems now fully behind him, provided his usual fleetness and aggressive shot-making, all of which enabled himself and his formidable partner to wrest a 2-1 lead and win the close-out fourth game going away.

Draw