ISDA Squash Tour 2008

Writen by Rob Dinerman
Date: October 23/07

With a pair of mid-October ISDA season-opening tournaments now in the books, one team (namely Clive Leach and Chris Walker) has already singularized itself by going two for two, a phenomenon resonant of what happened last year, when Paul Price and Ben Gould won the first two tournaments on the 2006-07 schedule, the Maryland Club and Big Apple Opens. In fact the similarities between what Price, an early-2000’s British Open finalist, and his fellow Aussie Gould (who had played only once as partners prior to last season) achieved in Baltimore and New York, and what also early-2000’s British Open finalist Walker and his British compatriot Leach (who likewise had played only once as partners prior to this season) have recently accomplished in St. Louis and Baltimore, are positively eerie: just as Price/Gould conquered the reigning No. 1 team of Damien Mudge and Gary Waite first in a semifinal and then in a final, so have Walker and Leach out-played current No. 1’s Price and Gould first in the semis in St. Louis (after trailing 2-0, 14-9!) and then a few days ago in the final in Baltimore.
Whether Walker and Leach can also emulate the 2006-07 Price/Gould attainment of the top end-of-season ranking this season certainly remains to be seen, but their consecutive appearances hoisting the championship trophy on successive Sunday afternoons has certainly sent an intimidating message to the remainder of the ISDA field. Walker has already equaled his total prior to this season of ISDA crowns, having previously triumphed with Viktor Berg in ’06 in Cleveland (where he and Berg overcame a multiple-match-points-against semifinal deficit before running away with the fifth game and prevailing in the final, just as he and Leach did in St. Louis) and last March in Denver. Leach had won four ISDA tourneys in the mid-2000’s (the ’03 Canadian Pro, Creek Challenge Cup and Kellner Cup with Blair Horler and the ’04 Big Apple Open with Willie Hosey), but had endured a three and a half year drought before he and Walker engineered their heroics in St. Louis and then consolidated them in much more routine fashion in Baltimore, where they nevertheless trailed Price and Gould two games to one before overwhelming the increasingly beleaguered-appearing defending champs 15-5, 15-9 in an unstoppable sprint to the winner’s circle.
Only one of the combined eight quarterfinal matches has exceeded three games to this point, a revealing commentary about the gap that seems to exist between the top four seeds and everyone else. In addition to the Price/Gould and Walker/Leach domination of their pre-semis matches, Mudge, who has switched to the left wall after so many years of record-shattering achievement on the right wall while partnering Waite, has had no trouble reaching that stage either with Hosey (pinch-hitting for an injured Berg, who had pulled his right hamstring muscle) in St. Louis or with Berg in Baltimore. The remaining top-four seeded team, ’07 U. S. Nationals winners John Russell and Preston Quick, needed an 8-0 match-saving run to rescue them from the 11-7 fifth-game deficit they faced against Joe Pentland and Mark Price in their St. Louis quarter, after which they lost a close semi against Mudge/Hosey, whom Walker and Leach then straight-gamed in the subsequent final. Russell and Quick also had a chance to get through their Baltimore semifinal, in which they dropped tiebreakers in both the second and final fourth game of their match with Paul Price and Gould.
Relatively new teams Michael Pirnak/Mark Chaloner and Pentland/Mark Price (both of whom had teamed up only once before this October) have both reached both quarterfinals so far, as have Matt Jensen and Jeff Mulligan and ISDA Executive Director James Hewitt and his various partners (who were Ayman Kerim in St. Louis and Scott Butcher in Baltimore). Even this early on, the tour seems to already be aligning itself along clearly-defined levels, the big surprise being at the very top, where from their fourth-seeded slots (a standing that will change the next time new rankings come out) Leach and Walker have gone undefeated coming into the hectic Manhattan/Chicago/Toronto November portion of the ISDA schedule.