• SEMIS • QUARTERS • Round ONE • Qualifying •

[1] Nicol David (Mas) bt [5] Jenny Duncalf (Eng)
          9/1, 10/8, 9/0 (40m)

[5] David Palmer (Aus) bt [4] James Willstrop (Eng)
          11/9, 11/9, 8/11, 6/11, 13/11 (112m)

            Framboise reports on the men's final       

Nicol gets her third,
David his fourth ...
  
Denied a third title at the death last year, world number one Nicol David reclaimed the British Open title with a wonderful performance against Jenny Duncalf.

The Englishwoman matched David in a fine comeback from 7/2 down in the second, falling just short, but for the rest of the match the Malaysian was in the form we've come to expect of her ...

And what a men's final followed. David Palmer took a two-game lead against home favourite James Willstrop and looked to have it in the bag in the third, but a tremendous fightback from the  Pontefract man levelled the match,

In a tense decider first Palmer took the lead, then Willstrop led 9-6 but missed a dropshot that would have given him match balls. Palmer levelled, then Willstrop edged ahead 10/9 on a stroke. He thought he'd won it on a another stroke, only to hear the call "yes let".

James got a second chance at 11/10, couldn't take it, then David earned, and took, his first opportunity - on an outrageous mishit - to his utter delight ...

 Masters Finals

En Bref #4

Galleries

[5] David Palmer (Aus) bt [4] James Willstrop (Eng)
          11/9, 11/9, 8/11, 6/11, 13/11 (112m)

EXTRA-ORDINARY

How on earth do you expect me to describe a 112 minute match that end up 13/11 in the 5th on a fluke??? Do you have all night????

A few stats to start with. They both made only 9 unforced errors the whole match, and if the average length of each game was 15 minutes, the last one lasted 35…

”We’ve been working on that shot for the past 10 years, and we kept it for the right moment,” apologised Aussie’s way Shaun Moxham, David’s coach, as David raised his arms in the air, and James buried his face in his hands in complete disbelief and despair.

But let’s rewind an extraordinary evening, which started extremely well for the Australian, moving in that backhand corner like he was 20, volleying at his best, taking the initiative to set up his first game ball at 10/5. We knew we had a match on our hands when he could only take it 11/9…

And Dig In James came back much more offensive, and took control of the T, volleying much more than previously, stepping up the pace, to take what seemed a comfortable lead, 8/3. But again, thanks to that backhand volley drop shot, the Marine clawed back to 8/8 then 9/9. A perfect length backhand boast and a forehand drive kill later, David was up 2/0, looking pretty good…

He still looked extremely good up 5/1 in the third. But that's when Dig In James came into real action. Playing with the same precision and utmost control he used against Thierry the night before, he volleyed his way back to the T, making David run, but most of all, making him doubt…

And it worked beautifully. The Australian lost length, lost control of the Mighty T, made a few wrong choices, and James, astonishingly, if you think about what the boy’s been stringing as hours on court in the past 15 days, forced a decider.

Now, it was him that was looking pretty good, and David, pretty tired…

2/2. 3/3. 4/4. 5/5. 6/6. At that point, we had been playing for exactly 100 minutes, and we didn’t have the slightest clue who was dominating who. The rallies were massive, nothing, absolutely nothing was given away, they both clanged in there, attacked, retrieved, throwing themselves at the four corners of the court, some of the most gutsiest rallies I’ve seen since the John White madness era…

And James suddenly finds a new strength, the “energy of despair”, we call it in French at 6/6. An uncharacteristic tin for David, a stunning forehand straight that glues to the wall, and an extraordinary backhand volley redrop later, James is about to clinch his first title, 9/6.

David feels the danger, and just goes for everything he’s got in the tank. “I didn’t want to be down 10 years down the line, and ask myself what if I’d gone for it”, he admitted. And at the end of a monstrous rally, he forces the error out of James, who from that point on, looked like he went a tiny itsy bit conservative, giving the initiative to his opponent.

And we arrive at 9/9. A call that seemed very harsh against David gave James his first match ball 10/9. A call that should have given him the match, took it away, only a let instead of a stroke. “One all,” I heard a spectator shout…

10/10. James forces another match ball 11/10. The tension, the suspense, is absolutely incredible. A long rally, that ends with a lucky bounce off the backwall for David, back at 11/11.

Follows a rally that we still will talk about in 10, 20 years, where James covered the diagonal so many times, forcing David to volley, and volley and volley. Surely the Marine was going to put it in the tin, James so deserved that rally, that match, that title. But nope. He just found a backhand drop shot yet again.

12/11. First match ball for David. And you know the rest. A crosscourt, out of the frame, that seems down, which is actually good. The crowd goes quiet. Nobody is sure of what’s really going on. But the ref declares it good, and awards David his fourth title. Incredible happiness and relieve in the Palmer’s camp. Disbelief and utter despair in the Willstrop’s. So close. So close. So close.

On a personal note, I truly believe that James has reached another level of game on this tournament. He came from a flashy going for shots no matter what stunning player to a stunning controlling accurate mind strong digging in true champion. This week, he was number one material, a position that he will be soon able to claim. And I stand by my words I said four years ago.

And David? David, has confirmed his membership to the World Giants of Squash Club…

I’m truly disappointed, it’s just such a gutting feeling.

David produced an awesome play in the first two, I didn’t have an answer, and I just did what I did so many times this season, I just dug in.

Physically, I wasn’t exhausted tonight, I felt a bit in my body at certain times during the match, but I felt very strong, and I just pushed, pushed, pushed and pushed again…

At the end, maybe I went be bit too safe, maybe I should have stuck to my game, but we’ll never know. We’ve got to make split decisions during the game, and stick with it. That’s the choice I made at the time, and we’ll never know, maybe if I had gone for my shots, and put the ball in the tin, then I would have reproached myself to have gone for too much …

I’m grossly disappointed, there is nothing you can do but give it all, and that flashy shot at the end was an absolute joke, to end a British Open like that, that’s…

But I guess I had right end of it a few times this season, this time, he got it, I wish I’d got the right end of it for the British Open.

I think in the end he went for it a bit more than me, you’ve got to take your hat off to him, he is a true champion, and there is no disgrace, I’ve just got to accept it.

On a personal note, I want to thank Mick, my manager, David my brother, and congratulation again for his superb win today in the over 35s, David Pearson and the England set up, Jenny and I are so grateful to them for helping us, my dad Malc, Nick whose been with me all week keeping my body in shape, my girlfriend Vanessa, all my friends from Pontefract and of course, the great crowd we had tonight.

Never in doubt, never in doubt.

I thought they played well together. James is a great guy, a great player, and a great sport. And if every match of squash was played like that, it would be a magnificent sport.

I was disappointed with a few decisions at the end, but thank god they didn’t affect the outcome eventually.

At 2/2, 10/10, David just went for it, and that’s David all over. I told him, no matter how sweet for the first one, and the second one, or the third one, the sweetest was always going to be the 4th. And maybe David is not the prettiest player that ever been, but it’s the gutsiest.

"Nobody expected me to win this week, and because of all his great results lately, I think the pressure was on James today. I came close to wrapping it up in three, but all credit to him, he just dug in and came back.

"I was playing good squash in the first two games, and in the middle of the third game, I relaxed a bit, he started to play very well, I lost a bit of length, and he took full advantage of it.

"The challenge for me is to keep the speed around the court, not the fitness, I still consider myself as one of the fittest guys on the circuit, but as you get older, you start to struggle with the speed with which you move on court, and there are a few shots that I used to recover that I don’t seem to be able to get anymore. And that will be one of the challenges I’ll have to face in the coming years, I’ll have to work a lot on that…

"I think I was less nervous at 10/10 in the fifth than I was at the start of the fifth. I actually feel very comfortable in that sort of tense situation, I’m able to relax and go for my shots.

"Funny thing with James, sometimes, when you put him under a lot of pressure, you can once in a while push the error out of him. But it doesn’t work every time. In Kuwait, I saw him at 9/9 in the fifth against Peter Barker playing the most amazing drop shot you’ve ever seen that just rolled. Today, I was lucky, he clips that drop shot at 9/6, which would have probably given him the match. That’s the way he plays, that’s his game.

"So in the fifth, I tried to push as much as I could to find myself in the position to challenge him, and at 9/9, I just wondered what my friend John White would have done in that situation, and I know that if the opportunity had presented itself, he would have just nailed it!

"So I decided I to go for it, and I got lucky with a few shots. Don’t ask me what that last shot was, it came off the frame, but hey, I’ll take it, I needed it!!!!!!!!

"All credit to James, he is a great ambassador to the sport. He is going to get the title, there is not doubt about it, and in 10 years, he’ll have four, five titles in his names. He is one of the fairest guys around, and English people should be very proud of him. And I think that for two big guys, we got hardly any lets or interference the whole match, and I think we did extraordinary well.

"I want to thank Paul, Rachel, and all his team, I know he’s been under a lot of critics, but since we arrived here, in this great arena, it feels like the Old British Open, and that's what we want, great venues and big crowds. Without the crowds, these events just don’t happen.

"Also Pat, my physio, my best friend along with Shaun, my coach – who said that he would only come if I was through to the semis - I was so lucky to have my two best mates in my corner, and it makes all the difference. It’s for them that I kept pushing tonight.

"Mel my wife, and my daughter Kayla, we’ve gone through some heavy changes these past six months, the University Club in Boston, I received so many phone calls of support from the guys over there, it’s incredible, thanks to them all.

"It was a huge change for me, I just past 10 years training every day with Shaun, and I pretty much went cold turkey. At the moment, I’m training with Chris Gordon and Julian Illingworth, so it’s now all a question of adapting and finding a balance.

"Funny actually, I was pretty upset with not being to be able to change my flight in Kuwait, but it turned out to be an excellent thing, as I just did the hard work, I spoke a lot with Shaun on the phone, worked on his AMOS program.

"I’m so glad also to have a new racquet, Blacknight, a Montreal based company that is at the moment covering the North American market. They were looking for opening to the European and UK market, and what a great start in the relationship in winning the British Open!!!!

"I have five racquets in my bag, they are all different, all prototypes, actually I chose them because they let me design my own racquets. I’ve been playing for with the gold one for the past three weeks, and at 9/9 in the 5th, it finally broke, so I picked up the black one, because that’s the one that was the closest to the gold one, and that’s that one I did that shot off the frame with!

"I didn’t expect it this week, as the guys are getting better and better, and it’s getting harder and harder to win matches. I’m so proud to win a fourth title and put my name along the greatest players that won the trophy several times. I’m so, so proud…."

[1] Nicol David (Mas) bt [5] Jenny Duncalf (Eng)
          9/1, 10/8, 9/0 (40m)

Nicol makes it three

She had to wait a year, after a heartbreaking loss in last year's final, but Nicol David finally claimed a third British Open title with a wonderful performance to deny England's Jenny Duncalf, appearing in her first final.

Jenny had played wonderfully well to depose reigning champion Rachael Grinham, but Nicol's demolition of Natalie Grainger in the semis marked her as the clear favourite.

And so it proved, in the early stages at least. Nicol was well on top as she took a 6/1 lead in the first, helped by some errors from Jenny. The Englishwoman managed to get some rallies going towards the end of the game, but still lost it 9/1.

The second opened with a series of hand-outs, seven points played before the score reached one-all. The rallies were well almost invariably long and contested, but Nicol was winning them as she reached 7/2. But then, without any obvious change of tactics the points started coming Jenny's way, and she started playing with the ease and composure she'd shown against Grinham.

With the crowd urging her on, she levelled at 7-all, lost out in a huge rally, but rallied to earn herself game ball. Nicol saved that, and picked up the game on two strokes down the middle.

And that was game over, effectively. Nicol continued in the same mode for the third, moving fat and easily and striking the ball as well as ever, but Jenny's level dropped, her chance gone.

Winners from Nicol, tins from Jenny, and the third title in four years was soon Nicol's, capping a marvelous performance from the world number one.

"There's no doubt it was a tough match, she played a good game and the second could have gone either way.

"In the second she went for everything and her shots were really tight, that's when she's so dangerous, I knew I had to get that one and not let her get confidence for the next.

"I'm so glad I was able to push through to win it, all the girls are so close, it jest depends on who plays well on the day.

"It's great to get the British Open title back, but it's too early to think about getting the World Open back too. It's a long way off, all the players are trying different things, and the new scoring  [announced by WISPA during the women's final!] will make it interesting ..."

"There's lots of reasons why she's number one and she showed a lot of them out there tonight.

"I didn't start well, but I got into it a bit more in the second and when you get a few points on the board it gives you confidence.

"She plays at such a fast pace though, and it's so hard to get the ball past her. I though I matched her in the second, I could have done with taking that one, but I needed to do it for more than one game.

"She deserves it, she's a great player, but it was a great experience for me to reach the final. Hopefully I can reach another one and convert it ..."

"I was not that nervous in the second, because she was competing and playing extremely well. I was more nervous in the first….

"Jenny went through a terrible patch around Christmas time, she had a car crash that was her fault, and a lot of other unpleasant moments. But she came back from it, and you can judge a person’s character in those kind of moments.

"I’m so proud of her, she is my daughter, and I love her."

"Nicol is moving less now, she stops and hits, instead of what her instinct always pushed her to do, rush and hit. She is starting to glide in the movement, instead of rushing and jumping around the place…

"Today she saw the ball very early, and the time factor is so important for the opponent. I’m so pleased with her performance, it’s the best I’ve seen her play, her length was fantastic…

"All credit to Jenny, getting to the final of the British Open is huge, I’ve done it a few times, you don’t have to win it for it to be special, it’s such a great moment for a squash player, well done to her…"

Masters Finals:

W45: Mandy Akin (Eng) bt Heather Tweedle (Eng)
             9/3, 8/10, 9/7, 9/4 (40m)
M45:  Mark Woodliffe (Eng) bt Alan Thompson (Eng)
              9/7, 9/4, 9/4 (37m)
W40:  Ellie Pierce (Usa) bt Samantha Willis (Eng)
              9/2, 6/9, 9/3, 9/0 (32m)
M40:  Lucas Buit (Ned) bt Yawar Abbas (Eng)
              9/0, 9/0, 9/3 (29m)
M65:  Mike Clemson (Eng) bt Adrian Wright (Eng)
              4/9, 9/2, 9/6, 10/9 (30m)
M70:  Pat Kirton (Eng) bt John Woodliffe (Eng)
              9/4, 9/4, 5/9, 9/5 (45m)
W35:  Jeannine Cowie (Eng) bt Claire Walker (Eng)
              9/3, 9/7, 6/9, 9/0 (41m)
W50:  Jackie Gardiner (Eng) bt Karen Hume (Eng)
              9/6, 9/2, 9/5 (45m)
W55:  Maggie North (Eng) bt Bett Dryhurst (Eng)
              9/5, 9/6, 2/9, 9/4 (45m)
M60:  Philip Ayton (Eng) bt Brian Cook (Aus)
              9/1, 9/1, 9/1 (27m)
M55:  Geoff Redfearn (Eng) bt Bruce Turner (Aus)

M50:  Ian Bradburn (Eng) bt Peter Carey (Rsa)

M35:  David Campion (Eng) bt Steve Richardson (Eng)
                 3/9, 9/10, 9/5, 9/5, 9/4 (84m)

"I took an awful start, and he took a great one. I thought I was back in the second, and I thought I was a bit unlucky not to take it. So after that, back on court 2/0 down instead of being 1/1.

"But once I got the control of the pace and got access to the back corners, it’s so important for me as I can’t move as well as those guys, I was fine, and would have been disappointed not to win it after I regain the control.

"I didn’t do the right stuff, got a bad hip injury, and had to stop my career at 21, 22. You know, when I was young, we didn’t have the same information we had today, it was all about getting fit and that was about it. Nowadays, we insist a lot of the core strengthening, core stability, agility, I know that James has certainly worked very hard on that…

"At the start of the fifth, I had a bit of an energy drop, but I told myself that it would be over in a few minutes, that I had to give it a last push, and that it would be a nice title to win. So I hold on, hung in, and had a bit of faith…

Extremely happy to win it obviously, and it would be nice to do the double with James….

David Campion

"Snatched defeat right out of the jaws of victory!

"It all turned round at 5/1 in the third, I was cruising, and I stopped doing was well – as in nice pace, nice length, good aggression - and that’s the moment he realised that he had to slow down the pace.

"The 4th and the 5th was a totally different game, he had the shots to hurt me, I didn’t….

"I thought the ref had some shocking decisions, but they didn’t have any influence on the match, and when you are a player, you accept that, it’s part of the game…

"All credit to David, he stuck in really really well, and I should have never gave him the chance…"

Steve Richardson

• SEMIS • QUARTERS • Round ONE • Qualifying •