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TODAY in
Hong Kong
Tuesday
15th, Day THREE Fram & Steve in HK |
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En Bref #2
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Top seeds safely through ...
Qualifying complete, it was on to the
main draw at Hong Kong Squash Centre, split over two days with
play on the Centre's unique Centre Court and 'upstairs' on court
9.
No upsets, just one success for the home players, no sweat for
the newly-re-crowned world champions and top seeds, but tough
battles for two Englishmen ...
Men's
Round One (Top):
Olli Tuominen (Fin) bt [Q] Borja Golan (Esp)
11/7, 11/9, 11/5 (45m)
[3] James Willstrop (Eng) bt Jonathan Kemp (Eng)
13/11, 11/6, 11/5 (24m)
[6] Peter Barker (Eng) bt Laurens Jan Anjema (Ned)
7/11, 12/10, 9/11, 11/5, 11/9 (87m)
Cameron Pilley (Aus) bt Max Lee (Hkg)
11/2, 11/8, 3/11, 11/6 (44m)
[5] Gregory Gaultier (Fra) bt Julian Illingworth
(Usa)
11/6, 11/6, 9/11, 11/3 (65m)
Omar Mosaad (Egy) bt Aamir Atlas Khan (Pak)
11/8, 11/4, 11/8 (35m)
Daryl Selby (Eng) bt Saurav Ghosal (Ind)
9/11, 8/11, 11/7, 11/4, 11/3 (66m)
[1] Nick Matthew (Eng) bt [Q] Martin Knight (Nzl)
11/6, 11/4, 11/7 (41m)
Women's Round
One (Top):
[9] Joelle King (Nzl) bt [Q] Misaki Kobayashi
(Jpn)
11/8,
11/6, 10/12, 12/10 (47m)
[8] Annie Au (Hkg) bt Gaby Huber (Sui)
11/3,
11/6, 11/8 (22m)
[12] Jaclyn Hawkes (Nzl) bt [Q] Tania Bailey
(Eng)
11/3,
12/10, 11/8 (33m)
[3] Rachael Grinham (Aus) bt Latasha Khan (Usa)
11/4
rtd (5m)
[1] Nicol David (Mas) bt [Q] Tong Tsz-Wing (Hkg)
11/9, 11/4, 11/2 (23m)
[11] Donna Urquhart (Aus) bt Line Hansen (Den)
11/4, 4/11, 11/6, 11/7 (36m)
[5] Laura Massaro (Eng) bt [Q] Olga Ertlova (Cze)
11/3, 11/4, 11/7 (34m)
[16] Delia Arnold (Mas) bt [Q] Coline Aumard
(Fra)
11/2, 12/10, 12/10 (42m) |
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Men's Roundup
Barker wins brutal battle with LJ
First player through to round two was Finland's Olli Tuominen,
with a straight-game win over qualifier Borja Golan. Tuominen
started at his usual ferocious pace, and although the Spaniard
matched it at times, he suffered from too many unforced errors,
particularly at the start of the third as he, much to his own
annoyance, virtually gifted the Finn a 5/0 lead and there was no
coming back from there.
 Tuominen's
next opponent will be third seed James Willstrop who,
after edging home in a tight first game against
fellow-Englishman Jon Kemp, saving two game balls at 8/10 down,
looked in impressive form as he took the next two comfortably,
although Kemp, as he does, contributed to his own downfall with
a number of unforced errors.
Taking over three times as long, a second Englishman followed
Willstrop into round two as Peter Barker twice came from
behind to beat fellow left-hander 11/9 in the fifth in a
particularly tough battle between two top ten players on centre
court.
Barker's next opponent Cameron Pilley removed the only
Hong Kong interest in the men's draw with a 3/1 win over the
well-supported Max Lee, who gave the crowd brief hope by taking
the third game convincingly but the Australian soon put paid to
that, winning 11/2, 11/8, 3/11, 11/6 in 44 minutes.
Meanwhile on the upstairs courts World Open finalist Gregory
Gaultier similarly beat Julian Illingworth in four games,
dropping the third, but that took over an hour in the much
hotter conditions, followed by his next opponent (still on the
same court) Omar Mosaad who despatched Aamir Atlas Khan
11/8, 11/4, 11/8 in just 35 minutes.
 Despite
taking an early 5-0 lead against Saurav Ghosal, Daryl Selby
found himself two games down to the speedy Indian, but once the
Englishman had edged the third the comeback always looked likely
and after 66 minutes he went through 9/11, 8/11, 11/7, 11/4,
11/3.
The final match of the day finished, logically enough, with a
three-nil win form the recently re-crowned world champion
Nick Matthew over Kiwi qualifier Knight. Not that it was a
walk in Hong Kong Park for the top seed, the bustling style ok
Knight kept him on his toes and it took 41 minutes for Matthew
to complete the 11/6, 11/4, 11/7 win to set up an all-English
match with Selby on Thursday.
Round one concludes on Wednesday with the bottom half of the
draw into which six of the qualifiers were drawn, they'll be
thankful of their rest day ...
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Women's Roundup
All seeds safely through in top half
The first women's match saw New Zealand's Joelle King
survive a tougher-than she might have expected encounter against
Japan's Misaki Kobayashi.
 The
Japanese qualifier led in each of the first three games but
King's more powerful game brought her back, taking the first two
and getting matchball at 10/9 in the third.
Kobayashi stuck in though, and at 11/10 served into the nick to
pull a game back. She also had game ball in the fourth but this
time it was King who finished stronger to take the match.
"I just didn't feel comfortable out there," admitted King, "the
racket felt heavy, nothing was really working and I was letting
it get to me.
"That was a tougher first match than you'd want but you know
these days you can't take anyone for granted and she played
well. "
Kobayashi was happy enough: "It was a good match I thought,
especially since I didn't get a chance to practice on the glass
court. You have to go for your shots on their, it's quite cold
and dead, and I missed a couple of shots at the end of the
fourth, but overall I'm happy with how I played."
King's next opponent is local favourite Annie Au, whose
touch shots, experience of the court, and support of the crowd
were all factors in her straight-game win over Gaby Huber.
"I don't mind playing Annie," said King. "The crowd will be for
her, and she's not number seven in the world for nothing, but
I've won most of the times we've played so I'm looking forward
to a good match."
 A
second Kiwi win as Jaclyn Hawkes beat former Hong Kong
finalist Tania Bailey in straight games, although the
Englishwoman had game balls in the second and led the third 8/6
before going down 11/3, 12/10, 11/8.
"Tania was one of the hardest draws you could get," said Hawkes,
"we all know how good she is, so I'm really happy to get through
that one in three. I'm glad I played on the upstairs court, it
suited my game."
She'll meet Rachael Grinham, the most experienced Hong
Kong campaigner of all, who had an easy passage after Latasha
Khan, still suffering from an injury sustained last week in
Macau, retired after a 5-minute first game.
The crowd noisily greeted young qualifier Tong Tsz-Wing onto
court for her match with six-time Hong Kong and World Open
champion Nicol David, and the youngster promptly took the
first two points to allay any fears of annihilation.
It got better, as Tong led the first 9/7 aided by some
uncharacteristic David errors, but the champion, with a record
of 30 wins here since 2005 and 22 of those in straight games,
tightened up to win 11/9, 11/4, 11/2.
 That
was followed by a tough encounter between Donna Urquhart
and Dane Line Hansen, who shared the first two games, both 11/4.
It was the 11th seeded Australian who pressed on to win 11/4,
4/11, 11/6, 11/7 in 36 minutes to set up a meeting with David.
At match ball down Hansen was stranded at the front, waving her
racket in submission. Urquhart, still in the zone, slammed the
ball crosscourt right at said racket, but when the ball bounced
back to her, much to the amusement of the crowd and her
opponent, she didn't make the same mistake again as she put the
ball away to finish the match.
The final two matches saw two seeds progress at the expense of
qualifiers, and while Laura Massaro and Delia Arnold
both won in straight games they were very different matches.
 Player
of the Year Massaro was comfortable enough in beating Olga
Ertlova 11/3, 11/4, 11/7, but Arnold, after taking the first
11/2, had some trouble seeing off France's Coline Aumard, who
had game balls in each of the next two games which Arnold won
12/10, 12/10.
"I don't think she was properly warmed in in the first,"
explained the Malaysian, "she played much better in the next two
and it was pretty rough on there, with way too many lets, so I'm
very happy to get through in three games."
All today's winners get a rest day before the next round,
with eight more first round matches from the bottom half of the
draw, three with Hong Kong interest, set for tomorrow.
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Players, officials, sponsors, at the reception at Hong Kong
Jockey Club |
 He
was too good today.
In the first game, I was struggling to see his shots, he was so
quick. We were close score wise, but he scored like 4 points in
one minute! That was very frustrating for me.
In the 2nd, I was up 7/4, and I made a few unforced errors,
while he was so accurate. He was so quick and sharp, I wasn’t.
And that made the difference.
I’m happy for him, he didn’t play too well recently, had a few
bad results, but today, he was playing very well, and I didn’t
do much wrong. And if I lose against somebody that plays that
well, and it’s close, it means that I’m on the right track and
that the results will soon follow…
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Olli
Tuominen (Fin)
bt [Q] Borja Golan (Esp)
11/7, 11/9, 11/5 (45m)
OLLI SO ACCURATE
Borja was determined to win this match. I could see his body
language, his body language, the time he was taking to refocus
when things were not going well for him. He wanted to get to the
second round, he wanted the points to get higher in the
rankings, to go back where he deserves to be.
 But
Olli, well, had other plans. And I hadn’t see the Finn play that
well, being more accurate and strong physically, mentally, for a
very long time. It’s like being injured three weeks ago made him
mentally a heck of a good, and gave him motivation on court, as
if he was really delighted to be fit and fighting…
Borja didn’t do much wrong, maybe his backhand drop shots that
let him down a few times, offering a boulevard for Olli to hit a
kill, but apart from that, he hit hard, attacked at the right
times, picked up a heck of a lot. And his frustration that grew
as the match went along actually came from that fact: he was not
doing much wrong.
In the 3rd, well, Borja was in desperate mode, as he saw the
points running away from him, 0/5, making far to many errors. He
did reassess, kept on fighting, but the Finn was just too
confident, and although we still had pretty feisty rallies, the
writing was on the wall…..
Borja is a tough
fighter, we trained together for a while, and we always have
tough matches, basically, you can’t relax at any point during
the match!!!
Maybe actually, I did finally get to relax slightly in the 3rd,
and my shots went in nicely…
I played well, yes, but not amazingly well, no. I managed to
keep the ball close to the wall, because he is quite fast, but I
think my backhand did the job today, I managed to get good
openings from the backhand corner.
[3] James
Willstrop (Eng)
bt Jonathan Kemp (Eng)
13/11, 11/6, 11/5 (24m)
BACKWALL, WHAT BACKWALL???
 I
actually didn’t count, but I would be surprised if the ball
actually touched the backwall more than 10 times during the
whole of the 24m that match lasted.
Match, well, let’s say that Shoot Out at OK Hong Kong. Bless
them, they don’t like to rallies that much when they play
against each other, do they. And you feel I’m afraid to say that
unfortunately, Kempy actually makes the game. The nicks. The
winners. And the errors…..
So James played ping pong volley, played as fast and as furious
as he could, Kempy did the same, but made more errors that his
opponent.
The end.
 Well,
it’s not me that wants to go short all the time!!! Everybody
knows Kempy’s matches have a tendency to be on the short side.
And I don’t know, some players, you can nullify their game, but
Kempy, you just can’t lengthen the rallies, and you know the
game is going to take a certain course. He stands forward, he
volleys….
And I guess my natural game is also to attack a lot, so it’s
just a question of going with the natural flow…
I felt that it was James that was going short today all the
time, and that I was just trying to react!
I was trying to put him behind me, and maybe I was not good
enough to do that, so I didn’t have any other option…
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[6] Peter
Barker (Eng)
bt Laurens Jan Anjema (Ned)
7/11, 12/10, 9/11, 11/5, 11/9 (87m)
MAMMOTH BATTLE…
This was the match everybody
wanted to see, and it didn’t disappoint. And when we got at 9/9
in the 5th, the Russian roulette went to Peter, but honestly,
there was nothing between them.
 A
bit like Greg in Rotterdam, Peter was surprised by LJ presence
at the front, and never really managed to get in front of him
during that opening game.
The second was basically the opposite score wise, 7/3 for Peter
whereas it was 7/3 for LJ previously. LJ dug in, came back 7/9,
Peter stepped up, game ball 10/7. Enormous rallies after
enormous rallies, JL caught up 10/10. A beautiful drop shot that
LJ can’t read, plus a tin, and Peter finally equalises, 12/10.
In the third, the score is pretty close, but it’s Peter that
leads 5/3, to see LJ score 6 points in a row! Then feisty
rallies one after the other, game ball to LJ, 10/7, who’ll get
it thanks to a tin from Peter, 11/9.
The 4th, well, LJ is very tired, and doesn’t let it go really,
but just doesn’t have the weapons.
And here we are in the 5th, a great start for LJ, 3/0 then 5/1,
and Peter looking lost at sea. And for a split second, mentally,
LJ relaxes. Big mistake. Two tins and three strokes later, 7/5
is Pete. The crowd is loving every moment, every rally is a
squash masterclass of feistiness with between two tigers, so
accurate squash, so fast, so strong.
And 9/9 we arrive… And the rest, you know. What a great match,
very few calls, two great champions, two fair players.
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
I felt confident
when I saw his backhand drop shot going to the tin on match
ball. That was the time I relaxed…
All credit to LJ, he played very well. I didn’t play as well as
I would have liked. We had a pretty quick turn around, and I
haven’t trained as much as I would have liked, but we had a
pretty fair amount of matches, so it was not too bad.
As our National coach Robbo says, you’ve got to get the positive
out of every match, win or lose. And in that case, the positive
I can take is… I’m through to the next round…
I know the PSA is working very hard, and we are moving in the
right direction, but at that level of the game, when we see
three referees we’ve never seen before, whose decisions are not
well, as sharp as they should be, it is frustrating, and you
think it was probably not the best of times to have some local
exposure.
This was one of the toughest round I could have had, LJ has had
some pretty good wins recently, he beat Thierry and David, and
gave Greg a good run for his money in Rotterdam. Plus, you don’t
get to the top 10 for nothing.
 LJ
has always had a strong plan A but not such a great plan B.
Whereas now, he has worked and improved a lot on that attacking
aspect of the game. And he is so strong, sometimes, you feel
you’ve been bulldozered…
Like Greg did in Rotterdam after being 2/0, he didn’t panic and
just made the court longer; That’s a bit what I did today, plus
I did play him last week in the Leagues, and beat him 3/1. And
that memory was very fresh in my mind…
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[5] Gregory
Gaultier
(Fra) bt
Julian Illingworth
(Usa)
11/6, 11/6, 9/11, 11/3 (65m)
 It’s
my first match after a week of rest and quiet training, plus the
travelling here, so I was not at my best. And like after Qatar,
the first days after were tough, the same here.
I cannot stress enough how well Julian played, I didn’t expect
such a performance from him, he played very well, he volleyed
very well too, took his chances too, and I really had to dig in
and play very well to beat him.
I was in and out mentally, I was up 4/1, 5/1, but then would
relax too much, and he didn’t give me any points, I had to fight
for each rally, all the points were extremely disputed.
Still, I truly think it’s a blessing in disguise, as I could
have had an easy 25m match, but that would have not be
constructive for the rest of the tournament. Instead, playing
against Julian really woke me up, and I’m really happy to have
had to play such a good match.
Well, it’s better than last week, and certainly much better than
in the world. It was a bit sore last week still, I crapped
through against Mathieu but I just couldn’t play more than 20m
against Olli.
But today, it felt fine. It may be sore tomorrow, but I’m pretty
sure it won’t be as bad as it was recently.
Now, I’ve got two weeks training back in the States for
Thanksgiving – not doing Kuwait – and I’ll be ready for India.
Today they pushed up the AC, and although we were not playing on
the glass court, it felt a bit like it and was rewarding to the
corners.
I think it’s been tough for Greg, he’s been playing two finals
back to back, it was not his best effort, but I think I made him
work…
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Cameron
Pilley (Aus)
bt Max Lee (Hkg)
11/2, 11/8, 3/11, 11/6 (44m)
 We
never played each other, and in the first game, it turned to my
advantage, as I think he didn’t know what was going on there,
especially as the colours of the court make it difficult to see
the ball sometimes, and that I was hitting pretty hard and flat!
In the second, he started to get used to the pace, and changed
his game plan, as he was going for too many shots initially,
which is never a good idea when you are a bit nervous. And after
that, it turned out to be a pretty good match.
It was funny, apart from the 1st and 3rd that were pretty quick,
we seem to have 2/3 points each, and then, we would make a few
errors, and the other one would score 2/3 points.
Max dug in pretty well I thought, and he is one of the players
that I believe will make it in the next couple of years, if he
sticks to it and put his head down.
 In
the first game, I couldn’t see the ball, and I was not moving
well, and I was thinking too much of the way I should play him.
In the second, I started moving better, more freely, and my
shots went in a bit better, but I wasted a few points, I was in
the lead, and he can win the points quite well!
The third was really good for me, I got some lucky shots too!
In the third and fourth, I just tried and forget everything, and
just play, and I felt much better. Physically, I felt fine all
match, but at the end, he played a few boasts that I just
couldn’t read, and at crucial points.
Hopefully, I can play better next time, but I was pretty happy
with my draw this year, and with the way I played.
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Omar
Mosaad (Egy)
bt
Aamir Atlas Khan (Pak)
11/8, 11/4, 11/8 (35m)
The last time we
played was for the World Junior Open, and I won 3/0, like today,
so I’m pretty happy.
In the first game, I didn’t play too badly, although he volleyed
very well, but I got a few shots in. Still we were both very
nervous, and we both made errors… Still I tried and kept him in
the back and impose my own game.
In the second, I had more confidence, and my shots went in
nicely. And in the last one, I had a good lead but he came back,
and there was not much between us at the end…
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Daryl
Selby (Eng)
bt Saurav Ghosal (Ind)
9/11, 8/11, 11/7, 11/4, 11/3 (66m)
 Well,
that was tough…
It has been a few frustrating months, especially physically and
also mentally. Last week in Macau, I was feeling good, and Olli
played very well, he confirmed it here beating Borja 3/0, but I
just suffered from a bit of a loss of confidence.
Saurav played really well. I was a bit disappointed I didn’t
take any of the first two games, because I was up each game, but
after that, I’m pretty happy with the way it went.
It was all about staring down the barrel, and looking at another
first round loss. It helped to have friends and family around….
Saurav also had a tough run of late, we both suffered from a
loss of confidence at different times, and I’m happy I’ve pushed
hard and come out of the right side of things.
 To
say I’m disappointed is something of an understatement.
Squash wise, I was not brilliant to start with, hence the 5/0
down, but after that, I started hitting the targets better.
But in the middle of the third, at 5/5, I just went physically.
Not sure why, although the first two games were pretty tough
physically.
At the end, it’s a combination of factors, me physically
struggling, him taking it short, the ball getting dead, me
unable to take the ball early and stay ahead of him as I was
doing to start with, and him playing really good squash for two
and a half game…
And I was not good enough to win today…
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