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[7] France 1-2 Brasil
Auguste
Dussourd 3-0 Cassiano de Jesus Silva 11/7, 11/5,
11/5
Damien Volland 2-3 Josimar Silva
9/11, 11/7, 4/11, 11/4, 5/11
Alex Cogno 1-3 Pedro Veiga 2/11,
11/8, 6/11, 4/11
THE HEART WAS BRAZILIAN….
Needless to say that the Team French results are disappointing
for the French camp. They haven’t been outside the top 12 since
1996 (16th), and finished 7th and 8th in the last two editions.
 Fred
Lecomte did chose Auguste Dussourd to play the first match
against Cassiano Silva, and it was a good choice, looking at the
straight result.
Both players only 16, but with Auguste having
had more experience on the Junior scene than his opponent.
The Frenchman made the court very big for Cassiano, finding some
good length, mixed with accurate drop shots that eventually,
which eventually got the better out of the Brazilian’s legs.
Damien Volland came on court against Josemar Silva, who had such
a big match yesterday against Dylan Murray – the same one that
actually beat Damien this morning in a very close match.
 Josemar is a tall player, that volleys extremely well, and can
find lovely drop shots if you get the ball anywhere his racquet.
And unfortunately, that’s exactly what Damien did.
If
the Frenchman had a good game plan this morning against the US,
nice crosscourt lobs with excellent width, counter attacks,
accurate drives and nice drop shots, this evening, he only seem
to find his front of the court game.
And against a shot maker
who is also a big guy, well planted at the T, it’s just not the
right one to have in my opinion.
Damien didn’t send the ball to the back enough, not enough
weight in the ball, not enough real construction of rallies. He
just didn’t hit the ball, purely and simply and got punished,
and punished, and punished again, his shots being cut off again
and again. And of course, he exhausted himself at that “hunting
of the ball” at the front game…
Josemar, even when he was in the red physically, dug in, making
a gutsy performance. Damien, after the 3rd game, got a good
telling off from Fred who was not happy at all with his player’s
attitude on court, who was starting to get annoyed when, in
Fred’s eye, there was not need to be.
It worked, as the French boy got back in the 4th to force a
decider, but just had used all the energy he had left, and in
the 5th, the Brazilan was always in front, taking the match to
take the two teams back level.
 The
last match, well, what to say? Alex Cogno, as I told you, is
preparing some very high level mathematics studies, “prépa”, and
just was not physically fit enough. He tried his best against a
“whole heart, all legs” Pedro. He slowed down the pace, lobbed
beautifully, changed the angles and tried and mixed front and
back, but supported by a very vocal Brazilian whereas the French
camp was pretty discrete, the Brazilian produced a superb
performance.
A truly truly deserve victory for the Brazilians, who as they
mention in their aftermatch interview, came at their own
expenses. The Team that was hungrier won today.
Today, the Heart was Brazilian.
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They were too
nervous, too fragile today. Of course, we are disappointed in
the outcome, but not the way it actually is, as it’s the two
Brazilians that have gone and fetched points, they worked very
hard for it, and left their heart on there. They both totally
deserved the victory.
It’s the Brazilian
energy that won the match today…
When we saw the draw, we thought that if we played out of our
skins, if we get a bit lucky too, we may have a chance, come on,
it’s not impossible.
Against the US, we played well, but they didn’t give us a
chance. Whereas this evening against France, they played a bit
relaxed against us we felt, and we decided that, if we played
the matches of our lives, as it is our last chance to get to the
top 12. And Josemar and myself did exactly that.
For our first match, Cassiano is very young, he is 16, he’s got
two more championships, and he has very little experience, but
he’s done his best and has got a great future.
It was a fair encounter today against France, it’s always been a
nice team. We’ve played them 2 years ago in Ecuador, and they
beat us flat 3/0 twice, so today, it means so much for us to
beat them.
Also, we are not getting any funding to be here, we are paying
for everything ourselves, flight, accommodation, everything.
Even our federation didn’t believe in our chances to get above
18th in this tournament. So, imagine how amazingly happy we are
right now….
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[11] New Zealand 3-0 [19/23] South Africa
Todd Redman 3-2 Luke Willemse 11-7 13-11 6-11 5-11 11-4 (58m)
Jonny Barnett 3-2 Ruan Oliver
11-6 8-11 7-11 11-8 11-3 (65m)
Zac Millar 3-1 Nell Van Der Merwe
11-5 12-10 7-11 11-8 (36m) |
Gary Denvir reports
A crucial victory for New Zealand at the World Junior Men's Team
Squash Championships in Doha. The 11th seeded Kiwis have beaten
South Africa 3-nil to confirm a spot in the top 12 in the
knockout stage. However, the scoreline does not reflect how
close the tie really was.
Todd Redman won the opening match against Luke Willemse,
surviving an impressive fightback from the South African number
three to win 11-7 13-11 6-11 5-11 11-4 in just under an hour.
New Zealand number one Jonny Barnett then confirmed victory with
an equally hard fought battle against Ruan Oliver, bouncing back
from 2-1 down to win 11-6 8-11 7-11 11-8 11-3.
Zac Millar completed the 3-nil scoreline with an 11-5 12-10 7-11
11-8 victory over Nell Van Der Merwe.
New Zealand go through to the top 12 alongside Pool B winners
Pakistan, with the top two in each pool advancing. The Kiwi team
will play fifth seeded Hong Kong for a place in the last eight. |
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[8] Colombia 1 - 2 Japan
Nicolas Valderrama 0-3
Tomotaka Endo
8/11, 7/11, 9/11
Juan Vargas 1-3 Ryosei Kobayashi
9/11, 6/11, 11/9, 4/11
Andres de Futos 3-1 Taiki Kado
5/11, 13/11, 11/4, 11/4
With Juan, we always very hard matches, and today, I had a 50/50
chance to win, our record is about the same too, about 50/50,
although I did beat him recently.
We never really felt confident during those championships,
because of the lack of preparation our team had, we all had
exams to do. And our results in the individuals are pretty poor.
I guess that we are doing better for the teams, because we
actually had some matches last week, and got more confident day
after day.
Our aim is to reach the top 8, and we still have got a chance to
reach it…
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[3] England 3-0 [19/23] Zimbawe
Matthew Sidaway 3-0 David Fisher 11/0, 11/3, 11/0
Thomas Ford 3-0 Faisal Hassan 11/0, 11/5, 11/5
Richie Fallows 3-0 Alex Roscoe 11/2, 11/0, 11/3 |
LEE DREW REPORTS
Day 2 has just finished from the
English perspective. We played Zimbabwe on the glass court. A
3-0 win for the team, means that we top the group & therefore
receive a bye into the quarter-finals;
It will, however, still be a busy day of preparation &
maintenance for the squad tomorrow before our next match.
We will not know until later after the last match has been
completed, whom we will face but we will be looking forward to
the challenge. |
"It was great to get a run out on the
glass court, I really love the feel of it on there"
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A heart-breaking
defeat yet again for Switzerland.
To be noted that Yannick Lindemann, who started the match, was last
on last night in the titanic match against Argentina, that he only
lost 17/15 in the last game.
And a special salute to Manual Wanner, who there again, fought with
all this heart, despite the fact it was a dead rubber. Look at the
score, 13/11, 10/12, 10/12, 11/9, 15/13.
They may not have the results, but they certainly have the heart and
figthing spirit. |
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[12] Kuwait 2-0 [13/18] Switzerland
Athbi Hamad 3-1 Yannick Lindemann
11/7, 7/11, 11/6, 11/8
Yousef Saleh 3-1 Robin Gadola
11/7, 7/11, 11/4, 11/8
Yousif Ali 3-2 Manual Wanner
13/11, 10/12, 10/12, 11/9, 15/13 |
 We are so happy. We would have never
thought we could get to the top 12, this is such a good result. Our
best ever finishing position was in 2004, we finished 4. But last
time in Equador, we finished 22, nearly worst ever result
(25th).
Three out of four of our players still have two years to play the
event, we have a young team.
We are going to make them work hard, with the help of the KW
Federation, and next year, we will be doing a lot of tournament
abroad to give them exposure and experience. If a player has got
confidence in himself, then he can be a good player.
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[10] Canada 2-1 [13/18] Belgium
Zachary Leman 3-0 Vincent Hitchins
11/3, 11/5, 11/6
Cameron Seth 3-1 Jan Van der Herrewegen
10/12, 6/11, 11/4,
6/11
Tyler Olson 3-0 Jordy Camps
11/4, 11/3, 11/4 |
 Last night, our number 3 had a very
strong match against England, so I was happy with the order of play,
with our no3 playing on first, as I wanted him to keep the momentum
he had last night.
Then, their number 1, Jan, is very strong, and has got very good
racquet skills, so a logical result there.
So it was down to the decider, and it doesn''t matter if you are
supposed to win the last string comfortably or not, it's still a
nerve-wrecking experience for the coach!
But Tyler has spend a year playing for Harvard last year, and has
had to win decider matches for his team, so he has a lot of
experience, and we were quite confident.
Now, it's the play-offs, we won't know before tonight who we are
playing, but there are a lot of teams we are confident we can beat,
because we have confidence in the depth of our team.
We are hoping
for a good draw to try and get in the top 8
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Well done Canada!
We tried, but it was not good enough. We can't do more than that,
this was a bit of a reality check.... We belong in the 13/23 group,
I think that's fair.
Once again, I would like to congratulate Canada for the way they
play the game, they are a fair team, and all the matches were played
in an excellent spirit.
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He did come out strong, and honestly,
it could have gone either way, it's just a few points at the end
that edged my way.
I'm really happy to give the determining match to the US... We were
certainly hurting at the end, a few fluky shots...
Won the decider |
I'm not really disapointed with the
result, more with the first match really.
I think there was space to win there, TJ is a good player, but
Baptiste didn't do enough to actually prevent him from playing.
Baptiste was too nervous, really felt the pressure, and even got a
bit annoyed with his opponent where TJ was extremely correct and
there was not need to. And he just didn't play the third... I just
hope this will be an electrochoc for him, you'll see at the next
team meeting tonight.
The second match, nothing to say, it was a good match, very close,
and with the the tension on the match, they didn't go for an up and
down match, they were both very positive, very aggressive, and it
all come down to Dylan making 2, 3 stunning points at the end. We
could have won it, we lost it, nothing to reproach to anybody. Good
match.
Now, it means that we have to work very hard this afternoon to
finish 2nd against Brazil.
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[6] USA 3-0 [7] France
TJ Dembinsk 3-0
Baptiste Masotti 11/7, 11/6,
11/3
Dylan Murray 3-2 Damien Volland
4/11, 11/9, 7/11, 11/4, 11/9
Edward Columbia 3-1 Alexandre Cogno
11/7, 11/9, 7/11, 11/7 |
LET’S
GO BUDDY!!!!!
Let’s go! That’s the way the US supporters seem to encourage their boys with.
Egypt, Yallah, France, Allez, UK, Come on… Today, we heard quite rightly a
lot of LET’S GO BUDDY!!!!
 It was for the two teams a crucial encounter, which started extremely with a
very disciplined and patient TJ Deminsk, who got under Baptiste Masotti’s
skin from the start I thought, frustating him by finding excellent tight
drives, and slowing down the pace.
The French boy, although strongly pushed between games by his coach Fred
Lecomte to attack more, especially on the front right corner, and to be more
aggressive, just didn’t manage to do enough with the ball, or to apply
pressure on his opponent enough to unsettle him. USA, 3, France 0.
All the pressure was now on Damien Volland’s shoulders, our new “bachelier”,
he just had his baccalauréat, against Heros of the Day against Brazil, Dylan
Murray.
 Dylan is a sportman “par excellence”. He invented the word “fit”, actually,
when you look up in the dictionary at “fitness”’, it sends you to his
Wikipedia’s page…. He also is particularly gifted, he runs extremely fast,
jumps up basket-ball style, and when he volleys, he just flies in the air
and seems to float for a few seconds before finding the ground again.
Today, he really matched Damien’s style of play, as in, great volley drop
shots, nice defensive lobs, and gorgeous counter attacking. And like the two
coaches mentioned in their interviews, there was nothing between the players.
It virtually could have gone either way between those two superb players.
All the games were close, but in the 3rd, Damien seemed to have the upper
hand on the match at last, taking is rather comfortably, 11/7. But in the
4th, Damien just didn’t show up. Obviously tired, he let the American run
away with the score, 4/1, then 8/4. He tried to come back, but too little
too late, 11/4, and USA levels it at 2/2….
The 5th was beautiful squash, a beautiful mixture of attacks, lobs, tight
and inventive squash, with a heck of a lot of running in it! But at 7/7,
where you would have expected Dylan to have heavy legs after his brutal 5
setter yesterday against Brazil, it’s actually the French that just didn’t
have any juice left.
Dylan, still thinking straight despite the tiredness, found three superb
shots that were crucial, Damien dug in, Dylan did his usual flying around
the court, throwing himself all over the court, cutting off the Frenchman’s
shots, keeping volleying stunningly, to finally take the match on his second
attempt 11/9…
 We are very happy indeed. For
our number 3 position, I had watched Baptiste play earlier this
week, and I thought that TJ would have a better match against
him. TJ has the ability to slow the ball down, change direction,
and I thought was going to be able to exposure Baptiste's
movement weakness. Plus, he had a good individual event, and the
contrast of style I thought would benefit us.
Now for the second match, our number ones, I was very impressed
with Volland's tactics today, and it could have really gone
either way. I thought initially that he would open the court up,
but he didn't at all, and actually played very tight, and that's
because of that tactics that he took the first game pretty
comfortably.
So we said to Dylan to put more emphasis on the physical
fitness, and to try and seize the opportunity when it would
arise, and that's what he did.
But I think that Volland can
achieve a lot of good things, and Dylan had to play his best
squash to do it.
Actually, it was the best match Dylan has
played the whole event, both individual and teams.
It's a bit frustrating as our goal for Dylan was to get him top
16, and he has the squash for it, but he was really poorly last
week, under antibiotics, and was really flat for the match that
mattered and could have put him there. And it makes his
performance in the past two days so amazing.
We've never been so prepared for any other World Team event. We
had several camps, which we didn't have before, and we have a
chance to finish higher than we ever did before. And for us,
beating France, who's got such a history of a solid European
Programme, is really a great feeling, we are over the moon.
US Coach |
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[5] Hong Kong 3-0 [8] Colombia
Ho Tze Ho 3-0 Edgar Ramirez
13/11, 11/3, 11/5
Yip Tsz Fung 3-0 Juan Camilo Vargas 11/3, 11/4, 11/6
Yeung Ho Wai 3-0 Andres de Frutos 11/4,
11/4, 11/7 |
 Hong Kong is seeded 5 this time,
and before the matches started, I had a talk with my players.
All the teams are really close, there is very little difference
between them, apart from the top 4 teams, that is. So, I told
them, don't put too much pressure on yourself, but at the same
time, don't overestimate yourself, in thinking that you are
better than the other teams that are seeding just under us.
Yesterday, our first match of the competition was going to be
determining. It was a very close match indeed, and had we lose
it, today's matches would have been much more complicated, and
we would have had a lot of pressure this morning against
Columbia, who is a strong team.
We had a good start against them today, we took the first game,
then the match, and it will allow us to relax now. And again, as
a manager, I'm happy with my boys as long as they do their best.
Win or lose, the only thing that is expected of them, because we
are representing our country here, is that we do our best.
If they do, I'm happy with that.
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