Contrasting Styles
Rob Dinerman, Squashtalk WISPA reporter on the scene at Grand Central Terminal

by Rob Dinerman, Live at Grand Central Terminal, New York, 25 Feb 2003
All content © 2003 Squashtalk, photos: © 2003 Debra Tessier

[view the mens draw/results]    [women's draw/results]

Natalie Pohrer and Rebecca Macree ©2003 Debra Tessier

The 31-year-old Owens, officially still ranked second but effectively the top-ranked woman player in the world with the de facto retirement of 2002 Arader & O'Rourke winner and current British and World Open champion Sara Fitz-Gerald, was at the top of her formidable game against a doughty but over-matched Tranfield, the only non-seed to reach the quarters, who had gotten that far via a 3-1 upset win over fifth seed Vanessa Atkinson. Tranfield plays a solid and steady game, but there is nothing in it that can hurt Owens, whose court coverage throughout the 28-minute match was virtually perfect---Tranfield hit only one winner all night, when at 3-5 in the second game she fooled Owens with a well-disguised shallow backhand cross-court!

Tranfield won plenty of exchanges on balls that were too tight to the wall to be scraped back, on a smattering of Owens tins, on several stroke calls in her favor and on two let requests by owens that were denied, but witrh that one exception, such was Owens anticipation, positioning and extraordinary mobility, especially when tracking down several well-placed Tranfield drop shots and in her recovery after being wrong-footed, that
Tranfield was not able to hit a single ball that bounced a second time before Owens could get her racquet on it.

Carol Owens and Jenny Tranfield ©2003 Debra Tessier

Eventually, Tranfield would cough up a loose ball, and Owens would respond to these openings with severe drop volleys directly into the nick on both sides. By the early portion of the third game, Tranfield seemed demoralized by the fact that none of her weaponry was able to pierce her opponent's armor and the cumulative pressure from the Owens volleying attack had taken a toll as well. A small patch of Tranfield tins on desperation shooting attempts contributed to what became a very quiet ending to a match in which Owens was in solid control from start to finish.

The other women's evening match featured several distinct undulations and was tarnished in part by arguably the worst call of the night, the damage from which was compounded by coming on the most important point of the match. Both competitors were clad in black, but the similarity pretty much ended there. Last year's Tournament of Champions event marked the return to high-level play of Pohrer, who had been off tour for the final
half of calendar 2001 while she recovered from a knee injury.

Even though she reached the semis with a fourth-set tiebreaker win over Linda
Charman, at that time Pohrer understandably appeared fragile and tentative,
especially in the thrashing she took in her Fitz-Gerald semi-final.

By contrast, last night she exuded a confident and powerfully athletic presence, especially in contrast to the willowy Macree, whose slender frame seemed a poor match for Pohrer's muscularity, particularly in the first game, which Pohrer dominated en route to a shut-out that extended through the opening points of the second as well. Pohrer is coming off a career-best year in 2002, highlighted by several tournament victories and her advance to
the final round of the World Open, where she barely lost in a fourth-set tiebreaker to Fitz-Gerald. At age 25, already ranked in the WISPA top three and right on the verge of what should be her prime squash years, she is younger, faster, stronger and better than the 33-year-old Macree, who however valiantly hung in and battled back throughout that crucial second game, which consumed 24 of the match's 45 total minutes and was by far the
most competitive and entertaining of the night.

Pohrer can create seemingly effortless pace from her shoulder turn, and the ball appears to explode off her racquet, while Macree often labors with both her movement and her swing. She expended a tremendous amount of energy in that second game, utilizing everything she has learned in her 16 years on the WISPA circuit, and when a pair of Pohrer tins in the tiebreaker, the first on her third game-ball and the second on a backhand drop shot, got
Macree to a 9-9, she had a game-ball of her own and with it the opportunity
to even the match at a game apiece.

Pohrer responded with maybe her best shot of the day, a late-swingshallow backhand cross court that completele wrong-footed Macree, who had anticipated a straight drop shot. On the next point, Macree jumped on a loose ball and volleyed a forehand that hit high on the right-wall nick and kicked back towards her. Pohrer reacted fairly well but the ball stayed very low; if anything, the qauestion was whether or not she should have been
granted a let. But referee Lee Allen, a stand-out official who however was
having a subpar night, awarded a stroke and hence the game to Pohrer, to the
clearly expressed disapproval of the gallery, not to mention that of Macree,
who absolutely had to have that game and deserved a better fate than to lose
it in such a fashion.

The third was pre-ordained in the wake of that call, a deceptively 9-5 tally that wasn't anywhere near that close; Pohrer got to 3-0 and 7-1 and then suffered a patch of late-game let-up tins before closing it out with a forehand cross court winner that her discouraged and fatigued foe didn't even move for. Pohrer will now play newly crowned British Nationals Closed champion Cassie Jackman at 6 o'clock Wednesday evening (the women have
Tuesday off while the four men's quarters are played), with Owens scheduled
for 8 o'clock against 2002 British Open finalist Tania Bailey in what will
be a rematch of the 2002 Weymuller Open final. Bailey defeated Rachael
Grinham in three games Monday afternoon while Jackman did the same to
Charman in four in the day's first quarter-final.