Rob
Dinerman, Squashtalk reporter on the scene in New York City.
by
Rob Dinerman, Grand Central Terminal, New York, Feb 1, 2002
All content
© 2002 Squashtalk, photos:
©
2002 Debra Tessier
In
an awesome display of the skills and confidence that make her the champion
she has so often proved herself to be, top seed Sarah Fitz-Gerald swept
to victory on the portable tour court at Grand Central Station, where
she soundly defeated second seed Carol Owens, 9-4, 0 and 3 to claim her
second Carol Weymuller Cup.
This $20,000 event was sponsored by the firm of Arader & O'Rourke, who are residential mortgage originators supplying custom boutique products to high-end clients, with offices in Connecticut, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania. From its inception in 1975 and extending right through last year's edition, this tournament had always been hosted by the Heights Casino Club on Montague Street in Brooklyn, where Carol Weymuller, the tournament honoree since its renaming in 1980, was a popular squash pro and ranked American player for more than a decade before she and her husband Fred decamped to Rochester in the early-1980's.
This year, for the first time, the tournament was conjoined with the Tournament of Champions event in midtown Manhattan, although the two qualifying rounds and the opening round of the main draw were still hosted by the Casino before the action moved to 42nd Street from the quarter-finals on.
Whatever the venue, the 33-year-old reigning World and British Open champion Fitz-Gerald has been on a major winning streak for quite some time, including taking the last four finals she has had with Owens entering their Friday evening showdown. Owens, who last defeated Fitz-Gerald in the pre-final rounds of both the World and British Opens in 2000, had managed to strongly contest their Hartford final just two weeks earlier and she started this match strongly, winning three consecutive extended rallies and accepting a tinned Fitz-Gerald forehand working boast to assume a 4-0 lead before there was a single hand-out.
No
one would have guessed that by this early juncture Owens had already registered
more points than she would for the entire remainder of the match. An Owens
serve-return tin on an daring crosscourt drop attempt got Fitz-Gerald
on the scoreboard for the first time and from that point on it was lights-out.
A backhand volley drop two points later got her to 3-4 and, after one
hand-out, she rode a series of Owens backhand tins and dominated the left
wall for the rest of that game, in which she went from 0-4 to 9-4 in less
actual elapsed time than it took for Owens to attain her 4-0 lead. It
had to have been deflating for Owens to have slowly worked her way to
that considerable early advantage only to see it vanish and be in fact
reversed so quickly.
The fact that Owens lost her initial edge during her opponent's swift and unstoppable spurt was due in large part to the fact that Fitz-Gerald was on a major roll, one that would continue for the rest of the match. When she is at the top of her game, The Champ gets to more balls, and, more importantly, gets to them more quickly, than anyone in the women's game. She is always on the balls of her feet, ready to pounce on whatever shot is hit, has extraordinary footwork and anticipates her opponent's shots wonderfully, a praiseworthy parley that virtually always puts leaves her with a host of options and perfectly balanced and in excellent position to hold her shots and then to hit any shot she chooses, and her execution is outstanding as well.
Fitz-Gerald
is not physically imposing and does not exude the muscularity of some
of her WISPA colleagues, Owens among them, but when she snaps her severe
rails and crosscourts, they explode off her racquet with an action akin
to that of cracking a whip. At present, Fitz-Gerald's all-around arsenal
is more than anyone in the women's game can handle, including Owens, who
sensed the growing peril of her situation after that swift and dramatic
first-game turnaround and attempted to reverse the momentum with an audacious
serve-return drop winner on the second game's first serve, only to find
the tin.
Fitz-Gerald quickly made it 2-0 on a backhand volley drop that nicked ; she hit winners on exactly this maneuver all night, while Owens, who had been equally potent with her backhand volley and drop shots prior to the finals, was betrayed by her backhand this evening, especially in the mid-court area of the left wall. Her predicament ironically seemed best symbolized by a point that she actually won at 0-3 in the second. Fitz-Gerald had an open forehand near the front of the court, but Owens guessed right, which enabled her to react to the ensuing Fitz-Gerald crosscourt with a near-instantaneous point-ending volleyed rail, after which Owens punctuated her potentially momentum-turning winning response with a self-exhortatory fist pump.
But all this had done was earn herself a hand-out, which fell to an immaculate Fitz-Gerald forehand working boast, and it was so clear that she had been forced to guess to put her in a position to create that winning opportunity that it hardly seemed like a recipe for long-term success, as was confirmed a few points later when a similar situation arose and Owens again guessed crosscourt, only to watch a screaming Fitz-Gerald rail rocket untouched into the shadows near the back wall.
Owens
never diminished her effort, but Fitz-Gerald moved inexorably to an 8-0
lead, whereupon Owens hit a poor serve-return and didn't bother attempting
to retrieve her opponent's backhand crosscourt drop shot, which would
have been tough to get to under any circumstances and which therefore
fell for an uncontested winner.
Notwithstanding this one surrendered point and the fact that all the momentum was now against her, making it increasingly clear that this was not going to be her night, it must be said that Owens is a determined and prideful warrior who tried everything she could think of to turn the match around.
She began the third game first by slowing the pace and keeping the ball high along the left wall in an attempt to induce impatience in Fitz-Gerald, who did leave an open ball that Owens exploited for a forehand rail winner to make it 1-2, after which Owens reacted to her first registered point since 4-0 in the first game(ending a Fitz-Gerald skein of 20 uninterrupted points)with a gesture that seemed to be saying "Finally!" But this momentary breakthrough was undone by a series of semi-forced backhand errors, a let-point, and then another bad tin on the left wall, after which Owens, who by this point trailed 6-1, yelled at herself in frustration.
Shortly thereafter, a Fitz-Gerald forehand straight drop brought her to 8-3, match-ball, which she cashed in when Owens hit a despairing off-balance backhand volley into the lower recesses of the tin, the kind of shot one attempts only when he/she knows the cause is lost, at least for that night. After receiving her trophy from Tournament of Champions Chairman John Nimick, Fitz-Gerald, who also serves as WISPA President, thanked the sponsors, the tournament officials and the packed gallery for their support of the women's professional game.
Alec Arader, a principal partner of the sponsoring firm, who has been a squash enthusiast ever since his older brother Graham was a three-time all-American in the early 1970's at Yale, also addressed the crowd, as did Heights Casino Weymuller Cup Chairperson Eric Singer. It is quite clear that the addition of a top-echelon women's event to the Tournament of Champions extravaganza enhanced the program enormously and there is little question that this tournament will become a fixture on the WISPA calendar for many years to come.
FINAL RESULTS: Sarah Fitz-Gerald (Aus) d Carol Owens (NZ) 9-4, 9-0, 9-3
Results:
