First Round Loss - What Went Wrong
Dan Kneipp, based in Amsterdam, Regularly Comments on Pro Squash for SquashTalk

by Dan Kneipp, Live at Grand Central Terminal, New York, 21 Feb 2005
All content © 2005 Squashtalk, photos: © 2005 Debra Tessier

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Joe Kneipp has a disppointing exit in the first round. Dan Kneipp explains (photo: © 2005 Debra Tessier)

Leading up to the Tournament of Champions training couldn’t have gone better. I’ve never seen Joe fitter, moving so well and more confident going into a tournament. So what went wrong? Why did Joe lose last night?

From my perspective there were three obvious causes for Joe’s 5th game loss to Wael El Hindi last night. If I cite El Hindi’s gamesmanship and poor refereeing as major factors in the defeat then it looks like poor sportsmanship or sour grapes on my behalf. Yet that was a significant factor, and so it’s reassuring that my biased perspective is succinctly illustrated by squash journalist Martin Bronstein:

Wael el Hindi blocked Joe Kneipp out of the tournament with the help of an unseeing referee.

There were no smiles from Joe Kneipp who played seriously good squash – intelligent squash – in his match against Wael el Hindi. He can claim with great justification that he was robbed by a referee who simply doesn’t
understand - or fails to see – when a player is blocking another player.
In a five game match that lasted 88 minutes – the longest of the tournament so far, Kneipp was denied lets when he should have been awarded strokes.
Wael el Hindi has a wonderful touch with the ball, taking the speed off it and dropping it gently into the front left corner. He then walks into the path of the incoming striker rather than arcing away. Time and time again Kneipp was denied a direct path to the ball and every time the referee failed to call the correct decision. Had he called them early in the first game, Kneipp would have won in four, but as it was he lost in five, totally frustrated and disgusted that any referee could fail to see what was happening. He tried to explain but the referee would not listen to what he was saying and so El Hindi continued with his movement. Maybe he doesn’t understand that what he is doing is wrong: some firm decisions from the referee would have helped to educate him.

But this can’t be used as an excuse. The method in which El Hindi plays is no secret, and we went into this match expecting it to involve a lot of blocking (35 lets in the last game) and concentrating on not allowing that to determine the outcome of the match. If blocking is the type of game that El Hindi chooses to play, then every player that faces him has to deal with it, and the way they choose to react to it, or the game that they play because of it determines how successful El Hindi is. Joe didn’t play the right game against El Hindi, and didn’t do a good enough job of changing his tactics during the match. The high number of mid-court and short shots that Joe hit allowed El Hindi to block and create the interference. It felt like watching someone playing John White with the tactics of hitting slow, lobby boasts at every opportunity and wondering why they were losing.

The bottom line is Joe had a reasonably poor match, yet still had a 10-6 lead in the fifth, and five match balls in total. Regardless of the blocking or bad calls, three of these match points were squandered on errors by Joe.
So we learned a valuable lesson in mental approach to the game, altering tactics during matches, and crossing the finishing line properly when the tape is right in front of you.