WDSA Women’s Pro Doubles Tour Gears Up For Eighth Season  
By Rob Dinerman



Dateline October 1st ---- The 2014-15 Women’s Doubles Squash Association (WDSA) season, featuring nearly a dozen sanctioned tournaments, including tour stops in every significant squash-playing sector of the nation, will kick off this coming weekend with the fourth annual Philadelphia Open, a $17,500  event hosted as always by the Philadelphia Country Club along with the nearby Cynwyd Club. The Cincinnati Open will follow in early November, with stops scheduled in Florida, Chicago, Westchester, Philadelphia and Denver and possibly a number of other locations as well, pending confirmation later this autumn. Overall prize money has increased from last season, and the presence during the past year of a number of relatively new faces deep in ISDA and U. S. National events is a good sign for the upcoming campaign.

   Narelle Krizek and Suzie Pierrepont have been the No. 1 team in four of the past five years (Steph Hewitt and Meredeth Quick having been the exception in 2011-12) and were four for four last season, during which they won the Cincinnati Open, the U. S. Open, the John’s Island Open and the season-culminating Turner Cup. Pierrepont, however, who for the past several years had been the squash coach at Greenwich Academy, recently left New York to pursue an MBA at the University of Colorado - Denver (UCD) and she consequently plans on playing a much more limited schedule this season. Krizek will be partnering up with her sister Tarsh McElhinny this weekend in suburban Philadelphia, where they will be seeded No. 1, with Quick (now fully recovered from the shoulder injury that sidelined has last fall) and Hewitt, winners of the mid-July Wilson Cup and finalists several times last season, seeded second. The third/fourth seeds are Heidi Mather/Karen Jerome --- who will face surprise 2013 U. S. Open finalists Amy Gross and Alex Clark in what should be an intriguing match-up if the latter pair win their qualifying match against Sarah West and Tehani Guruge --- and Dana Betts/Victoria Simmonds. Gina Stoker and Kelsey Engman, who won the William White and reached the final of the U. S. National Doubles before losing to Krizek and Hewitt last winter, are set to meet Hewitt and Quick Friday evening in the opening round of the main draw.

   In keeping with a tradition that has been in place since the first few years of the WDSA’s existence, the Association will be linking with several of the urban squash organizations located near its tournament sites (the inaugural Cincinnati Open, for example, benefited Emanuel Squash, a youth-enrichment organization that launched in early 2014) as well as various charities. The Philadelphia Open will benefit B4Pink, a breast health initiative whose mission is to reduce the incidence of and help find a cure for breast cancer. The WDSA tour events all include a number of pro-am tourneys and patron-appreciation functions, lending an atmosphere of energy and inclusiveness that has spurred its ascent to what should be the best season in WDSA history this year.




  

Back To Main