Mudge And Gould Capture St. Louis Open
by Rob Dinerman of Dailysquashreport.com
Dateline October 31st --- In yet another display of power and athleticism, top seeds and defending champions Damien Mudge and Ben Gould swept to victory in the St. Louis Open, the first full-ranking event on the 2011-12 ISDA schedule, capping off a three-match march through the draw with a straight-game final over Manek Mathur and Yvain Badan in a replay of last year’s St. Louis final. As had also happened a year ago, the advance to that stage of former Trinity College teammates Mathur and Badan had been highlighted by a win over the second-ranked ISDA team of Matt Jenson and Clive Leach, whom Badan and Mathur had out-lasted in a five-game semi early Saturday afternoon whose draining effect may well have affected the final, which was played just a few hours after that semifinal had ended.
Mudge and Gould, who are now 41-0 with 13 consecutive tournaments on their ledger, had dropped the third game of their semifinal with British stars Chris Walker and Mark Chaloner (15-14 fifth-game quarterfinal winners over Greg Park and John Russell) before regaining control in the 15-10 close-out fourth. Leach and Jenson had seemed somewhat vulnerable in their own quarters match, a five-game marathon with Preston Quick and Jonny Smith, and after letting the 15-12 fourth game get away against Mathur/Badan, they fragmented a bit and became error-prone in losing the fifth game 15-8.
Though all three games of the final were close, Gould and Mudge (clad in St. Louis Cardinals jerseys in tribute to that team’s improbable and dramatic World Series victory earlier in the weekend, with Gould in the stadium for the seventh game) were always in control. Mathur scored frequently with his nick-finding short game, and he and Gould had a number of lively cross-court battles, but the consistency and constant pressure that The Champs were able to exert were inexorable. It is hard enough for a fresh team to beat a pairing as formidable as Mudge and Gould – asking one to do so just hours after they have survived a five-game battle with Leach and Jenson is clearly more than anyone can realistically expect. The special-invitational round-robin Cambridge Club Doubles is set for mid-November in Toronto, but the next ranking ISDA tour stops will be in early December, namely the Big Apple Open at the New York Athletic Club in mid-town Manhattan followed by the biennial Briggs Cup at the Apawamis Club in Westchester.
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