Lightning Strikes Twice In Dayton, Ohio
by Charlie Johnson
November 12, 2011 - In the 2006 EBS Dayton Open, a young 19 year old Ramy Ashour fought his way through two qualifying rounds, became a crowd favorite with his flashy play and determination to win, and found himself in the Sunday championship match against world # 10 John White. Ashour lost that final but came back the next year to avenge the loss and beat White in the finals of the 2007 EBS Dayton Open.
In 2011, history has repeated itself: Qualifier Yasir Butt of Pakistan, ranked 107 in the world, now finds himself in tomorrow's final with # 2 seed and world # 21 Alister Walker of Botswana.
In the opening semi-final match, in front of a packed gallery at the Dayton Squash Center, Butt defeated # 1 seed and world # 17 Adrian Grant of England 3-0 in 47 minutes. Grant looked tentative in the first game and wasn't moving as well as the night before in his 1/4 final match but managed to keep it close until 4-all. Then, Butt ran off 5 straight points in long hard fought rallies where he kept attacking the front of the court and often finished off the rally with a ball thrashed into the nick or a feather drop that was un-retrieveable by Grant. Down 5-9, the crowd could see that Grant knew he had a problem on his hands and Butt won the first game 11-6.
The second and third games were eerily similar: Butt sensed that Grant was vulnerable and got of to early leads in both (up 4-1 in the 2nd and 5-1 in the 3rd) and kept the ball in the front of the court and applied constant pressure with incredible attacking drops, volley drops (especially from his high back-hand position where it was hard for Grant to read as Butt has such a quick wrist), and the occasional "lucky" shot that was a cross-court drive to mid-court that caught the nick and rolled out. Grant tried hard to counter all this attacking offense from Butt and fought hard in these two games where to win one, would perhaps have derailed the qualifier, but feeling the pressure of the moment, when he had a slight advantage in the rally, the winning shot found the tin on several occasions. The final rally was a 45 second youtube video of the whole match: a long rally that Butt finished off with a winner. Result, for only the second time in the history of this tournament, a qualifier has made it through to the finals.
Speaking with both players after the match, Butt acknowledged that his strategy from the get go was to attack the front of the court on every loose ball: he knew Grant's game from the back of the court was strong and that if he tried to play a length and power game against Grant, he'd be out on the court too long and playing to Grant's strengths. Grant admitted he started tentative and a little tight in the first game and could never find his stride after that. Grant had seen some of Butt's earlier matches, respected his shotmaking ability and knew that the front was going to be attacked, but just couldn't find the right counter strategy on this night in Dayton.
Tonight's second semi-final match had England's Chris Simpson challenging the # 2 seed Alister Walker of Botswana. Although Walker won 3-0 in 43 minutes, the match began much like Walker's 1/4 final match last night. A 27 minute overtime win by Walker, 15-13, was the same hard fought battle that Walker had in last night's 30 minute 18-16 win over qualifier Olivier Pett. In this first came, Simpson showed no signs of fatigue after his 71 minute, come from behind 5-game win from last night, and fought hard as both players traded long rallies with each other: this came could have gone either way but Walker, witness to the earlier upset semi-final seemed determined not to go down in the first game and pulled it out.
The second game started much like the first, with both players giving no quarter and playing hard (it felt like a sword fight with each player striking and counter striking without being able to deliver a killing blow) but at 7-all, Walker took control and won the next 4 rallies to gain a 2-0 lead.
Simpson was down 0-2 last night and came back and looked fit enough to try it again and he surely gave it an effort, losing 10-12 in this third game. Some of the same mental tactics (borrowing from Rafa Nadal) must have been going on because he believed in his game and fought his way to 10-9 and game ball to keep himself in the match. At this point, Walker showed why he's # 21 in the world and played the big points big, winning the next three to get it to the tie-break and push through for the win.
Tomorrow's final match between Alister Walker and Yasir Butt will, as stated above, repeat history where a qualifier will challenge one of the top seeds for the EBS Dayton Open title: we can't wait to see it!
Results, $25,000 EBS Dayton Open:
Semi-finals:
[Q] Yasir Butt (PAK) bt [1] Adrian Grant (ENG) 11-6, 11-8, 11-9 (47m)
[2] Alister Walker (BOT) bt [4] Chris Simpson (ENG) 15-13, 11-7, 12-10 (43m)
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