Elroy Leong And Osama Khalifa Capture Silver Racquet Doubles By Rob Dinerman
Kyle Martino serves to Elroy Leong
Dateline November 12, 2023--- Culminating a three-match march to the winner's circle in which
they saved their best for last, top seeds Osama Khalifa and Elroy Leong
defeated second seeds Ashley Davies and Kyle Martino by decisive scores
of 15-11, 5 and 9 Sunday afternoon in the final round of the 2023
Silver Racquet, hosted as always by the Racquet & Tennis Club in
midtown Manhattan. Khalifa, who won last year's edition of this
tournament playing the left wall with Matthew Henderson, demonstrated
his squash-doubles versatility by switching to the right wall as the
partner of the left-handed Leong, and thereby became the only player in
the history of the Silver Racquet --- which marked its milestone 30th
anniversary this past weekend --- to win the tournament two consecutive
years with two different partners while playing both walls.
Both final-round teams had to survive five-game challenges on their way
to their Sunday summit in a highly competitive tournament that had at
least one route-going match in all three rounds prior to the final.
Khalifa and Leong, 3-1 quarterfinal winners over James Stout and
Khalifa's older brother Amr, were pushed to a fifth game in their
semifinal against Michael Ferreira and Ben Stein (3-2 quarters winners
over Phil Barker and Dylan Patterson), while Martino and Davies had to
go the distance to defeat Porter Drake and Robby Berner in their
quarterfinal before out-lasting Josh Hughes and Travis Judson in a
four-game semi.
With all that squash, Osama Khalifa and Leong seemed to reach their
peak in the final, especially when, after coming up with the last few
points in a back-and-forth first game, they broke open the second with
an 11-2 game-ending surge that created a degree of momentum that
carried through the close-out third game as well. Leong, who was the
primary focus of the Davies/Martino attack, repulsed nearly everything
that was thrown his way and generated plenty of winners of his own,
while Khalifa punished both opponents with the pace and width of his
drives intermixed with hard stuff into the nicks and a series of
disguised lobs that had both Martino and especially Davies constantly
reversing direction as they chased the ball into the back. Khalifa hit
a sensational no-look nick-finding forehand cross-drop to get his team
to championship-point, following which a scramble-point ended with a
Martino tin from the back wall. Davies and Martino played well (other
than during their second-game slump), but Leong and Khalifa were on an
unstoppable roll throughout the last two games, playing free and
easy --- and with the lead --- and taking their game to a level
that enabled them to sprint exuberantly across the finish line.
