11-16-22 Doubles

Manek Mathur/Chris Callis, Osama Khalifa/Matthew Henderson and Elani and Lume Landman All Triumph In Hectic New York City Doubles Weekend
by Rob Dinerman

Big Apple Open Champions Manek Mathur and Chris Callis, Finalists Ryan Cuskelly and Cameron Pilley

Silver Racquets Finalists James Stout and Ben Stein, Champions Osama Khalifa and Matthew Henderson flank Games Committee Chairman Dylan Patterson

NYC Open Sponsors Chris Coco (Pennsylvania 6) and Naj Alavi (Xenomorph) flank Champions Elani and Lume Landman, Finalists Kayley Leonard and Maria Elena Ubina

Dateline November 15, 2022 --- Trailing two games to one in their opening-round match, No. 1 seeds Manek Mathur and Chris Callis ran off eight consecutive games to capture the Big Apple Open professional doubles tournament this past Monday evening, held as always at the New York Athletic Club. After surmounting their mid-match quarterfinal deficit against Osama Khalifa and Kyle Martino, Mathur and Callis then triumphed over Adam Bews and Matthew Henderson in the semis and the ascending Aussie pair of former top-15 PSA singles players Ryan Cuskelly and Cameron Pilley by scores of 15-9, 12 and 13 in the final. Cuskelly and Pilley had earned a four-game semifinal win over the host club pros Clinton Leeuw and Jaymie Haycocks, who one round earlier had pulled off the upset of the tournament at the expense of second seeds Zac Alexander and James Bamber.

The Big Apple Open final culminated a five-day “weekend” throughout which Manhattan’s “Doubles Alley” was buzzing with activity on three sites, all of them situated within a few blocks of each other. Khalifa and Henderson won the Silver Racquet tournament at the Racquet & Tennis Club (on Park Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets), Elani and Lume Landman annexed the SDA women’s pro NYC Open at the University Club of New York (three blocks northwest of R&T on 54th Street and Fifth Avenue) and the New York Athletic Club is located near the southern edge of Central Park, just six blocks northwest of University on 58th Street and Seventh Avenue. In a symbol of how hectic a stretch of days it was for doubles squash, on Sunday both the Silver Racquet final, originally scheduled for noon, and the top-half Big Apple Open semifinal, originally set for 1pm, were moved (to 11:30am and 2pm respectively) in deference to the fact that Henderson was a participant in both of those matches!

He and Khalifa --- another player who, as referenced, “doubled up” by playing in both the Big Apple Open and Silver Racquet events---- split the first two games of their Silver Racquet final against James Stout and Ben Stein and trailed 13-9 in the third, prior to conjuring up a 5-0 spurt and eventually coming away with that game 15-14 on a Henderson forehand cross-court winner. Although Khalifa and Henderson were able to make that turnaround stick by winning the close-out fourth game 15-11, Stout’s extraordinary retrieving skills and brainy shot selection kept the Khalifa/Henderson tandem frequently having to extemporize and showed why Stout is one of the best doubles players on the professional tour. For his part Stein --- a finalist as well in the Silver Racquet Court Tennis tournament --- held up remarkably well under the relentless pressure directed his way by both opponents. With this win in hand, Henderson (who had already previously played a Big Apple Open pro-am match early that morning) then dashed back to the NYAC for his semifinal with Bews against Mathur and Callis.

The women’s final on Sunday at noon represented a moment of both triumph and vindication for the Landman sisters, who had been winless in their four prior forays against their opponents, the No. 1 ranked team of former Greenwich Academy high school teammates Kayley Leonard and Maria Elena Ubina. The most recent of those matches, just two weeks earlier at the Heights Casino Club in Brooklyn, had also been the most decisive, a straight-game affair in which Leonard and Ubina had sped off to big enough leads in each game to leave the Landmans too far behind and too demoralized to catch up. A number of factors, ranging from tactical to psychological to topographical, played a role in this 15-10, 13 and 14 reversal.

First and foremost, the Landmans, who had almost immediately fallen behind 11-4 in the opening game in Brooklyn, this time were able to seize the early initiative, giving them a level of purpose and confidence that was abetted by the patience they demonstrated in successfully applying their strategy of using the height of the court to lob their opponents to the back wall and then shoot when they had an opening. In Brooklyn, the points had been relatively short, with both Leonard and Ubina establishing front-court position and scoring winners, whereas at the high-ceilinged University Club --- a marked contrast to the environment at Heights Casino, whose lower ceiling and hanging beam made it almost impossible to effectively execute lobs and skid-boasts --- the Landmans were able to lob much more effectively and prevent Leonard and Ubina from implementing the quick-strike capacity that had served them so well a fortnight earlier.

With all that, and even after trailing 13-8 in the third game after narrowly falling short in the second, Leonard and Ubina drew to 12-13 and then (after Leonard tinned a drop shot) to 14-all on a pair of nervy Leonard winners, the second of which (a tightly angled forehand reverse corner) ended a point that Ubina had kept alive with a remarkable “emergency” retrieve near the back wall a few exchanges earlier. Losing that game after having such a seemingly safe lead against opponents whom they had never beaten might have been a tough hurdle for the Landman sisters to overcome. But Elani Landman responded to the exigencies of the moment by burying a shallow backhand drive that stayed too low for Leonard to scoop up, eliciting a shriek of triumph from both winning players and providing a dramatic competitive backdrop to the next SDA women’s tour stop, the Briggs Cup, in Rye four weeks hence.

In the last match of the tripartite skein of doubles action in midtown Manhattan, Pilley and Cuskelly demonstrated the degree to which they have become a top-tier team with a praiseworthy performance on all fronts: that they still lost in three games was totally due to the brilliance of Mathur and Callis, who finished the 2021-22 season by winning their last four tournaments --- in Boston, Cleveland, New York (the Kellner Cup) and Greenwich (the North American Open) --- and have now won 17 consecutive matches dating back to last spring. Callis was rock-solid and nearly error-free, volleying aggressively, getting excellent depth on his drives and scoring plenty of front-court winners as well, while Mathur was his usual intimidating self, pouncing on and punishing any loose ball hit in his direction and extremely creative in his shot selection and precise in his execution. It was Mathur who delivered the decisive winners after Cuskelly and Pilley had courageously rallied from 6-11 to 12-all in the third game: a scorching shallow forehand drive that clung too close to the floor for Cuskelly to retrieve, followed by a nick-finding volleyed forehand three-wall that caught both opponents flat-footed to give his team three match balls, the second of which he converted with a drive that handcuffed Cuskelly and clinched the outcome. Both final-round teams are in the draw at Sleepy Hollow and will have a rematch in the semis this coming Saturday afternoon if the seedings hold up and they both make it to that stage.