Betts And Hewitt Storm To NYC Open Women's Pro Doubles Title
by Rob Dinerman




Dateline November 23rd ---- Caught at 13-all in the first game in what proved to be the only true crossroads moment of the night, Dana Betts and Steph Hewitt took the next two points and never looked back, surging to a thoroughly decisive 15-13, 15-9, 15-5 victory over the top-seeded sister team of Narelle Krizek and Tarsh McElhinny Monday evening in the final round of the inaugural $17,500 New York City Open before a small but enthusiastic audience at the University Club of New York in mid-town Manhattan. In so doing, Betts and Hewitt took their third WSDA ranking tournament in the past 13 months (previously the Cincinnati Open early last November and the St. Louis Open in late February, in each case also via final-round victories over Krizek/McElhinny) and consolidated their landmark four-game triumph over Natalie Grainger and Suzie Pierrepont Sunday afternoon in the semis.

   The opening frame was tight and a bit spasmodic, alternating tins and winners and with neither team able to establish a consistent rhythm as the score seesawed evenly along. Trailing 13-11, the sisters grabbed the next two points, but at 13-all Krizek just caught the top of the tin with a bold inside-out forehand roll-corner from the back wall, the kind of nervy and sharply-angled thrust that makes her game so special but that this time boomeranged, giving her opponents a game-ball that they immediately converted when Betts buried a forehand reverse-corner. Liberated by having come away with a game during much of which they had failed to play their best squash, Betts and Hewitt immediately shot off to a 4-0 (and 6-1) lead in the second that forced Krizek and McElhinny to spend the rest of the game having to try to fight through an imposing deficit.

   They courageously crept to 7-10, then 8-10 when Krizek nailed a forehand reverse three-wall and pumped her fist at having drawn within striking distance of rescuing the game. But the rally screeched to a halt when McElhinny, who spent much of the match defensively fending off Betts’s forehand cross-court blasts, tinned a cross-drop, launching a game-ending 5-1 spurt that Betts and Hewitt extended to 11-1 by taking the first six points of the third game as well. Betts was scoring with her power along with a host of nick-finding shallow drives, while Hewitt nailed a series of tight reverse-corner winners and kept at least a half-dozen points alive by gliding to the front-left or covering behind Betts when the situation called for her to do so. In addition to both Betts and Hewitt playing individually at a very high level, they worked together seamlessly, eroding their opponents’ morale by causing a number of points that seemed destined to go against them to instead land in their column.

   By contrast, the top seeds, perhaps affected by the dispiriting manner in which the first game had slipped from their grasp, were too out of sync (and out of sorts) to mount a serious comeback during the last two games. Krizek committed more tins in each of those games than she had in the entire semifinal match a day earlier, and McElhinny was unable to get the height and angle on her lobs and skid-boasts that had played so important a role in that straight-set semis win over Tina Rix and Fernanda Rocha. Several times they appeared possibly ready to rally, as when they strung together three impressive points that brought them to 5-9, but each time their run would be derailed. A Betts reverse-corner winner on a set-up restored her team’s momentum and jump-started a six-point run to the tape (duplicating the way that game began) that concluded the match less than 45 minutes after it started. The tour now moves on to the early-December Briggs Cup, which will be hosted by the Apawamis Club in Rye, to finish off the autumn portion of the 2015-16 season.

Finals Recap:

Dana Betts/Steph Hewitt d. Narelle Krizek/Tarsh McElhinny, 15-13, 15-9, 15-5