Tournament Of Champions Courtside Blog
by Matthew Lombardi
Posted January 21, 2011
Some thoughts on Day 1 matches:
Here’s to the Losers. Sports at its best is full of “agony and ecstasy” drama, and we got a good dose of that yesterday. I’m sure the winners are all ecstatic to be moving on to the next round, but for me as a spectator agony had the upper hand.
It was unfortunate that Julian Illingworth was slowed by an injury, derailing what was shaping up to be a tight match with Shahier Razik. I felt some local allegiance to transplanted New Yorker Alister Walker, so it was tough to see him struggling in a testy battle with Mohammed Abbas. Lincou versus Shorbagy turned out to be a display of the downsides of both age and youth -- Lincou looking like a tired shadow of his former self, Shorbagy showing flashes of teenage petulance.
And I felt particularly sympathetic for Ong Beng Hee, who went up 2-0 against Peter Barker, only to see his game slowly disintegrate under Barker’s unflagging pressure. Trailing late in the fifth, Ong had some minor contact with Barker that left him momentarily shaken up. The ref asked him, “Are you all right?” Ong cracked a wry smile, shook his head, and quietly said “No.” Then he turned back to Barker and prepared to receive serve. The poor guy. I know just what he meant.
Video Review Good. This innovation (which I described in my first post) is proving to be a brilliant tool for silencing player descent. The players tend to think of it as an opportunity to prove the refs wrong. They get some satisfaction when a call is overturned, and when a decision goes against them they’re completely compliant. Never once did a player yell at the video screen for getting a call wrong.
The Stars Are Aligning for Willstrop. He was already in the weaker half of the draw at the start of the day. With Darwish falling to Selby, things got a little easier. There’s no free pass to the final, but Willstrop has to be happy with the way things are shaping up.
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