ISDA Stars Quick And Walker Headline U. S. National Hardball Championship
by Rob Dinerman, for DailySquashReport.com
Chris Walker
Dateline February 17th, 2012 --- Top-seeded defending champion Preston Quick and former British Open finalist Chris Walker head a star-studded 13-player field that will be vying for the 2012 U. S. National Hardball Championship (and the $1500 winner’s portion of the $4500 purse) at the Harvard Club Of New York this weekend. Quick and Walker (who eventually and exhaustingly eked out the victory) had a tremendous route-going two-hour final just 10 blocks northeast of the host site last April in the final round of the Players Championship, an ISDA doubles event at the University Club which also had a hardball tourney played with the Astral ball on a softball court, though this weekend’s action will be on regulation hardball courts and with the red fuchsia ball.
Also in the draw are second seed Eric Pearson, a three-time winner (2008-2010) of this event whom Quick defeated in a close four-game final in Boston last year; five-time champion (2000 and 2003-2006) Tom Harrity; former WPSA top-10 Rob Dinerman, Harrity’s co-finalist in 2004 and 2005; Sunny Hunt, who won the hardball segment of the William White last month; former WPSA veteran and ’91 New York State Open finalist Eric Christiansen; and 2003 Harvard captain and (with Steve Scharff) 2010 National Doubles champion Dylan Patterson.
In addition to the Open draw (which is being held for the 101st time, dating back to its inception in 1907, with several World War-related hiatuses), there will be a four-man round-robin in the 40’s and 75’s, five-man round-robins in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, and a 65’s event consisting of 10 players – 45 entrants in all, the huge majority of whom come from the New York New Jersey and Philadelphia regions. In the wake of the large number of Boston local players who had entered last year (the first time the event had been held in Beantown since 1999), the hope had been that many of that number, having re-experienced the Hardball Nationals, would support the tournament this year as well, but disappointingly not a single current Bostonian chose to do so.
This will be the first time that the Big Apple will be hosting this tournament in the 10 years since 2002, when an important ISDA doubles event – the “Johnson” at Heights Casino in Brooklyn --- was taking place the same weekend. Gary Waite entered and won BOTH championships, his Sunday consisting of himself and Damien Mudge defeating Blair Horler and Clive Leach in a tough four-game semi, following which Waite journeyed the six express MTA subway stops north to the Harvard Club, where he dispatched three-time S. L. Green champ Marty Clark in a straight-set final, then returned to Brooklyn Heights to team with Mudge to overcome a mid-match deficit and triumph over David Kay and Michael Pirnak in the doubles final, a milestone both for Waite and for Mudge, who thereby won the Johnson for the first time, who has won every Johnson that has been held since then (2002-07 with Waite, 2008-2010 with Viktor Berg and a year ago with Ben Gould), and who therefore on the last weekend of February will be attempting, incredibly, to win that fabled championship for what would be the 11th consecutive time!
The round-of-16 in the Open division of the Hardball Nationals will take place Friday night, with the quarters and semis Saturday morning/afternoon and the final scheduled for early afternoon on Sunday.
Men’s Championship Draw: Preston Quick, bye; Duncan Pearson vs. Rob Dinerman; Eric Christiansen vs. Charles Billman; Sunny Hunt, bye; Chris Walker vs. John Sayward; Asad Zia vs. Dylan Patterson; Tom Harrity vs. Harrison Sebring; Eric Pearson, bye.
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