2_17_23_mathur

Manek Mathur To Retire from SDA Pro Doubles Tour After Late-February David C. Johnson Memorial
by Rob Dinerman

Dateline February 17, 2023 --- Manek Mathur, the most charismatic, entertaining and successful player on the Squash Doubles Association (SDA) pro doubles tour during the past half-dozen years, and one of the greatest left-wall players in the history of hardball doubles squash, has announced that he will be retiring from the SDA tour after the late-February David C. Johnson Memorial tournament at the Heights Casino Club in Brooklyn Heights. Mathur, who turned 35 on February 6th, cited the physical toll that more than a dozen SDA seasons have exacted, as well as an increasing degree of immersion in the real estate practice that he began in July 2021.

After a stellar college career at Trinity College during the last half of the first decade of the 2000’s in which he was a major contributor to four national college team championships (while serving as a team co-captain and the No. 3 player his senior 2008-09 year), Mathur spent the six-year period from 2009-15 as an assistant squash pro in the Greenwich/Westchester area (one year at the Field Club of Greenwich, followed by five years at the Apawamis Club in Rye), then two as Director of Sales and Product Development at Harrow Sports before moving to Manhattan to become the head squash pro at the Racquet & Tennis Club from 2017-21. Throughout that time he played on the SDA tour, experiencing excellent results with a host of different partners, but primarily as a member in three extensive partnerships. Those were the five years he spent (from 2011-16) with former college teammate Yvain Badan, followed by two years (from 2016-18) with Damien Mudge prior to teaming up ever since with Chris Callis in the wake of Mudge’s injury-caused retirement.

Although Mudge and Ben Gould dominated the SDA tour from the outset of the 2010-11 season until Gould retired midway through the 2015-16 season, Mathur and Badan were the second-best team virtually throughout that time frame, reaching more finals than any other team, recording a breakthrough win over Mudge/Gould in the 2011 Briggs Cup semifinals (and then defeating Clive Leach and Matt Jenson in the final) and taking over as the tour’s No. 1 team during the Calendar 2016 portion of the 2015-16 season by winning in Boston, Greenwich and Baltimore en route to copping the end-of-season No. 1 team ranking and earning SDA Team of the Year honors. Mathur and Mudge decided to partner up during the intervening summer and, after (barely) coming up short in the final round of the season-opening Maryland Club Open, they then went undefeated through the remainder of both that season and the 2017-18 season that followed, winning 16 straight tournaments and 54 consecutive matches during that considerable span.

After Mudge then underwent a significant knee operation during the summer of 2018 (his seventh overall knee surgery and the fifth and by far the most invasive on his right leg), Mathur teamed up with Callis (Maryland Club Open) and Zac Alexander (Denver) to win the first two tournaments of the 2018-19 season. By the time he and Callis entered the final round of the late-October 2018 Big Apple Open in New York against Badan and Bernardo Samper, Mathur had won his previous 18 straight SDA tournaments and 63 matches. He and Callis were in command of their match with Samper/Badan as well, until Mathur incurred a ruptured left Achilles tendon midway through the second game that sidelined him for the remainder of that season.

He and Callis (who underwent a knee surgery of his own during the summer of 2019) demonstrated the completeness of their respective recoveries by winning the 2019-20 season-opening Maryland Club Open, following which a few months later they won three consecutive early-winter events, namely Sleepy Hollow, the Briggs Cup and Boston. In light of this triumphant trilogy, they were seeded No. 1 in both the North American Open and the Johnson but illness (when Callis was decked with a bad case of the flu just prior to Greenwich) and injury (when Mathur suffered a left hamstring pull before the Johnson) kept them from making it to the starting gate either time, after which the COVID-19 pandemic closed down the SDA tour for the remainder of that season and all of 2020-21.

When play finally resumed in October 2021 after a prolonged 19-month hiatus, Mathur won with Callis in St. Louis and with Scott Arnold at the Big Apple Open. Although injuries and a COVID diagnosis that forced Mathur to quarantine during the 2022 Johnson kept Mathur and Callis from advancing to the winners circle for several frustrating late-autumn and winter months, they closed the 2021-22 season in dominant fashion by winning each of their last four tournaments, namely Boston, Cleveland, the Kellner Cup and the North American Open. Their 14-match finishing burst clinched the 2022 Doubles Team of The Year Award, Mathur’s fourth such designation (previously in 2017 and 2018 with Mudge and, as noted, 2016 with Badan). In each of those years Mathur was also honored as the SDA Player of the Year, and the No. 1 ranking he attained for 2021-22 represented his fourth in the past five years, the only exception having been the Achilles-rupture-ruined 2018-19 season.

Mathur’s 36 SDA titles is the fifth most all-time, trailing only the totals amassed by Mudge (169), Waite (114), Gould (81) and Jamie Bentley (43), and they include three Briggs Cups (2011, 2017 and 2019), all with different partners (Badan, Mudge and Callis), four North American Opens (2016, 2017, 2018 and 2022) and four Boston titles (2016, 2017, 2020 and 2022). Mathur won 16 SDA events with Mudge, 11 with Callis and six with Badan, to go along with one each with Gould, Alexander and Arnold. Mathur also won the 2014 U. S. National Doubles with Steve Scharff and the 2012 U. S. National Mixed Doubles with Narelle Krizek. Less easy to quantify, but surely an equally major part of Mathur’s legacy, are the memories of his on-court presence: the great imagination he showed in his shot selection, the extraordinary touch (making him a threat to hit any shot from any area of the court), the power he generated when he swung full out, the incredible court coverage that made it almost impossible to hit a winner against him and made it dangerous to play the ball anywhere within his swinging range, the way he supported and inspired his partners, the way the galleries reacted and responded to his fearless salvos --- these qualities will endure long after he hits his final ball and exits onto Montague Street later this month.

So will the manner in which Mathur not only got to the ball but pounced on the ball, not only returning it but punishing it, almost as a way of making opponents who hit balls into his range pay for their temerity. There have been some great left-handed doubles players on the professional squash tour over the years (Todd Binns and Peter Briggs, winners of five North American Opens between them, immediately come to mind), but none of them could spike an overhead into the front-right nick or nail a reverse-corner at as wicked an angle as Mathur could conjure up. His overhead, abetted by his height, impressive wingspan and jumping ability (which in combination made it almost impossible to lob over him), has been the single biggest weapon in doubles squash for the past half-decade, and when he was on a roll, scorching his drives, catching nicks with his front-court salvos and pumping up his partners, the overall effect was one of a superstar in all his glory, a full level above everyone else on the court.

When told about his former prot�g�’s impending retirement, Trinity College’s legendary men’s squash coach Paul Assaiante expressed his gratitude for the degree to which it had been “such a joy to be the fly on the wall of Manek’s squash career. So few of us ever reach the lofty heights in any discipline that he has. He expressed himself beautifully on court, and this time in the SDA doubles tour will forever be remembered as Manek’s chapter.”

Mathur himself expressed with refreshing candor the mixture of emotions he feels about this momentous decision when he noted that, “Retiring from the SDA is extremely bittersweet. Squash has been an integral part of my life ever since I was a 9 year old boy and I am eternally grateful to the sport, the people I have met along the way and the life lessons the game has taught me. People love to say onwards and upwards, or on to bigger and better, but my life in squash was pretty special. I am excited to see what the next chapter of my journey has in store for me off the court and in my real estate business- Squash will always be a part of my life, but the level of competition might take a step or two back. Looking forward to my first Member/Guest!”

Rob Dinerman has extensively covered the SDA tour ever since its inception in 2000 and was the tour’s Official Writer for more than a dozen years. He was Manek Mathur’s partner when Mathur played in his first SDA tournament, the 2009 Briggs Cup.