Steph Hewitt and Suzie Pierrepont Charge To Hashim Khan Invitational Crown  
by Rob Dinerman, assisted by Joyce Davenport

Dateline March 16th --- Buried in the opening game of their first-round match, top seeds Steph Hewitt and Suzie Pierrepont responded admirably by winning six straight games en route to a successful defense of the Hashim Khan Invitational crown they had won in 2013. Byed to the semis of this highly popular tournament, held this year as throughout its 35-year history at the Denver Athletic Club, Hewitt and Pierrepont rallied to a 5-15 15-10 15-10 15-8 victory over recent William White winners Kelsey Engman and Gina Stoker, then overwhelmed Meredeth Quick and Dana Betts 15-9, 11 and 3 today in the final.

    Betts and Quick had straight-gamed first Alicia McConnell and Larissa Stephenson (qualifying-round winners over Joyce Davenport and Lauren Patrizio) and then No. 2 seeds Heidi Mather and Victoria Simmonds to earn their spot in the final, establishing a level of proficiency and momentum that seemed to leave them well positioned to challenge Pierrepont/Hewitt. This was especially true in light of the scare that the young Philadelphia-based Stoker/Engman duo, after a 3-0 opener over Amy Milanek and Dawn Gray, had given the top seeds in the early portion of that semifinal match, during which Engman in particular shot the lights out with reverse-corners and both she and her partner frustrated their opponents with stellar retrieving. The second game was close until midway through, at which potentially perilous juncture Engman hit several tins that gave Pierrepont/Hewitt some breathing room. Even in taking the third and fourth games, Hewitt and Pierrepont found winners hard to come by, but benefited from some semi-forced Stoker/Engman errors and some sharp Hewitt reverse-corners. In one defining sequence Hewitt hit an excellent reverse that Engman nevertheless retrieved, only to see the point slip away when Hewitt followed with an unreachable drop shot.

    Meanwhile, in the bottom-half semifinal, Quick, who had learned the game as a youngster on these very courts (and whose older brother Preston teamed with Matt Jenson to win the SDA men’s pro doubles tournament with a four-game final-round triumph over Manek Mathur and Baset Chaudhry immediately after the women’s final), was solid on the right wall (her less-often-played wall), while her partner, the power-hitting left-handed Betts, provided much of the tempo by lashing her forehand and scoring as well on a number of winners off her backhand flank. Mather’s ball-striking skills were evident, as was her signature drop shot, but as the match progressed she had fewer opportunities to hit that shot and there were occasional holes in the Simmonds/Mather coverage that Quick and Betts were able to exploit.

   Notwithstanding the noticeable level of pre-match expectation Sunday morning, the final was somewhat anticlimactic, as Hewitt and Pierrepont achieved a comfort level early on (particularly after a series of Hewitt reverses and Pierrepont straight drops gave them a run of points in the end-portion of the first game) that they never would relinquish. Betts supplied plenty of pace and Quick hit several drop shot winners, but Pierrepont and Hewitt imposed their superior weaponry throughout the second game and poured it on in an exhilarating sprint to the tape to conclude the third. By that time, Pierrepont was cutting off everything hit at her on the left wall and Hewitt was even adding three-walls to her reverse/drop-shot mix on the right. Most of this weekend’s WDSA participants will be playing at the U. S. National Doubles Championships this coming weekend in New York, after which the WDSA tour will resume with an active springtime schedule.






 

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