Mudge/Gould Rally To Take World Doubles Title, Complete Undefeated Season By Rob Dinerman for DailySquashReport.com
Dateline May 12th --- Trailing two games to one and in danger of seeing their season-long quest for an undefeated 2010-11 tour record ripped away from them at the last possible moment, top seeds Damien Mudge and Ben Gould relentlessly boot-strapped their way to a comeback 15-8 11-15 13-15 15-5 15-7 victory over Clive Leach and John Russell this past Monday night before a passionate standing-room crowd at the Toronto Cricket Club in the final round of the biennial World Doubles Championship. This late-match rally elevated the Mudge/Gould duo’s record to 38-0 and represented both a successful title defense for Gould, who won this event with Paul Price in San Francisco two years ago, and a milestone moment for Mudge, who has now had four undefeated ISDA campaigns (previously in 1999-2000, 2001-02 and 2004-05 with Gary Waite), who notched his 100th ISDA tournament win earlier this season and who will celebrate his 35th birthday later this week.
Russell, who with his regular partner Preston Quick came the closest to defeating Mudge/Gould when they led 2-1, 14-11 in late October in a St. Louis semifinal, and Leach, playing in his sixth final this season, had been forced to surmount a pair of substantial challenges prior to the final. James Hewitt and Fred Reid Jr. led them 11-9 in the fourth game of their quarterfinal before a ball break stemmed their momentum and preceded a 6-1 Russell/Leach close-out run to 15-12. They then engaged Mark Chaloner and Jonny Smith (quarterfinal winners over third seeds Price and Matt Jenson) in a back-and-forth five-game all-British semifinal in which Chaloner and Smith led 10-9 in the fifth before Leach and Russell again picked up their level in an end-game dash to 15-12.
By the time the third game of the final was completed, Russell and Leach, runners-up in 2009 in their only prior time as partners (beating Jenson and Mudge in the semis), seemed eminently capable of spoiling the Mudge/Gould seven-month pursuit of perfection, and the gallery, sensing the possibility of an upset and already energized by both the fact and manner in which Canadian torch-bearers Steph Hewitt and Seanne Keating had rallied from two-games-to-love down in overtaking Australian sisters Narelle Krizek and Latarsha McElhinny in the women’s final, were vocally contributing to the adrenaline of this climactic competitive culmination of the ISDA season. Russell’s racquet was on fire, Leach was evincing his usual high-level creativity, grace and power, and Mudge and Gould, who had been pressed themselves in their four-game semi over Americans Quick and Greg Park, were for the first time in many months appearing at least somewhat vulnerable. They had to have known that a loss in an event of this magnitude in perhaps the most high-profile squash-doubles city in all of North America would have severely tarnished the way their 2010-11 season would be remembered, just as had happened to the 2007 New England Patriots, who went undefeated all season and led in the Super Bowl, only to yield a game-deciding touchdown drive to Eli Manning and the New York Giants in the last few seconds.
It is therefore to their everlasting credit that this pair of Australian gun-slingers were able to face down and rise superior to the exigencies of the moment by generating a stifling level of offensive pressure that stymied the Russell/Leach bid and inexorably restored order. Wary of Russell’s shot-making prowess, Mudge and Gould attacked him, moving him up and back and putting him on the defensive to a degree that blunted his ability to generate winners of his own and forced Leach to frequently abandon his right-wall position to cover the back. The fifth game was close for awhile but by the end Mudge and Gould were firmly back in control as they sprinted across the finish line and concluded on a fitting note their remarkable season-long performance.
Copyright © 2011 Rob Dinerman
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