WDSA Tour Gears Up For Biennial World Doubles In Chicago    
By Rob Dinerman
 
Dateline May 4th --- Eleven teams, four of them Canadian, will vie for the 2015 Women’s World Squash Doubles Championship at the Onwentsia Club in suburban Chicago later this week as a culmination of the 2014-15 WDSA campaign. Americans Amanda Sobhy and Natalie Grainger, who won this biennial event the last time it was held, in New York in 2013, are entered, as are the 2013 finalists (and 2011 champions) Seanna Keating and Steph Hewitt of Canada; five countries (the Netherlands, Colombia and England, in addition to the U. S. and Canada) are represented overall.

   The top two seeded teams are both British, namely No. 1 Suzie Pierrepont and Carrie Hastings and No. 2 Gina Stoker and Victoria Simmonds. The latter pairing teamed up for the first time at the John’s Island Open in Vero Beach a few weeks ago, reaching the semis before losing to the eventual champs Dana Betts and Tarsh McElhinny. Their quarterfinal match-up on Friday will be with whichever team wins what should be a highly competitive round-of-16 encounter Thursday afternoon between Canadians Tara Mullins and Marcy Sier, who strongly challenged eventual champs Keating and Hewitt in the semis of the Canadian National Doubles last month, and the Colombian pairing of Catalina Palaez and Isabel Restrepo, each of whom played on a Trinity College team that won a Howe Cup emblematic of the women’s national collegiate team championship. Also positioned in the bottom half of the draw are Sobhy and Grainger, who will face Betts and Sarah West in an all-American quarterfinal.

   In the top half, Pierrepont and Hastings will oppose the winner of an all-Canadian opening-round match between Nikole Todd/Jackie Moss and Karen Jerome/Michele Ramsey, while Keating and Hewitt will await the winner of the match pitting Americans Amy Milanek and Dawn Gray against Dutch stars Karen Kronemayer and Annelize Naude. This tournament will constitute a farewell appearance for Hastings, who with husband Michael Bull is planning to return to their native England later this month. The semis will take place Saturday afternoon, with the final set for Sunday at 4 PM. A substantial number of the entrants in this draw will also be playing in the 15-team Mixed Doubles competition, in which Pierrepont is again the top seed, this time with John Russell. Australians Paul Price and Narelle Krizek, who won the World Mixed Doubles in 2013, will not be attempting to defend this title, since Price, who had been based in Toronto for more than a decade, moved back to Australia this past summer, and Krizek, who severely injured a tendon in her left foot during the final of the Hashim Khan Open in Denver in March, is still recovering and won’t be cleared to play squash for several more weeks.