Grainger, Bassett Emerge Victorious In U. S. Pan Am Games Trials 
By Rob Dinerman for DailySquashReport.com
Photo by Steve Cubbins

Dateline June 21, 2011 --- Former world No. 1 Natalie Grainger and 2010 U. S. Pan Am Federation Cup team member Graham Bassett won their respective divisions when the U. S. try-outs for team-alternate positions on the U. S. team that will compete this October in Guadalajara, Mexico, were held at Sports Club L. A. in midtown Manhattan this past weekend. Bassett won the three-player men’s round-robin by edging out Cornell sophomore Bryan Keating by scores of 11-9 9-11 11-9 11-8, while Grainger, the reigning five-time U. S. national champion, dominated her  overwhelmed opponents without yielding more than 14 points in any of her three matches.

   It is worth noting that the three-man team rosters have already been set, with reigning seven-time S. L. Green champion Julian Illingworth, Gilly Lane (S. L. Green runner-up each of the past three years) and ’08 S. L. Green finalist Christopher Gordon comprising the men’s squad and five-time U. S. champion Latasha Khan heading a women’s lineup that also includes current World Junior champion Amanda Sobhy and 2011 U. S. Nationals finalist Olivia Blatchford. The fact that the only prize at stake was as a team alternate may have contributed to the paucity of the turnout. The U. S. Squash association had decided that membership on these teams would be determined solely based upon PSA and WISPA world rankings, and when Grainger, a World Open and British Open finalist in the mid-2000’s, announced her retirement from WISPA tour competition during the biennial World Team Championships this past autumn, her name was dropped from the WISPA rankings.

   This means that, although Grainger is by far the pre-eminent woman squash player in the United States, her only chance of representing the U. S. in this prestigious quadrennial two-week competition (in which approximately 6,000 athletes from 42 countries are expected in participate in three dozen different sports) will be if one of the officially designated three team members has to withdraw due to illness, injury or some other superseding circumstance.

   This latter phenomenon, and the related topic of the wisdom of having a potentially contending team (the American women finished second the last time this event was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, led by Grainger, who swept to the gold medal in the Individual tourney and went undefeated in the team event that followed) enter a tournament of this magnitude without their best player, were part of the debate surrounding this team trials. The format for U. S. team selection has varied significantly from one year to the next --- one longtime trials participant wearily noted that in her nine years of attempting to make the squad, she had allegedly been involved in nine different formats! --- and the constant tinkering and lack of a consistent approach has often caused controversy, even to the point where in one episode a decade or so ago, the trials took place amid the threat of lawsuits.

   A year ago, as one example, when the trials were held this past September, a spot on the actual American teams (as a full team member, not just as an alternate) was up for grabs, and the entry level was substantially higher. Todd Harrity and Kristin Lange won their respective draws, and Bassett, who lost to Harrity in the final of the eight-player men’s draw, was later added to the squad when Lane was subsequently sidelined with an injured hamstring. That event’s women’s tournament included a number of teenage members of the U. S. Junior team, and the absence (excepting Maria Elena Ubina) of that group this past weekend was somewhat confounding in light of the fact that the World Junior Girls championships will be held in Boston just one month from now.

   The most competitive of the women’s matches occurred on Saturday, when 2006 Intercollegiate Individual champion Lily Lorentzen arm-fought her way to an exciting four-game win over Hope Prockop before then losing in three close games to the precocious teenager Ubina. Unfortunately, Prockop, making her first tournament appearance since incurring a torn meniscus cartilage in her left knee at the U. S. National Championships three months ago, badly re-aggravated this injury against Grainger in her second match on Saturday afternoon, and was forced to default her scheduled Sunday match with Ubina. Prockop may require an operation once the swelling has gone down, but is hopeful that she will be able to return to tournament play during the forthcoming 2011-12 season.




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