June 7, 2011
Dins-I am 99.9999% certain that your answer is correct.To my knowledge
there were very few squash players who played on both walls in the
pre-ISDA days.
Tom Page, Gil Mateer, the Howe brothers , Anil and Victor Elmaleh
played both walls from time to time. I can't think of anybody who had a
significant level of success who played both walls and certainly nobody
ever went undefeated in a season. I think that Germain Glidden and his
partner back in the 30's won the nationals playing an I formation but
that was a hell of a long time ago. They also experimented with staying
on the side from which they served a bit but that never lasted long and
was strictly the exception to the accepted orthodoxy about the
best way to play doubles. Jim Zug discusses that in his book "The
History of Squash". Naturally all the lefthanders only played left wall
so it could only have been a righty.
Original Question:Has
anyone besides Damien Mudge gone unbeaten as a pro on both the left and
right walls? Also how long was his unbeaten streak with Gary Waite? 86
matches I have been told. Cheers
Dinerman: Damien
Mudge and Gary Waite had an unbeaten streak that encompassed 24
tournaments and 76 matches between their loss to Anders Wahlstedt/Scott
Stoneburgh in Wilmington in Jan '01 and their loss to Blair
Horler/Clive Leach in Toronto in Feb '03, though their winning streak
actually lasted 22 months, since Mudge got injured right after
Wilmington and was sidelined until April. He is the only player in the
history of the ISDA (which was formed in Jan. 2000) to have undefeated
seasons on both walls, having gone undefeated 3 times (1999-2000,
2001-02 and 2004-05) on the right with Waite and this past season on
the left with Ben Gould. Whether any pro went undefeated on both walls
pre-ISDA is something I will research, but I would be very surprised if
anyone has.