An Analysis Of Egypt’s Final-Round Win Over The US
In The 2011 World Junior Team Championship
By Rob Dinerman
Dateline August 1st, 2011 --- It would be difficult if not impossible to imagine a more ideal set of circumstances for the US team that played against defending-champion Egypt this past Sunday at Harvard’s Murr Center in the final round of the women’s World Junior Team Championships, and that lost to the Egyptians, two matches to one. The Americans were led by Amanda Sobhy, the defending 2010 World Individuals champion, and Olivia Blatchford, who for years have been the two crown jewels of the vaunted American junior program, who are both ranked in the WISPA top 40, who were the second and the third/fourth seeds in the Individuals competition respectively, and who were eligible for the final time before “aging out” of this biennial tournament, as is also the case with Haley Mendez, who like her famed pair of teammates has played on several past American junior squads in international play. They were led by head coach Jack Wyant and team manager (effectively a co-coach) Natalie Grainger, each of whom has both a glittering resume and something to prove. And the entire event, originally planned to take place in Egypt, had been shifted to this suburban-Boston locale in the wake of the political turmoil that had attended the ouster of Hosni Mubarak several months ago after his three decades of autocratic rule. An Americans-only Individuals final was regarded as not at all out of the question, a US first-place finish in the Teams a strong possibility.
It is worth noting that had this latter outcome occurred, it would have marked the SECOND such result for the US in world girls junior competition, not the first --- for all the hype on the U. S. Squash website and elsewhere along the lines of the 2-1 semifinals win over India being “historic” and marking the first-ever advance of not only the junior girls team but of ANY American team to the final, it is an indisputable empirical fact that in the spring of 1980, when the World Junior Squash Championships were held for the first time in Kungalv, Sweden, Alicia McConnell (later a seven-time U. S. Nationals hardball champion) both won the Individuals crown and led teammates Patrice McConnell (Alicia’s older sister and the ’84 Princeton captain), Karen Kelso (later a four-time hardball Nationals runner-up) and Kathy Castle to the Team title. Diane Staley was also on the American team, which was coached by Carol Weymuller and which emerged triumphant in this five-team event in which Sweden placed second, Ireland third, Scotland fourth and Finland fifth. There was also a 16-team Boys tournament, which was won by Australia. The 1980-81 edition of the annual yearbook which the U. S. Squash association provided to its members for many decades (before, regrettably, discontinuing this service a number of years ago) chronicles this event in full measure on pages 62-63, complete with photographs, team rankings and a substantial accompanying article.
The historical backdrop aside, the 2011 contingent entered the Teams portion of the 10-day tournament chastened by the Individuals --- where neither Sobhy (who lost in the semifinals to Nour El-Sherbini, who then lost to her Egyptian teammate Nour El Tayeb in the final) nor Blatchford (who was eliminated in the quarters by Emily Whitlock of England) had fulfilled their pre-tournament seeding --- and determined to get their revenge in the Team event. Both American stars prevailed in a 2-1 quarterfinal win over New Zealand, following which in the semis against India, Sobhy’s win at No. 1 over Asian Junior champion Anaka Alankamony, balanced by Blatchford’s unexpected and straight-game loss to Saumya Karki at No. 2, put the outcome in the hands of Mendez, who came through in her No. 3 match against Aparajitha Balamurukan with late-game rallies that earned her 11-9 victories in both the third and close-out fourth games.
Whether Mendez, especially in light of her semifinal heroics, should have been tabbed to play the No. 3 match (the leadoff match in the team final) against Egypt in lieu of the actual Wyant/Grainger choice of Amanda Sobhy’s younger sister Sabrina, is certainly debatable and may or may not have affected the outcome. The selection of the younger Sobhy, while consistent with the plan Wyant stated early in the tournament to alternate these two players from one match to the next, went against everything that had happened throughout the 10-day Individuals/Teams tourney. The 14-year-old Sobhy, in her first exposure to international play at this level, had been eliminated early in the Individuals draw, then lost to her American compatriot Maria Elena Ubina in her Consolation flight and been defeated by her New Zealand opponent in the Teams quarterfinal as well. By contrast, the older and more experienced Mendez, a veteran of the US Junior squad that had competed in India the last time this event had been held in 2009, had been the talk of the first few days of this year’s Individuals event after her rousing round-of-32 win over Australia No. 1 Tamika Saxby and, as noted, had starred in the 2-1 win on Friday over India. The “karma factor” alone should have favored Mendez, who just a few weeks hence will be returning to the Harvard campus (as will Amanda Sobhy) to register as members of the freshman class of 2015.
How Mendez would have fared against a redoubtable opponent of Egyptian No. 3 Nouran El Torky’s caliber is certainly subject to speculation --- what is known is that Sabrina Sobhy, after staying close with El Torky in the first game before losing it 11-8, failed to return any of the first three serves of the second and fell behind 10-1 both in that eventual 11-3 game and the 11-3 close-out third. In the No. 1 match that followed, Amanda Sobhy’s 3-1 (11-9 in the fourth) win over just-crowned Individuals champ Nour El Tayeb had a definite double-edged dimension to it --- confirming her standing as the best player in the tournament and hence accentuating how far below her standard she had played in the Individuals --- but it largely redeemed her tournament-long performance and, more importantly, evened the overall US-vs.-Egypt meet at a match apiece, thereby hinging the outcome on the No. 2 match pitting Blatchford, coming off her aforementioned shaky showing one day earlier against India, and the 2009 Individuals winner El Sherbini, coming off reaching the final of this year’s Individuals but also not long removed from the knee surgery that she had undergone in Germany just a few months ago.
Indeed, it was the state of the precocious 15-year-old's physical health that caused a nervous mid-match moment for the Egyptian contingent when, after winning the opener 11-8 and moving out to 7-3 in the second, El Sherbini rolled her ankle and had to leave the court for an examination and a hasty tape job. There was palpable concern about the mishap’s possible impact on her mobility, but upon her return, El Sherbini promptly conjured up four consecutive early-point winners to close out that game, vesting her with a degree of momentum that she never relinquished in clinching the title with an 11-8 third, to the rousing acclaim of her Egyptian teammates and their elated coach Amir Wagih, for whom this triumph constituted the 20th world title that one or another of his country’s squads has won during his tenure as National Coach.
It is hard to overstate what a boost a US victory in THEIR year and in front of THEIR crowd on THEIR turf would have had on everyone involved in the team and its ambitious mission, from players to coaches to administrators. The players, especially the dynamic Blatchford/Amanda Sobhy duo, would have had their years of advancing up the junior and senior-level ranks (each has been a U. S. Nationals finalist in recent years) come to fruition by delivering their many coaches, sponsors and supporters this prestigious championship; the coaches, each of whom has endured frustrating moments during their noteworthy careers (five-time reigning U. S. Nationals champion Grainger is a former WISPA No. 1 who however reached several World Open and British Open finals without ever hoisting either of these two most coveted trophies in the women’s game, while none of the several Penn women’s teams Wyant coached in the past half-dozen years that were favored to win the season-culminating Howe Cup were able to do so), would have had those disappointments significantly expunged with a first-place finish this past weekend in Boston; and the U. S. Squash administration, which for years has devoted a major share of its attention, time, manpower and funds to junior squash, would have had this philosophical direction it has chosen achieve full vindication.
Instead, it was the Egyptians who for the third consecutive time were dancing in fully deserved celebration after the last ball had been struck, while the Americans’ justifiable pride in what their talented squad members accomplished was understandably tempered as well with a rueful contemplation of what might have been.
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