July 15, 2001-
In professional sports, the careers of two athletes often become
intertwined. This phenomenon normally evolves from a combination of
chronology, continuity and confluence from which a shared legacy
emerges in the public perception. They may be friends, and may even
have similar backgrounds, but when locked in competition they feel the
intense rivalry that develops between them. Mutual respect is created
between many pairs of players, while mutual hostility festers between
others, but the rivalry, particularly when it exists at the top
echelon, can be powerful enough to define an entire era in the history
of the sport.
The differing courses that a rivalry can take over the span of a career
are often influenced not only by ability but also by the personalities
of the duelling duo. Subtle weaknesses can become glaring shortcomings
to one who learns how to exploit them: a fear of defeat, a predilection
with the flashy shot, a hesitation under pressure, a hot temper, an
inability to react promptly and properly to changing tactics. This
constant interplay of strategic and psychological adjustments causes a
competitive relationship of unique intimacy to develop between the two
athletes, a relationship forged in part by the cruel knowledge that
their rivalry will neither permit them to become strangers, nor allow
them to truly be friends.
Thus have such legends as Ali and Frazier, Evert and Navratilova, and
Russell and Chamberlain marched in uneasy but permanent alignment into
history's expanding ledger and thus have the battles they waged
impacted the annals of their sports in a manner that far outweighs the
statistical measurements of their formidable achievements.
In squash, a trio of rivalries during the 1970's and 1980's truly stand
out for the role they played in the development of the North American
professional game. It was during this period, beginning with the early
1970's and extending to 1992, that the WPSA Tour, which was in its
infancy as the 1970's began, rose to prominence before merging with the
world PSA softball tour in the mid- 1990's.
Many factors can be cited for this expansion, from the promotional
expertise of the WPSA business office in Toronto, under the leadership
of Clive Caldwell, to the technological advantages of the
three-glass-wall portable Tour Court, to the vision displayed by those
companies whose active sponsorship had enabled the once fledgling tour
to grow.
But it is the players themselves whose styles and performances have
truly constituted the sport's headlights. The sparse ten-man ranking
list of 1972 metamorphosed by 1990 into a 100-player computerized
system, and the undulating rhythms of lifelong rivalries constantly
showed up in the weekly shifts of these rating charts.
This article focuses on those three head-to-head rivalries that
commanded special prominence during this crucial time in the WPSA
expansion. As it happens, this set of rivalries are of similar duration
and spaced fairly evenly throughout the period we have been describing.
But what they really share is the quality of having defined the tour's
ongoing evolution.
1. The Mid Seventies: Sharif and Victor
This extended series represented a classic contrast of both personal
background and playing style. Sharif, the eldest scion of squash's most
celebrated legend Hashim Khan, had by the early 70's left behind his
early pro softball barnstorming with Jonah Barrington, Geoff Hunt, and
Abou Taleb and clearly established himself as both the top player and
most charismatic figure in the North American game. He radiated a
mixture of confidence, elegance and dignity that both charmed the
galleries and overwhelmed his opponents.
The natural gifts that Sharif so clearly enjoyed appeared on cursory
inspection to be totally lacking in Victor Niederhoffer, which made his
noteworthy list of accomplishments somewhat difficult to fathom. Indeed
while Sharif seemed in every respect totally in his element on a squash
court, Niederhoffer appeared badly out of place on one. This situation
was most graphically symbolized by the mismatched sneakers which oddly
but understandably remained his trademark. Born the son of a Brooklyn
cop, Victor eventually graduated near the top of his class at Harvard,
where under the immortal Crimson coach Jack Barnaby he developed into
an intercollegiate and five-time US National Champion.
Though Niederhoffer's heavy-footed movement seemed a sorry substitute
for Sharif's effortless grace, his sharp eyes, exceptional hand-speed,
and practiced touch made Victor far more fit for the game than the
casual observer suspected. So too did his steely competitive instincts,
which belied his un-heroic aspect and often reduced the
Khan-Niederhoffer confrontations to a clash of warring wills. Though
others, such as Rainer Ratinac, Stu Goldstein and Gordy Anderson,
possessed superior fitness and/or firepower levels, it was Niederhoffer
whom Sharif admitted he feared the most during the 1970's for Sharif
knew that in Victor he was doing battle with an opponent whose mental
toughness was at least the equal of his own.
Though their first match occurred in the quarter-finals of Sharif's
first-ever USA pro tournament in the 1967 North American Open (with
Victor's driving forehand rail winner giving him a 17-16 fifth-game
triumph), it was during the middle portion of the following decade that
their rivalry really took form.
In fact, these two titans would meet in the finals of every tournament
they both entered during the 26-month stretch between November '74 and
January '77 (8 meetings), and this skein might well have extended
considerably further were it not for the abrupt intrusion of eight-time
British Open Champion Geoff Hunt, who defeated Niederhoffer in the
semis of the '77 North American Open before barely dropping an airtight
four-game final to Khan.
Sharif rebounded from that one-point loss in '67 to control their
matches throughout the early 1970s up until undoubtedly the most
memorable match in their interesting rivalry, which occurred on the
volatile terrain of Mexico City in the finals of the '75 North American
Open. There Sharif's record six-year title run was abruptly terminated
in a four-game struggle that saw Niederhoffer's wicked genius and
relentless determination rise superior to a series of physical
ailments, the lung-searing altitude, and the Khan aura of invincibility.
This latter point was particularly telling, for Sharif's lengthy
domination of the North American scene was beginning to traumatize his
colleagues to a degree that decimated their pre-match confidence and
thus greatly facilitated Sharif's victories. Niederhoffer refused to
bow to the snowballing effects of this phenomenon, and his perseverance
through a sequence of long attritional late-match exchanges found its
full reward on this sultry afternoon in Mexico.
Ultimately, however, the legacy of this '75 Open final would lie both
in the milestone triumph it held for Victor and in the galvanizing
effect it proved to have on a chastened Sharif, who systematically and
confidently ripped through all five of their matches during the 1975-76
season. Included among the latter was the '76 Open final in New York,
though Niederhoffer entered this match slowed by a pre-match ankle
injury that gave an eerie no-mas aspect to the twenty-minute 15-3, 7
and 5 walkthrough that ensued.
Niederhoffer would have one remaining shining moment on his hometown
turf, at the Boodles Gin Open the following November, where he took a
2-1 lead and rode a rash of increasingly anxious Khan tins to a
one-sided fourth game victory prior to grudgingly (18-17 in the fourth)
ceding the last of the Niederhoffer-Khan matches, also at the Boodles
event the following season.
Victor's retirement in the spring of '78 brought to a close the series
between two champions who, for all their differences, were kindred
spirits, bound as they were by their fierce competitive determination
and the celebrity that they were forced to share.
With Niederhoffer's departure, Sharif knew that the next true challenge
would come from the pack of young wolves loudly baying at his door. By
far the most fearsome of those was the mercurial young Canadian Michael
Desaulniers, whose captivating rivalry with Sharif next dominated the
tour.
II. The Early Eighties: Sharif and
Michael
It is somewhat ironic that the same tournament which ended an important
chapter of one major squash rivalry would also witness the birth of
another. The 1977 North American Open, which is most vividly remembered
for the manner in which Geoff Hunt snapped the Niederhoffer-Khan
consecutive finals streak, played a big role in kicking off the rivalry
between Michael Desaulniers and Sharif Khan, whose unexpectedly
difficult four-game first-round win over the precocious Harvard
freshman gave an early glimpse of the high-powered series that would
follow.
A painful stress fracture in his right foot would sideline Desaulniers
for the entire 1978-79 season, but when he returned to the competitive
fray the following autumn the rivalry would begin in earnest. And if
Sharif was forced to deal in tactical weaponry and psychological
warfare in his battle with Niederhoffer, the issue for him with
Desaulniers was more one of physical survival.
Michael's blinding speed, hyperactive personality, and constantly
attacking style enabled him to create an energy zone that caused
meltdowns in his opposition. Playing an entire match at Michael's pace
was akin to playing basketball against a full-court press, or perhaps
tending goal against a two-man power play in hockey.
Though Sharif had himself always thrived on picking up the pace, it
must be remembered that Desaulniers was 23 when he turned pro in the
spring of 1980, and Sharif, even by his own undocumented admission, had
passed his thirty-fifth birthday as the decade of the 1980’s began.
If this chronological disparity brought understandable stamina and
firepower advantages to the young Canadian superstar, its true
influence upon the character of their rivalry lies more in the deeper
issues it raised both between the two athletes and for the viewing
audience. For in the inevitability of the impending Desaulniers
takeover, Sharif was forced at last to deal head-on with the terror
that lurks behind the dream of being a star professional athlete, the
terror that comes with the frightening unknowns which the end brings.
In a way it is the fate of the champion athlete, like that of the
heroic warrior, to receive rewards and applause simultaneously with the
means of self destruction. What both must eventually confront is the
dark side of the Faustian bargain: to live all one's days knowing he
can never recapture the exhilaration of those fleeting years of
intensified youth. It is a powerful augury of the larger mortality that
eventually claims us all. And throughout the winter of '81 Mike
Desaulniers mercilessly hammered this painful point home to his valiant
adversary with a ruthless finality that no one before him had ever been
able to approach.
One three-week span from late January through mid-February seemed
especially revealing in that regard. The pair met in the finals of all
three tournaments - Minnesota, Toronto and Detroit - with Desaulniers
winning first in a fifth-game overtime (18-16), then in a regulation
fifth game (15-10) and finally 15-10 in the fourth, his margin of
victory slightly expanding with each successive salvo.
The middle of these was the most significant, both for bringing
Desaulniers his first (and only) WPSA Championship and for the exact
statistical deadlock that existed on the computer rankings coming into
the tournament. Desaulniers would thus leave Sharif's home city in
possession of both this major title and the number 1 ranking position,
which Sharif, incredibly, had held uninterrupted ever since the 1968-69
season --- a period of 12 years!
Desaulniers, who would consolidate his lead both the following week in
Detroit and one month later in San Francisco, was on his way to the
first of two Player of the Year awards. But Sharif, even though
slightly past his prime by then, was one of the few who grasped the
fact that the same full throttle that impelled Michael's furious style
could also be made to imperil it, in the form of tinny patches and
impetuous shot selection against a slower pace.
Several other players, notably the methodical, rock-solid veteran Clive
Caldwell, also spotted these drawbacks, which that spring contributed
to a brief Desaulniers slump and enabled Sharif, with a strong
late-season surge, to come away with the North American Open title and
top season-ending ranking, both for the final time.
The following autumn Sharif would defeat Michael in the finals of both
a tour stop in Detroit and the prestigious Boston Open event, but by
springtime of '82 Desaulniers had locked up the top spot with a torrid
midseason tear that gave him an insurmountable rankings lead on the
field. Sharif's last stand came, appropriately enough, in the North
American Open, where this twelve-time Open Champion led 1-0, 8-1 before
his momentum and strength gave out and he crumbled under the glare of
the hot Cleveland court and Michael's relentless attack.
Sharif still had one hurrah left, when his hometown Toronto admirers
inspired him to an emotional victory over Desaulniers in the Mennen
Cup, but by this time his aging frame amongst his sleekly wrought
younger opponents struck the eye for time's mismatch the way Joe
Louis's had next to Marciano's prime beef. It is to his everlasting
credit that Sharif held his top position with heroic tenacity and, when
finally forced to surrender it, did so with a dignity that belied the
pain he must have been feeling.
And of Desaulniers it must similarly be said that it was he, and not
the dozen-odd others who tried and failed before him, (Goldstein,
Briggs, Caldwell and brother Aziz to name a few) who finally brought
Sharif's reign to an end and thereby came to occupy the throne on which
his rival had sat so regally for so long.
III. The Mid Eighties: Jahangir and
Mark
It is a tribute to both the longevity of Sharif's supremacy and the
swiftness of Mark Talbott's ascent that Desaulniers's time at the top
seemed so ephemeral. The 1982-83 campaign had no sooner begun when it
became obvious that the soft-spoken Talbott had made giant strides with
his game while Desaulniers, hampered both by leg injuries and, perhaps,
the burn-out effects of his own sparkling incandescence, had lost much
of his intimidating bravado.
Talbott reached the finals of all 17 ranking tournaments that season,
winning 15 of them, including every major title, and the autumn of '83
saw no diminution of either the eagerness or energy supply that were
the cornerstone of Talbott's patient and error-free style. Mark's
marvelous conditioning and concentration levels belied a gentle
disposition and friendly manner that made him a far less antagonistic
target than some of his more fiery predecessors had been. Thus, by
mid-November of '83, when the Boston Open rolled around, an atmosphere
of easy stability was beginning to surround the tour, and the
23-year-old Talbott's predominance among his protagonists seemed
assured for a considerable time to come.
Into this scenario strode a darkly handsome paragon with picture-book
racquet-work and the ability to maneuver his supple musculature with
the lithe grace of a dancer. Jahangir Khan, who had spent the past
several seasons first challenging and then surpassing Geoff Hunt for
supremacy in the softball game, had by this juncture consolidated his
position firmly in Europe and turned his attention across the Atlantic
Ocean to the challenges and opportunities that the North American game
had to offer.
Over he came in quest of his claim that he could be the best of both
games, for Jahangir understood that, however complete his domination of
the international game, only by conquering his WPSA counterparts as
well could he truly "unify the title" and establish himself as
indisputably the greatest squash player in the world.
If Jahangir's competitive North American debut was attended with
considerable pre-tournament conjecture as how well he could adjust in
switching abruptly to so markedly different a game, the issue seemed
especially pertinent in his second-round encounter with Tom Page, whose
blasted drives and exuberant athleticism swiftly presented Jahangir
with both a two-game deficit and the sobering possibility of having his
entire expedition end in failure. From this ill-boding juncture,
Jahangir stormed through twelve straight games, the final three coming
by devastating margins over Mark Talbott, who was overwhelmed 15-8, 8
and 5 in the first and most one-sided of the eleven meetings --- all in
finals --- that they would have over the course of the next thirty
months. The fact that Jahangir would wind up playing in only 13 WPSA
tournaments during this period points up the degree to which this pair
dominated the rest of the field en route to their special Sunday
summits.
The infrequency of Jahangir's appearances in North America lay not only
in the demands of the ISPA overseas circuit but also in the
perspicacity of his advisory team, whose shrewd strategy was to have
Jahangir execute a series of well-spaced sorties designed to bring him
much of the WPSA's prize money and all of its major titles while
denying his opponents the opportunity to acclimatize to his lethal
stroke production, fitness and patience.
Jahangir's presence at a tournament could be likened to that of the
most striking woman at a party; if the mood of the room changed and
there was eyeball telepathy wherever she went, so the atmosphere was on
a noticeably different frequency when Jahangir was around; it became
charged with gratifying possibilities, the musk of encounter was in the
air.
Nor was this aura diminished by the inscrutable front he steadfastly
maintained, which made him a bit mysterious even to the close-knit
contingent of his Pakistani comrades and kin. But if figuring out
Jahangir was frustrating, defeating him was virtually impossible, as
Jahangir most emphatically demonstrated in one stretch in May '85,
during which he won the finals of the British Open, Concord-ed over to
New York and proceeded to win the North American Open as well, rising
superior to fatigue, letdown jet lag, and the best that both versions
of the sport had to offer.
This universality of supremacy seems a particularly instructive point
to those spectators and journalists who yielded to the temptation to
bill the Talbott-Khan rivalry as a barometer for the relative merits of
the two games and thus inferred from Jahangir's 10-1 record the
superiority of international-ball players over their North American
counterparts. Such conclusions seem, to this writer, to be seriously
flawed both because of the mediocrity most other ISPA stars exhibited
in their visits to WPSA hardball competition and because Jahangir's
domination of the international-ball circuit throughout the mid-1980s
was, if anything, even more extreme than was the case in North
America.The difference, as Jahangir consistently proved in every major
tournament with either ball, was simply between himself and everyone
else.
Khan's fruitful forays onto the WPSA circuit ended as suddenly as they
began when at the conclusion of the 1985-86 season he decided to
concentrate his energies solely on the softball game going forward.
It is unfortunate that their rivalry turned out to be so brief; both
men were injury-free and only in their early 20s at that point, and
might well have met close to 50 times had Jahangir decided to remain on
the WPSA tour.
In summing up their three seasons of top-level competition one cannot
acknowledge Jahangir's clear-cut statistical dominance without also
declaiming the rewards Talbott earned from the enthusiasm with which he
responded to this enormous challenge. While the thrilling 18-16
fifth-game victory he registered in the finals of the '84 Boston Open
was a landmark moment in Mark's career, the more enduring legacy he
gained from Jahangir's presence was in the substantial improvements he
was motivated to make in what was already a highly successful game.
Talbott acquired a personal coach in the respected Ken Binns; upgraded
his volleying to put greater time pressure on his opponents; and, most
importantly, developed a much sharper array of shots than he had
previously possessed.
Many players would have been traumatized by the string of losses that
Jahangir administered, but Mark's irrepressible competitive ardor
caused him to instead react by continuing to dominate the tour
throughout the lengthy period after Jahangir's departure. There is no
question that Talbott's game and career record reached levels that
would not have been attainable were it not for Jahangir's presence; nor
is there any doubt that, had Jahangir reconsidered his decision and
returned to the WPSA circuit, Talbott would have been better prepared
than ever to duplicate his Boston break-through.
Whether Mark's additional firepower and repertoire of shots would
indeed be enough to swing the balance against so redoubtable an
adversary is, sadly, forever to be subject to speculation. What is
known, however, is that their rivalry both confirmed Jahangir's
standing as the world's top squash player in both games and inspired
Talbott to become, equally undeniably, the greatest American player in
the history of the hardball game.
CONCLUSION
While it is tempting to seek numerical certainty for arguing which
protagonist won or lost an extended sports rivalry, the bittersweet
truth is probably at least as much a matter of personal perception as
of statistical analysis. Any worthy rivalry gradually acquires a
character of its own, and the genesis of its varying course springs
from reasons as complex and elusive as the athletes who play the games.
None of the rivalries we have chronicled contained any final truths or
ultimate resolutions; indeed, one of the most fascinating
characteristics of competition, especially among the sport's
superstars, is the continuity of opportunity that the upcoming season
always provides.
What can, however, be confidently stated is that each of these three
rivalries represented an immense commitment on the part of both
competitors that communicated itself on a visceral level to those
fortunate enough to witness their memorable and extended battles.
A SUMMARY OF THE GREAT WORLD SQUASH
RIVALRIES
Hashim/Roshan/Azam Khan 1954-60
Henri Salaun vs Diehl Mateer 1954-61
Sharif Khan vs Victor Niederhoffer 1967-77
Jonah Barrington vs Geoff Hunt 1968-73
Sharif Khan vs Michael Desaulniers 1977-86
Geoff Hunt vs Qamar Zaman 1978-80
Geoff Hunt vs Jahangir Khan 1980-82
Jahangir Khan vs Mark Talbott 1983-86
Jahangir Khan vs Jansher Khan 1986-93
Michelle Martin vs Sarah Fitz-Gerald 1996-99
Jonathon Power vs Peter Nicol 1986-2001