Georg and Griselin Advance To Inaugural PST Hanoi Final
by Kenneth Tuttle
October 13, 2012
First match of the day: Travis Fennell up against Arnaud Caubet.
These two had played several weeks before in a league tournament and at that time Travis had taken a relatively comfortable win. This time had a similar scoreline, but the rallies were quite a bit different. The first game was full of rallies that were hard, quick, lots of attacking from Arnaud, and a fair bit of up and down the wall from Travis.
There wasn't much between the two until just before the end of the first game, when several errors gave the game to Travis. After that, Travis upped the pressure, and started to attack earlier, having worked Arnaud so hard physically in the first game. Arnaud whose training matches the past few weeks had been curtailed because of an injury, just didn't have the endurance to up the pressure when he was able to force and opening.
Arnaud was quite disappointed, because he came in with a game plan, and it was working in the first game. But injury lay off just reduced his accuracy and fitness enough that as Travis extended the rallies, holding the attack till late, the match became a foregone conclusion.
For Travis it was the winning approach, but it did mean that the rallies were longer than he's used to, and this ended up costing him in the next match.
Second match of the day: Stefan Georg and David Feldman.
A cross border match, USA versus Canada. Stefan who was a former collegiate squash player at George Washington University in the Washington DC area, plays a very steady 'Peter Nicol' type of game. The ball just kept coming back, and coming back, until finally the ball couldn't be reached.
David who is the antithesis of the long straight game that is so prevalent throughout the British Commonwealth, was successful often enough to keep the rallies interesting and force Stefan to work. But the steady rally game of Stefan simply nullified most of David's attack, and kept him at bay. A relatively simple result for Stefan.
Third match of the day: James Fox running with Nguyen Huu Viet.
James who did his university time and league play in England, doesn't really play the 'English' game. His game is strictly slash and burn. It's all out driving and running. Now this works often enough, as the speed of shot and feet generally keeps his opponents on the back foot. And James is one of the fittest players around, so usually a winning combination.
But when you meet up with someone who is not awed by the speed, and does well to anticipate and position for hard driving balls coming off the back and side walls it can make for a long match. And that's what we got. In particular, when James realized that he was going to have to vary his game a bit. There really was not other option, after Viet easily and simply fed off James' full onslaught in the first game, using James' power to direct the ball into winning spaces.
As James started to vary a bit, picking and choosing moments to go short, or cross both short and long, this started to open the court more, and taxed Viet's legs a bit. But, in changing his game, James' error count went up a bit, and so the next three games were quite close, not much between the two players, but in the end it was Viet's calm, unruffled demeanor that carried him the the last couple of points in the second and fourth and thus the match.
Fourth match of the day: Julien Griselin and Guillaume Humbert.
With four Frenchman in the draw, this was almost a given, two countrymen facing off in their first match. And it was a good match to see. Two gentleman playing, and enjoying their friendly match. But early on, it was obvious that Julien has previously played at the higher levels in the leagues and tournaments in France had too much game for Guillaume.
When Julien was mentally on, then the conclusion of the rallies was pretty certain. But when he relaxed for a moment, then Guillaume did often pounce on the opportunity and hit winning shots. Guillaume relatively new to the Vietnam competitive squash arena has his own power game, similar to James, and yet a bit different. But it is a game that if you're at all complacent the points quickly mount up.
The first game was relatively comfortable for Julien, and maybe that was his problem as in both the second and third games he let Guillaume get a lead, and he then had to catch up. In the end though, he did what he had to do, kept his cool, remained confident, and took the points he needed.
Certainly Julien was looking good and now the clear favorite for the tournament.
Back To Main
