WDSA Women’s Pro Doubles Tour Gears Up For Eighth Season By Rob Dinerman Dateline October 1st
---- The 2014-15 Women’s Doubles Squash Association (WDSA) season,
featuring nearly a dozen sanctioned tournaments, including tour stops
in every significant squash-playing sector of the nation, will kick off
this coming weekend with the fourth annual Philadelphia Open, a
$17,500 event hosted as always by the Philadelphia Country Club
along with the nearby Cynwyd Club. The Cincinnati Open will follow in
early November, with stops scheduled in Florida, Chicago, Westchester,
Philadelphia and Denver and possibly a number of other locations as
well, pending confirmation later this autumn. Overall prize money has
increased from last season, and the presence during the past year of a
number of relatively new faces deep in ISDA and U. S. National events
is a good sign for the upcoming campaign.
Narelle
Krizek and Suzie Pierrepont have been the No. 1 team in four of the
past five years (Steph Hewitt and Meredeth Quick having been the
exception in 2011-12) and were four for four last season, during which
they won the Cincinnati Open, the U. S. Open, the John’s Island Open
and the season-culminating Turner Cup. Pierrepont, however, who for the
past several years had been the squash coach at Greenwich Academy,
recently left New York to pursue an MBA at the University of Colorado -
Denver (UCD) and she consequently plans on playing a much more limited
schedule this season. Krizek will be partnering up with her sister
Tarsh McElhinny this weekend in suburban Philadelphia, where they will
be seeded No. 1, with Quick (now fully recovered from the shoulder
injury that sidelined has last fall) and Hewitt, winners of the
mid-July Wilson Cup and finalists several times last season, seeded
second. The third/fourth seeds are Heidi Mather/Karen Jerome --- who
will face surprise 2013 U. S. Open finalists Amy Gross and Alex Clark
in what should be an intriguing match-up if the latter pair win their
qualifying match against Sarah West and Tehani Guruge --- and Dana
Betts/Victoria Simmonds. Gina Stoker and Kelsey Engman, who won the
William White and reached the final of the U. S. National Doubles
before losing to Krizek and Hewitt last winter, are set to meet Hewitt
and Quick Friday evening in the opening round of the main draw.
In
keeping with a tradition that has been in place since the first few
years of the WDSA’s existence, the Association will be linking with
several of the urban squash organizations located near its tournament
sites (the inaugural Cincinnati Open, for example, benefited Emanuel
Squash, a youth-enrichment organization that launched in early 2014) as
well as various charities. The Philadelphia Open will benefit B4Pink, a
breast health initiative whose mission is to reduce the incidence of
and help find a cure for breast cancer. The WDSA tour events all
include a number of pro-am tourneys and patron-appreciation functions,
lending an atmosphere of energy and inclusiveness that has spurred its
ascent to what should be the best season in WDSA history this year.
