WDSA Women’s Pro Doubles Tour Gears Up For Seventh Season    
by Rob Dinerman

Dateline October 30th --- The 2013-14 Women’s Doubles Squash Association (WDSA) season, featuring nine sanctioned tournaments, including tour stops in almost every significant squash-playing sector of the United States, will kick off with the inaugural Cincinnati Open at the Cincinnati Country Club on the second weekend on November, followed by the Los Angeles Open at the Jonathan Club one week later. Also on the schedule are the early-December U. S. Open in suburban Philadelphia, the St. Louis Open in late February, the Hashim Khan Open in Denver in mid-March, the Metrosquash Open in Chicago in late March, the John’s Island Open in Vero Beach in April, the Turner Cup with its tour-tops $30,000 purse at the Westchester Country Club in Rye in May and the season-ending Wilson Cup in Southampton in July.

   The season-opening tourney in Cincinnati, which will benefit Emanuel Squash, an urban youth-enrichment organization which is set to launch this spring, will be highlighted by the appearance of Narelle Krizek and Suzie Pierrepont, who last season regained the No. 1 team ranking that Meredeth Quick (who will miss the fall portion of the current campaign after recently giving birth) and Steph Hewitt had wrested away from them in 2011-12. Krizek and Pierrepont won all four of the tournaments--- namely the Philadelphia Open, John’s Island, Chicago and the Wilson Cup --- in which they partnered up last season, raising their overall tournaments-won total to nine, the most of any twosome in the history of the Association. Challenging this pair will be Tarsh McElhinny and Hewitt, Dana Betts and Carrie Hastings and whichever team emerges from a qualifying match between the veteran Philadelphia duo of Amy Milanek and Dawn Gray and their opponents, Kelsey Engman and Heidi Mather.

   There will be a six-team main draw in Los Angeles, with the two top-seeded teams, McElhinny/Hewitt and 2010 Players Championship winners Pierrepont and Betts, receiving byes to the semis. Milanek/Gray will be in the main draw, as will Karen Jerome with Fernanda Rocha and Victoria Simmonds, the head pro at the host club, with rising WSA singles star Amanda Sobhy, the reigning Intercollegiate champion. Joyce Davenport and 2012 Harvard captain Cece Cortes will oppose Ivy Pochoda and Orla O’Doherty for the final spot. This tournament, which will benefit the Los Angeles urban youth enrichment organization Angelsquash, will mark the first time that a WDSA event has been held concomitantly with a WSA pro singles tournament, with Sobhy adventurously competing in both draws.