John Russell And Clive Leach Capture Big Apple Open Crown by Rob Dinerman Dateline November 10th
--- Trailing 8-4 and later 13-11 in the fourth game of the final round
of the 12th annual Big Apple Open, hosted as always by the New York
Athletic Club in mid-town Manhattan, first-year partners and 2013 World
Doubles finalists Clive Leach and John Russell conjured up a
match-closing four-point run that clinched their brutally hard-earned
15-13 15-12 12-15 15-13 victory over second seeds Manek Mathur and
Yvain Badan, who have now reached the finals of this tournament for the
past three years in a row but are still looking for their first Big
Apple Open title. This evening’s victory by Russell and Leach, who
thereby avenged a highly competitive four-game semifinal loss to
Mathur/Badan last month in Baltimore, marked a victorious return to the
host club, where they had both been teaching pros from 2008-10, and was
especially noteworthy for the manner in which it built upon the
riveting, nearly-three-hour 15-13 fifth-game Sunday-afternoon triumph
over the top seeds and prohibitive favorites Damien Mudge and Ben Gould.
This was the first-ever Big Apple Open final in which
neither Mudge or Gould was a participant; indeed, throughout the past
10 editions, BOTH of them had reached the final round, for the first
six years as opponents and the last four as victorious teammates. They
have won 42 sanctioned ranking tournaments in 47 appearances during
their four-plus years as partners. Three of their five losses have come
in the semis, and it is noteworthy that in all three instances, two of
which have been by two points or less, the team that defeated them,
evidently inspired rather than depleted by its herculean
accomplishment, has then proceeded to win the subsequent final ---
Mathur and Badan did so in the 2011 Briggs Cup, as did Leach and Paul
Price in the 2013 North American Open and now Leach and Russell in the
2014 Big Apple Open.
Tonight’s match, though characterized throughout its
high-intensity 110-minute duration by a relentless sequence of
high-voltage blasting, nick-finding shot-making, extraordinary court
coverage and in-sync teamwork, was ultimately defined by the
eleventh-hour mini-runs that settled the issue in the case of each of
the four games, all of which seesawed on even terms until the very late
stages. Mathur and Badan led 13-11 in the first game before dropping
the last four points in deflating fashion when they coughed up three
tins, the last of which coming when Mathur cut a volleyed drop shot a
little too close. When they then crept from 9-12 to 12-13 in the
second, only to be stymied by a nervy Leach reverse-corner winner off
the back wall and a Badan tin, they appeared a bit demoralized by these
two tight reversals and fell behind 8-4 in the third game. Leach and
Russell were converting most of their opportunities to collect winners,
while Badan and Mathur were just a tad off, catching some tops of tins,
over-hitting when they had openings and getting frustrated as the score
mounted against them.
Their history as teammates on Trinity College’s
championship squad during the 2005-06 season and doubles partners since
the outset of the 2010-11 pro campaign (making theirs the longest
lasting partnership on the current SDA circuit) has created a chemistry
that serves them well, particularly in adversity, and they courageously
bootstrapped their way out of this predicament with one swift
four-point spurt that knotted the score at 8-all and then another that
brought them from 10-11 to 14-11. At 12-11, Badan passed Leach with a
look-away drive down the right wall, following which he hit a hard
serve that rolled out from the back wall before Leach could react to
give Mathur/Badan three game-balls, the second of which they salted
away on a shallow backhand volley from Mathur.
The latter nailed three consecutive winners at 9-8
in the fourth to give his team a 12-8 advantage, and for the briefest
of moments it appeared that Leach and his British compatriot Russell
might be starting to give way to the energy and athleticism of their
far younger opponents, who would seemingly have the momentum heading
into a potential fifth game. But at this juncture Badan tinned a
forehand straight drop shot and Leach, whose inventive shot selection
is always on his opponents’ minds, even when he makes the conventional
play, slipped in a forehand reverse-corner winner followed by a Russell
dead-nick to close the gap to 11-12. Mathur then lashed a cross-court
drive that rolled out in front of Leach for 11-13, but, just as had
happened at exactly this juncture of the first game, the next (and
final) four points landed in the Russell/Leach column. Leach has played
a starring role on the tour for many years but Russell, affectionately
nicknamed the British Bulldog, has been perhaps the revelation of the
season so far, having visibly slimmed down since the end of last season
with a corresponding improvement in his mobility and fitness level to
augment his always lethal stroke production.
He certainly seized the moment on this occasion, scoring
with three consecutive and varied winners --- a cross-drop, a lob
serve that died in back, and a forehand reverse-three-wall nick --- to
earn a championship-point at 14-13. Two lets later and after a savage
exchange of all-court salvos, Leach knifed a tightly-angled forehand
reverse-corner winner and threw his fists into the air in
celebration as he and Russell triumphantly exited the court, leaving
behind a transformed SDA competitive landscape as the tour heads to
Atlanta for the PDC Cup later this week.
