Pro Women’s Doubles: New York City Open To Make Debut Appearance November 21-23 by Rob Dinerman Dateline November 19th
--- The women’s professional doubles circuit will return to New York
City for the first time in three and a half years this weekend with the
inaugural New York City Open, a $17,500 tournament sponsored by
Talmage, RBC Wealth Management Derose Investment Group, Chrome Capital,
Patricia Han and UBSPORTS and hosted by the University Club of New York
and the Union Club. The history-making Tippett sisters, Tarsh Tippett
McElhinny and Narelle Tippett Krizek, the only pair of sisters ever to
hold the Nos. 1 and 2 positions in a professional squash association’s
rankings, will be the top seeds in the eight-team draw, followed by
Dana Betts and Steph Hewitt, winners of two events (the Cincinnati Open
and St. Louis Open) on last season’s schedule.
The six remaining entries --- Natalie Grainger/Suzie
Pierrepont, Tina Rix/Fernanda Rocha, Victoria Simmonds/Nicol Garon,
Seanna Keating/Nikki Todd, Tara Mullins/Tehani Guruge and Nabilla
Ariffin/Joyce Davenport --- are all pairing up for the first time, but
many of them have glittering resumes and a slew of impressive recent
achievements, most notably Grainger and Pierrepont, both of whom have
spent multiple seasons as part of No. 1 teams in the women’s pro
doubles tour, which was christened the Women’s Doubles Squash
Association (WDSA) and held that name from its inception in Autumn 2007
throughout the eight-year period ending in the Spring 2015, after which
it has been re-named the WSDA. Grainger, 38, is the only current active
doubles player who had previously been a top-tier singles player on the
WISPA circuit, and she and Jess DiMauro were the top-ranked team during
the first few years of the WDSA tour, while Pierrepont teamed with
Krizek to win 14 WDSA ranking-tournament championships, the most by far
of any team in the history of the Association, over a six-year period,
including 10 in a row dating back to their last loss, in May 2012, in
the final of that year’s Turner Cup against Hewitt and Meredeth Quick.
Among the other teams, Rocha comes into this tournament
fresh off partnering Amanda Sobhy to victory in the season-opening
Boston Open earlier this month at the University Club of Boston, where
Rocha has been based as a teaching pro for the last four years, and
Simmonds similarly teamed with Raj Nanda, her fellow coach at the
Hackley School, to win the U. S. National Mixed Doubles, 15-14 in the
fifth, in their final against Grainger and James Bamber. Keating and
Hewitt are the reigning Canadian National Doubles champs, having
dethroned three-time defenders Betts and DiMauro in a straight-game
final in Toronto this past April.
The Tippett sisters, four-time winners in WDSA competition
(Denver and Los Angeles in 2012, St. Louis and Philadelphia in 2014) as
well as the 2011 U. S. National Doubles champions, have drawn Davenport
and Arriffin as their first-round assignment on Saturday afternoon,
with the winner to then take on whichever team emerges from the
match-up between Mullins/Guruge and Rix/Rocha. In the bottom half,
Grainger will get her chance to avenge her four-week-old
simultaneous-match-ball loss to Simmonds when those two teams face each
other, while the all-Canadian duo of Keating and Todd take on Betts and
Hewitt. The semis are scheduled for 4 PM and 5 PM on Sunday, and the
final will be contested on the newly renovated doubles court at the
University Club at 6 PM Monday evening.
