Betts And Hewitt Storm To NYC Open Women's Pro Doubles Title by Rob Dinerman Dateline November 23rd ----
Caught at 13-all in the first game in what proved to be the only true
crossroads moment of the night, Dana Betts and Steph Hewitt took the
next two points and never looked back, surging to a thoroughly decisive
15-13, 15-9, 15-5 victory over the top-seeded sister team of Narelle
Krizek and Tarsh McElhinny Monday evening in the final round of the
inaugural $17,500 New York City Open before a small but enthusiastic
audience at the University Club of New York in mid-town Manhattan. In
so doing, Betts and Hewitt took their third WSDA ranking tournament in
the past 13 months (previously the Cincinnati Open early last November
and the St. Louis Open in late February, in each case also via
final-round victories over Krizek/McElhinny) and consolidated their
landmark four-game triumph over Natalie Grainger and Suzie Pierrepont
Sunday afternoon in the semis.
The opening frame was tight and a bit spasmodic,
alternating tins and winners and with neither team able to establish a
consistent rhythm as the score seesawed evenly along. Trailing 13-11,
the sisters grabbed the next two points, but at 13-all Krizek just
caught the top of the tin with a bold inside-out forehand roll-corner
from the back wall, the kind of nervy and sharply-angled thrust that
makes her game so special but that this time boomeranged, giving her
opponents a game-ball that they immediately converted when Betts buried
a forehand reverse-corner. Liberated by having come away with a game
during much of which they had failed to play their best squash, Betts
and Hewitt immediately shot off to a 4-0 (and 6-1) lead in the second
that forced Krizek and McElhinny to spend the rest of the game having
to try to fight through an imposing deficit.
They courageously crept to 7-10, then 8-10 when Krizek
nailed a forehand reverse three-wall and pumped her fist at having
drawn within striking distance of rescuing the game. But the rally
screeched to a halt when McElhinny, who spent much of the match
defensively fending off Betts’s forehand cross-court blasts, tinned a
cross-drop, launching a game-ending 5-1 spurt that Betts and Hewitt
extended to 11-1 by taking the first six points of the third game as
well. Betts was scoring with her power along with a host of
nick-finding shallow drives, while Hewitt nailed a series of tight
reverse-corner winners and kept at least a half-dozen points alive by
gliding to the front-left or covering behind Betts when the situation
called for her to do so. In addition to both Betts and Hewitt playing
individually at a very high level, they worked together seamlessly,
eroding their opponents’ morale by causing a number of points that
seemed destined to go against them to instead land in their column.
By contrast, the top seeds, perhaps affected by the
dispiriting manner in which the first game had slipped from their
grasp, were too out of sync (and out of sorts) to mount a serious
comeback during the last two games. Krizek committed more tins in each
of those games than she had in the entire semifinal match a day
earlier, and McElhinny was unable to get the height and angle on her
lobs and skid-boasts that had played so important a role in that
straight-set semis win over Tina Rix and Fernanda Rocha. Several times
they appeared possibly ready to rally, as when they strung together
three impressive points that brought them to 5-9, but each time their
run would be derailed. A Betts reverse-corner winner on a set-up
restored her team’s momentum and jump-started a six-point run to the
tape (duplicating the way that game began) that concluded the match
less than 45 minutes after it started. The tour now moves on to the
early-December Briggs Cup, which will be hosted by the Apawamis Club in
Rye, to finish off the autumn portion of the 2015-16 season.
Finals Recap:
Dana Betts/Steph Hewitt d. Narelle Krizek/Tarsh McElhinny, 15-13, 15-9, 15-5
