12-11-24 Doubles/title>

It’s A Doubles “Double” For NYAC Pros Clinton Leeuw (Gold Racquets) and Jaymie Haycocks (SDA Squash House Challenger) This Past Weekend
by Rob Dinerman

Ray Chauncey Finalists Zeke Scherl And Charles Culhane, Tournament Chairman Mark Hinckley, Champions Hamed Anvari And Clinton Leeuw

SDA Squash House Challenger Finalists Sam Fenwick and Travis Judson, Champions Phil Barker and Jaymie Haycocks

Dateline December 10, 2024 --- The New York Athletic Club (NYAC) pros Clinton Leeuw and Jaymie Haycocks, partners for the past three seasons on the SDA pro doubles tour --- and finalists in the Sleepy Hollow Open just prior to Thanksgiving after their pair of excellent wins over Michael Ferreira/Cam Pilley (15-12 in the fifth) and Josh Hughes/Lucas Rousselet --- built upon that praiseworthy performance with an NYAC sweep of the two major doubles tournaments this past weekend. Leeuw teamed up with Hamed Anvari to win the Ray Chauncey Doubles portion of the Gold Racquets weekend at the Rockaway Hunting Club in Cedarhurst, Long Island, while Haycocks partnered Phil Barker to the SDA Squash House Challenger event at the Greenwich Water Club. Their double-triumph should give this duo plenty of positive momentum coming into the biennial Briggs Cup this weekend at the Apawamis Club, one of the most important tour stops on the SDA schedule, where they reached the semifinals the last time that tournament was held in 2022.

Barker, the head pro at the host club, and his English compatriot Haycocks were colleagues for several years, since Haycocks was also based at the Greenwich Water Club prior to moving to the NYAC in 2023. After a 3-0 quarterfinal win over Carl Baglio and Tristan Eysele, they encountered significant resistance from No. 1 seeds Andrew Muran and Calvin McCafferty, who, after winning the last three points from 12-all in the second game to square the match at a game apiece, surged through the third game 15-6 and led 9-7 in the fourth. However, at that stage, Haycocks and Barker lifted the intensity level of the play by hitting harder and earlier than before, resulting in a 17-5 run that netted them the 15-11 fourth game and earned them a 9-3 lead in the fifth en route to an eventual 15-9 tally.

Waiting for them in the finals were second seeds Sam Fenwick and Travis Judson --- both co-captains of national-championship college teams at Yale and Trinity College respectively --- who had advanced with a four-game semifinal win over the Boston-based pairing of Greg Crane and Kush Kumar. The four-game final that ensued was competitive and hard-fought, but, with the exception of the third game (which Fenwick and Judson won 15-13 from 13-all), Barker and Haycocks were steadier in the end stages of each game, repulsing a late Fenwick/Judson rally in the 15-10 first game, running off five straight points from 10-all in the second, and finishing the close-out fourth by hitting three straight winners at 12-10 to complete their well-deserved victory.

Meanwhile, out at Rockaway, Leeuw and Anvari, who had previously won the 2021 edition of this tournament, justified their No. 1 seeding with a trio of victories over first Adham Madi and Reed Endresen, then Senen Ubina and Tor Christoffersen and finally Zeke Scherl and Charles Culhane. Byed to the quarters of the 13-team draw, Leeuw and Anvari dropped only one game, and that was by a 15-14 score in the third game of their semifinal match, which they decisively closed out with a 15-8 fourth. Most of the weekend’s excitement occurred in the tournament’s bottom half, in which Ashley Davies and T.J. Dembinski surmounted a two games to one deficit and overtook Sergio Martin and Cesar Segundo in the quarterfinals and then led Culhane and Scherl two games to one before falling barely short in a 15-13 fifth game.

The 15-11, 12 and 13 final marked Anvari’s sixth Chauncey crown, preceded by the titles he won in 2010 and 2023 with Josh Schwartz, in 2018 with Eric Bedell, in 2019 with Andres Vargas and, as mentioned, with Leeuw two years ago. That figure tied him with Morris Clothier for third place all time, behind only nine-time winner Michael Pierce and seven-time champ Larry Heath. This was the 92nd edition of this fabled tournament, which debuted in 1928 and has been held every year since then, other than during World War II and the one year (2020) that was missed due to the COVID pandemic. Another NYAC member, namely Daelum Mawji, won the singles tournament by out-playing 2023 Intercollegiate Individuals finalist George Crowne in the semis and defending champion Sam Scherl in the final, while the women’s event was won by Kayley Leonard, a top-tier member of Harvard teams that won the national team championship in all four years of her college career during the late twenty-teens, who defeated Lily Taylor-French in the final.