No Americans Left In ToC Men’s Draw As Richards Prevails Over Princeton Star Harrity
by Rob Dinerman for DailySquashReport.com
Dateline January 19th --- Trailing 10-9 against a young American star who was executing flawlessly amid the vocal support he was enjoying from a decidedly partial gallery, PSA No. 13 Tom Richards responded to the exigencies of the moment like the fully-established tour veteran he is by ripping off five straight points and 11 of 12, then rolling to a 12-10 11-3 11-6 victory over Todd Harrity early this afternoon in a first-round Tournament Of Champions match on the portable four-glass-wall exhibition court at Grand Central Station in midtown Manhattan. Richards will now face third seed Greg Gaultier, a dominant (11-6, 2 and 1) straight-set winner over Hisham Ashour, on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 PM.
Harrity is the senior captain at Princeton, where he won the Intercollegiate Individual crown as a sophomore in 2011 and contributed a key victory this past February to the Tigers’ 5-4 win in the national collegiate final-round team triumph over 13-time defending champion Trinity College. As he forcefully demonstrated even in defeat today, his game has markedly expanded during the course of his college career --- known while he was racking up USSRA Junior titles primarily as a “stayer” with good fundamentals and an error-free style, he has added noteworthy variety in terms of his front-court and shot-making skills, as well as an ability to snap the ball, especially on his forehand flank, and an enhanced inclination to “hunt the volley” rather than merely exchanging ground-strokes along the walls.
It was this latter trait in particular that enabled him to out-play his increasingly concerned-looking British opponent by a small but definite margin through most of the first game and to acquire that game-ball chance on a shallow drop-shot from deep in the court that Richards never saw coming. But a trio of Harrity errors followed, two of them forced but the last a makeable backhand drop-shot with Richards fenced well out of position that however landed well below the top of the tin, an opportunity lost in disheartening fashion that would loom over the two games that followed.
Buoyed by his narrow escape from that first-game predicament, and by this time more fully committed to getting consistent length along the left wall, Richards built a commanding 8-1 advantage that effectively clinched the second game. The third was closer and much more competitive, in terms of both the score (Richards went up 4-1 and the margin stayed at three or four points from then onwards) and the territorial battle. Harrity can do a lot with the ball, especially when attacking Richards’s backhand cross-court, which on several occasions Harrity was able to nail for volleyed winners down the open right wall. But he was forced to do a lot more retrieving than his opponent, and as the last two games progressed, it seemed like the longer the point lasted, the higher the percentage of it’s landing in the Richards column, the exact opposite of what usually occurs in Harrity’s college matches.
Though by the end Richards’s superiority was clear and convincing, it must be said that Harrity showed no fear of either his top-15 opponent or the white-hot glare of the Grand Central Station environment, and that the match was more competitively contested than the stat line would indicate. Harrity’s defeat, along with the qualifying-round elimination of both Julian Illingworth and Chris Gordon, means that there are now no more Americans remaining in the men’s portion of this top-level championship.
by Rob Dinerman for DailySquashReport.com
Dateline January 19th --- Trailing 10-9 against a young American star who was executing flawlessly amid the vocal support he was enjoying from a decidedly partial gallery, PSA No. 13 Tom Richards responded to the exigencies of the moment like the fully-established tour veteran he is by ripping off five straight points and 11 of 12, then rolling to a 12-10 11-3 11-6 victory over Todd Harrity early this afternoon in a first-round Tournament Of Champions match on the portable four-glass-wall exhibition court at Grand Central Station in midtown Manhattan. Richards will now face third seed Greg Gaultier, a dominant (11-6, 2 and 1) straight-set winner over Hisham Ashour, on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 PM.
Harrity is the senior captain at Princeton, where he won the Intercollegiate Individual crown as a sophomore in 2011 and contributed a key victory this past February to the Tigers’ 5-4 win in the national collegiate final-round team triumph over 13-time defending champion Trinity College. As he forcefully demonstrated even in defeat today, his game has markedly expanded during the course of his college career --- known while he was racking up USSRA Junior titles primarily as a “stayer” with good fundamentals and an error-free style, he has added noteworthy variety in terms of his front-court and shot-making skills, as well as an ability to snap the ball, especially on his forehand flank, and an enhanced inclination to “hunt the volley” rather than merely exchanging ground-strokes along the walls.
It was this latter trait in particular that enabled him to out-play his increasingly concerned-looking British opponent by a small but definite margin through most of the first game and to acquire that game-ball chance on a shallow drop-shot from deep in the court that Richards never saw coming. But a trio of Harrity errors followed, two of them forced but the last a makeable backhand drop-shot with Richards fenced well out of position that however landed well below the top of the tin, an opportunity lost in disheartening fashion that would loom over the two games that followed.
Buoyed by his narrow escape from that first-game predicament, and by this time more fully committed to getting consistent length along the left wall, Richards built a commanding 8-1 advantage that effectively clinched the second game. The third was closer and much more competitive, in terms of both the score (Richards went up 4-1 and the margin stayed at three or four points from then onwards) and the territorial battle. Harrity can do a lot with the ball, especially when attacking Richards’s backhand cross-court, which on several occasions Harrity was able to nail for volleyed winners down the open right wall. But he was forced to do a lot more retrieving than his opponent, and as the last two games progressed, it seemed like the longer the point lasted, the higher the percentage of it’s landing in the Richards column, the exact opposite of what usually occurs in Harrity’s college matches.
Though by the end Richards’s superiority was clear and convincing, it must be said that Harrity showed no fear of either his top-15 opponent or the white-hot glare of the Grand Central Station environment, and that the match was more competitively contested than the stat line would indicate. Harrity’s defeat, along with the qualifying-round elimination of both Julian Illingworth and Chris Gordon, means that there are now no more Americans remaining in the men’s portion of this top-level championship.
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