1-23-19 century

Chris Walker And Tom Harrity Win US Century Squash Doubles
by Rob Dinerman

Century Open Champions Tom Harrity and Chris Walker

80’s Champions Dave Matthews and Will Moore

Women’s Champions Lissen Tutrone
and Katherine Grant

60’s Champions Sandy Tierney and Pat Malloy

70’s Champions Clark Amos and Matt Jenson

A Division: Chris O’Brien, Tzintzun Carranza, Kit Tatum,
Mauricio Bocanegra, Andy Kronfeld

Open Division: Jeff Stanley, Bill Ullman, Kit Tatum,
Tom Harrity, Chris Walker

photos courtesy Beth Rasin

Dateline January 21, 2019 --- Trailing one dominant game to love against the reigning U. S. National Doubles 50-and-over champions, Chris Walker and Tom Harrity inexorably asserted control of the play from that point onward and earned a 7-15, 15-11, 15-9, 15-10 victory over Jeff Stanley and Bill Ullman before an appreciative crowd at the University Club of New York in the final round of the 12th edition of the U. S. Century Squash Doubles Championships on Monday afternoon. After registering straight-game pre-final wins over first 2018 Open finalists Liam Kenny and Pete Bostwick III and then three-time defending champs Dominic Hughes and Nigel Thain, Walker and Harrity weathered a first-game shot-making spree by the Stanley/Ullman pairing, jumping out to substantial mid-game leads in each of the succeeding games, which they then closed out in convincing fashion. Walker --- who, as a former British Open finalist, PSA top-four, captain of England teams that won the World Team Championship and member of top-tier ISDA doubles teams with David Kay, Clive Leach and Viktor Berg, is the most accomplished player in the history of this tournament --- increasingly took over the match as it progressed, and Harrity was virtually error-free throughout the last three games and alternated lobs that drove the Stanley/Ullman duo deep in the court with a series of delicate front-court angles.

    Ullman and Stanley had advanced with tight four-game wins in both their quarterfinal (15-14 in the fourth) with Baltimore residents Bo Cashman and Chris Haley and their semifinal against Mark Barber and Dave Rosen, whose tin at 14-all in the second evened the match at a game apiece, following which the reprieved Stanley/Ullman pairing won the last two games 15-10 and 15-5. They kept competing all the way through the final, even as the score mounted against them, but they were too much on the defensive, and Walker in particular exerted too much pressure with his impressive all-court weaponry, for Stanley and Ullman to successfully repulse. Walker and Harrity both underwent right hip-replacement-surgery during the summer of 2015 (Walker also subsequently had his left hip replaced) but both demonstrated impressive mobility and sharp racquet-work during their three-match march through the draw.

     In the remaining competitive categories, the University Club of Boston had two championship entries, namely in the Mixed Doubles --- where Chris Spahr, the club’s 20-year head pro, and Mary McKee, after saving three game-balls against them in the opener of their final with Dana Betts and Kip Gould, raced through the one-sided 15-7, 15-5 remainder --- and the 60-and-over draw, in which top seeds Sandy Tierney (a Century Open winner with Doug Lifford in 2011 and Steve Scharff in 2014 and 2015) and Pat Malloy had to rally from two/love down against Bob Bolling/Richard Hannum and from a 1-0, 6-2 deficit in their semifinal with Steve Mandel and Tim Wyant. Tierney and Malloy eventually won that match, 15-12 in the fifth, and took a close four-game final over Scott Stoneburgh and Jamie Heldring, 3-1 semis winners over Tim Griffin (who captured this 60’s flight two years ago with Ryan O’Connell) and Tyler Millard.

    In the women’s final, Kat Grant and Lissen Tutrone, the weekend’s only successfully defending 2018 champions, led Sara Luther and Meredeth Quick two games to love, at which juncture Luther had to default with a pulled calf muscle, and the six-team 80-and-over round-robin was won by Dave Mathews and Will Moore. In the 70-and-over draw, three-time defending champs Will Hartigan and Ed Minskoff were dethroned by former ISDA pro doubles star Matt Jenson and Clark Amos, 15-13, 13 and 7. Jenson and Hartigan covered an impressive amount of court, while Amos (who was rock-solid throughout, even in the face of Hartigan’s pace) and Minskoff traded drives and lobs along the right wall. The second game was pivotal, clearly a game that the Hartigan/Minskoff duo had to have in order to keep hopes for a fourth straight title alive. It seesawed tensely to 13-all, at which stage Minskoff tinned a reverse-corner and was unable to steer back into play a deep-court angle that ran treacherously along the back wall. Jenson and Amos then broke away in the end portion of the third game, running off seven of the last eight points (three of them in a row on perfectly-placed un-returned Jenson lob serves) to close the match out. The A Draw final was between two teams both of which had survived a pair of five-gamers to get to their Monday summit. The Mexican pairing of Tzintzun Carranza and Mauricio Bocanegra ultimately prevailed over Andy Kronfeld and Chris O’Brien, 15-12, 12 and 14. Carranza and Bocanegra have been partners for years and their edge in familiarity against their first-time-partnering opponents may have spelled the difference in the airtight concluding stretches of those games. Kronfeld and O’Brien nearly caught up after being way behind in the first game, then let a substantial lead get away in the second, then rallied from 10-14 in the third, only to have their comeback bid thwarted on a questionable stroke call against them at simultaneous-game-ball.

On a weekend featuring a total of 90 teams and replete with numerous impressive performances, and even a few heroic ones, the figure who played the most heroic role of all, both in this Century Doubles weekend and in all of its predecessors, was the tournament’s founder, Chairman and perennial foremost advocate Kit Tatum, who right from the event’s inception has embraced and promoted it, recruiting players and matching up partners with an enthusiasm and fervor that, more than anything else, is responsible for its continuing growth and popularity. At a time when some tournaments are struggling to maintain their prior attendance levels, the U. S. Century Doubles remains flourishing, vibrant and one of the highlights of the U. S. Squash doubles calendar. Acknowledgment is due as well to the six New York-area clubs (namely University, Union, Racquet & Tennis, Apawamis, Heights Casino and the New York Athletic Club) which generously made their doubles courts available throughout the four-day event, as well as to the U. S. Squash on-site representatives who monitored and recorded the matches and kept the tournament running smoothly.