WDSA Turner Cup Semis Update: Suzie Pierrepont/Narelle Krizek To Meet Kaylee Leonard/Natalie Grainger In Final by Rob Dinerman Dateline January 24th
--- Trailing 14-13 and having surrendered four straight points in what
had clearly become a pivotal third game, Natalie Grainger rose to the
occasion by cracking consecutive winners --- the first a shallow
forehand cross-court and the second a return of an over-hit serve that
she lashed to perfect length down the right wall --- and she and her
partner, Greenwich Academy senior Kaylee Leonard, made that reversal
stick by winning the close-out fourth game in a 12-15 15-6 15-14 15-10
victory over Tarsh McElhinny and Carrie Hastings this evening in the
semifinal round of the WDSA $20,000 Turner Cup before an enthusiastic
crowd at the host Westchester Country Club. Grainger and Leonard have
lived dangerously practically all weekend --- they eked out a close
15-13 in the fourth first-round qualifying match against Joyce
Davenport and Aisling Blake, then rallied from 11-4 down in the fifth
game of their final-round qualifying match en route to 15-13 over
Fernanda Rocha and Amy Gross and then won in five in their quarterfinal
with second seeds and 2012 Turner Cup champs Steph Hewitt and Meredeth
Quick --- and today’s match was more of the same.
After dropping the first game 15-12 (from 11-all), Grainger,
limping slightly from a sore left heel and having just lost a
surprisingly competitive four-game singles match in the Harrow
Greenwich Open to just-crowned Tournament of Champions winner Raneem El
Welily, and her fleet left-handed partner raced off to 6-0 in the
second and were never threatened from there. They then took an 11-6
lead in the third game, dropped the next four points, but still seemed
safely in the saddle when Grainger scored on a delicate straight drop
followed by a three-wall nick to make the score 13-10. However Hastings
contributed a pair of volleyed cross-drop winners when Leonard failed
to move up after hitting her cross-court and at 13-all McElhinny angled
a cross-court that defied Grainger’s attempt to scoop it back into
play. The loss of another game in the final few points, this time after
enjoying such a sizable mid-game lead, might have been disastrous, but
as noted, Grainger then rose to the fore, both in her third-game-saving
pair of winners and then in the fourth game with three consecutive
winning shots (namely an uncanny inside-out backhand drop shot placed
not in the near right-front corner but rather to the front-left, then a
nick-finding forehand three-wall and then a tight reverse-corner) after
McElhinny and Hastings had crept from 5-11 to 8-11. With the score now
14-8, Leonard and Grainger lost the next two points but in the final
exchange Hastings attempted a volleyed straight-drop that clipped the
tin. Though visibly (and understandably) not at 100% strength, Grainger
controlled much of the action and chose her spots, saving her best
output for those end-game moments, while Leonard displayed a level of
poise well beyond her tender years.
With all that said, they will be hard pressed to continue
their winning streak in the Sunday final that awaits them if top-seeded
defending champions Narelle Krizek and Suzie Pierrepont equal, or even
closely approach, the level they attained today in their 15-6, 13 and 7
tally over Amanda Sobhy and Vic Simmonds. Not even in the statistically
close second game did they seem to be in any way fazed by anything
thrown at them. Pierrepont maintained her front-court position
throughout the match, using her height and impressive wing span and
racquet skill to cross-court Simmonds to the back, while Krizek was
lethal with a slew of shallow rail winners that stayed amazingly low
and wide. She also was hitting razor-sharp reverse-corners (including
three in a row to end the match) and moving beautifully as well. The
only interruption to their dominant performance came in that second
frame, in which Sobhy caught several three-wall nicks and Simmonds
played her best squash of the day.
But at 13-all, Simmonds caught the tin and on the ensuing
point she and Sobhy had a tiny but costly moment of miscommunication on
a treacherously-angled skid-boast in which both thought the other would
retrieve the ball, then both belatedly started for it and were
ultimately caught in no-man’s-land, resulting in a complicated but
correct no-let call, following which Krizek and Pierrepont sprinted
through the third and final game. They can be scary when they are
playing at this level, and it will be interesting to see if Grainger
and Leonard, who have been so good all tournament at navigating a
series of perilous shoals, can come up with more such magic against
such fearsome opposition.
Semis Recap:
Suzie Pierrepont/Narelle Krizek d. Amanda Sobhy/Victoria Simmonds 15-6, 13, and 7.
