Steph Hewitt and Suzie Pierrepont Charge To Hashim Khan Invitational Crown by Rob Dinerman, assisted by Joyce Davenport Dateline March 16th
--- Buried in the opening game of their first-round match, top seeds
Steph Hewitt and Suzie Pierrepont responded admirably by winning six
straight games en route to a successful defense of the Hashim Khan
Invitational crown they had won in 2013. Byed to the semis of this
highly popular tournament, held this year as throughout its 35-year
history at the Denver Athletic Club, Hewitt and Pierrepont rallied to a
5-15 15-10 15-10 15-8 victory over recent William White winners Kelsey
Engman and Gina Stoker, then overwhelmed Meredeth Quick and Dana Betts
15-9, 11 and 3 today in the final.
Betts and Quick had straight-gamed first Alicia McConnell and Larissa
Stephenson (qualifying-round winners over Joyce Davenport and Lauren
Patrizio) and then No. 2 seeds Heidi Mather and Victoria Simmonds to
earn their spot in the final, establishing a level of proficiency and
momentum that seemed to leave them well positioned to challenge
Pierrepont/Hewitt. This was especially true in light of the scare that
the young Philadelphia-based Stoker/Engman duo, after a 3-0 opener over
Amy Milanek and Dawn Gray, had given the top seeds in the early portion
of that semifinal match, during which Engman in particular shot the
lights out with reverse-corners and both she and her partner frustrated
their opponents with stellar retrieving. The second game was close
until midway through, at which potentially perilous juncture Engman hit
several tins that gave Pierrepont/Hewitt some breathing room. Even in
taking the third and fourth games, Hewitt and Pierrepont found winners
hard to come by, but benefited from some semi-forced Stoker/Engman
errors and some sharp Hewitt reverse-corners. In one defining sequence
Hewitt hit an excellent reverse that Engman nevertheless retrieved,
only to see the point slip away when Hewitt followed with an
unreachable drop shot.
Meanwhile, in the bottom-half semifinal, Quick, who had learned the
game as a youngster on these very courts (and whose older brother
Preston teamed with Matt Jenson to win the SDA men’s pro doubles
tournament with a four-game final-round triumph over Manek Mathur
and Baset Chaudhry immediately after the women’s final), was solid on
the right wall (her less-often-played wall), while her partner, the
power-hitting left-handed Betts, provided much of the tempo by lashing
her forehand and scoring as well on a number of winners off her
backhand flank. Mather’s ball-striking skills were evident, as was her
signature drop shot, but as the match progressed she had fewer
opportunities to hit that shot and there were occasional holes in the
Simmonds/Mather coverage that Quick and Betts were able to exploit.
Notwithstanding the noticeable level of pre-match expectation Sunday
morning, the final was somewhat anticlimactic, as Hewitt and Pierrepont
achieved a comfort level early on (particularly after a series of
Hewitt reverses and Pierrepont straight drops gave them a run of points
in the end-portion of the first game) that they never would relinquish.
Betts supplied plenty of pace and Quick hit several drop shot winners,
but Pierrepont and Hewitt imposed their superior weaponry throughout
the second game and poured it on in an exhilarating sprint to the tape
to conclude the third. By that time, Pierrepont was cutting off
everything hit at her on the left wall and Hewitt was even adding
three-walls to her reverse/drop-shot mix on the right. Most of this
weekend’s WDSA participants will be playing at the U. S. National
Doubles Championships this coming weekend in New York, after which the
WDSA tour will resume with an active springtime schedule.
