SDA
Tavern Club Invitational Update: Fourth Seeds Imran Khan/Greg Park Fall
To Robin Clark And Scott
Arnold by Rob Dinerman
Dateline April 17th
--- Still riding the momentum of the Canadian National Doubles crown
they won five days ago, SDA rookies Scott Arnold and Robin Clarke
powered their way into the semifinal round of the 10th annual Tavern
Club Invitational in Cleveland this afternoon with a highly competitive
but convincing 15-8, 11 and 13 victory this afternoon over fourth seeds
Imran Khan and Greg Park. Clark and Arnold, who won their round-of-16
match on Thursday against qualifiers Drewe Williams and John Rooney,
will next face whichever team wins the match later this evening between
four-time reigning champions Damien Mudge and Ben Gould and their
Canadian opponents, Will Mariani and Thomas Brinkman, first-round
winners over Max Laverty and Joe Russell.
In the bottom-half pair of quarterfinals tonight, second
seeds Manek Mathur and Yvain Badan will go up against Carl Baglio and
Antonio Diaz in a match in which all four players were members of the
Trinity College dynasty, while third seeds Clive Leach and Raj Nanda
will oppose Graham Bassett and Andres Vargas, winners in four Thursday
over Willie Hosey and Fred Jr. in the closest-contested of the four
round-of-16 matches. Baglio and Diaz had rallied from 3-9 in the third
and final game of their opener against Tournament Chairman Ian Sly, the
manager of the host club, and Rob Dinerman. Sly and Dinerman had won
their qualifying match earlier in the day in three close games against
Russell and Laverty, who subsequently were "lucky-losered" into the
main draw when the Alex Stait/Ed Garno entry had to withdraw due to a
quadriceps injury that Garno had incurred at the Canadian National
Doubles tourney. The semis are set for mid-day on Saturday with the
final to follow at 7 PM that evening.
In their win over their favored Philadelphia-based
opponents this afternoon, Clark and Arnold demonstrated the admirable
teamwork, athleticism, constant pressure (defensive as well as
offensive) and error-free approach that has become their trademark
during the year-plus that has passed since they made their debut in the
2014 Canadian National Doubles (which they won). After jumping way
ahead in the opening game, they ground their way through a closer
second and had to rally from 7-11 in the third. The pace was high
throughout, with Khan snapping his crisp drives and corners and Park
pounding away. They played extremely well during the last two games,
only to fall victim in the end-game portion of each to a few forced
errors and some exceptional shots by the Clarke/Arnold duo. At 13-all
in the third, with the match's outcome still very much in play, Arnold
came up with the shot of the match, a laser forehand reverse-three-wall
that barely cleared the tin before dead-rolling out of the front-right
nick, following which Clarke got position in front of Khan in their
left-wall exchange and buried a shallow drive that Khan didn't get
quite enough of his racquet on to allow it to reach the front wall.
