Dana Betts And Tarsh McElhinny Capture WDSA John’s Island Open by Rob Dinerman
(left to right) John's Island Open winners Tarsh McElhinny and
Dana Betts, Tournament Chair Michael Pierce, finalists Amanda Sobhy and
Latasha Khan
2015 John's Island Open champions Tarsh McElhinny (left) and Dana Betts
Dateline April 19th
--- In a match in which each pairing was seeking its first WDSA ranking
tournament win --- a rarity for a final-round encounter at this late
stage of the eighth season in the tour’s history --- top seeds Dana
Betts and Tarsh McElhinny raised their level dramatically after an
uneven opening game and defeated Latasha Khan and Amanda Sobhy 10-15,
15-10, 15-13, 15-11 this afternoon to annex the third annual John’s
Island Open, sponsored by the John’s Island Real Estate Company, in
Vero Beach. Khan and Sobhy had motored into the final without losing a
game, while Betts and McElhinny had been forced to the very brink in
their 15-14 fifth-game quarterfinal win on Friday over Amy Gross and
Alex Clark, but, this divergent backdrop aside, Betts and McElhinny got
progressively stronger as today’s match moved along and were able to
close it out in convincing fashion.
Probably the key element in their victory lay in
Betts’s ability to assert herself in her match-long cross-court
exchanges with Khan, who was punishing her opponents by cutting the
ball off in the first game before being increasingly pushed onto the
defensive when Betts then improved both the angle and height of her
salvos into the right side of the court. This adjustment both forced
errors and loose balls out of Khan and/or drove her deep into the back,
creating a court-positioning imbalance for the Betts/McElhinny duo to
exploit and resulting in plenty of openings for McElhinny’s accurate
front-court game. Throughout the last three games, the top seeds were
ahead by small but definite margins, both statistically and
territorially, and Sobhy, who was given very few open balls to attack,
seemed a little slower and less in rhythm than usual, perhaps due to
her heavy recent singles schedule, including winning the Texas Open
just a few days prior to the start of this doubles tournament.
As is true every year with this event, the eighth
and last regular ranking stop on the 2014-15 WDSA schedule, much of the
credit for its success goes to the Pierce family and siblings Michael,
Leo, Peter and Molly. Still remaining are the biennial World Doubles in
Chicago next month and the season-ending Wilson Cup for top-ranked
players in Southampton in July.
Finals recap:
Dana Betts/Tarsh McElhinny d. Amanda Sobhy/Latasha Khan 10-15, 15-10, 15-13, 15-11
