Top Two Cruise Through On Day Of Marathons In Zurich PSA
from Squashsite365
April 25, 2012 - It was a day of marathon encounters in Zurich for the first round of the PSA $25k Grasshopper Cup, with only the top seeds Daryl Selby and Nicolas Mueller spared the ordeal of at least one of their games going to extra points.
Match reports from Mark David Mayer, Steve Buchli and Carsten Els
The first encounter of the first round saw local wildcard Reiko Peter enter the tournament, against Denmark's Kristian Frost. The first game showed some high quality attacking squash with the young Swiss taking an early lead and defending it to the end, which he took with a sublime shot to the nick for 11/6.
In the second the momentum swung around, Kristian taking control of the game and pressing the errors out of Reiko to level 11/5. The more experienced Dane kept pressing to take the third 11/9 and then withstood a ferocious fightback from the Swiss in the fourth game, taking the match in 11/7 40 minutes.
Next, Karim Abdel Gawad came from two games down to beat Davide Bianchetti 3-2 after a mammoth 115 minutes of squash. The young Egyptian moved Bianchetti well into the front corners, putting some hard work in his legs, but the Italian, completely unimpressed, slowed the pace down and trusted in his accurate game to win the first game 16/14. Gawad upped the pace in the second moving his opponent faster into the corners but lost accuracy and produced a few errors which in the end favoured Bianchetti to take it 11/6.
Gawad seemed to be struggling to find a game plan against the almost errorless Italian who always found an answer to Gawad's low drops. The match was on the edge as Gawad hit some straight winners to close the third 11/7, and then turned the momentum to his favor and hung in for the next hour to win the final two games 11/8 and 11/8. The game was interrupted by let ball situations throughout, but remained thrilling till the end.
At the same time a monumental battle took place on court 1: Steve Finitsis of Australia didn’t give any presents to the way higher ranked Olli Tuominen. Both hard hitting, high pace and classical style playing pros, the crowd knew they were going to see a long and hard fought match. Finn OIli just about squeezed the first game 12/10, then it was Steve’s turn to take the second 17/15, shortly before the first hour of play was over.
OLli made far to many mistakes in the third and Steve gladly took the opportunity and grabbed the third 11/5 in just seven minutes. Olli came back, but it was Steve who had a match ball at 10/9 after the pair had been trading points up to 8 all. Oli returned Steve’s serve into the nick, and the big Aussie went on to make an easy mistake which gave Olli a game ball which he placed with perfect length on the backhand side to level the match 12/10.
After 70 minutes of highly intensive play it was Olli who had more left in his tank and it was he who got the final game within 10 minutes, 11/4. Steve missed a huge opportunity in the fourth to win against the number 24 ranked player in the world, which maybe also influenced his game in the decider.
Another five-game marathon was played out as Yann Perrin and Omar Abdel Meguid went the distance in a very intense game. Yann suffered from a tough stretch in the first, and had to take an injury break after the second game. Omar won the first in 10 minutes 11/5, while Yann took the second home at 11/8.
The spectators saw Yann attacking, while Omar showed impressive skills in picking up amazing shots. That created a lot of traffic on the court and there were no long rallies as both hit the ball very hard. As a consequence of the injury Omar took the third 11/5 in just 7 minutes and everybody expected the match to finish here. But Yann came back and won the fourth 14/12. However, that took a lot of effort and finally Omar succeeded in the fifth, which he won 11/6 in 12 minutes.
After making it into the main draw, a feat which marked his personal best in his career, André Haschker faced Charles Sharpes, the English young gun in the draw. It was a tough fight from the first rally for the German against the fresher legs of Sharpes, who came out strong and with an obvious game plan to make his opponent do the running.
The long rallies took their toll on André who struggled in the first game, giving it away 11/8. The German needed another game to find the rhythm of his game and some winning shots, but Charles took the second 11/4 showing experience beyond his years. Fighting hard and digging deep, not letting one point go easily to his opponent, André found the better end in the third to win a very close game 17/15.
The German couldn’t keep the momentum from the third, and although he started the fourth slowly he came again back even stronger almost making it equal at the business end of the fourth, but again it was Charles who found the right answer to secure his ticket into the quarter-finals by winning it 3-1 in 62 minutes of squash.
It’s always a thrilling moment, when the local hero enters the court for the first appearance in a tournament, but it also creates a lot of pressure and expectation. How would second seed Nici Müller cope with that?
In fact he did it very well and very fast. It took him only 28 minutes to send the German qualifier Raphael Kandra back home in a straight 3/0 win. Nevertheless there were many spectacular rallies and Raphael gave an impressive display of his Squash skills. It’s not a surprise that the young gun walked easily through the qualifier draw, but Nici was too strong on the day and dominated the match completely, winning all three games 11/5.
Jan Koukal and Fabien Verseille gave the Zurich crowd a fine example of entertaining high standard squash, where especially Fabien was using all four corners of the court to move Jan around. The Frenchman took the first game 11/9 in 15 minutes, but Jan, well known for his counter pounching, clawed himself back in the next two games taking them 13/11 and 14/12.
Fifty minutes had been played and the appreciative Grasshopper crowd knew they were into another long and action filled five setter after Fabien pushed back in the fourth to level things up 11/6. In the last game it was Jan’s experience and steadiness which enabled him to win the decider 11/8, shortly before the 90 minute barrier was crossed.
In the final match of the day top seed Daryl Selby proved too strong for Kashif Shuja, who faced the tightness and preciseness of the Englishman’s game. 11/4, 11/7 and 11/9 was a clear verdict after 33 minutes of a very fair and entertaining match which was played in good spirit, much to the appreciation of the spectators.
DRAW
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