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Hyder Quarterfinal Report: Razik Comes Through In Tiebreakers Against Ball 
by Rob Dinerman, for DailySquashReport.com

Dateline May 18th, 2012 ---- In a remarkable display of the grace and coolness under pressure that have always characterized his game, top seed Shahier Razik defeated Bradley Ball 12-10 11-4 15-13 in the first and most formidable quarterfinal match played this evening in the 44th annual Quentin Hyder Invitational. Ball led 9-8 in the opening game and saved four match-balls against him in the third, but Razik, as had been the case in his semifinal wins over Ball the past two years in this tournament, had all the answers in the grinding end-games, while a fully engrossed crowd at the Harvard Club Of New York watched with awe and admiration as these two superb athletes battled for nearly an hour of high-paced and (other than in the second game) closely contested all-court action.

   The first game alone consumed 19 minutes, with Ball pounding his drives (which often have his full extension and leverage behind them), forcing the play as much as he could, and fully living up to the “BradAttack” logo on his shirt, while Razik, currently ranked No. 34 on the PSA pro tour after playing No. 1 on the Canadian team this past summer in the biennial World Team Championships, extemporized as only he can, lobbing his way out of trouble, frustrating his larger and more muscular (but still amazingly mobile) opponent by getting to shots that would have been winners against virtually anyone else, counter-punching with telling effect and committing fewer than a handful of unforced errors during the entire match. Indeed, it was this latter difference that proved Ball’s undoing in the first game’s closing stretch after he had clawed and arm-fought his way to a 9-8 advantage, only to lose his final four points (bisected by a stroke call in his favor that knotted the game at 10) on tins, the last of which came when he tried to lash a shoulder-high backhand volley into the front-right nick. He hits the ball with explosive severity but that style can cause fatigue in both his opponent and himself, sometimes (as in this stretch) with metallic results, abetted no doubt by an awareness of how perfectly struck any attempted winner has to be to succeed against Razik’s nearly impenetrable defensive barricade.

   Certainly one got the sense at 10-all; that Ball HAD to have that first-set tiebreaker, i.e. that he had worked too hard, played too well and was breathing too heavily for him to afford to lose that overtime session and still have a realistic chance to win the match, and when it slipped away from him, it may have carried over to the second game as well, during the early part of which Razik’s nearly invisible but inexorable pressure rose to the fore as from 1-3 he won five straight point, part of a 10-1 game-closing run built on several misdirection winners when Ball (who also contributed five tins to Razik’s spurt) moved too early, trying to get a head start on Razik’s anticipated shot and allowing the lithe Canadian to wrist-flick the ball into the vacated territory.

   To Ball’s credit, his mental toughness, which had abandoned him in that second game, returned with a vengeance in the third, as did his energy level and the punishing force of his powerful drives, resulting in a series of lengthy and compellingly hard fought points (mostly along the left wall) and a score that seesawed tensely along, with neither player having more than a one-point lead by mid-game. Ball, whose highly effective game is mostly premised on driving the ball into a side-wall nick, actually scored better when he resorted to SOFT drop shots (well-suited to the host venue’s relatively “slow” front wall) which forced Razik to take an extra step to the front wall and left him out of position for the following volley (though few people in the world can make up that extra ground the way Razik can). Ball never was able to get to game-ball, but, as noted, he fended off match-ball opportunities for Razik at 10-9, 11-10, 12-11 and 13-12, on two of those occasions benefiting from tight no-let calls after close-quarters exchanges along the left wall.

   Ball had similarly survived a third-game match-ball-against predicament when this pair played each other in this event a year ago, and wound up winning that game before Razik had closed out the match in the fourth. But this time, at 13-all, after a fantastic front-left get by Razik, Ball hit his volley right down the middle for a stroke call against him, followed by another stroke call on the subsequent point, a somewhat anticlimactic ending to what was nevertheless a riveting match, two games of which were right on the edge of landing in Ball’s ledger.

In the remaining three quarterfinal matches:

World #41 Zac Alexander of Australia needed the full five to take care of rising star Andrew McDougall of Calgary. Alexander, who arrived at the Hyder directly from the British Open qualifying, pulled out an 11-9 fourth game before winning 11-4 in the fifth.

Alexander d McDougall 8-11 11-9 9-11 11-9 11-4

Alexander's NY-based Australian training partner Ryan Cuskelly, also returning from the British Open where he successfully qualified into the main draw before losing in four to England's Peter Barker, beat L. Mosope in straight games.

Cuskelly d Mosope 11-7 12-10 11-5

And second seeded Wael El Hindi of the PST had his way with Columbia coach Jacques Swanepoel, also in straights.

El Hindi d Swanepoel 11-9 11-5 11-4

Saturday's Semifinal Matchups, at SportsClub LA:
5:00 Shahier Razik v Zac Alexander
6:00 Ryan Cuskelly v Wael El Hindi