Revolutionary RAM Scoring System Debuts To Rave Reviews In Ramy Ashour Invitational by Rob Dinerman
photos Sam Khalifa
Dateline May 20, 2019 --- The
inaugural Ramy Ashour Invitational, held on the afternoon and early
evening of May 19th at the City View Racquet Club in Long Island City
and headlined by the unveiling and competitive debut of the
revolutionary RAM scoring system, was an unqualified success. The
brainchild of Ashour himself, who recently retired from the PSA pro
squash circuit after a glittering career highlighted by one British
Open, three Tournament of Champions crowns and three World Open
championships, and co-founder (and 2017 Intercollegiate Individuals
winner) Osama Khalifa, the RAM system features the introduction of a
three-minute time clock for each game, with the clock only running
while the points are being played, then stopping until the serve begins
the next point. When an exchange ends in a let call, the time that that
exchange expended is put back on the clock. The time clock is placed
right at the front-wall tin, enabling both players (as well as the
spectators) to see how much time is left before the time expires. An
important added element in the scoring is that if one player is ahead
when time has run out, in order to clinch the game he/she still has to
win one more point before the trailing player is able to tie the score.
Therefore, no matter how big a deficit the trailing player faces when
the three minutes runs out, he/she still has a chance to win the game
by scoring enough consecutive points to tie the score, thereby creating
a sudden-death situation in which whoever wins the next point wins the
game.
As it happened, that very scenario cropped up in each of the first two
games of the opening match of the afternoon, a high-octane exhibition
between Ashour himself and his older brother Hisham, the head pro at
the host venue and himself a former top-12-ranked PSA player. Somewhat
surprisingly, the scores of those two games --- 11-10 (with Ramy
hammering a forehand drive after Hisham had rallied from 8-10 at
expiration to 10-all) and 12-11 (with Hisham surrendering four-straight
post-expiration points after leading 11-8) --- constituted as many
points as are normally contested in close games played with the
“normal” scoring system. The fact that those games usually last between
10 and 15 minutes shows how much time often elapses between points.
Hisham erupted on a torrid sharpshooting spree to run out the third
game 11-5 from 5-all, but Ramy jumped out to a sizable early lead and
never looked back during the 17-6 final fourth, by the end of which an
exhausted Hisham was forced to go for high-risk serve-return and/or
early-point winners, several of which rang off the tin. The decisive
close-out aside, the quality of play was extraordinary throughout, with
wonderful pace, incredibly accurate shot-making, ingenious shot
selection and amazing all-court retrieving --- basically the Ashour
brothers at their electrifying best, leaving the packed gallery ---
which included such racquet-sport luminaries as pro doubles superstar
Manek Mathur, current world singles and doubles Rackets champion James
Stout, 2001 British Open finalist Chris Walker and two-time late-1980’s
WPSA Championship women’s winner Nancy Gengler-Saint ---
enthralled by the athleticism it had witnessed.
Although matches played under the aegis of the RAM system, as is
the case with all current official tournament play, are best three out
of five games, the matches during the actual four-player tournament
this past weekend were only best-of three due to the compressed nature
of the entire event and the extremely short (20 minutes) turnaround
time between the second semi and the final. The field consisted of a
pair of PSA veterans, namely former PSA No. 9 Laurens Jan Anjema and
six-time Swedish national champion Rasmus Hult, and a pair of top-tier
collegians in Ashley Davies (University of Rochester) and Spencer
Lovejoy (Yale). Anjema won the first game 10-4 against Lovejoy, who
then rallied from 4-6 at expiration to 6-all in the second, forcing a
game-deciding point in which there was a cat-and-mouse front-court
exchange that ended when the left-handed Anjema was able to lash a
winning backhand drive down the open right wall. In the second
semifinal, Hult won 11-4, 7-5 against Davies, who had gone undefeated
in dual-meet play on the college circuit this past season. Hult has an
extremely effective backhand, a two-hander, which latter trait enables
him to “hold” the ball until very late in his swing. This posed
problems throughout the final round’s first game (which Hult won 11-4)
for Anjema, who was having trouble anticipating which shot Hult planned
to hit and was wrong-footed several times. The rallies became longer
and more intense at the outset of the second game. Anjema was still
having to work harder, but by this time he had adjusted to Hult’s game
and was getting to the ball early enough to counter-attack in the
front, leading to a mid-game Anjema surge from 3-all to the eventual
7-4 tally and continuing through the third game, in which Anjema kept
pressing the play to all four corners of the court en route to 6-4 at
expiration. Hult conjured up a daring winner to pull to 5-6, but on the
ensuring exchange, with the possibility of a
simultaneous-championship-point looming, Anjema forced an open ball,
which he held as long as possible before blasting a forehand drive.
Hult attempted to retrieve the ball by hitting it against the back
wall, but it plummeted to the floor well short of the front wall, a
dramatic close-out to a memorable and potentially historically
significant occasion.
By all odds the two most important takeaways were, first, the
otherworldly retrieving ability that Ramy Ashour displayed during the
highly competitive opening match, throughout which he made a host of
spectacular gets, evincing a capacity to change direction and dash
roadrunner-like to the front that evoked his movement during his prime
and belied the arthritic right-knee condition that forced his
retirement announcement several weeks ago. Not every retirement is
permanent and, at age 31, Ramy would still have a half-dozen years in
which he could realistically add to his already-swollen
major-tournament trophy chest if he eventually feels that he is
physically capable of making a comeback. The second noteworthy
consideration is the fact that Ramy, Khalifa and Co., with this first
highly praiseworthy RAM scoring system event now under their belt, plan
to build on the momentum they thereby have generated with another,
larger event, possibly even before the end of Calendar 2019. The play
was noticeably more dynamic with the scoring system they are
introducing, and it was clear that the players were aware of the
dwindling time remaining as the seconds ticked down at the end of each
game, with some of the best action occurring after time had expired as
players attempted, in at least one case successfully, to rescue games
from the brink. It is exceedingly rare, perhaps even unprecedented, for
a pro event to have been trialed with a new scoring system, and of
course in this case, the impact is that much greater with a revered
figure like Ramy Ashour at the helm. Everyone present was able both to
savor what they had seen and contemplate the intriguing possibilities
that await.
The RAM Scoring System:
Each game consists of a timed three-minute regulation period, and an un-timed overtime period.
During the three-minute regulation period:
-- The clock stops between points.
-- When a point ends in a let, the time expended during the rally is put back on the clock.
When the three minutes expire and the overtime begins:
--The player who is ahead needs to win one more point to win the game.
--The player who is behind can win the game if he ties the score without losing a point, and wins the next point.
-- If players are tied going into the overtime, the next point wins.
