One retired past champion couldn’t stay away from the 2007 Pace Canadian Squash Classic in Toronto. Jonathan Power graced his hometown tournament as player chairman, sharing a few laughs with the pros, hitting a few balls with Egypt’s Ramy Ashour, and basking in the kind of adulation he enjoyed in his heyday.
In a special presentation before Friday night’s final, Power received a memento of his track record at the Pace, which includes three championships. The audience “met” a possible future champion when his wife, Sita, stepped on-stage looking ready to give birth at any moment.
Graham Ryding, the Canadian who pushed farthest in the tournament, faced world number two David Palmer from Australia Tuesday night. Palmer dominated most of the match, but cheering from the audience helped Ryding take a grueling 23-minute third game 14-12. Palmer didn’t waver, and he closed out the match in four games, 11-3, 11-9, 10-11 (2-4), 11-6 (67 min).
“I was comfortable with the short game,” Ryding said afterwards. “I wanted to keep it away from his strong forehand.” Ryding, who studies full-time at the University of Toronto and limits his schedule to North American tournaments, has yet to beat Palmer. He’ll get another chance in New York.
In professional squash, Egypt is the new Pakistan, and the next clash was not the last in Toronto between Egyptians. The more experienced Mohammed Abbas faced 19-year-old world number six Ramy Ashour. After quickly winning the first two games, Ashour showed a chink in his amour: a temporary attention deficit during which Abbas took the third game. Ashour returned fast and fearless to send Abbas packing 11-4, 11-5, 7-11, 11-6 (55 m).
World number one and defending champion, Egypt’s Amr Shabana had spectators wondering if Christmas was perhaps a little too good to him. Shabana’s three straight tins in game one against Mohd Azland Iskandar, Malaysia’s national champion, summed up his lackluster play through to game three.
Down two points, Shabana slowed the game and racked up eight straight points, fending off a late challenge to take the game 11-6. Up 8-5 in the fourth, Shabana responded to Iskandar’s onslaught with four late errors, and Iskandar, ranked 18th in the world, pulled off the upset of the week 11-10 (2-0), 11-5, 7-11, 11-9 (48m). Former world number one Lee Beachill shared Shabana’s pain, losing to France’s Gregory Gaultier 11-4, 11-8, 11-3 (45 m).
Upset was the order of Wednesday night as well. Egyptians Wael El Hindi and the higher-ranked Karim Darwish slugged through 80 minutes of mostly safe squash, as opposed to the entertaining shotmaking Egyptians have been using to make their names. The pair’s creativity finally appeared in the fourth game and carried over into a tightly contested fifth, when El Hindi dropped a lead and faced a 10-10 score before finishing the match 4-11, 11-5, 11-9, 6-11, 11-10 (2-0).
El-Hindi credited victory to a slavish regimen. “I was training on Christmas Day,” he said. He insisted little else distinguishes today’s top players. “It’s all a mind game now, whoever can hold out longest,” he said.
Ashour continued to play as if there was no tomorrow, fighting back to even the game count at 2-2 against Iskandar. Perhaps bouncing Shabana from the tournament the night before took more out of Iskandar than he would admit, as he lost an entertaining match 9-11, 11-6, 10-11 (2-0), 11-9, 11-6 (66 m).
Wednesday’s last two matches went more quickly. Australia’s Stewart Boswell started well against compatriot Palmer, but the brilliance of the previous day’s victory over England’s James Willstrop waned in the second game. He ceded a 9-1 lead, running noticeably more than Palmer. Boswell’s four-point run that stretched game three to 10-10 proved too little, too late, as Palmer took the 50-minute match 11-7, 11-3, 12-10.
Aussie Anthony Ricketts showed little respect for Gregory Gaultier’s world number three ranking, dispatching the Frenchman 11-5, 11-10 (6-4), 11-9 (55 m). The opponents played a memorable game two, when Ricketts clawed back from 1-6 down and kept his cool through the tiebreak.
Semi-final Thursday showcased two intense Australia-Egypt battles. Ashour leaped out of the gate to a 7-1 lead over Ricketts. Losing the first game, Ricketts then played the youth’s fondness of questionable shots. Ashour’s three straight tins and several strokes cost him game two. However, unforced errors crept up on the Aussie in game three, as he allowed annoyance over close calls to show.
In a thrilling game four, one especially grueling rally featured this shot sequence: five straight drops, a hard cross court, and nine more drops. Ashour sealed the closest, longest game of the match, and the match itself, with a wrong-side flick he had avoided since game two, 11-7, 6-11, 11-7, 11-7.
“I had to make my game more basic,” said Ashour. “I used to like a quick game all the time. Now I’ve learned to slow it down.”
Wael El Hindi faced David Palmer in the evening’s second match. The two split the first four games, setting up a game five worthy of daytime television. Argued calls and amusing comments spiced up hard-fought squash, right up to a three-minute injury break for El Hindi’s twisted leg.
Chuckling resumed as El Hindi scuttled back on court, shoe and sock in hand, to finish dressing and continue the match. Palmer kept his cool and ran the score to 10-6. El Hindi struggled to 8-10 when he dramatically, and vainly, dove for a Palmer shot that sealed the match 5-11, 11-7, 7-11, 11-6, 11-8 (85 m).
In what many regard as a sign of things to come, Ashour could do no wrong in the final. A combination of his sheer quickness and Palmer’s ineffective tactical changes led to a 31-minute 11-7, 11-3, 11-4 victory and Pace Canadian Classic title for the young Egyptian.
Afterwards, Palmer admitted his difficulties containing Ashour’s attack, while Ashour grinned happily like a kid in his teens – which, of course, the 2007 Pace Canadian Classic champion still is.