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Waite and Mudge Reign in Montreal
By Rob Dinerman © 2002; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Posted Dec 12

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The ISDA Pro Doubles Tour has been demonstrating its strength in this the fourth year of its professional existence as it continues to attract new sites and events. The Morgenstern Cup (so named in honor of Bodo Morgenstern, a club member and the tournament's prime benefactor) in Montreal in early December marked the first of a number of such brand-new additions to the 2002-2003 North American pro hardball doubles circuit, and the spectacular presentation of the host Club Atwater, still glowing from the ubiquitous effects of a $7 million Canadian renovation this past summer and fall, seemed to exemplify the optimism and good health that currently pervades the ISDA.

Founded 76 years ago and known throughout its long and storied existence as the Montreal Badminton & Squash Club, this venerable institution was bought last spring by life-long member Leonard Schlemm Jr., the co-founder and previously chairman of Fitness Holdings Worldwide, the largest operator of fitness centers in the world, with U. S. $1.0 billion in annual revenue.

Mr. Schlemm's father, a member since 1929, is an accomplished racquets man and winner of multiple national titles in both badminton and squash. Though the club now has a new name and vastly enhanced facilities, it has retained its character and charm as a family-oriented social and racquets club. An enthusiastic membership turned out in force to support the tournament, which featured a number of pro-am divisions and which represented the return of professional hardball squash to Montreal for the first time since the last edition of the MAAA WPSA hardball singles event in 1991.

One of the few holdovers from those WPSA years is Gary Waite, that tour's
top-ranked player at its end in 1995, who competed several times in the MAAA
tourney without ever coming away with the winner's trophy. That history differs dramatically from the current scenario, in which, incredibly, he has now won the last THIRTY-SIX hardball events which he has entered. Included in this number are five singles tournaments, two Mixed Doubles titles, three non-ISDA ranking doubles events and 25 ISDA ranking championships, the last 21 of which have been partnered by Damien Mudge, in a three-and-a-half year alignment that has produced 33 ISDA ranking wins in just 34 overall attempts dating back to the spring of 1999. The last of those occurred in Montreal, the final calendar 2002 tour stop, in which this near-invincible pair completed the christening of the Morgenstern Cup with a well played but convincing 15-10 15-13 13-15 15-8 victory in the final over Michael Pirnak and Willie Hosey, whose rousing comeback semi-final over the favored Blair Horler and Clive Leach the previous afternoon provided the greatest excitement of the weekend.

This was especially true given the backdrop five weeks earlier of an early-November tournament at the Philadelphia Racquet Club, where Horler and Leach had blasted right through the draw to secure their first-ever title in ISDA competition. That event did not offer the $20,000 minimum to count for rankings, which accounted for the absence of Mudge and Waite, but every other top team was there, and the manner in which Horler and Leach had availed themselves on the warm courts and overpowered their three opponents, including Pirnak and Hosey in a dominant 15-8, 9 and 7 final, sent an intimidating message to the rest of the field, as did their advance to the final if the mid-October tour stop in Vancouver and the 3-0 quarter-final win they scored in their Montreal opener over the successfully qualifying "home" team of Brendan Clark and Atwater Club head squash and tennis pro Ken Flynn.

Philadelphia had been the maiden voyage of the Pirnak-Hosey ship, as each had played with different partners before injury (to Pirnak's partner Dave Kay, who ruptured his Achilles tendon in October) and caprice brought them together late this autumn. They hadn't even been sure which wall they should be playing, and in fact had switched walls in mid-tournament before deciding during a minor event in Buffalo (which they won) prior to Montreal to position Hosey on the right wall (where his excellent forehand crosscourt lob, it was hoped, would prevent Horler from inflicting the major damage he had caused in Philadelphia) and the southpaw Pirnak on the left, where his forehand firepower can best assert itself.

These stratagems both played major roles in the significant reversal of fortune implicit in the 7-15 15-10 9-15 15-10 15-11 tally, as did the substantial and very recent restorative work done on the gleaming pair of adjacent exhibition doubles courts, which now have glass back walls (with viewing both at court-level and in galleries, each with a capacity of about 100 spectators) and, more relevantly, a new ventilation system. These alterations have led to court conditions that accommodate every aspect of the game, which somewhat blunted the impact of the Horler/Leach power and enabled the subtler and more patient Hosey/Pirnak style to flourish. Even at that, Horler and Leach led 1-0, 9-6 before a Pirnak shot making spree provided much of the impetus for a 9-1 game-closing run that evened the match at a game apiece.

In both the fourth and fifth games, Hosey and Pirnak acquired substantial mid-game advantages, 10-5 in the fourth and 9-4 in the fifth, often frustrating Horler by lobbing him to the back court and doing the same to Leach by freezing him out. By the end Horler was getting tired and Leach was going for too much when he did get a chance to hit. Each contributed a key unforced tin to the four-point match-winning run that ensued after they had rallied to knot the fifth game at 11-all. This was the first time in which they had entered an ISDA event as "the hunted" and as clear favorites to win their half of the draw, and they did not handle this double-edged status especially well.

Waite and Mudge, on the other hand, have been the hunted for several years now, and both are abundantly comfortable in this position, so much so, in fact, that, for the first time in their partnership, they actually began their semi-final with Jamie Bentley and Atwater Club assistant pro Josh McDonald (first-round winners over Todd Binns and Jeff Mulligan) with Mudge over on the left wall. They won the first game easily in this novel arrangement, but decided to switch back to their usual positions after barely losing the second. The rest was pretty routine, 15-12 and 7, as had been their straight-game quarter-final over the Toronto-based team of Scott Dulmage and Dean Brown, who had qualified for the main draw via a Friday afternoon win over Atwater Club PSA touring pro Matt Giuffre and Gregor
Angus.

Though Waite and Mudge (who understandably declined any positional experimentation during the final) were never in any real danger of losing the
Sunday summit with Hosey and Pirnak, it must be said that there were a few stretches when the eventual runners-up seemed to have a window of opportunity. One occurred late in the second game, which they trailed all the way before creeping to 13-14, only to have this chance swatted away when Mudge, who had been crushing his returns deep the entire time, crossed everybody up when he went for, and found the nick on, a forehand three-wall off a Hosey lob serve.

Seemingly satiated by the two-games to love lead they thus enjoyed, Mudge and Waite became a bit disengaged through most of the third game, falling behind 6-14 before a pair of unforced errors from Hosey's normally tin-free racquet revived the slumping champs, who actually drew all the way to 13-14 before a daring Pirnak straight drop barely cleared the tin and bounced well in front of a chagrined Waite, whose mental mistake in hitting a loose ball to Hosey early in the point had set up Pirnak's eventual winner.

The fourth game began with tins by first Waite and then Mudge, and got to
5-4, Pirnak/Hosey, on a loose ball that drifted across the middle of the court but fell for a winner when Waite and Mudge had a rare breakdown in their normally superb communication. This glaring mental error became a Pyrrhic victory for Hosey and Pirnak by so galvanizing their opponents that they unleashed a 7-0 blitz that got them to 11-5 and sealed the outcome.

Opponents always know that such an eruption by the Waite/Mudge juggernaut
can occur at any time and be sparked by any episode. But knowing it can happen
and weathering it when it does are very different matters, and neither Pirnak, who contributed several tins during this streak, nor Hosey, who admirably battled the much-bigger Mudge along the right wall, was able torespond in time to keep them from falling too far behind to have a realistic chance of preventing what became the 66th consecutive match win in ISDA play for Waite and Mudge.

The end came quietly on a let-point call at 14-8 against Pirnak when he failed to clear on a mis-hit forehand rail. He and his partner Hosey, as well as the rest of the ISDA field, will next get a shot at Waite and Mudge in early 2003 in the U. S. Pro Championships in Wilmington, DE, where they suffered their only career defeat to Anders Wahlstedt and Scott Stoneburgh in 2001. Wilmington will be the start of the most torrid stretch of the ISDA season, with seven events during a span of eight weeks.

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