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Pan
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Singles Gold Medal Round
By Rob Dinerman © 2003; all rights of reproduction reserved.
August 23, 2003
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When Latasha Khan, serving at 8-4, match-ball in the fifth game of the team gold-medal match against two-time defending champion Canada, cleanly passed her former long-time nemesis Melanie Jans on a perfectly-angled forehand cross court winner, she thereby culminated a landmark moment both in her own career and, more sweepingly, in the history of American squash.
Her triumphant
9-10 9-3 1-9 9-0 9-4 (from 4-all) rallying victory from a two games to
one deficit clinched the team gold medal for the U. S. women, the first
team gold in
squash that any American team has ever won in the Pan American Games,
and
constituted a perfect companion-piece to Khan's capture three days earlier
of the
first-ever individual gold in this hemisphere-wide quadrennial competition
that
any U. S. squash player of either gender has ever won.
It was altogether fitting that the caprice of the draw (which slotted the No. 1 players as the second of the three team gold-medal matches) and a resolute comeback victory from 0-2 down by U. S. No. 3 Meredeth Quick had put Khan in a position to seal the deal, for this entire event became a defining performance in her title-filled but occasionally disappointment-laden and therefore somewhat enigmatic career.
Now 30 years old, the four-time and current U. S. women's national champion has been a fixture on the senior American women's scene ever since the '91 Nationals, when as a precocious teenager she rallied from 1-2 down to throw a 9-0 fifth-game shut-out at Nancy Gengler in the semis before losing to Ellie Pierce in the subsequent final. Throughout the following decade, the wins had been mixed with occasional controversy and some perplexing fade-outs late in important matches she seemingly had well in hand, one memorable example being a 7-1 lead in the fifth game of the '97 Nationals final that gave way to a determined championship-saving 8-0 run by Demer Holleran.
Included in this mixed history as well prior to these Games had been an 0-10 career record over a 14-year span against the aforementioned Canadian star Jans, winner of the '99 Games individual gold-medal match over Holleran, among whose wins over Khan had been the match that secured the team gold in last year's Federation Cup and a number of battles in which Khan had led two games to love before being overtaken in the closing laps.
This
year's individual final between this pair of contemporaneous rivals had
seemed destined to provide more of the same when Khan became so tentative
after taking the first two games that she dropped the third and fell behind
4-0 in the fourth.
But, in what must be considered a watershed moment in this heretofore
statistically lop-sided rivalry, this time it was Khan who came up with
the goods in crunch-time, in the form of a 9-2 run to the tape that both
gave her the first-ever U. S. individual gold (after Holleran's silver
medals in the '95 and '99 Games) and presaged the similar rally she would
generate, again at Jans's expense, in the team event.
Noticeably slimmed down and correspondingly swifter and fitter than before, clearly motivated to take a more active leadership role both by her veteran status (especially compared to her much-younger teammates Quick, 23, and Louisa Hall, 21) and her designation as team captain, and simultaneously relaxed and inspired by the supportive presence of siblings Murad and Shanaz, Khan's game and persona "blossomed like a flower," during the week-long sojourn in the Dominican Republic, according to coach Sharon Bradey, who stated afterwards that this was by far the best she has ever seen Khan play.
BRADEY
GOES OUT ON TOP
Bradey, who had decided even beforehand that, after a half-dozen years
as
U. S. women's head coach, these Games would be her swan song in this capacity,
gratefully asserted after arriving home that she "couldn't have picked
a better event to go out on," and few who were in attendance during
the hectic but highly successful week would dispute her viewpoint.
Although
the U. S. men wound up placing fifth, the same finish as in last year's
Federation Cup tourney, their non-medal team result was possibly attributable
to a star-crossed pool placement that had them in the same five-team bracket
that included gold-medal winner Canada and silver medalist Brazil, thereby
dooming them to a third-place pool placement in a format that only allowed
the top two teams from
each bracket to advance to the medal rounds.
This was something of a "sins of the past" scenario, as the U. S. would have been seeded (and hence able to avoid the need to deal with both Canada and Brazil in the prelims) were it not for their controversial defeat at the hands of Argentina in last year's Federation Cup in a bitterly contentious encounter that several times seemed on the verge of degenerating into a brawl.
The resulting
fifth-place standing last year left the Americans at the mercy of the
luck (or lack thereof) of the draw, which discompassionately left arguably
the
three best of the 10 overall team entries in the same pool while Argentina
and
Mexico were home free in the other bracket.
QUICK
TAKES THE BRONZE
This year's play did provide an immensely vindicatory moment for S. L.
Green winner Preston Quick, ironically of all the American players the
one most severely manhandled in the previous year's fiasco with Argentina,
whose misadventure in Ecuador was subsequently compounded when he was
hospitalized with a severe post-tourney bout with Hepatitis A that sidelined
him for months thereafter. In this his first return to South America since
his difficult experience last summer, Quick came up with a milestone five-game
victory over No. 3 seed Jorge Gutierrez, Argentina's No. 1 and a recent
winner of a PSA tournament, and thereby became the first American man
to reach the semis of the individual championship of the Pan American
Games in the three editions that have taken place since squash became
an official sport in 1995.
Mark Talbott had preceded Quick as a bronze medalist in '95, but that was because four Canadians had reached the semi-finals and, due to the existence of a rule forbidding any one country from receiving all of the medals, a bronze was awarded to Talbott by virtue of his fifth-place finish.
Quick's win over the highly regarded Gutierrez was all the more remarkable both for the 6-3 fifth-game deficit he overcame and the left ankle sprain he had incurred when he rolled his foot while trying to change direction late in the fourth. Forced by this episode to default his semi-final with Canadian star Graham Ryding (who wound up losing the ensuing final to his compatriot Shahier Razik), Quick was able to recover sufficiently to play exceptionally well in the team event that followed, throughout which Coach Paul Assaiante felt that his squad achieved to the outward extent of their capabilities, including a well-earned victory over Colombia on the last day in the battle for fifth place.
BORGMAN
PLAYS STARRING ROLE
Quick's speedy recuperation from his potentially disabling sprain was
due
in no small measure to the enormously helpful tournament-long presence
of the
team trainer, Dave Borgman, who became by all accounts one of the true
unsung
heroes of the entire American performance. Players and coaches alike raved
about his professionalism and effectiveness ("I'm not going to Vienna
without
him," Coach Assaiante later declared, referring to the upcoming World
Team
Championships in October), which were especially helpful not only to Quick's
ankle
but also to a balky Achilles tendon that was bothering Khan and a series
of
upper-leg injuries that besieged Tim Wyant.
The latter, possibly still riding the emotional momentum of his first-place finish in the U. S. Team Trials in June that enabled him to wrest the third and last team spot from Jamie Crombie, seemed of all the participants the most thrilled to be in Santo Domingo, and he played at a career-high level in the win over Colombia. And of course the presence at the top of the men's order of two-time S. L. Green winner Damian Walker, the U. S. No. 1 for each of the past three years in international competition, had the same stabilizing effect on his substantially younger teammates Quick and Wyant (both members of the college class of 2000) that Khan's had on Hall and Meredeth Quick.
Certainly
both teams still need to prove themselves on the world
stage, especially the men, who placed a disappointing 19th out of only
24
teams at the last World Team Championships two years ago in Melbourne.
But both teams (which actually bonded to a degree that made them become
ONE team by week's end) are well positioned for the international challenges
that lie ahead, and both are blessed with a blend of youth, experience
and an abundance of talent that, especially in the wake of this historic
set of results, augurs well for U. S. squash prospects going forward.
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