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Bennett's Event Evolves
The Bennett family, who throughout the squash world are closely associated with the growth and enthusiasm level of squash in Salt Lake City have further evolved their professional squash tour stops, this year holding the Salt Lake City SquashWorks men's and women's events on the same dates.

The 2005 Squashworks Open started play on Wednesday evening August 3rd. This is the fifth straight year that Salt Lake City has hosted professional squash. In past years, the club hosted a women’s WISPA tournament in May and men’s PSA tournament in July. This year, for the first time, the two tournaments are being played during the same week. In addition to the pros, Squashworks is hosting the 2005 Intermountain amateur tournament as well.

Wednesday evening saw all six courts being used and a large gallery of spectators many of whom came to see the two locals in action: Steffanie Moore in the women’s draw and Mike Corren (who recently moved to Salt Lake) on the men’s.

WOMEN'S PLAY: ALANA MILLER BEATS TRAVEL WOES     [WISPA results]
Moore started the evening off by facing Jenna Gates (world #57 from England) in the opening match. Moore, who has only played squash for three years, fought the nerves of taking on a world-class player. Buoyed by the support from the local crowd, she fought valiantly but in the end Gates simply had more experience and was able to control each rally by keeping the ball deep to back corners and then volleying any lose shots for winners. Gates moves on to the second round: 9-1, 9-1, 9-0 (21 min).

The second women’s match of the evening featured an intriguing matchup of two American players: Shabana Khan (world # 62) and Britt Hebden (world # 101). Khan, 37, is a former U.S. National Champion and a veteran of the WISPA tour; Hebden, 17, is playing only her second WISPA event and will be completing high school next year. Although Hebden has a bright future in squash and will obviously be a fixture in U.S. women’s squash, Khan made it clear that she is not ready to yield to the youngster. She was simply more steady and relaxed and finished the match: 9-5, 9-0, 9-1 (24 min). Afterwards, Khan was pleased to get her first victory in Salt Lake City. She has been to the WISPA tournament all four years—the only player in the draw to claim that accomplishment.

The third match on the women’s side was a match up of two English players: Suzie Pierrepont (world #46) and Emma Parke (world #156). Unlike the Khan/Hebden match where experience prevailed against youth, Pierrepont (age 20) looked more experienced and comfortable on court than the older Parke (age 31) and prevailed 9-3, 9-1, 9-0 (30 minutes).

The women’s final match for the evening, Tara Mullins (world #58) and Karina Herrera Zuniga (world #114) proved to be the best. The match was delayed from its original starting time of 5:45 PM to 9:00 PM to accommodate the travel delays of Mullins who was stuck in Toronto due to bad weather and the Air France plane crash. To both players credit, each of them battled through the challenges caused by the delays. Unexpectedly, Mullins seemed fresh and eager in the first game and took advantage of Herrera Zuniga’s errors to jump to a 9-1 win. Herrera Zuniga steadied herself in the second however and let Mullins know that this match was going to be tough as she fought back from 4-7 down in second to claim the game 10-8. Mullins regained the advantage by jumping to a 7-3 lead in third game and then closing the game 9-5. Once again, however, Herrera Zuniga responded and raced to 5-0 lead in the fourth. Mullins fought back to tie at 5-5 only to see Herrera Zuniga respond again and close the game 9-5. The fifth game started much like the fourth with Herrera Zuniga raced to a 5-1 lead only to see the Mullin’s respond and show superb mental toughness resulting in her retaking the lead 6-5. The game went back to Herrera Zuniga’s favor by one point 7-6 and then Mullins reached deep to close the game, the match, and a very long two days 9-7 (73 minutes).

MEN'S PLAY: BOSWELL PACES ACTION     [PSA results]

The men’s tournament began with a very short match between the #1 seed Phillip Barker (world #47 from England) and Patrick Bedore (world #145 from Canada). Barker was in control from the start with his smooth style and excellent footwork. Although only 23, Barker has been playing on the PSA tour since 1999 and has 23 tournaments under his belt along with 3 titles. His experience really showed against Bedore, 18, who was playing in only this 10th tournament. The final score: 11-2, 11-2, 11-3 (20 minutes).

Next up on the exhibition court was Rafael Alarcon (world #69 from Brazil) and Marton Szaboky (world #110 from Hungary). Alarcon appeared very comfortable playing at altitude and adjusting to speed of the Squashworks courts. He was moving the ball to all corners with a variety of well executed shots and finished the match 11-2, 11-2, 11-7 in 33 minutes.

Perhaps the most anticipated match of the evening saw Mike Corren (who now lives in Salt Lake City) return to PSA action against United States under 19 junior champion Christopher Gordon (world # 82). Corren, age 31, is no stranger to PSA competition. He has played in over 50 events and has 17 titles. Gordon, now 19, showed flashes of brilliance with his retrieving and determination but he could not match Corren’s offensive repertoire. The match started very tight, but then Corren was able to race from a 5-5 tie to finish the game 11-5 and used a variety of impressive hard nicks and a few Gordon mistakes to claim the game. The second game, Gordon really dug in, and aside from an early 3-0 by Gordon, no player was able to extend their lead more than two points. In the end, however, it was Gordon who faltered in the tie-breaker with a few costly errors and Corren had a very important 2-0 lead in games. Corren took the momentum of closing out the second game tie-breaker and finished the match 11-5, 11-10 (2-0), 11-5 (40 minutes).

Like most of his matches in his recent comeback, Stewart Boswell’s first round match with Karim Yehia was very routine. He began the match by racing to a 5-0 lead, aided a greatly by Yehia’s mistakes. Yehia tried hard to fight back and did for a brief stretch get back to 3-6 only to see Boswell’s consistency and quick pace force the action. Boswell finished the game 11-6. The second and third games were similar to the first with Yehia playing well and providing an excellent match to watch, but simply not being strong enough to counter Boswell’s game.

Laurent Elriani (world #76 from France) had an easy time with Kumail Mehmood (world # 103 from USA). Mehmood never led in any game and Elriani closed the match: 11-5, 11-1, 11-2 (30 minutes)

For a time Jago Nardelli (world #97 from England) seemed poised to beat Niall Rooney (#84 from Ireland). The match score was 1-1 with each of the first games being very close. In the 3rd and 4th games, however, Rooney took control and finished each game with a run 8 straigth points: 11-8, 9-11, 11-1, 11-3.

The final match of the evening on men’s side, Shawn DeLierre (world #91 from Canada) and Ahmed Hamza (world # 135) saw each game played almost identical. Early in each game the score was tight up till about 3 or 4; then, one of the player would run off 6 or 7 straight points. Unfortunately for Hamza, DeLeirre performed this feat three times while he was only able to do it once. Final score: 11-4, 2-11, 11-2, 11-3 (49 minutes).

Quarterfinal Schedule for today:

Court # 1 (Exhibition Court)
Phillip Barker (ENG) vs David Phillips (CAN) @ 5:00 PM
Alana Miller (CAN) vs Tara Mullins (CAN) @ 6:00 PM
Mike Corren (AUS) vs Laurent Elriani (FRA) @ 7:00 PM
Runa Reta (CAN) vs Shabana Khan (USA) @ 8:00 PM

Court # 3
Engy Khierallah (EGY) vs Jenna Gates (ENG) @ 5:00 PM
Rafael Alarcon(BRA) vs Shawn De Lierre (CAN) @ 6:00 PM
Suzie Pierrepont (ENG) vs Melanie Jans Burke (CAN) @ 7:00 PM
Niall Rooney (IRL) vs Stewart Boswell (AUS) @ 8:00 PM