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Atkinson and Nimmo in Dutch
By Rob Dinerman © 2002 SquashTalk; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Dec 22, 2002             

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Top seed and multiple-times champion Vanessa Atkinson and second seed Pamela Nimmo will meet today in the final of the 2002 Valid Dutch Open, held in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Neither had dropped a game prior to yesterday's semi-finals, where Atkinson was pushed to four by France's Isabelle Stoehr, the fourth seed, and Nimmo had to rally from a two games to one deficit against Annelize Naude, the South African currently based in Amsterdam, before finally prevailing in a tight 4-9 10-8 4-9 9-1 9-7
tally.

Naude, No. 20 in the current WISPA rankings, was bidding for her first
ranking tournament final since recording her first-ever WISPA title last
March in Sonderborg, where she defeated Senga Macfie to win the Danish Open.
Although Naude won that match in five from two games down, she has
encountered considerable difficulty closing out late-match leads during the
past two years, having relinquished two games to one advantages over Louise
Lefebvre at the Bronxville Open in November 2000, over Omneya Abdel Kawy in
Kuala Lampur in February 2001 and last winter over Rebecca Macree (whom she
actually led 2-0) at the Weymuller Open in Brooklyn. Her game has lacked its
characteristic energy over the several months since the World Team
Championships in October, and in this case she was passed in the final laps
by her 25-year-old Scottish contemporary Nimmo, like Naude a 2002 Denmark
champion by virtue of her victory in the Odense Open this past April, who
also reached the final of the Ottawa International Open last month before
losing at that stage to the veteran Englishwoman Suzanne Horner.

Waiting for her there is the WISPA No. 7 Atkinson, already a runner-up
this year in Southport, Las Vegas and Monaco, who defeated Nimmo and Macree
last March to win the Vassar College Class Of '32 Open. Atkinson had won the
Dutch Open throughout the past half-dozen years before missing the 2001 event
and pulled off a major victory over current WISPA No. 3 Natalie Pohrer (who
avenged this outcome in the Monaco final last month) en route to a best-ever
semi-final advance in the 2002 British Open. This has already been the best
year of her seven-year WISPA career-her five WISPA finals more than doubles
her previous career high for a calendar year of two)-and she is hoping to
close it out on a triumphant note by regaining her country's national
championship in this afternoon's final.

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