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Rob Dinerman © 2002 SquashTalk; all rights of reproduction reserved.
Dec 23, 2002

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Preston Quick, the only player to reach at least the semi-final round of both the S. L. Green Open singles and the USSRA National Doubles championships last season, will be returning to competitive tournament action after an enforced three-month lay-off due to a bout with Hepatitis A incurred during the Pan American Federation Cup tourney in Quito, Ecuador in mid-September.

The 25-year-old Quick was the most prominent of more than a dozen players, referees and officials, including three Americans, who were laid low by the outbreak, which may have had its roots in the contamination of the region's entire water system which was discovered several weeks later and reported in a major article that appeared in the November 10th article of the New York Times.

Quick played on the 2001 U. S. team that placed 19th in Australia last autumn, then embarked on an outstanding 2002-2002 season that saw him reach the final of both the Trinity Open and the S. L. Green (the United States softball championship), losing to Damian Walker in both events, while also enjoying success (and the No. 18 overall ranking) on the ISDA pro doubles tour, highlighted by his and Jamie Bentley's advance to the semi-final round of the National Doubles in New York, where they came close to defeating eventual champions Gary Waite and Morris Clothier, losing the pivotal third
game by a single point before dropping the final fourth 15-12.

He demonstrated unusual versatility by alternating throughout the season between the left and right walls, and his strong Nationals showing with the multi-titled veteran Bentley caused the pair to decide over the summer to become partners for this season.

It was during the opening ISDA event at the Denver Club on the last weekend of September, about two weeks (the typical incubation period for Hepatitis A) that Quick started experiencing the distress symptoms that later led to the fateful diagnosis. Though, unlike several of the other infected players, he did not require hospitalization, Quick was forced to rest and forego any exercise for more than a month while his infected liver recovered, and until recently he was required to slowly build up his fitness regimen.

He of course had to withdraw from the several ISDA tournaments that took place
this fall and it wasn't until about two weeks ago that he was cleared to resume the demanding work-outs that have been the key to his rapid rise up the American singles and ISDA doubles ranks during the two-plus years since his graduation from Trinity, on whose national championship squads he had played a major role during his junior and senior years.

Now well back on the road to fully regaining his pre-illness form, Quick and Bentley plan to enter the first 2003 ISDA tournament in Wilmington during the second weekend of January, which kicks off a prolonged stretch of tournaments virtually every weekend for the next several months. Quick even feels confident enough of his condition to have decided to take on the major challenge that will be posed in Greenwich, two weeks after Wilmington, in which he will be playing in both the ISDA event with Bentley and a concomitant softball singles tourney that will be run simultaneously!

That figures to be a fairly hectic period, as the college season will be hitting its busiest stretch during that time frame as well, and Quick is now in his second season as Executive Administrator of the newly realigned College Squash Association.

The Hepatitis A outbreak was an unfortunate coda to what had already been
a difficult and disappointing Pan Am Fed Cup competition marked by several publicized controversies. The USSRA, like many other national squash associations
affected by this misadventure, has vowed to take precautionary steps to minimize the danger to its players and officials representing it in future such team and individual events, like mandating gamma globulin shots beforehand and inoculating team members venturing into regions known to contain preventable health risks.

Thankfully Quick and all of his squash-playing colleagues appear to have fully recovered, though not before the illness ran its painful and time-consuming course.

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