1 - 7 November 2001
Issue No.558
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 1 - 7 November 2001 Issue No.558 |
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Egypt goes under in Melbourne
There was no stopping Australia which captured a squash triple crown. Nashwa Abdel-Tawab reports on the merciless sweep
Top seed Australia beat unseated defending champions Egypt in the final of the Men's World Team Squash Championship, securing the title with a seventh successive 3-0 win. The victory gave Australia a record seventh crown since Chris Dittmar, Chris Robertson, Brett Martin and Rodney Eyles triumphed in Helsinki in 1991.
The victory, Australia's first in 10 years, signalled a magnificent triple world crown for the hosts and brought the three-week Melbourne 2001 International Squash Festival to a sensational climax. Australian Sarah Fitz-Gerald reclaimed the Women's World Open trophy for a fourth time and Melbourne's own Paul Price, a member of Australia's world championship-winning team, clinched the World Squash Federation (WSF) World Challenge title.
The festival, described by the World Squash Federation as the most imaginative programme ever seen in world sport, was staged at the state-of-the-art Squash Facility at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre from 7--28 October.
The festival included 1,500 competitors from 35 countries and strong attendance figures highlighted the growth of squash at an international level over the past 30 years.
In the Men's World Team Squash Championship, world No 18 Omar El- Borollossi, the only survivor of Egypt's championship winning team of 1999, who had made such a big contribution to Egypt's victory over Scotland in Saturday's semi-final, could not reproduce the silken fluency with which he had defeated Martin Heath. He lost 9-2, 10-9, 9-3 to World No 6 Paul Price.
World No 1 David Palmer next took to the court, and was fully stretched in the opening game by the young Egyptian No 1 Karim Darwish, the world junior champion, but eventually sealed Australia's historic world title win thanks to a 8-10, 9-1, 9-0, 10-8 scoreline. Squad tough player Stewart Boswell, the only player to represent Australia in all their team matches, maintained the team's clean sheet with a 9-0, 9-0 whitewash over Egypt's Mohamed Abbas, thereby becoming the only player in the championship to register seven wins out of seven appearances.
In the play-off for third place, England retained its bronze medal position with a 3-0 win over Scotland.
Egypt's young guns had cruised to their second successive final after upsetting higher-seeded Scotland 2-1 in the semi-finals. El-Borollossi was the hero of Egypt's squad, returning from an injury break to defeat Scotland's world No 9 Martin Heath 9-3, 0-9, 9-2, 9-2 in the opening clash. Heath's Australian-born teammate John White kept Scottish hopes alive by beating Egypt's top string Karim Darwish 5-9, 9-3, 9-6, 9-5 to level the tie. The defending champions' Abbas, however, was too strong for Scotland's No 3 Neil Frankland, winning 9-3, 9-5, 9-2, to put Egypt into the final.
Egypt, the sixth seed, pulled off a significant upset in the quarter-final with a 2-1 dismissal of fourth-seed Canada, runners-up in 1997. Darwish was the hero of Egypt's young squad, crushing Canada's world No 2 and former world champion Jonathon Power 9-2, 9-2, 10-9 in his first win in the tournament to level the tie after teammate Amr Shabana went down 9-4, 9-5, 9-0 in the opening match to Canada's Graham Ryding. "It's frustrating not being able to play at my full capacity," said Power, who is still recuperating from a hamstring pull he suffered earlier in the month. In the decider Abbas, like Darwish also aged 20, clinched victory for the defending champions by beating Canada's Cairo-born Shahir Razik 9-3, 6-9, 9-1, 9-7.
Egypt stormed into the quarter-finals with a resounding 3-0 win over Denmark, conceding just 11 points in the three matches, despite resting Darwish, the world No 19.
In the Women's World Open, Egypt failed to reach the last eight. Australia's Fitz-Gerald confirmed her place not only at the top of the current world rankings, but also as one of the all-time greats in women's squash, winning her fourth world title with a 3-0 victory over Leilani Joyce to equal the record four titles of Dame Susan Devoy. In 44 minutes, Fitz- Gerald ousted Joyce 9 0, 9 3, 9 2.
In the final of the WSF Challenge, second-seeded Price, the world No 6, fought desperately to beat compatriot Anthony Ricketts in the makeshift competition that replaced the glamour event which was cancelled due to sponsorship problems. The competition replaced the WSF Championship which was cancelled because of a players' boycott following a drastic last-minute reduction of the prize pool of $105,000.
"It's great to win the world challenge and the team title for Australia, especially here in front of my home fans," said Price, who won 9-0, 9-10, 10-9, 0-9, 9-2 in 103 minutes. A tired Price made a gift of the fourth game, and in the fifth Ricketts played thoughtless, erratic squash to fall 0-6 behind before settling down to contest the finish.
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