Cross
Border Challenge
“Whipping.”
“Walloping.” “Worked.” “Whacking.” “Wrecking.” The one ‘W’ that we didn’t do is
“Win”. As usual, however, I do like to emphasize positives and even though it was
our goal to bring victory for the DAC and return proudly with the Cross Border
Trophy, we can all be satisfied with our splendid efforts for one, and two, for
the fact that we had 22 participants! Considering that the event took place in
Windsor, that’s a record!
Also
gratifying was the amount of ‘new’ faces that made the short journey through
the tunnel. The interest is growing - especially at the 3.0 level and below -
and it is definitely one of the best things one can do to gain invaluable
experience. If only the 4.0+ level players would follow suit.
The day
started off evenly enough for the two clubs. There were 3 matches to kick off
the day at 2pm.
Patrick Petz and Mike Petix dominated their doubles match
and took all 3 games comfortably. Our 2 singles competitors didn’t fare as well,
and we lost one in 3 and the other 3-2. But the day was young. As it turned
out, that day turned rather bleak fairly quickly. We didn’t win another match
for 2 hours.
 | ||
| Graham Duguid, Doug Fields, Mike Counsman, John Dunwoody |
Of the next seven
matches completed that continuously added notches in the Windsor win column,
only 2 of them were 3-0. Three of them were 3-1 and in all honesty we did stand
a decent chance of grabbing those victories. They would have needed to be at
the top of their games to do so, but they were by no means blasted off the
court. The other 2 matches went 5.
‘Match of the
Day’ must be handed to Josh
Gershonowicz.
Playing against Peter Ryan, I was a little skeptical that Josh stood much of a
chance. But he unmistakably proved me wrong. Losing the first game 12-10, he
hustled himself to a 17-15 game 2 win. Josh’s counterpunch had Peter coming
back with one of his own as the 3rd game went Windsor’s way. Josh swung back
and muscled through the 4th to set up the grueling 5th neither player really
had the lungs for. But that didn’t stop them from fighting for every rally and
back and forth it went - all the way for fitting tie-break. Josh had his chance
at 11-10 up, but a cross court from Peter (un)luckily found the middle of
Josh’s chest, handcuffing him completely. It was the only opportunity he would
get as Peter somehow scored the next two points for the 13-11 victory. Lady
Luck was not on our side.
Not to be
outdone, running himself into exhaustion was Shri Rangaswamy. He had it tough against a shooter and after the
first game I thought Shri had no chance. But he stormed back with plenty of
better, tough length, which of course makes it difficult for anybody to hit
winners from. Another 5-setter was ours for the taking, but once again it
slipped from our (Shri’s) fingers. He gave it all he could - and I’m sure he
felt every piece of it on Sunday!
In a good
trend, we had 4 women sign up to represent. It was a nice touch that Windsor
managed to give each of them a female opponent as well. Unfortunately for us,
they were all a little too skillful for our tastes and our ladies went 0 for 4.
But, it was great to see them out there and I’m sure we’ll be seeing some of
them come over to the DAC for some ladies only practice sessions.
The DAC’s
second win came from our ever more reliable Sante Fratarcangeli. Sante took care of business 3-1
with a solid performance. Naturally, playing just once is never enough for him,
and Sante was kind enough to step in for a DAC player who cancelled late in the
day. He won that match too (also 3-1) for our third victory. Our fourth and
final win was from new member Ian
Edwards who scored
all 3 games against Michaela Birley.
 |
| Tom Porter and Andy Adamo |
For the final
match of the day, Andy
Adamo had it tough
against the wily Tom Porter. Obviously we had lost the day, but that didn’t
stop Andy from pushing Tom the entire match. Tom is an awkward customer to
handle with his flicky technique and unanticipated angles. Andy almost pulled
off the upset, but it would another 2-3 result to ponder.
Overall we
lost the day 16 matches to 4. Wow. I knew we would have it tough when I saw the
match-ups, but I did think we could have made it closer - we had our chances to
do so. We still would have fallen short even if we had won all the 5-set
matches. No matter, we need to do better. And we’ll get our chance in April
when we host them at the DAC. Most importantly, we all had a great afternoon of
squash and socializing. Thank you to Windsor and Dave Guthrie for being the
gracious hosts and thrashing us with such friendly smiles!
