LA CRÈME DE LA SINGLES CRÈME

2022 DAC Club Championships

Officially, it’s the end of the season. Awards Dividend night doesn’t just celebrate the winners of the club championships, but in reality rejoices the past 8 months of leagues and tournaments we have all endured and enjoyed, experienced both wins and losses, made new friends and strengthened current relationships, guzzled a few beers, and hopefully have felt like the DAC is your second home. We’ve had a pretty respectable run – The Pro Squash Tournament in October featuring (then) world #2 Nouran Gohar from Egypt who is now world #1, the Farris Cup, the DAC Squash Classic, the McQueenie Cup… just to list a few. The cherry on top is the club championships, so let’s suckle on its sweetness and explore the results!

Here is Part 2… Singles…

2.5… Joe Schmidt was the number one seeded player and Joe Schmidt won this category. But he was very close to not even reaching the semifinal. He played 4 matches, won three of them 3-0. His second-round match, however, was an absolute crackerjack of a contest against Todd Szymczak. We don’t get too many results like this one, and here is when we all wish that both players could advance to the next round as neither deserve to lose. Or, (and no offense to anyone else in the draw) this would have been an sensational final. Joe ended up winning 16-14 in the 5^th, one for the ages. On the bottom half of the draw, we had some tight results, but also three defaults for various unfortunate / unavoidable reasons, which may or may not have influenced the outcomes. Scott Wloszek is a new player to the DAC squash family – so new in fact, that I would probably struggle to recognize him if he walked into my office (as terrible as that sounds!) Scott reached the final with a couple of 3-1 wins along the way, but couldn’t quite keep up with Joe. It’s Scott’s first season and already he has an impressive win / loss record (16 and 4). Quick learner apparently! The 2.5 category was littered with 3-2 results, in fact of the 21 players in the draw, we only had five 3-0 scores.

3.0…  “Boo Yah!” I bet you can’t guess who won this category? It’s a mystery I will leave until the end… “Boo Yah!” Before I get there, I would like to congratulate the first finalist, Eric Corrado. Eric only started playing 4 months ago and somehow, someway, is defying the odds and winning every match he plays. “Boo Yah!” A couple of solid wins to start his 3-0 campaign, Eric beat Daniel Dusina in 5 and then Will Markley 3-0, then only dropped one game more in the next 2 matches to get to the final. “Boo Yah!” Meeting him there was Mr. “Boo Yah!” himself, Dewey Steffen – collector of rare club championship trophies covering a broad array of sports, owner of the world’s biggest mantle piece above a fireplace, moderator of countless social media sites. “Boo Yah!” Dewey, to be fair, does practice hard on his game and he has been regularly on court with Stu, working on his trash talking amongst other things! Not that he needed it for the final. “Boo Yah!” A clinical display, Dewey showed a little too much power and consistency and managed to hand Eric his first official “Boo Yah!”  and loss on a squash court. He now must step up to at least the 3.5. Maybe even the 4.0… depends on how many times I hear “Boo Yah!” between now and then.

3.5… The biggest of all the draws, we had 26 players. That meant 25 matches. Of those 25 matches, only three of them were 3-0. Three. That’s crazy. As crazy as finding out that the blob of toothpaste that sits on your toothbrush is called a ‘nurdle’… (I am going to attempt to use that word in a sentence next week.) Anyway, the bracket was competitive is my point. So, neither of the finalists had a stress-free run. Jordan Dean’s greatest threat was in his first match against Mike Parker. Never underestimate the wiliness of an experienced Brit. Mike jumped out to a 2-0 lead before Jordan could get the motor running to full capacity where he then pounded out the next 3 games to win in five. A more comfortable style to counter for Jordan in his second match, and then he wrestled through the quarters and semis in 4 games. His finals opponent would be Matt Wilson. Getting his money’s worth, Matt seems to enjoy the agony of running around a squash court a lot more than is actually necessary. If he could run out the door, up the carpark and back again between shots, he would. Matt had two 5-setters to reach the final – one against Kevin Thomas in the quarters and other against Evan Moore in the semis. Pretty sure fitness played a major role on both accounts. In a bold mind-games move, Jordan skipped out of town for a few days to delay the match for some secret sauce training. “Where?”, you ask… We don’t know. It’s a secret. Did it work? Time will tell, he’s still getting in his final reps. (Jump forward a week and a half...) Jordan was ready. Matt was also ready. Ready to run for another 5 games. The secret training almost worked, but who can stop the Wilson juggernaut? Especially if it goes to 5 - as this did. In typical Wilson fashion, Matt pulled out the 3-2 victory, his 11th straight match (win) that wasn't a straight set victory!

4.0… I had never heard of Sean Abelarde before the DAC Squash Classic. He had been a member for a week, and I was told that he’d probably, maybe, potentially be competitive in the 3.5 division. So in he went, and voila! What do you know! He ended up winning it. Straight into the 4.0 for the club champs, then. That’ll make him sweat, we predicted. Now of course, we all know what happens when one ‘assumes’. Evidently, Sean isn’t too shabby at this thing we call ‘squash’. Another young member popping up on the radar, putting everyone on notice – just wait until he starts taking lessons and actually learns the game! Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see any of his matches, but it appeared that he was relatively untroubled in all of his 3-0 wins. That included the final against John Mann. Okay, okay – I will start to make this tougher for him. Not only will he playing 4.5, he’ll have to do it with a frying pan as a racquet, flippers for squash shoes, and perform a push-up while shouting, “thank you sir, may I have another?” between shots.

4.5… When I started coaching Robbie Biskup just over 3 years ago, he was raw 2.5 (at best). He’s a feel-good story for any coach, and the perfect example of hard work paying off. His effort level and determination is second to none, One day, one fine day, he’ll learn to win in three. Because pretty much every match he plays is a donnybrook for the ages. Of his past 21 matches on Sporty, only four of them were 3-0. Two of his matches in Chicago at the McQueenie Cup were brutal 5-setters. He did win his first round here 3-1 though, a good result against Brian Bartes but since it didn’t go 5 games, Robbie felt a little robbed no doubt. Making up for it, his semifinal against Mark Gregory did go all the way. To add extra pressure, at 1-game each, Robbie found himself 5-10 down in the third. Busting a spleen and kidney to survive, Robbie scraped his way back and pinched the game. It saved him. The match still went to 5, but it wouldn’t have had Mark won the 3^rd. The lack of oxygen caught up with Mark in the 5^th and Robbie lived to see another match – the final. There, he had to deal with the cleverness of Tony DM. Tony moves the ball around a lot. Tony is steady. Tony made Robbie run. Tony likes to wear loud t-shirts and shorts. Robbie ran. And ran. And lunged. And twisted. And hung in there. Robbie admitted afterwards that he never felt like he was in much control and did all he could to keep it close. Once again, that persistence paid off and Robbie fell over the finish line winning it 11-9 in the 5^th!

Matt Paradiso and Iain Prendergast

5.0… Matt Paradiso doesn’t lose very often. He’s another one of these young guys that improves so quickly, just when you think you have him in at the right level for a league, he already outgrowing it 2 weeks later. It’s like dealing with a child in the middle of a growth spurt, but for Matt, that spurt has been continuous for 4 years now. Matt lost the final of the 5.0 last year to David de la Torre, who couldn’t defend his title this year since he’s recovering from an Achilles injury. Here, he earned himself another opportunity to capture his first club championship title by getting to the final dropping only one game. His opponent would be another newcomer to the DAC (not to squash though!) in Iain Prendergast. Since joining at the start of this year, Iain’s only loss has been to Matt. He’s also beaten Matt, and the scuttlebutt on the street was that Iain was the bookies bet for the win. For the record, Iain also dropped just 1 game to reach the final. Hats off to Matt for this one, I must say. He went on with a game plan and for the first 2 games, executed it competently and consistently. They were tough, long rallies, but the strategy was working. The third game, though, was a struggle. Matt was beginning to tire, the racquet was beginning to drop, the feet were beginning to drag. But somehow, he maintained himself within striking distance and at 10-all in the third, a little luck (maybe), an unforced Iain error to boot, Matt nabbed it 12-10. Safe to say, had Iain won the third, we would have had a 5^th game too. The much anticipated final was great to watch. The only downer for the crowd was that it didn’t go longer than three games.

Jed Elley and Stefan Houbtchev

Open… Who can stop the Stefan Houbtchev power train? A plane? A tall building? Superman? Well, until we get a superhero joining the club, we can sit back, relax, and enjoy the Stefan show. Actually, the one thing that did stop Stefan was a micro organism called “Covid” that blocked all passage from his secret lair in Windsor last year. Stefan was surgically clinical during this tournament, giving virtually nothing easy away in any of his matches, including the 3-0 final versus Jed.
But that’s not to say that the category is uninteresting. Match of the draw must go to the Jed v Vikram semifinal. These two are building quite the fascinating rivalry. Prior to this semi, of the 16 recorded matches, Vikram had won 9 of them. Only one of their matches was a 3-0 score line. Curiously, they have played against each other in every club championship since 2016 (in the final), neither of them has won twice in a row. And, based on that trend, since Vikram won their club champs match in 2021, it would be Jed’s turn now. In one of their longest matches no doubt, Vikram took the first 2 games 12-10. It’s always tough to come back from 0-2 down, but Jed grit his teeth, pulled up his big-boy pants, and began the comeback quest one grinding point at a time. It took over an hour, but Jed heaved his aching body over the finish line 11-9 in the 5^th to take the win. But, Stefan is the man of the hour, the man for 2022, the name that will be forever hanging in the great halls of DAC Club Championship honor boards.

All the winners and finalists are now eligible to represent the DAC at the 2023 Farris Cup. Hopefully we can avenge our annihilating capitulation of that event earlier this year with this fine line-up! Always the optimist, I am.