DAC
Squash Classic Feb 6-9
The DAC
prides itself on bending over backwards to make your experience at the club the
most memorable possible. When you leave, we want you longing to come back.
We try to accommodate and include everyone. This is the tenth time I have run
the DAC Squash Classic and every year the response to enter this event gets
stronger. Unfortunately, we cannot include everyone who wants to play - it is
simply a matter of court time. We don’t have enough of it! Capacity was reached
15 days before the deadline this year.
At one point I had a wait list of 25 players.
The beauty of
the tournament is the consistent repeat visitors from year to year. Our friends
from London never let us down and 31 of them made the trip this year. That’s one off
the record set 2 years ago. Windsor also support us is bus loads and we are
extremely grateful for that too. In addition, we had 6 players from Toronto,
and they have vowed to bring more in 2015. All in all, half the representation
of the 155 registered bodies were from outside the DAC walls. Canada had 54 of
them.
The furthest
travelers were two of our dearest and missed members Ken MacDonald and Chris Moyer who both now reside in Denver.
It was wonderful to see them again. The tendrils of this event are also
grabbing people from Pittsburgh, Toledo, Dayton, Lansing, Flint, Grand Rapids
and Traverse City. And certainly not forgotten, the support from the local
clubs in the Detroit area is vitally important: BAC, Life Time Fitness, Franklin.
The DAC
players did not have the same level of success as they did in 2013 where 10 of our players picked up some hardware. The competition this year was noticeably
tougher.
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| Dane Fossee (3.5 finalist) and Dino DeMare (2.5 finalist) |
2.5~~ The DAC did dominate this, the largest category. It was
difficult not too since 24 of the 30 players were members. About 3 months ago, Jeff Huebner came to me and pronounced he was
going to win the 2.5 category. A brave prognosis and one I thought was a little
ambitious although not totally out of reach. He almost had to eat humble pie
after round 1 as he squeaked by Eric
Scheible 12-10 in
the 5th. It also happened to be the final match of the Thursday schedule - a
10pm start. (That also happened last year where the last Thursday 10pm match
finished 14-12 in the 5th!) Jeff went on to win the next 2 rounds 3-0 and it was
looking more like he going to fulfill that prophecy. It almost all unraveled in
the semi final against Joey
Gaylord as another
nail-biter came down to the final couple
of rallies in the 5th game. Once again, however, Jeff’s mission remained in
tact as he won it 11-9. His opponent in the final was the category dark horse Dino DeMare. Dino started off the tournament
with two 3-0 victories, then a very tough 3-2 win over JC Tibbitts in the quarter final, and
followed that up with a steady 3-1 win over Josh Gershonowicz in the semi. A very good final and Dino did all he
could to ruin the sooth-saying abilities of Jeff, but he fell just a little
short. Jeff took the final 3-1, and has now started his next project of winning
the lottery.
3.0~~ It’s rather strange these days to
see so many results in one category end up 3-0. Only 4 of the 19 matches went
3-1 or 3-2. Mitchell
Werner from Franklin
was unquestionably the one to beat (and as you will see was the one to beat in
the 3.5 too) and he rolled through this bracket dropping only one game (to Shail Arora). He beat Brian Rizzi (Lansing) in the final 3-0.
Brian also had an relatively easy run to the final, but Mitchell was clearly
the better player on the weekend. Special mention for this level goes to Anne Smith from London, who at the spry
young age of 60+ won the consolation bracket beating 3 of our (much younger)
members on the way. Amazing. I hope our boys took notes.
3.5~~ This was the second biggest
category with 27 players. It was also a lot more competitive than the 3.0 -
except for Mitchell
Werner. He actually
went one better in this level and won all his matches 3-0. Mitchell will
be entering the 4.0 and 4.5 next year... Mitchell’s final’s opponent did
surprise me a little. Dane
Fossee. A couple of
excellent 3-1 wins over the in-form Bob
Rogers and Ken MacDonald, Dane was the quiet achiever
until he was stonewalled by Mitchell in the final. This category produced the
closest result of the tournament in the first round with Dave Hornby (Windsor) beating Sean Fossee 15-13 in the 5th.
4.0~~ Anne Smith was not the only
successful 60+ player of the weekend. Maurice
Strul from
Pittsburgh maybe sore for a month after his effort in the 4.0. A highly
competitive draw, 13 of the 17 matches were decided in 4 or 5 games. None of
Maurice’s matches were 3-0. He won on Friday and Saturday 3-1, before taking on
Sante
Fratarcangeli in the
semi final on Sunday morning. Maurice had to use every single ounce of
experience to overcome Sante’s dogged resistance, especially at 10-8 down in
the 5th. Sante couldn’t close out the match and a couple of unforced errors at
that stage cost him dearly. Maurice took advantage of them and
with it the 13-11 victory as well. His opponent was Rob Roy from Windsor who also had to
battle fiercely to reach the final. Rob took down London’s Marcus Plowright 3-2 in the semi on Sunday as
well, setting up a terrific last match. Maurice was wondering how he was going
to be able to keep up with the much younger legs of Rob, hoping for a 3-0 win.
He almost managed it after winning the first 2 games, but Rob started to edge
his way back. He took the third and fourth and Maurice looked like he had
lost the wind in his drooping sails. But once again, experience came to the
fore. Slow and steady wins the race. Keep it simple. Let the other guy make the
mistakes. It all fell apart for Rob in the 5th as Maurice just kept the ball in
play as long as possible, played it safe and let Rob run himself out of position.
A great (and smart) 3-2 win for Maurice!
4.5~~ When I posted the draws for this
event, the first comment was, “is that the John Acquaviva?” I had no idea that in fact it was the John Acquaviva, the rather well known DJ. Wow. The DAC Classic
attracts famous people too! John won his first match and lost the second,
performed a gig in Ferndale in Friday night as well, and is so humble. Like all
Londonites it was a pleasure having him here. John also lost to the winner of
the event. David
Garel is the first
representative we have had from Dayton and looked very sound on court. Balanced
and smooth, he definitely deserved the title. But it wasn’t plain sailing. Andrew Pitters pushed him all the way in the
semi final eventually succumbing in 5 games. Andrew has tremendous power, never
seems to get tired, loves to hit (smash) winners. It can throw even the most
technically correct for a loop with his unorthodox playing style. However, it
also hurts him. Wild power causes inconsistency, loose shots will only make you
run more and harder and David knew how to punish such errors. In the final,
David took care of business with a 3-0 victory over Chris Robitaille from Toronto.
5.0~~ This was the largest 5.0 draw we
have had with 22 players. It was always going to be a very difficult draw for
any of our members to repeat what Jed
Elley did for us
last year and win it. John
Rakolta was the
closest - he was the only one to reach the quarter finals where he lost 3-2 to Aly Somani from Toronto. Aly was then
comprehensively beaten 3-0 by the charismatic Seth Rogers (BAC) in the semi. Seth has improved awfully
quickly over the past 2 years despite his technique being 100% tennis. A two
handed backhand, one that he uses even deep in the back corner, his remarkable
speed and tenacity makes up for a lot of footwork issues, Seth has proved to be
a burdensome opponent. On the other side of the draw, Kevin Furmanek was carving his way through using
a lot more conventional methods. Strong stokes, accurate length, decisive winners. A
clash of styles for the final, Kevin appeared not to have much trouble
countering the awkward play of Seth. He took the final 3-0. This category
produced the second closest match of the tournament when Brad Steel (BAC) beat Derek Aguirre 14-12 in the 5th in a great fun
contest... at least fun for the ones watching!
5.5~~ Time for some young blood. Since
2009, the 5.5 has been won by either Mark
Eugeni (Windsor) or Brad Hanebury (London). Even though they were
in the draw, I had them seeded 4 and 3 respectively. Two youngsters - 17 year
old Stefan
Houbtchev from
Windsor and 16 year old Carter
Robitaille from
Toronto were poised to take control. Stefan had no issues getting through to
the final winning 3-0 all the way. Carter, however, almost became a victim of
the Eugeni magic racquet as Mark made life somewhat troublesome with his
flicks, deception, nicks, and experience. Mark actually had a 2-1 lead before
Carter eventually wore him down and he could be happy with escaping with the
3-2 win. The final was what we expected it would be. Stefan jumped out quickly
for a 2-0 lead taking advantage of a sluggish Carter who was struggling with
his movements. But in the third, Carter started to gain confidence with lunging
out and showed us all just how quick and efficient he can move. Extending
rallies, he frustrated Stefan a little. Patience paid off as Stefan couldn’t
keep up the consistency needed and he was becoming more hesitant with his short
attacking game, popping up the drops and boasts rather than nailing them. The
5th game had Carter come back from a 5-7 deficit and rolled off the next 6
points to win it 11-7. Great stuff!
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| The "Blue Chips" in full uniform. They lost to Franklin / Snower in the second round. |
Doubles~~ We have usually haven’t had any
issues with the doubles schedule running late over the years. But on Saturday,
helped by back-to-back-to-back-to-back 5 setters (okay, one of them was a
4-setter) by the time the final match went on it was 2 hours behind schedule.
They went 3-0, but I must give them a special thank you for waiting so long and
playing into the dinner time. Traditionally, DAC members do not perform well in
these categories and this year was no different. Canadians dominate the draws,
although the B winners were a surprise result with BAC’s Michael Snower and Max Franklin taking the honors. Paul Ward and Steve Murphy reached the semi finals of the C
draw which was also a surprise (especially to Steve!) only to lose 3-0 to the
veterans Lindsay
and Anne Smith who
continue year after year to reach the final. They repeated last year’s result
losing to London’s Heather Betts and Ron Henry 3-2. We had some fantastic
doubles matches this year. Splendid 5 set matches kept the crowd on the edge of
their seats, which is preferable to everyone even though it ran late. No one
wants continuous 3-0 blow outs! All the results can be seen on this link: DAC Classic Tournament Results
