Blitz Tournament November 10, 2017
I really enjoy this format. Pitting the lower ranked player
against the higher ones creates an energized atmosphere and it’s the perfect
rare opportunity for many members to step on court with opponents who are
significantly stronger. And, as was prevalent on this day, the seldom but
highly satisfying gratification of actually beating them.
Handicapping may have been a little severe now and then,
but this is done by design. I purposely try to lean towards the underdog, a
deliberate extra pressure placed on the higher ranked players. The lower ranked
players do enjoy getting that sniff of victory. It’s also entertaining
listening to the crowd cheer them on, begging for a mis-hit winner, pleading for
an unforced error, imploring for the upset.
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| Jason "The Bagel" Currie and Peter Huthwaite |
We had 25 players, five groups of 5, so 50 preliminary
matches overall, 11 of which ended up 15-14 which proves the handicap to be
spot-on and for at least 20% ~ish of the time, shows I know what I’m talking
about. I’ll take that 20%, at home it’s close to zero.
There were, also, some rather startling blow-outs. None
more noticeable than the Group 1 match between Jason Currie and Peter
Huthwaite. Jason plays #1 in the Boasters League, Peter #15. So I gave Peter
13 points head start. Two rallies later (and this is why I named this
tournament the “Blitz”) they shook hands. Yep, for the first time I can
remember in 19 Blitz Tournaments, we have our first bagel. 15-0. Here is a
photo commemorating this wonderful moment in Blitz history…
Jason’s misery didn’t end there. He only scored 3 points
against Mack Gembis, 7 against David de la Torre, and then
salvaged some pride against Shail Arora, albeit in a sudden-death 15-14
win. The two players that advanced from Group 1 were the two lower ranked ones
- Mack Gembis and Peter Huthwaite - each with 3 wins.
In Group 2 there were another couple of surprising results.
David Zack dominated this group taking all 4 of his matches. On paper
some of the handicaps he received were warranted, but on court the situation
should have been reversed. David demolished Maggie Durant 15-3, making
his 6 point gift look completely inappropriate. He did give up 6 points to Jordan
Dean and won that 15-14, the only sudden death point of the group. Jordan
was the other player to advance to the knock-out round form this group, he too
made the handicap he received against Maggie rather unbecoming. I guess it wasn’t
Maggie’s day, but she did beat Jeff Gembis so it wasn’t all terrible
news for her!
In Group 3, Paul Gormley would receive the “unlucky”
award. Against the 2 strongest players in the group, he needed just a fraction
of fortune to go his way. However, it was not to be. He lost both matches
against JC Tibbitts and John Rogers 15-14. If he had won either
of them, he would have advanced to the finals round as he crushed the other 2
matches easily. Where Paul was missing out on his good destiny, JC was taking
advantage. He won 2 of his matches 15-14, and one 15-13, again if either of
those results were reversed, he would not have advanced. The difference one rally
can make… Joining JC to the finals was John Rogers who won 3 of 4
matches and appears to get more energized the longer he plays.
Another 3 sudden-death results in Group 4. Emphasizing
again that the outcome of one rally would have changed the result of this
tournament! Tom MacEachern’s 15-14 win over Chuck Doyle allowed
him avoid elimination. Had he lost that point, Chuck would have moved on
instead. It was a competitive group, every result was a minimum 15-11 score
line. The most exciting ending was between Tom and John Mann - the
result also may have changed the set-up of the knock out finals. At 14-all Tom
pushed the ball into the front right corner. Desperate, John put his body on
the line and dove head first to retrieve it, did so, but lolly-popped it
straight back into the middle of the court and straight onto Tom’s racquet.
However, instead of simply nailing the ball the back while John was still
sprawled out on the floor, Tom literally lolly-popped it back onto the front
wall believing John wouldn’t even try to run. John realized the ball was still
sitting up, managed to recover and another desperation swing got his strings to
the ball and hit the winner taking the game 15-14. Ridiculous stuff! Tom couldn’t
believe what just did, John’s effort guaranteed him advancement and he redeemed
himself from the one loss I have to mention:
John’s loss in the group to Curt
Pedersen occurred when John was serving at 13-14 and served the ball under
the service line for a fault. Ugh.
Group 5 was also closely contested. Never afraid to run and
sweat, Han Peng thrives in long rallies, looks like he’s going to
collapse and throw up, then shrugs it off and starts running anew. His 15-13
win against Jeff Rogers was a perfect example as Jeff also likes to run
till he drops. It looked as if both players wanted to keep the rally going,
never quite hitting the ball wide enough or long enough or hard enough to end
the point. Run, run, run. May as well run some more. Han picked up 3 tough wins
to advance. Second place ended up being a 3-way tie between Jeff Rogers,
Colin Bayer and Brian Ellison all of whom had 2 wins each. The
fairest way to determine these scenarios is by drawing straws. Pure luck, equal
opportunity. For those who argue that head to head should be the determining
factor, it would be difficult to pick the winner anyway: Brian beat Colin, who
beat Jeff, who beat Brain. Straws were studied, then drawn. Brian won the lottery.
Brian’s reward? A first round final match against Tom
MacEachern. A 9 point head start was perfect. And opportunistic. And
worrisome for Tom. And one point too few as it turned out for Brian. Tom
squeaked out another sudden death point for his second 15-14 win of the day. I
sent Tom straight back on court for his next final’s game against David Zack
to whom he was giving up 10 points. Once again, Tom bullied his way through the
game. David did put up some resistance and reached 13 points but the pace of
Tom’s hitting was too much to handle.
In the semifinal Tom was to meet up against Mack Gembis.
Mack is new to squash so his presence here was a little surprising and actually
such a newcomer does make the handicapping tricky. Mack beat up on JC
Tibbitts in his first match 15-4, not needing at all the 11 points head
start I gave him. I gave him 11 against Tom as well thinking Mack could surely
squeeze 4 points out of Tom the way he was playing, Ummm.. no. he couldn’t.
Just a couple only. Tom was on a mission.
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| Han Peng and Mack Gembis |
The other side of the final’s bracket started with John
Rogers running around like a lunatic against Jordan Dean. Just
getting warmed up, John was giving up 10 to Jordan, and edged out the win
15-13. He then tackled Peter Huthwaite who had an 11 point head start.
Peter started off well getting to 14 quickly and establishing over 10 match
balls. Just one… just one… lucky shot, an error, something… the crowd urging it
on… John held tight, was running faster and faster, and rolled through the
remaining rallies for the 15-14 win. He then took on Han. Han swatted away his
first round final’s opponent John Mann 15-4, making his 10 point
handicap in that match pretty useless as well. Against John he had 9 and once
again we were witnessing 2 runners that were more content to keep the ball in
play rather than hit a winner. By now John was bouncing off the walls and
couldn’t be stopped. Han did what he could but it wasn’t enough to avoid the
15-13 loss.
Han still had one more game to play - the 3rd / 4th
play-off against Mack. I gave Mack 6 points here, but in reality it didn’t
matter. Han was toast. He had hit the wall at last and Mack wasn’t letting him
off the hook. He stormed to a 15-5 victory and should be very pleased with his
3rd place finish in his first ever Blitz appearance.
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| Tom MacEachern and John Rogers |
The final: John Rogers v Tom MacEachern. I
did have a handicap in mind here, but even before I could announce it, John
insisted that they play straight up. He wanted no help in beating Tom. Kudos to
John for the sportsmanship, he must have been feeling it for the match!
Tom was also starting to feel the effects of playing so
many games back to back. This would be his (and John’s) 8th game in just over 2
hours, but John did appear to be the fresher of the two - which is maybe why he
wanted to take on Tom at 0-0. He could smell a legit win coming up. Digging
deep, Tom started off stronger, inching his nose in front by a couple of points
and then ever so slowly increasing that lead as the rallies progressed. John
kept in striking distance and as the game was getting to the end, one could see
Tom’s energy dropping. An unforced error was followed by 2 more off the return
of serve, giving confidence to John to keep pushing. But Tom managed to regain
composure and he ended John’s campaign with a 15-11 win! For the record, I was
going to give John a 4 point handicap.
