2019 DAC Singles Club
Championships
April. One of my favorite months of the year. Winter is on
its last legs, warmer days are sprinkled into the calendar to gently tease us
for what’s to come, my wife clears away the bulky winter boots from the doorway
(only to replace them with countless numbers of sandals… I mean how many pairs
of feet do we have in the house?), every time I go outside I have to debate
with myself for 5 minutes whether or not I should take a jacket, the Tigers are
well on their way to treating us with another rebuilding year, the rabbits in
our back yard are having a field day keeping the grass invisible… it’s a
wonderful time!
It also indulges us with the DAC Club Championships! That
one in-house tournament of the year that celebrates loudly all the winners,
makes a party of the finals night and we congratulate ourselves on another
successful winter season. So who propelled themselves into DAC immortality for
2019?
2.5 – Adam Who?
This year’s 2.5 bracket was the largest of all the
categories, which is not all that unusual for this tournament. It’s also not
that uncommon for many of the results to end up 3-0 given that there isn’t a
lower division and the difference between the strongest 2.5 players and the
lowest can be significant. Leading up to the final, we only had three results
that extended all the way to a 5th game, although we did get a
handful of 3-1 score lines.
Greg Jones was
not a surprise finalist, but he was one of a few that I believed could get
there. None of his matches were straight forward leading up to the final, he
was a model of consistency winning all three of those contests 3-1. His quarter
final was against Steve Murphy (who
I had seeded second), a player that he – strangely – had never played before.
You would think after many years of league and box ladders, they would have
crossed paths at least once! A lefty, experienced, and a doubles player, Steve
can be an awkward opponent, especially if you haven’t stepped on court with
him. Greg was up to the challenge however, and managed to jump that hurdle. In
the semifinal, he was battling Julie
Vande Vusse, someone he had
played before, so there was a level of familiarity. Of their 4 previous
meetings, Julie could only claim one victory – back in February of 2018 – and
the losses were generally close. Julie also reached the semifinal last year of
this tournament and was motivated to go at least one step further, but it
wasn’t to be. Greg’s 4-set win put him in the final.
John Stelter was
the front runner on the other side of the draw as the number one seed. He maybe
a little… let’s say ‘wiser’ than his opponents that he met up with, but not too
many can out hustle him. He did more than enough of that in his first two
matches winning them 3-1 and 3-0 respectively. In the semifinal, he then met a
wall in Adam McDowell. Who? As
squash pro, I meet a lot of members. Impossible to remember all of them, but I
generally have a pretty good beat on the squash players at least. Adam has been
a part of our squash family for probably a year now (give or take) but plays at
times I rarely see him. He could walk past me and I wouldn’t recognize him.
That sounds bad, and I apologize to Adam for that. He took care of business
against John - and like every other match before it – it was a 3-0 victory. Now
at least I will get to know Adam a little better since he has to be here for
the final and hopefully I will not forget what he looks like moving forwards!
Nice to put a face to the e-mail.
McDowell v Jones. There aren’t any results between these two
either, but my spidey-senses were tingling towards Adam this – he’s ranked
higher on Sporty HQ. Picking up where he left off, Adam continued his 2.5
dominance, not exactly steam rolling Greg, but not giving him much wiggle room
either. Another 3-0 victory for Adam completing a clean sweep of 3-0 matches
through the draw. Greg didn’t play poorly, he was just beaten by the stronger
player!
3.0 – Frost Ices Wilson
As I have mentioned before, we have had a small influx of
young squash players this season that has dropped our average age of the court
almost by half… Well, not quite that much, (unless you count the handball
players…!) but they do look like they barely have started to shave and are a
constant reminder of those days long since past when I was in my mid-twenties…
when internet didn’t exist, mobile phones were a super luxury and (literally)
the size of a briefcase, a car was considered ‘luxury’ if it was an automatic
shift with electric windows and air conditioning, and Atari was the must-have
game console. Simpler times. I digress.
Michael Wilson
was one of eight 20-something year
olds in the draw almost giving this bracket a junior tournament feel! It’s
fortunate that we run this event over a month and give everyone roughly a week
between matches, because for most of us we need the recovery. If this was all
played within 2-3 days, the final may have looked rather different. Not for
Michael though. He won his first match 3-0, then decided he preferred to add
some excitement to the scores. His next 3 matches went the distance – all to 5
games – and no doubt he was loving every second of them. His semifinal win over
Mike Ottaway was probably the
biggest upset considering I had Mike as the top seed and he has the uncanny
knack of finding ways to win in tight matches. Just means he’s a great
competitor, but on this occasion, Michael
Wilson was able to run it out reach the final.
My dark horse of the division was Matt Paradiso, barely out of high school, cool under pressure,
never looks like he’s sweating. Matt reached the semifinal with 2 fairly
comfortable victories, dropping only 1 game. His opponent would be Jeff Frost that on paper (according to
Sporty HQ stats) should win 3-0. Jeff is significantly higher than Matt on the
ranking, but Matt is moving up quickly so in this case, it’s a misleading view.
That being said, Jeff did win the match, but it was 3-1, and Jeff was
admittedly elated it didn’t head into a 5th game. He was spent, Matt
was still probably warming up.
Wilson v Frost. I’m giving the nod to Jeff on this one,
again basing it on more experience, and Jeff will be fresh going in. Similar to
the comparison to Matt though, Sporty HQ has Jeff the heavy favorite, but
again, Michael is moving up the ranks. I don’t think it will be all that easy.
Admittedly, I don’t have any feedback on how this match went other than the
score. I am going to presume it was a grand battle, littered with memorable
rallies. Jeff won 3-0, taking one for the veterans!
3.5 – Can’t Miss Chris
Got to hand it to Rich
Stimson. I think every single year since I have worked here, he has entered
the 3.5 division and he has yet to win it. He has come close – almost broke the
streak last year when he lost the final in 5 to Brian Ellison, and he was also just one win away from glory way
back in 2009 when he lost the final to George
Kordas. He is competitive by nature – something about redheads? – and this
year he stormed through the first two matches 3-0 before almost stumbling in
the semifinal against Michael Hanchett.
Mike had a great showing for this event. He scraped through
his second round against Han Peng with
an impressive (and appropriate) 5-set win. It wasn’t really an upset since Mike
has beaten Han before, but Han does hold a slight edge on win percentage. He
still does, but now it’s just by one… 7 to 6. Mike has never come up against
Rich before, so it was new territory for the both of them. Rich scooted out to
a 2-0 lead but Mike fought back to level it at 2 apiece. Rich, however, dug
deep and pushed through the 5th to take the win and give himself his
third bite of the 3.5 cherry.
In his way? Chris
MacKenzie. He quickly turned himself into the favorite for this category
(sorry, Rich!) as he carved his way through the draw, slicing and dicing,
chopping and dropping, kicking and nicking all who dared stand in his path.
That included the 3.5 champion from 2015 Josh
Slominski in the semifinal who decided to reenter the squash arena just for
fun after a long hiatus from competition. Josh is still no pushover, but Chris
still managed to smash and crash his way past him and like all his other
victims no one could manage to pick up a game.
Stimson v MacKenzie. Obviously, based on my last paragraph,
Chris was my pick. Could Rich’s determination and drive be enough to finally get
over the finish line? Ummm… no. It couldn’t. Chris is quick and in good shape,
something that for us older players can be tough to deal with and Rich
struggled to keep up with the pace of the game and the constant retrievals from
Chris. It was a 3-0 win, and Chris will now step it up to at least the 4.0!
4.0 – Brandon Continues to Rise
A decently competitive bracket that once again featured a
sprinkle of younger players that are constantly improving. It makes it tough to
place such players in the league because of the speed of their progress. They
may be at the correct level when the league starts, but 3 to 4 weeks in they
have already surpassed that standard and could be competitive one or two
positions higher. Such is the case with Mario
Ferrini and Brandon Tasco. Youth
and athleticism is a fairly beneficial combination, plus they are playing
multiple times a week which helps enormously.
Mario reached the semifinal but did it tough the whole
journey. Two 3-1 wins to start off – one of them against the third seeded Scott Beals – and then in the quarter
final he had to contend with the never-say-die efforts of Brian Ellison who is no stranger to, and not afraid of, diving for
balls. Mario squeaked out the 3-2 win to reach the semifinal where he came up against
one of his nemesis in Brandon Tasco.
Brandon had an easier run to the semifinal, dropping only
one game. They actually have never played an official match against each other,
but have practiced together often, Mario knew he was in for a tough time. But
he played well and pushed the match to 4 games. Brandon gets to play the final,
Mario should be pleased with a semifinal appearance.
The upper half of the draw was also closely fought. Another
young rapid riser, Mack Gembis upset
a couple of people along the way taking out Marc Lakin in 5 in round one and then the top seeded Brian Bartes in round two – also in 5
games. He was just a hair away from making 3-for-3 five-set wins but fell
agonizingly short losing 12-10 in the 5th to John Perkins in the quarter final.
 |
| Brandon Tasco and Mike Petix |
With the early departure of Brian Bartes, Mike Petix
was suddenly the favorite to reach the final. Mike very nearly didn’t make it
out of round 1 but he survived the scare – and the cross court drop shots,
backhand flicks, and endless scurry of Phil
Pitters to win in 5. A little easier from then on, Mike took John Mann 3-1 and John Perkins 3-1 and was now in the final.
Tasco v Petix. Tough one to predict. I’ll cheated a little
here and looked up their head-to-head. It did surprise me a tad to see that
Brandon holds a 5-1 lead in that category – but – all of his wins went the
distance. Either 3-2 box ladder or 2-1 league score lines. So I’ll lean towards
a Tasco win, but it’s with hesitation. Mike has a little more experience and
has actually won a club championship title before – the 3.5 division in 2012. Once
again though, the fresher legs of the youngster would prove to be the
difference maker. The longer the match went, the more Mike was slowing down.
Mike won the second game, but the work he was putting in to win any point was
catching up to him. Brandon could sense the gradual decline, he was determined
not to let Mike get his breath back. Brandon completes an impressive 2018-2019
season with a 3-1 win!
4.5 – Run, John, Run!
Where are all the 4.5 players? Shocked to see that just 4
players signed up for this one, maybe they were scared of the number one seeded
David de la Torre? That’s easy to
understand, I mean this international man of mystery has a thousand nick-names
(aliases) so he has to be looked at a little cross-eyed, no? Could he be the
inspiration behind the Austin Powers character too? Who knows?
Anyway, Dave’s semifinal went according to my brilliant
seeding and he won it 3-1 over John
Roarty to reach the final. The other semifinal had exactly the same score
line and also stuck to my brilliant seeding algorithm. Second seed John Rogers took care of business
against James Van Dyke and even
though I didn’t watch the match, after seeing John play a bit recently, I would
venture to guess he lost the first game here before getting his motor running
to roll through the following 3. It was only the second time John had beaten
James, he had lost 3 of the previous 4 match-ups but going on current form,
this isn’t an upset.
 |
| David de la Torre and John Rogers |
Rogers v de la Torre. I am making my forecast here based on
recent, first-hand observations of both players. Sporty HQ tells me I should be
backing David here as history lists him as having John’s number. Four wins in a
row, and only one game dropped. But, this may come down to a fitness issue. If
John can extend the rallies long enough – even if he loses the first and / or
second game – he has a chance of wearing Dave down. So, I am going off on a
limb on this one and predicting a little upset here with John Rogers taking the
title.
Just like a Hollywood script, I was spot on. John lost the
first game, decided he was now warmed up, cranked his legs into second gear and
started to grind away. It was curious to see that the longer this match went,
the bouncier John got. He was getting
faster, and he could smell the blood in the water. Dave on the other hand was
straining. Every consequent rally that little but tougher, a little slower off
the mark, glasses needed that extra few seconds to clean, the shoelace needed
adjusting. Fitness caught up to him in a big way and John was in for the kill.
Finishing the match with a couple of nasty drops, John took the 4.5 title with
a 3-1 victory!
5.0 – Blake makes it 4
Overall, the 5.0 would be the most difficult of all the
categories to choose a winner. We had 12 registrations in the draw this year, 6
of which had – at some time or another – already won at least one club
championship title (over various categories, including the 5.0). This group
play and practice regularly together so they are familiar with each other’s
games, nobody was a sure thing.
Five set matches were almost expected here, and two of the
four first round matches delivered. Chris
Van Tol 3-2 over Jay Bonahoom
and Paul Ward 3-2 over Ryan “has-anyone-seen-him-lately?” MacVoy.
Chris survived another round as well, taking down JC Tibbitts 3-1 before meeting his match against the top seeded Andy Adamo in 4. Paul wasn’t so
fortunate, he succumbed to the 2017 5.0 champion (and the 2016 4.5 champion;
and the 2012 4.0 champion) Blake Ellis
in his second match.
Tom MacEachern
was seeded 3 and had a very difficult time against Brien Baker in his first match. Brien can volley with the best of
them and if you aren’t consistently tight, you will find yourself running after
countless volley-boasts into the front. Apparently, Tom ‘enjoyed’ that exercise
and saw more of the front two corners than he has since his drop shot lesson
with me. It was just enough to get over the finish line 11-8 in the 5th.
So excited Tom was to win in 5, he wanted to try and repeat that effort with
Blake. However, Blake also adores long, lung-busting matches and was delighted
to oblige. 5 games. Down to the wire. Was it 12-10 in the 5th? Blake
got the win and jumped into the final looking for his 4th DAC title.
Waiting for him was Andy
Adamo, one of the six players in the draw that has yet to win a club
championship title. Although he has been the bridesmaid 3 times. Andy only
dropped that one game to Chris Van Tol
in the semifinal to reach the final and seemed to be hitting a decent ball in
preparation.
 |
| Andy Adamo and Blake Ellis |
Ellis v Adamo. The reading of the tea leaves her? I’m taking
Andy on this one. Why? Because one of Andy’s finals losses came at the hands of
Blake in 2017 11-9 in the 5th. I am sure he still remembers that and
by no means wishes to repeat it. Match history is not on his side however –
Blake holds a commanding 8 wins to 2 losses against him. I think its Andy’s
year though… Well, yikes! I got this wrong.
Blake started soundly in the first 2 games, quick on the
ball and into the front, strong hitting. Andy, it seemed, looked somewhat flat.
Although Andy has the skills to put the ball away, can display some silky touch
– which he did at times – it was just too sporadic to make any dent into
Blake’s game plan. It wasn’t long before Blake held a 2-0 lead. The third game
changed around however, Andy kept a more controlled outlook and eliminated much
of the unforced errors which – surprise, surprise – puts the pressure back onto
the opponent. Blake started to find the tin more often, trying to be too exact
rather than give himself a little margin. Andy took the third. But it was he
wrote. The effort was too much to back it up for the fourth and Blake charged
through the game, taking the match 3-1 and with it, his 4th club
championship title.
Open – No Stopping Stefan
The biggest Open category we have had since at least 2005,
of the 14 players in this draw, 10 of them have experienced club championship
glory in the past. Only 3 of them in the Open division though. So it is without
a doubt the strongest Open draw we
have ever had. The past 4 years have flip-flopped winners between Jed Elley and Vikram Chopra but this year would be a different story.
With the addition of Stefan
Houbtchev last summer, he slotted himself immediately as the one to beat,
strengthening our highest division even more. Stefan comes off a strong junior
career in Canada and before moving back to Windsor, spent the last 3 years at
Western University in London, Ontario on their squash team competing solidly on
what is a very good team. So he has the goods. And the youth. And the strength.
And the youth. And the talent. And did I mention the youth?
The biggest question was not whether Stefan was going to
reach the final, but who would he be playing – the most likely scenario
answering that question would be the semifinal between Vikram and Jed. And it
was. There isn’t a whole between the two. Prior to this semi, they had 10 results
recorded, 5 wins apiece, and if you wanted to get into the nitty-gritty, Vikram
overall had won 17 games to Jed’s 16. So you may as well flip a coin to see who
would win on this occasion.
I was fortunate to catch a game of this match – the third one
after Jed had taken a 2-0 lead. Vikram appeared a little sluggish but can be
awkward to counter when he starts pounding the ball with his whippy technique.
It wasn’t the prettiest of games, but the ball was flying everywhere and Jed
had a little trouble finding a comfort zone. A few unforced errors cost Jed the
game, Vikram was starting to mount a comeback. Or so it seemed. It was short
lived. Even though Vikram held a lead into the 4th, Jed settled down
and found the groove of the first 2 games to finish off the 4th and
jettison himself into the final to square off with Stefan.
 |
| Jed Elley and Stefan Houbtchev |
Houbtchev v Elley. I’m picking Stefan to take his first
title. It’s no secret he is the favorite, but it will be interesting to see
what Jed can do. Keeping Stefan on court for as long as he can would be a good
start. It didn’t happen in the first game. Jed appeared a little nervous to
start this match, he was a step or two behind the power hitting of Stefan and
was a little shaky with his own strokes as well. 11-2 in just a few minutes,
but he would pick it up in the second. Longer rallies which is the ticket, the
two players showed the rest of us some impressive court coverage, what a good,
deep lunge is all about, and how recovering to the ‘T’ should be performed.
Some nice winners from Jed in this game, but overall Stefan was still the
dictating force. 11-6. The third game was similar to the second. Jed would put
up some decent resistance, again slot a couple of nice winners, but the
constant pressure that Stefan imposes eventually overruns everything. The best
rally was left until the last rally of the match, Jed had Stefan on a string
from corner to corner, but shockingly flubbed the easiest of put-away volley
winners to end it. 11-5. A magnificent performance from Stefan, our new Club
Champion!
Congratulations to all the winners and finalists – you are
the representatives for our 2020 Farris Cup team that will need to avenge the
loss we suffered through earlier this year.
