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Colin McQuillan reports from the Nationals...

 
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The World of Squash
at Your Fingertips

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in association with
       
Prince

British

National Championships

SportCity, Manchester..… February 8-13

Colin McQuillan Reporting

 

Day Eight....13.2.05....The Finals 

 

Beachill & Elriani Dominate

Yorkshire’s Lee Beachill, the top seeded England No1, took his third British National Squash Championship at SportCity, Manchester when he defeated his Pontefract training partner, James Willstrop, 11-3 11-6 11-3 in a 45 minute men’s final.

    Linda Elriani, the long time bridesmaid of British women’s squash as Linda Charman, emerged earlier in her newly married persona to win a first British title at the 17th attempt, beating the unseeded giant killer, Alison Waters of Middlesex, 9-2 9-4 9-3 in a 30 minute final.

    The top seeded 32-year-old Sussex player was in her fifth final, having progressed through her ninth semi-final almost undisturbed while Waters, an unknown 20-year-old from Southgate who has grown almost unnoticed to full competitive strength only in the past few months, was destroying the lower half of the field.

    Waters took out the eighth seeded Tania Bailey, the fifth seeded Vicky Botwright and the second seeded Rebecca Macree in a style that suggested Elriani’s well known mental fragility could be made to cost her the best chance she has ever had to lift the title. “I knew it could be my year the moment I heard that Cassie Jackman, to whom I lost last year’s final and many times before, had retired with back problems.

    “When I played my first nationals, Alison was just about three years old. It made me feel quite old, but it also made me feel I was by far the most experienced player in this final. I was able to impose my tactics upon the match, keeping her behind me and stopping her from running the court the way she did in the other matches.

    “There was just a spell in the second game when the old Linda Charman tried to get out as Alison began to spread the ball deeper and volley into the front court, but I made sure it was Linda Elriani who stayed in the game.

Laurent Gets The Washing Up

    “I have worked really hard over the past couple of months, training with my husband Laurent, who is playing the French Nationals in Rennes. I hear he lost in the quarters, so it won’t be me doing the washing up for a while.”

     The win brought a  third successive title for Elriani since the Christmas break. She won the Greenwich Open and the Dayton Open on the North American circuit last month.

    “I had Fiona Geaves, who had just won the Over-35 title, in my corner, and I watched Alison in all her great wins through the week. I knew what to do and all of that kept me on course.”

    “Alison has great mental calm and tremendous technique. There seems little doubt she will win a lot of finals in future. But I had my name on this one from the start.

    "People kept saying to me it was my year," said the jubilant champion afterwards.  "I'm completely thrilled that that I've finally done it. I'm almost lost for words, which most people know is quite unusual for me.”

A Bridge Too Far

    Waters was the first to admit that she had been unable to find a foothold in the most important match of her young career. “I wish I could just play it again,” she told her coach, former national champion Paul Carter. “I could feel that big crowd. It was such a big occasion for me. I was a bit overawed, I think.

    "It's been a great week and I've learned that I can beat seeded players.  I hope I can get through to the final again next year and play it a bit better.”

    Carter thought it was a bridge too far. “Alison froze in the feet during the first game and never found the sort of powerful striking and penetration that provided the openings for her sharp volleying and accurate dropping through the rest of the tournament. But she has shown this week that she is the future. She knows now why she wins and why she loses. There will not be many more straight games defeats in her record.”

Willstrop Downhearted

Willstrop, a 6ft 5in 21-year-old who has taken the international circuit by storm this year, has yet to take a win over his 27-year-old mentor. “We know each other’s games inside out and I can still make it difficult for him to play the attacking game with which he makes life so difficult for everyone else,” Beachill acknowledged.

     "I think I'm one of the only players in the world top ten that James hasn't beaten,  but he's getting better by the day and my advantage isn't going to last.

    “I have to make the most of it because the day will come when he will be too good and will know too much for me to stop him like this,’ the champion said. This win came at the cost of just five errors from Beachill. It equals the three title tally of Peter Marshall and leaves him just one win short of the four accumulated by Phil Kenyon.

    Beachill agreed that the superlative final performance was probably a product of the 90 minute five game semi-final he survived against Nick Matthew the day before. “I was lucky to have most of 24 hours to recover and I did everything right, massage, ice bath and a good sleep. I found my pace and game immediately in the final and was able to take James out of his favourite game from the start.

    The third seeded Willstrop looked less than fully sharp from the outset. He agreed later that a hard quarter-final against Simon Parke had left him very tired. “I was surprised that I came up so well to beat John White in the semi-finals the next day,” he admitted. “But I am desperately disappointed and very unhappy at the way I played tonight.  It was a massive match and I just didn't perform.
    "Lee was just too good tonight. He was giving me absolutely nothing," added the former world junior champion.  "I hit the nick in the left corner, and that was probably my only good shot of the match."
    “Losing to Lee when he is playing that well in no disgrace, but I did not really compete at all. It was a big and important match in a famous tournament with a lot of people in the audience who know what they are watching, and I played so badly that they did not even get a decent show.

    “In the end I was just trying to keep the rallies going to give them something. Lee left me nothing to play my shots off, and I was just not able to attack him in the way that you have to if you are going to shake him off that rhythmic rallying that just eats up your energy and moves you into a place where he can kill you off.”

 

British National Championships
SportCity, Manchester

Men's Final Result:

[1] Lee Beachill (Yorks) bt [3] James Willstrop (Yorks)  11-3 11-6 11-3 (45m)

 

Semi-finals:
[3] James Willstrop (Yorks)  bt [5] John White (Scotland)  8-11 11-6 11-9 12-10 (61m)

[1] Lee Beachill (Yorks) bt  [4] Nick Matthew (Yorks)  6-11 15-13 11-5 9-11 11-6 (90m)

 

Women's Final Result:

[1] Linda Elriani (Sussex) bt  Alison Waters (Middx)  9-2 9-4 9-3 (30m)

 

Semi-finals:

 [1] Linda Elriani (Sussex) bt  [3] Jenny Tranfield (Yorks) 9-2 4-9 9-4 9-1 (42m)

Alison Waters (Middx) bt [2] Rebecca Macree (Essex)  9-6 10-8 9-2 (45m)

 

    Men's Over-35 Final:
[1] Derek Ryan (Ireland) bt [2] Gary Thwaite (Cumbria) 9-6 9-3 9-3  (41m)

    Men's Over-40 Final:
[2] Colin Payne (Kent) bt [1] Jonathan Clark (Cheshire) 0-9, 6-9, 9-2, 9-1, 9-6 (68m)

     Men's Over-45 Final:
[1] Nick Gatward (Cheshire) bt [2] Neil Harrison (Durham) 9-3, 9-3, 9-1 (26m)
   

     Men's Over-50 Final:
[2] Mark Cowley (Middx) bt [1] David Lumsden (D & C) 9-6, 5-9, 10-8, 9-0 (35m)

      Men's Over-55 Final:
[5/8] Howard Cherlin (Middx) bt [2] Moussa Helal (Lancs) 3-9, 9-5, 9-7, 6-9, 9-5 (62m)

      Men's Over-60  Final:
[1] John Perrott (Hants) bt [3/4] Mike Clemson (Yorks) 9-3, 10-8, 9-2 (30m)

      Men's Over-65 Final:
[2] Patrick Kirton (Surrey) bt [3/4] Brian Phillips (Berks) 6-9 9-6 9-5 6-9 10-8 (68m)

 

      Men's Over-70  Final:
[1] John Cox (Herefordshire) bt [2] Brian Sayer (Sussex) 9-4, 9-4, 9-2 (21m)

 

      Women's Over-35 Final:
[1] Fiona Geaves (Glos) bt [3/4] Amanda Warren (Lancs) 9-0, 9-2, 9-0 (16m)

      Women's Over-40 Final:
[1] Mandy Akin (Kent) bt [2] Fran Wallis (Lincs) 10-8, 9-4, 3-9, 9-1 (44m)

       Women's Over-45 Final:
[1] Liz Brown (Staffs) bt [2] Jacky Gardner (D & C) 9-4 9-5 9-0 (17m)

       Women's Over-50 Final:
Rebecca Czuczman (Kent) bt [1] Faith Sinclair (D & C) 9-5, 7-9, 9-6, 9-6 (32m)

  

Day Seven....12.2.05....Semi-finals 

Beachill Into Fifth Successive National Final 

Yorkshire’s top seeded Lee Beachill battled his way to a fifth successive British National Championship final today with a 90 minute 6-11 15-13 11-5 9-11 11-6 win over Nick Matthew, the fourth seed, that he later declared the toughest match the pair had ever played.

    Beachill, the only man to have successfully defended the British National Championship, thus becomes only the second man to contest five consecutive finals of the event. He has now equalled the consecutive run of Gawain Briars between 1979 and 1983, when the gangling Nottingham player took two titles from five finals, going on to lose a sixth final in 1985.

     A further win in Sunday’s final would leave Beachill one short of the four title tally of Lancashire’s Phil Kenyon in a broken six final run between 1977 and 1985, but ahead of the two titles collected  from four finals by Peter Nicol between 1994 and 2003.        

    With Nicol absent this year with flu, Beachill now faces his Pontefract training partner, third seeded James Willstrop, who later defeated the fifth seeded defending champion, John White of Scotland 8-11 11-6 11-9 11-10 (2-0) in 61 minutes too reach his first national final at the age of 21.

    Willstrop, who contributed several errors to White’s capture of the first game but steadily tightened his grip as the match progressed,  admitted that he was pleasantly surprised by feeling so good after his five-game semi-final marathon the previous evening against Simon Parke.
    "I did everything right after that match: had some physio and an an ice bath, ate well, drank loads and then slept well," explained the 6ft 5in former world junior champion.  "But the quarter-final match really did take it out of me, so I was pleased with the way I played today against John.
    White was downcast after missing out on a second successive final:  "We both stuck to our game plans, but he did it better than I did.  He played really well.  His retrieval is great, and his reach is unbelievable."

Matthew Close To A Breakthrough

    Matthew came out fast and hard against Beachill, making just three marginal errors in a  straight and uncompromising 16 minute opener that he took from 5-5 in a dominant display of relentless well balanced retrieving, hard backhand kills and volley drops.

    He recovered from a brace of over-eager forehand tinned errors at the start of the second to lead 5-3 and then to meet Beachill’s counter-attack well enough to hold 8-8 and 10-10, took game balls at 11-10, 12-11 and 13-12, but fell from 13-13 to a forced error on a backhand pick-up in the top left corner and a penalty stroke on the forehand in midcourt.

        The competitive level in this phase of the match was extraordinary. “Two Tykes who just won’t give way to each other,” commented Dicky Rutnagur, the vastly experienced squash and cricket writer from The Daily Telegraph. “Worse than ferrets in a sack. They always fight harder against each other than they do against anyone else.” But this was a level of squash no ferret ever witnessed. Hard straight drives answered with better, deeper, tighter drives. Inch perfect drops negated with centimeter precise pick-ups, piercing boasts converted to arcing lobs that fell almost vertically in the back corners. For 15 minutes Yorkshire squash showed itself as the absolute best classic English squash.

    There had to be an anti-climax, of course, and for Sheffield based Matthew it came in the form of  lost concentration and focus that allowed Beachill, still firing on the level he had stoked for the second game, to ease along to 5-0, 7-1, 9-2 and 11-5 in just seven minutes as his opponent contributed  eight mistakes and just three winning sots to  the action.

    “I suppose I started thinking about a 3-0 win. Certainly I lost the game plan and was just chasing the ball for a while,” Matthew said. “But I got it together again for the fourth and I think I could have won if the rallies had run for me at the very end of the fourth.

    "The fact that  I didn't let him run away with it showed my strengthy of character. I was pleased with that," said mthe 24-year-old from Sheffield who was hoping to  amke his own final debut.

        A  couple of penalty strokes on the forehand helped the fourth seed get restarted in the fourth, but it  was his willing return to the hard rallying and disciplined straight play that took him to 4-2, 7-5 and 11-9 in 19 minutes. Beachill was by no means run out of the game, fighting back to 8-7 and 9-8 , but finally deprived of a 3-1 win by a well judged delivery to the deep righthand corner, a fierce forehand volley kill and his own ambitious overhead forehand crosscourt volley into the tin.

    When Matthew started the fifth with another penalty stroke from the forehand court and built it to a 3-0 lead with a backhand crosscourt kill and a high volley crosscourt to space in the deep righthand corner, it seemed the top seed could be on his way out olf the tournament.

    But Beachill called once more on  the same stubborn resources that had carried him through the third game. He settled to the sort of straight disciplined rallying that has long been a hallmark of his game, driving and dropping to drain the energy from his younger opponent, covering one awkward delivery behind his back and then demanding the same tactic from Matthew, who missed, with a deliberate drive down the middle of the court, then attacking well enough on the backhand to elicit three tinned errors, two forced and one of a more generous nature,  to bring a 7-5 lead.

     Towards the end Beachill, a 27-year-old, looked the more tired of the two, but it was Matthew, the 24-year-old, who fell slightly off the rallying pace, failing to cover a pick-up backhand dropshot, completely disabled by a mishit racket glance into the top left nick and, finally, watching a forehand volley drop hit the nick on the other side.

    First Unseeded Women’s Finalist

    In the women’s championship the top seeded England No1, Linda Elriani of Sussex, found some second game problems when enticed into playing the sort of soft-finishing rallies preferred by her opponent, third seeded Jenny Tranfield of Yorkshire, but pretty well cruised into her fifth final once she took the tempo back to her own preferred firm striking style, winning 9-2 4-9 9-4 9-1 in 42 minutes.

    Elriani, one game away from winning her first title in her 17th appearance in the event since 1987, was full of praise for her opponent:  "Jenny played very well today and I had to play the right game to beat her," said the 33-year-old former Miss Charman, now married to French international Laurent Elriani.

    "I fell out of my game plan in the second game, but I had Fiona Geaves in my corner. She knows my game and my head inside out. When I came off after the second she told me to get a grip and take control of the court again. Once I started hitting the ball firmly again and found a proper length I was back in control.”

    Instead of the second seeded Rebecca Macree of Essex in tomorrow’s final, however, she will face the giant killing Alison Waters of Middlesex, after the 20-year-old followed up her removal of the eighth seeded Tania Bailey and the fifth seeded Vicky Botwright with an authoritative 45 minute 9-6 10-8 9-2 win in the second semi-final.

    Waters is the first unseeded woman ever to reach the national final and the youngest since Cassie Jackman to reach even the semi-finals. In Macree she met one of the most experienced and combative players on the women’s circuit. She outplayed her in the first game, outfought her in the second and out-psyched her in the third.

    It was a supremely confident and mature performance from a player who, although registered with the Women’s International Squash Players Association since 2000, has rarely appeared on the showcourts and, until recently, never against players of such standing.

    A recognised junior, she rose to notice while touring through Qatar and Kuala Lumpur late last year, earning a stern reprimand from the England coaches for failing to clinch a hard five game encounter with the Irish Champion, Madeline Perry, and another tirade when it looked as if she might fall away similarly from a win over Egypt’s Omneya Abdel Kawy.

    “After the Kawy match in the World Open, she told me she liked that sort of straight talking,” said Paul Carter, who has worked with her for eight years. “It seemed that she grew up on that tour. She now seems prepared to take on anybody and to deal with them on her own terms.”

    Waters herself admitted that she did not expect to reach the national final. “I thought I was playing well and might do better than the first round defeats I have had here in the past. But I knew Tania was coming back to form and that was a tough draw. Getting past that opened things up a bit for me.

    “I have played Rebecca Macree many times and, although I have taken a game here and there I have never beaten her before, I knew what to expect. I just tried to concentrate on my own game and not get drawn into any argy-bargy with her.

    "The second game was crucial. She led three times, but if she had won it, it would have been a different match.  I think Rebecca was nervous, the pressure was on her," added the delighted youngster.

     Macree is renowned for her physicality in play and many players have fallen into arguments with her during their matches. Elriani, particularly, has been involved in major confrontations with her and may have been among the most enthusiastic applauders as Waters dealt calmly with an increasingly aggressive resistance in the second game as she advanced to game ball on 8-7 with a high volley drop shot on the backhand.

    Throughout the second game the referee, Peter Kramer of Sheffield, was at pains to keep the rallies moving with judicious no-let calls on blockages and nudges. At 8-8 he was forced to award a penalty stroke against Macree for ‘unnecessary physical contact’ as the tall second seed climbed up the back of the youngster on a line complete away from the path to the ball.

    Waters tied up that game 10-8 with a clinging forehand pass. In the third she was in complete command and finished on another forehand passing shot.

 

Day Six....11.2.05....Quarter-finals 

Better Than Jackman ?  

Alison Waters, an unseeded 20-year-old from Southgate in Middlesex, today  defeated the fourth seeded local favourite, Vicky Botwright of Manchester, 9-3 6-9 0-9 9-3   9-7 in 71 minutes to become the youngest semi-finalist in the women’s British National Championship since Cassie Jackman reached the same stage in 1992.

    Jackman, who retired late last year after winning a record six national titles in a career that also embraced a World Open win, had bigger shots and more experience at that time, but not the pace, movement, variety and invention displayed by the young World No23, who has only this season emerged from a promising but slightly fragile junior period.

    In the 10 minute opening game, Waters took almost complete control of the court, looking more relaxed, more confident and superior to the 27-year-old Botwright.  She took the game in four hands, moving smoothly from 3-3 to 9-3 in a single hand of  powerful exploitation of spaces created by thoughtful distribution.

    After leading 4-0 in the second, however, she seemed to slide across that imperceptible line between confidence and arrogance. Suddenly the rallying became more casual, the drops higher, the drives looser, and the fourth seed was good enough to take advantage with a stream of measured backhand drops and some useful work into the top right corner.

    Seven errors and a couple of no-let calls later, the games were level. Five minutes more and the Manchester player was ahead by an almost undefended game and looking a likely winner after serving a backhand ace to record 9-0 in four crisp hands.

    But Waters had shown a similar passing weakness allowing the eighth seeded Tania Bailey to level the games before going on to win in 84 minutes. Again she showed a wonderfully promising ability to regroup both mentally and physically to deal  with the situation.

    “I lost my way a bit in the second and third game, making mistakes through thinking too much about the refereeing, but in the fourth I told myself that I had beaten Vicky before, I was in my first British quarter-final and I had the chance to make it a first semi-final, so I settled in to play my way back into the match.”

    In the fourth game Botwright found the ball once more traveling disturbingly beyond her reach and her sometimes desperate cross court shots cut off in midcourt by punishing volley deliveries that must have made memories of the older Khans wake up among the older members of the audience.

    As the fourth seed reddened and laboured around the court, the tall and long limbed youngster pounced and reached, smiling at confused refereeing calls and just quietly absorbing adversities. At 7-3 in the fifth game, with a penalty strokein the backhand court and a crushing forehand straight kill to fire from, Waters again drifted slightly into apparent complacency. She hit two loose backhands into the tin and a deep forehand retrieval out over the front.

    But she won an extended rally for 7-6, the deciding rally of the match in fact, with a forehand drive that nicked deep in the back righthand court, held her nerve as a clinging backhand lifted drive was called questionably out above the court line when those on that side saw no deflection from contact, and took match ball by switching to the forehand with an inch perfect drop and a clinging pass.

    Botwright retrieved the service with a bold backhand volley drop, but promptly conceded first a penalty stroke in the backhand court and then a penalty stroke in midcourt on the forehand. It was a downbeat conclusion for a fine quarter-final, but it was  filled with promise for the future.

    Waters, the youngest player in the tournament, who acknowledged that this was an even better win than her defeat of Bailey in the previous round. “It is my best British win,” she said, reminding us that in December she took the World No7, Omneya Abdel Kawy, out of the World Open in Kuala Lumpur.

Just Not A Botwright Day

    Botwright was downhearted to have failed in front of her home crowd:  "It looks as if I'm going to be permanently stuck in the quarter-finals here! 
    "It was a bit of a strange game - I had a bit of a run, then she did.  But Alison played really well.
    "I just hope I can do better than this soon - before they decide to move the event somewhere else," added the local squash star.
    Waters' next opponent will be the second seeded World No9, Rebecca Macree, who tidied away the other Manchester sister, Rebecca Botwright, 9-1 9-4 9-2  in the 30 minute second women’s semi-final.

     "I felt confident," said the 33-year-old from Essex after her 9-1 9-4 9-2 win.  "I played the right shot at the right time, and that's what it's all about.”
    "Alison and I play each other a lot at my club - but I'm looking forward to playing her in tomorrow's semi-finals."

    With the top seeded England No1, Linda Elriani, coming through yesterday’s quarter-finals to meet  Jenny Tranfield, the women’s championship shows every indication of real fireworks before a brand new champion is announced.

White In Cruise Mode On The Glass

In the absence of the original second seed, Peter Nicol, the men’s bottom half has boiled down to the anticipated semi-final between the defending champion, John White of Scotland, and the third seeded James Willstrop of  Yorkshire……but not before  32-year-old former British Champion Simon Parke made a contribution.

    White, who struggled lengthily through to reach the quarters from the wood, glass and plaster sidecourts of the National Squash Centre, settled comfortably to work on the glass showcourt and dismissed Marcus Berrett, the teaching pro from The Queens Club in Halifax, 11-10 (2-0) 11-6 11-6 in just 32 minutes.

    "I love playing on this all-glass court - and as soon as I had a practice hit on it this afternoon, it felt good," said the 31-year-old from Nottingham after his victory.
    "I was moving freely and playing well - the best I've played all week.  And if you're playing well, you can produce good rallies," explained the title-holder, the game's hardest-hitter of the ball.
    "I'm very pleased with the way it went - especially to do it 3-0."

Parke Has Something To Say

Willstrop, however, started at a furious pace that ideally suited the whirling dervish that was Simon Parke, threw in a curiously high error rate to complement the frantic accuracy of the older man. He then found himself in serious danger of  allowing his second British National semi-final place to be wrenched away as Parke first fought back from 5-10 down in the second to hold game balls at 11-10 and 12-11, then reurned for another thrust snatching the fourth game 11-6 and battling back from 3-10 to 6-10 in the fifth.

    "I rate Simon a lot, and knew it would be a tough game," said Willstrop, the world No8, afterwards.  "I got a really good start in the fifth game which I needed.  I was happy to win the match."
    Nottingham-based Parke admitted that he had approached this match a bit differently:  "I tried to be a bit more attacking - but a lot more sensible, by avoiding going 'headless'," explained the former world No3.  "I was a bit stronger on the ball.
    "But at least it will be good training for New York," added Parke, whose next outing on the PSA Tour will be at the Tournament of Champions at the US city's Grand Central Station later this month.
   
The second game situation was a real chance for Parke, who made good headway when playing straight and to almost perfect length, and had made only a couple of errors in his shot application by that time. At 11-10 he went for a high risk forehand volley drop high on the righthand wall and clipped it into the tin. Had it stayed up and slipped into the nick, as he probably planned, the game would have been his and he might well have been on his way to a fifth British national semi-final.

    The fifth game challenge was more about Yorkshire grit. It was effectively all over when Willstrop struck a backhand straight nick shot in the top lefthand corner at the end of a huge and adventurous rally for 5-2. It took another ten rallies to complete the job, with both players flinging themselves around the court with extraordinary abandon and mind boggling instinctive skill.

    When Willstrop, having sprawled headlong and racketless at the end of the penultimate rally, finally settled matters with a backhand crosscourt drive into space left behind his speeding opponent, he simply threw away his racket almost in disgust at the energy expended to fulfill his seeding......White seemed to enjoy it all, though.

    The other all-English semi-final features top seeded Lee Beachill  against the fourth seeded Nick Matthew.

   

Day Five....10.2.05....Quarter-finals

Tranfield Makes The Point

Jenny Tranfield, the third seed  from Sheffield, proved a point yesterday with the England selectors by defeating Jenny Duncalf, the fifth seed from Harrrogate, 8-10 9-6 9-1 9-0 in a 53 minute quarter-final of the British National Squash Championships at SportCity, Manchester.

    Tranfield, 29 and ranked fifth in England, lodged an official complaint with England Squash when the 22-year-old sixth ranked Duncalf was selected ahead  of her for the England squad that eventually lost the World Team Final in Amsterdam last year. There has been an underlying Yorkshire feud in play ever since since.

    After a nervous start in the first game, from which she recovered well enough to hold four game balls from 8-6, Tranfield moved steadily into the ascendancy mixing careful floating distribution with punishing play into the front court. An unfamiliar but particularly effective overhead dead-racket dropshot featured frequently and was acknowledged by Tranfield later as part of her effort to broaden her game.

    “I am working with Sue Wright, the former British Champion, to build more into my game and develop away from the basic up-and-down-the-wall style I played for years.

I won a couple of titles in North America last year whe I was first working on that shot and then it sort of faded away again. Tonight Sue was telling me to forget about winning and just relax into playing the way we have been training.

    “I did feel a bit of pressure at the start. I made such a fuss about Jenny being selected ahead of me for Amsterdam that it would have been pretty embarrassing to have lost to her the first time we met after the World team Championships.

    The victory took Tranfield, a losing quarter-finalist in the past three championships, to a semi-final for the first time since 2001 against the top seeded Linda Elriani of Sussex, who later dismissed the unseeded Dominique Lloyd-Walter of Middlesex for a single point.

    "Dominique played well against Fiona yesterday,” Elriani said.  “She didn't belt it, she got in early and hung in there. It was a good performance," said the former Miss Charman, now married to French international Laurent Elriani. “So I knew I had to go home and think seriously about how to deal with her today.

“I have been training hard over the past month, working with Laurent, and I am enjoying my squash more than ever.  But even though I'm top seed, I'm not looking further than the next round and giving each opponent the respect they deserve," added the champion-in-waiting.
                              Beachill In Charge

In the men’s championship the top seeded England No1, Lee Beachill of Yorkshire, defeated the Welsh No1, Alex Gough, 11-9 11-5 11-5 in 41 minutes to reach a semi-final against Nick Mathew of Yorkshire, who later defeated Adrian Grant of Kent 11-5 11-10 (2-0) 11-4 in 54 minutes to reach his first national semi-final.

     Beachill, who has twice won and twice lost in the final of this event over the past four years, also defeated Gough twice in 2003, in the British Open and the British Nationals, and in a 2001 British Nationals quarter-final. The last time Gough triumphed over him was in the 1998 World Open in Qatar.

    After a close first game tonight, the 27-year-old from Pontefract led throughout the second - and after Gough fought back to take a brief 5-2 lead in the third, Beachill stormed through in a single hand to wrap up his 11-9 11-5 11-5 victory in 41 minutes.
    "That game was pretty good," conceded the twice champion who is seeded to reach his fifth successive final.  "I got the ball past him from the word go and got him tired, but winning 3-0 is always a bonus.
    "It's unusual for me to be the top seed - and frankly I don't like it.  There's a pressure that I haven't experienced before, but I'm coming to terms with that and just concentrating on playing well," added the favourite. "I'm really excited - I love the Nationals, it's one of my favourite events."
    Matthew and Grant are training partners and firm friends. Grant put Matthew out of last year’s quarter-finals but, when Matthew reached the Hong Kong Open final last September, he defeated Grant before losing a good final to Thierry Lincou of France.

    That breakthrough penetration of such a high ranking event was a close run thing between them and Grant was quick to suggest that victory would be his the next time around. He threatened to fulfill that hope only when forcing back from 5-8 down to a second game tiebreak that drifted away from him after a finely judged lift long the righthand wall was judged to have touched above the courtline.

  

Day Four....9.2.05....Men’s Second Round & Women’s First Round

Geaves Chopped By Lloyd-Walter

Fiona Geaves of Gloucester, the defending Over-35 National Champion and the British Champion of  1995, was unexpectedly beaten today in the first round of the 2005 British National Squash Championships, ensuring that the title must arrive in completely fresh hands this year.

    With the retirement of Cassie Jackman this year and Sue Wright  four years ago, the fifth seeded 37-year-old Geaves was the only previous champion in the field. Her 44 minute 10-8 9-0 9-6  loss to the unseeded Dominique Lloyd-Walter of Middlesex leaves Linda Elriani of Sussex, the top seeded England No1 who today dismissed Laura Hill of Derby 9-1 9-1 9-0 in 24 minutes, with strengthened chances of a first championship win.

    Elriani has four times contested British finals, four times lost in semi-finals, and three times in the quarter-finals. “Now I have to go away and prepare for Dominique, who played very well today, instead of Fiona,” she said thoughtfully today.

    Geaves, in her 19th appearance in the event since 1984, claimed to be slightly jet-lagged after returning this week from the Vassar Open in the USA, but she  fought skillfully for the first game and doggedly at the end of the third.

    "I just wasn't able to prepare well," said a dejected Geaves afterwards.  "I only flew back from a WISPA event in the USA on Monday and arrived in Manchester yesterday. At my age, I just can't do that anymore.  I didn't feel 100%, I wasn't coordinated and I was lethargic, and that's all down to the travelling.
    "I am really disappointed because I know that just wasn't me out there," conceded the Nationals stalwart.
She played really well, but I just had no sharpness and, with Dom playing so well, that was fatal. I could not find a good length and that allowed her to hit the ball wherever she wanted to.”

   Lloyd-Walter, who at 23 has never before survived beyond the first round, acknowledged the win as her best yet. “I am World No29 and I have decided this is the make or break year for me. The first game was the clincher in this match. As it developed I knew whoever won the tiebreak would have the psychological advantage and, as the 9-0 score in the second game showed, I was dead right.”

    "I sneaked it and then won the next game 9-0," said the 23-year-old who had never before beaten her senior compatriot and lost the last meeting 27-0. I'm so delighted to have recorded my best ever win here."

    The youngster undermined the well respected short court skills of Geaves by hitting deep and strong from the midcourt, and cross-courting with decisive power from the front court.

    In the adjacent quarter an increasingly famous Yorkshire feud developed another chapter as third seeded Jenny Tranfield of Sheffield defeated Sarah Kippax of Cheshire  9-3 9-4 9-1 in 31 minutes to meet the girl who deprived her of  England selection this year; Jenny Duncalf of Harrogate, the sixth seed, who defeated Laura-Jane Lengthorn  of Lancashire  9-5 9-4 9-1  in 30 minutes.

England V Wales In The Men’s Quarter-finals

In the men’s championship today the top seeded England No1, Lee Beachill of Yorkshire, progressed without incident to a quarter-final against the Welsh No1, Alex Gough of Wales, while the fourth seeded Nick Matthew of Sheffield will meet Adrian Grant of Kent in the adjacent quarter-final.

    Beachill overcame Jonathan Kemp of Shropshire, the replacement player for the injured Mark Chaloner, 11-5 11-5 11-6  in 32 minutes, while the eighth seeded Gough defeated Peter Barker of Essex  11-8 11-5 11-10 (2-0)  in 55 minutes.

    Beachill defeated Gough twice in 2003, in the British Open and the British Nationals, and in a 2001 British Nationals quarter-final. The last time Gough triumphed was in the 1998 World Open in Qatar.

    Matthew and Grant are training partners and best friends. When Matthew reached the Hong Kong Open final last September, he defeated Grant in the quarter-finals and Australia’s David Palmer in the semi-finals, before losing to Thierry Lincou of France.

It was a close run thing between them then and Grant suggested that victory would be his the next time around……so watch this space.

White Just Pleased To Be Back On The Glass Court

In the bottom half of the draw the fifth seeded defending champion, John White,  who was excitingly extended in the first round by Ireland’s Derek Ryan, found another plaster court specialist ranged against him today in the equally long limbed shape of Bradley Ball and needed 72 minutes to survive 10-11 11-2 11-6 8-11 11-7.

    “We spend most of our time on the transparent showcourts these days, so there is always an adjustment needed for early rounds like these on plaster courts,” White  said. “This particular court has a glass front wall with wooden side wall. About the only time you can rely on killing the ball is when you hit the join between the front wall and the side wall.

    At match-ball in the fifth game, the ball burst.  During the ensuing knock-up to warm up the new ball, a string broke in White's racquet and the tension was extended further as the Scot sought a replacement. 

    “If you hit the ball with full weight it can go squashy and if you pull back off the shot it sits up to be hit. Bradley is a man who likes to go for a shot if it is there and, in an odd sort of way, he is the more experienced player in these conditions.

    "This was another scrape," sighed the relieved White, a former World No1.“So I am pretty pleased to get off with the win, more pleased to be on a rest day tomorrow, and very pleased to be coming back on the glass court for the quarter-finals on Friday.”

    He will be playing Marcus Berrett, the 10th seeded Yorkshireman who took just 25 minutes to beat Laurence Delasaux , a young Yorkshire qualifier coming through the gap left by the withdrawal of the second seed, Peter Nicol,  11-8 11-3 11-4.

    In the adjacent quarter Yorkshire showed yet more presence with Simon Parke, the 1998 British Champion, beating Phillip Barker of Essex  11-5 11-5 11-9  in 48 minutes and James Willstrop, the third seed, beating Nick Taylor of Lancashire 11-8 10-11 (1-3) 11-6 11-5 in 43 minutes.
    Within minutes of his victory on the conventional court, 21-year-old Willstrop was 'warming down' on the nearby all-glass showcourt; already preparing for his quarter-final clash with Parke in less than 48 hours.
    "I wanted to be really free on the other court, but it's so bouncy and that made it difficult," said the World No8.  "I didn't play that well overall, just in patches,"  heconceded.
    Taylor was downhearted: "I played better than I thought I would after yesterday's match, but I just didn't have the confidence to keep up the pace of the game," said the two-times runner-up who is now retired from the international circuit and fully devoted to coaching at the Sportcity Centre in Manchester.
     "I wish I could have pushed a bit harder - especially as James wasn't playing to his capacity."

Botwrights May Not Be So Pleased

Vicky Botwright may not be so happy with tonight’s results, however. She needed more than an hour to get past Kent’s Stephanie Brinds 9-6 9-3 4-9 4-9 9-7, only to find that her  quarter-final opponent on Friday is to be Alison Waters, the  20-year-old World No23  from Middlesex who beat her in straight games when they met in the Greenwich Open second round last month in New York.

    Her younger sister, Rebecca Botwright, came through the first round too. She defeated Lauren Briggs, a lucky loser from Essex who replaced Madeline Perry in the draw after the Irish Champion cried off with blistered feet, 9-4 9-8 9-2 in 33 minutes. She gets to meet the second seed, Rebecca Macree of Essex, who defeated Lancashire’s Amina Helal 9-4 9-8 9-2  in 33 minutes.

    The Manchester siblings could meet in the last four if successful in their quarter-finals on Friday on the all-glass court at the National Squash Centre.
     Fourth seed Vicky squandered a two-game lead in her match against unseeded Stephanie Brind, then had to fight back from 3-7 down in the fifth game decider to beat the 27-year-old former world No4 from Kent 9-6 9-3 4-9 4-9 9-7 in 61 minutes.
    "At two games up, I got a bit anxious and edgy and started to make a few mistakes," said the 27-year-old World No10.  "I felt as if my legs had gone and I began to have breathing difficulties - I was just putting pressure on myself.
    "At 3-7 down in the fifth, Steph made a couple of errors and suddenly everything I tried worked.  At match-ball I played a cross-court flick which went straight into the nick - and that just summed up the last half of the game, as previously nothing like that had gone right for me," explained Botwright senior.

Youngest Player In The Tournament

Waters, the youngest player in the tournament, who acknowledged:  "This is probably my best ever win.  And I finally get to play on the glass court,"  visibly grew from girlhood to womanhood during the WISPA Tour late last year, beating Egypt’s Omneya Abdel Kawy in Qatar and extending  Ireland’s Madeline Perry to five in Kuala Lumpur.

    Tonight she stopped Tania Bailey, the eighth seed, in what was suggested by those watching the Lincolnshire player win last week’s Grantham Open as a new start for the former British Open finalist who has long been sidelined by injuries and illness.

    Once a lanky teenager prone to fading from hard encounters, Waters has developed the sort of stubborn grit from which great champions are sometimes cast. Tonight she fought doggedly for the opening game after trailing in the tiebreak and then, after seeming to fall off the pace in the middle of the match, impressively tightened her grip on the play as Bailey began to labour  despite leading the fifth 3-0.

    “It is all the training,” Waters said simply after the 84 minute win 10-9 6-9 9-1 3-9 9-5 win. But it had something to do also with the ability of the Southgate youngster to deliver either straight piercing drives or delicate skinny boasts, particularly on the backhand, from the same economic preparation.
 

Day Three....8.2.05....Men’s First Round & Women’s Qualifying Finals

Nicol Out With Flu... Perry With Blisters

 Peter Nicol, the London based former World Champion aiming to reclaim the British National Squash Championship in Manchester this week, has been forced out of the tournament with influenza. His second seeded slot at the bottom of the men’s draw was taken over by Nottingham’s Nick Douglas, a lucky loser from the qualifying rounds who then  lost in straight games to Yorkshire’s Laurence Delasaux.

    “It was just an increasing sniffle and sore throat yesterday, but I have been in this position before and played on with doubtful results,” Nicol told SquashNow today. “I hardly slept a wink overnight. I am really disappointed. I played well to win the Dayton Open in the USA on the way into the British Nationals and I thought I had real chances of a third British Championship.”

    The top seed, Lee Beachill, who was already celebrating a draw that left him in the top half while his closest challengers, Nicol, John White and James Willstrop, were all grouped against each other in the bottom half, won today 11-8 11-4 11-5 in 52 minutes against Alister Walker of Gloucestershire and smiled at the sight of the opposing section fragmenting even before it started play.

A Perfect Opener

    “Mine was a perfect first round match. It wasn't too easy, but I wasn't too stretched," said the two-times champion who is seeded to reach the final for a fifth successive year.
    "This event means a lot to me; it was here I made my breakthrough some years ago, and I would really like to win the title again.  It's very local for me and the tournament always brings out the best in me," Beachill told SquashNow.

    “ I don’t much like top seeding, though.” He has won twice from four final  appearances with other players holding the favoured position at the top of the draw. “I like to slide up behind other players while they take all the exposure,” he admitted.

   Today’s win takes Beachill to a second round encounter with Jonathan Kemp, the Shropshire player who slipped into the 16th seeded spot vacated by the injured Mark Chaloner and today was required to play only one full game as his opponent, Scott Handley, retired with stomach problems.

    “The chances are that will take me to Alex Gough in the quarter-finals. He plays Peter Barker in the second round and he can be a tough opponent in this event,” Beachill went on. “Many British players produce their best in the British Nationals. Although it is not a PSA World Tour event and carries no ranking points, it has great meaning in the country and, since it moved to Manchester on a regular basis, it has been almost like my home tournament with audiences who know their professional squash and like to come out in support.”

In the adjacent quarter of the men’s field Sheffield’s fourth seeded Nick Matthew came through to meet  former champion Stephen Meads of Berkshire, while South Londoner  Adrian Grant defeated Stacey Ross of  Surrey to reach a second round encounter with Gloucester’s Alex Stait. who fought back from a game down to beat 15th seed Joey Barrington, from Somerset, 8-11 11-8 11-8 11-4 in 59 minutes.
                 
Bottom Half  Further Diluted
    The bottom half of the draw suffered a further dilution when Hadrian Stiff, the Bristol based Devon Champion, was stranded on the motorway with a blown car engine to leave Bradley Ball an unopposed entry to the second round, and then the 13th seed, Peter Genever of Sussex, went down 11-2 10-11 (1-3) 8-11 11-10 (2-0) 11-4 in 75 minutes to Phillip Barker of Essex.

     Barker joins his younger brother, Peter, in the second round, where he faces former champion  Simon Parke of Yorkshire while Willstrop faces up to Manchester’s Nick Taylor and White will meet Ball. The bottom match on the draw sheet, which should have featured Nicol, has resolved to an all-Yorkshire confrontation between the vastly experienced professionalism of Marcus Berrett and the blossoming talents of Laurence Delasaux.

    White survived a tough test  today, ultimately winning in 56 minutes over four games against unranked Irishman Derek Ryan late in the evening.
    Bury-based Ryan, an eight-times Irish Champion and a former World No7, is now retired from the international circuit and midway through training to become a physiotherapist.  Showing all the skills that took him into the world top ten in the late nineties, the 35-year-old made White fight hard for his 11-7 9-11 11-10 11-10 victory.
    "I always have a tough game against Derek," said the champion from Scotland.  "He played very well and his short balls just hugged the wall, making them almost impossible to play.
   "It's always good to get a good decent hit to start with, but I'm glad I'm through it," added the 31-year-old from Nottingham who won the title for the first time last year.
   Ryan admitted that the game had suited him better:  "I was more relaxed and had zero pressure on me, plus that court doesn't suit John, so it was a bit of a leveller all round," said the popular former pro who now only plays North West County league squash for Rochdale and Yorkshire league for Pontefract.

                          The Price Of A Vassar Final
    The women’s championship lost Irish Champion Madeline Perry before the first round started when she called in still suffering heavy blisters to the feet that carried her to the  Vasser Open final last week. Her seventh seeded slot went to Lauren Briggs of Essex as a lucky loser, putting her against Rebecca Botwright of Manchester, a successful qualifier,  in the first round.

    Lancashire’s Amina Helal, who defeated Briggs in the qualifying finals drew second seeded Rebecca Macree inj the adjacent match of the first round, so there is just a remote mathematical chance of the two qualifying finalists meeting again in the second round proper.

    Of the other women’s qualifiers. Derbyshire’s Laura Hill faces the top seeded England No1, Linda Elriani, and Sarah Kippax of Cheshire faces third seeded Jenny Tranfield of Yorkshire.

 

Day Two..7.2.05..Women's First & Men's Second Qualifying Rounds

Not Nick Again !

Manchester's Andrew Whipp fought through today's qualifying finals of the British National Squash Championships at the National Squash Centre at Sportcity in Manchester for the third successive year - only to be drawn to face local star Nick Taylor, the No9 seed, in Tuesday's first round.
    Whipp, 23, from Stockport, will perhaps count himself lucky - as his opponent both in 2003 and 2004 was England's former World No1 Peter Nicol who, after the first of their meetings, went on to win the title for the second time.
    The Manchester Northern stalwart beat Gloucestershire's Rob Shepherd in straight games in the first match of the day, then triumphed 11-10 11-5 11-5 over Derbyshire's Joel Hinds to earn his place in the main draw.
   Twice a runner-up in the Nationals, Taylor is now retired from the international circuit and coaching at the National Centre at Sportcity.  But the 33-year-old from Stalybridge is still a formidable force on a squash court - and a full-house is guaranteed for the all-Manchester battle at 8.00pm on Tuesday.
    Manchester favourite Derek Ryan also came through the qualifying finals in style, beating Nottingham's Nick Douglas 7-11 11-4 11-6 11-10 to earn a first round clash with Scotland's defending champion John White. 
    A Nationals veteran since 1992, Irishman Ryan is based in Bury and represents Rochdale in the North West Counties league. 
    It was fifth time lucky for Manchester Northern coach Peter Billson, who further boosted north west interest in the men's main draw by beating Leicestershire's Darren Lewis 11-8 11-7 4-11 11-7 in the qualifying finals.  The 24-year-old from Manchester will face Essex's Peter Barker in the first round.
    Qualifying in the women's event began on Monday with Sussex's Rachel Willmott surviving the longest battle when she beat Hampshire's Susannah King 9-1 8-10 3-9 9-6 9-3 in 54 minutes.
     Twice champion Lee Beachill, the World No2 from Pontefract in Yorkshire who is seeded to reach his fifth successive final, begins his campaign against Gloucestershire's Alister Walker at 1.00pm on Tuesday.  The 27-year-old is expected to face fellow Englishman Peter Nicol, the second seed, in the men's final on Sunday. 
    Nicol, also a two-times champion, takes on Yorkshireman Laurence Delasaux in the first round.  Delasaux claimed the final qualifying final victory at Sportcity when he beat Oliver Davidson 11-4 11-5 11-9.
    Immediately after the match, Davidson, from Hayes in Middlesex, discovered that he had been picked as 'Lucky Loser' - and given a place in the main draw against former champion Stephen Meads

   Chaloner Out With Calf Strain

With Mark Chaloner, the ninth seed from Lincolnshire, collecting a calf strain this morning, the seedings and draws have been altered with Jonathan Kemp upgraded to 16th seed and replacing Chaloner in the first round against Scott Handley.

 

The updated men's seeds are:  1 Lee Beachill (Yorkshire), 2 Peter Nicol (Yorkshire), 3 James Willstrop (Yorkshire), 4 Nick Matthew (Yorkshire), 5 John White (Scotland), 6 Adrian Grant (Kent), 7 Simon Parke (Yorkshire), 8 Alex Gough (Wales), 9 Nick Taylor (Lancashire), 10 Marcus Berrett (Yorkshire), 11 Bradley Ball (Suffolk), 12 Stephen Meads (Berkshire), 13 Pete Genever (Sussex), 14 Peter Barker (Essex), 15 Joey Barrington (Somerset), 16 Jonathan Kemp (Shropshire).

The women's seeds are: 1 Linda Elriani (Sussex), 2 Rebecca Macree (Essex), 3 Jenny Tranfield (Yorkshire), 4 Vicky Botwright (Lancashire), 5 Fiona Geaves (Gloucestershire), 6 Jenny Duncalf (Yorkshire), 7 Madeline Perry (Ireland), 8 Tania Bailey (Lincolnshire).

 

Day One....6.2.05....Men's First Qualifying Round

Longest Tie-Break Yet

In the longest tie-break score recorded since the new men's professional game scoring system was introduced last year, Scotland's Stuart Crawford survived a marathon match in today's first round qualifying round of the British National Squash Championships at the National Squash Centre at Sportcity in Manchester.
    More than 40 players from all over Britain are competing for eight places in the men's draw of the world-class event which gets underway with the first round on Tuesday.  Twice champion Lee Beachill, the World No2 from Pontefract in Yorkshire, is seeded to reach his fifth successive final, where he is expected to face fellow Englishman Peter Nicol, the second seed who is also a two-times champion.
    Such is the quality of the men's draw that three former world number ones will line up in the first round - two of whom, Peter Nicol and defending champion John White, of Scotland, are drawn to meet in a quarter-final!
    Scottish international Stuart Crawford was taken to three tie-breaks by Staffordshire's Richard Davies - but after match-balls see-sawed between the pair in the fifth-game decider, Crawford ultimately secured his victory after 71 minutes in an incredible 11-6 10-11 5-11 11-10 11-10 scoreline, where the final tie-break was only settled at 11-9.
    Crawford now faces Yorkshire's Simon Pickering - the recipient of a first round bye - for a place in the qualifying finals.
    Monday's action will see the men's qualifying field reduced from 32 to eight over two rounds. 
    Also in action will be players competing for qualifying places in the women's first main draw.  Sussex's Linda Elriani is seeded to put four runners-up successes behind her to claim her first title in her 17th appearance since 1987.  The 33-year-old from Eastbourne, who has already collected two WISPA titles in the USA this year, is expected to face second seed Rebecca Macree, from Essex, in the final on Sunday.

 

Preview

Linda’s Last Chance?

Linda  Elriani will be playing in her 17th British National Squash Championship when she faces up to a qualifier in the opening round at the National Squash Centre at Sportcity, Manchester. If she fulfills her top seeding by reaching Sunday’s last round it will be her fifth final; and probably the best chance she has ever had of adding the British title to her career achievement list.

    The event, it its ninth successive year in Manchester and third at the National Squash Centre, will get underway with qualifying on Sunday 6th February, with the men's first round matches taking place on Tuesday (8th).  Action moves onto the centre's famous all-glass court with men's and women's quarter-finals from Thursday (10th), through to the finals on Sunday (13th).
    The long-time England international has been a WISPA member since 1990 and is currently the association’s Chairman.  It was in June last year that, well enough known as Linda Charman, she married French international Laurent Elriani to introduce a 'new' name into the WISPA ranks.

    She celebrated a career-best World No3 ranking in January 2000, lifted three WISPA trophies  last year and has already won twice in North America this year.

    Last September Elriani rescued England in the quarter-finals of the Women's World Team Championships in Amsterdam, fighting back from two games down against the  Annelize Naude of The Netherlands to win in five; and to take her country through to the semi-finals, and then the final.

    Late last year she reached the final of the US Open, beating Vanessa Atkinson, now the World Open Champion, in the semi-finals.

    The 33-year-old from Eastbourne is scheduled to meet third seed Jenny Tranfield, of Yorkshire, for a place in that final, if she can survive Gloucester’s Fiona Geaves in the quarter-finals
    While the men's draw features five former champions, only fifth seeded Geaves is a former women's title-winner.  The indefatigable 37-year-old from Gloucester meets Middlesex's Dominique Lloyd-Walter in the first round before her anticipated quarter-final clash with Elriani.

    A British Open Over-35 Champion and a double medallist in the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Malaysia, Geaves was British National champion in 1995. Her career enjoyed a significant rejuvenation some four years ago when she began to train at Wycliffe College, a school noted for its squash prowess, near her home in Gloucester. 

    She made her England comeback at the Women's World Team Championships in Amsterdam, and won her sixth successive match in the event to help England reach the final for the 12th time

    Tranfield must deal with her fierce Yorkshire rival, Jenny Duncalf, in the opening round. Duncalf is bidding to become the cutting edge of  a new generation of England players. Along with Vicky Botwright, Alison Waters and Laura Jane Lengthorn, she is certainly regarded in the England elite programme  as among its best hopes of  taking over the mantle of the now retired  Casssie Jackman.

    She is a bit on the small side, but anyone who saw December’s  scintillating World Open semi-final between Natalie Grinham and Nicol David knows that diminutive does not equate with diminished.

    She is not yet as strong as some, but she was strong enough to keep Elriani on the World Open court in Kuala Lumpur  for 73 minutes in the second round; a fact that Elriani herself claimed was influential in her own loss to Vanessa Atkinson the following day.

    Last year Duncalf made the British Nationals main draw for the second time. She went out in the semi-finals to Elriani after beating Rebecca Macree in a quarter-final that she regarded at the time as the best win of her career. She lost last year’s Las Vegas Open final to Tranfield and a Vassar Open semi-final to Geaves. Somewhat controversially, she was selected ahead of Macree, Tranfield and Botwright for the England squad in Amsterdam.

     The women's second seed is Rebecca Macree of Essex, runner-up in 2003 and a winner in Edinburgh at the turn of last month, who also first meets a qualifier.  Macree's scheduled opponent in the last four is Manchester star Vicky Botwright, the World No10 who is seeded to reach her first ever semi-final this year.

With five Britons in the new men's world top ten competing in Manchester, favourite Lee Beachill will be relieved that three of them are in the lower half of the draw.
        Twice winner Beachill, the World No2 from Pontefract in Yorkshire, is seeded to reach his fifth successive National final; where he would be expected to face fellow Englishman Peter Nicol, the second seed who is also twice a champion.
    Beachill is drawn to face Gloucestershire's Alister Walker in the first round and would expect to rendezvous with fellow Yorkshireman Nick Matthew, the fourth seed from Sheffield who won in Edinburgh at the turn of last month, in the semi-finals. 
    London-based Nicol, the World No4 who triumphed in last month's Dayton Open in the USA, meets a qualifier in the opening round and is then likely to meet Scotland's defending champion John White for a place in the semi-finals.  This standout potential quarter-final highlights the quality of the British Nationals field:  Like Nicol, fifth seed White is also a former World No1 and, also like Nicol, will arrive in Manchester fresh from a show-stopping victory in the USA, at the Windy City Open in Chicago, the first major international event of the New Year.
    The semi-final opponent scheduled to be waiting for the winner of Nicol and White's quarter of the draw is James Willstrop, the fast-rising young star of English squash who is seeded three.  After taking on a qualifier in round one, the 21-year-old from Pontefract is likely to meet Manchester/Pontefract National League team-mate Nick Taylor in the second round.  Twice a runner-up, Taylor leads local interest in the men's event and still remains a major threat, despite his recent retirement to concentrate on coaching.

 

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