By Vidya RajanPhotos by Dale Walker/DaleWalkerPhoto.com
This year, 277 juniors ranked in the top 32 of their divisions gathered at the Meadow Mill Athletic Club in Baltimore, Maryland to compete for the U.S. Junior Championships. Meadow Mill has hosted three of the last five Junior Nationals, and for many players, the familiarity of the venue lent an affable air to the otherwise competitive atmosphere.
Across the board, this year’s tournament saw some of the most well-contested matches in years, as well as some of the most bipartisan crowds.
The din began on Sunday morning with the GU13 final between 12-year-old Caroline East of Lutherville (MD) and last year’s GU11 champion, Reeham Sedky of Seattle (WA). The crowd was clearly divided into two camps split along the coastlines as the girls exhibited their distinctly opposing techniques—East with a patient, floating style and Sedky with a furiously paced, hard-hitting game.
As the match stretched on, there were a number of questionable referee calls that garnered murmurs from both sides of the audience, as well as complaints from disgruntled parents and ardent fans alike—until the tournament participants who were refereeing were traded for professionals. After the referees were changed multiple times, the match moved into its fifth game as the tension in both parties was at its highest. It looked like Sedky had the upper hand and the psychological advantage after winning the fourth game 11-7, but East fought back to take the championship, 11-8 in the fifth.
The match was one of the hardest-fought GU13 matches many had seen, and both contestants proved their undeniable merit and dogged tenacity.
Another nail-biter, this time on the boy’s side, was the BU17 final between 2005 BU13 Champion Chris Jung of Mercer Island (WA) and 14-year-old Dylan Murray of Bronxville (NY). After Jung took the first two games in tiebreakers, Murray won the next two to stage what would have been a devastating comeback, had Jung not stopped him 11-9 in the fifth.
“By the fifth game, I think we were both fairly tired so my plan was to just suck it up and put all my energy into winning that last game,” Jung said. “There was nothing to lose and only one game to play,” he recalled. “No matter who won it—it was winner-take-all so I really had to focus and pull it out. Good job to Dylan for a very well played match.” The two players arguably demonstrated the most artful squash of the tournament, both effortlessly hitting and retrieving winners as they slowed time for their impeccably executed shots.
On the adjacent court, Philadelphia’s Libby Eyre defeated New York’s Haley Mendez in three in the GU17 final. Eyre has been giving many of the top GU19 players a run for their money this entire season but decided to play the U17 division at the Nationals, winning it with ease, speed and authority. “I had never been in the finals before,” Eyre said. “It was really exciting.”
Also hailing from Philadelphia, BU19 Champion, Todd Harrity, finished his junior career not only undefeated in the past year, but also without dropping a single game. He will go out as one of the best male junior players the US has ever produced. “Part of me is glad the season is over,” Harrity confessed. “I am glad that I was able to finish up strong, and I am excited to move on to other things. Part of me is also sad though. Junior squash has been a major focus for me certainly all through high school. Through squash, I have had incredible opportunities and I feel a little nostalgic now that it is over.”
Harrity’s accomplishments include:winning five U.S. Junior Closed titles (three in the BU19—a US first), winning two U.S. Junior Open titles, finishing respectively in second and third place at the 2008 Dutch and Pioneer Junior Opens, and representing the US twice at the World Junior Men’s Championships, all episodes that he remembers fondly. “I will never forget my experiences in New Zealand and Switzerland as part of the 2006 and 2008 US Junior Men’s Teams,” he recalled. “One particular match that stands out in my mind is my third round at the World Championships in Switzerland. I was playing an Egyptian player named Wael Farag and I came back after being one game down to win. All of my teammates were done playing and were supporting me. It felt great to have their support and to be playing for the United States. It was such a powerful feeling,” Harrity said.
It is a feeling that will strike a chord in the hearts of the girls representing the US at the World Junior Women’s Championship this summer in Chennai, India. The eight-player squad will be led by Olivia Blatchford, who secured the No. 1 spot as a result of her perfect record this year. 16-year-old Blatchford met fellow junior squash veteran, 15-year-old Amanda Sobhy, in the final of the GU19 for the fourth and final time this season. Sporting an even larger crowd than the East-Sedky match, the two did not disappoint as Sobhy pushed Blatchford to five games with two games going to tiebreakers. Blatchford eventually prevailed 11-6 in the fifth, establishing her dominance and, as another player put it, her “Harrity-like status.”
With Blatchford leading the US Junior Women’s Team under Coaches Jack Wyant and Meredith Quick, the rest of the lineup will consist of three more players with the highest point standings in the past five Junior Championship Tour tournaments, two more from the GU19 division for the individual championship and an additional two developmental players from the GU17 division to participate in positions seven and eight. The process of choosing the eight players who will be eligible to participate in the World Junior Championship has been subject to much change over the past few years, and despite being hotly contested this year, U.S. Squash made the decision to use a point-based system to determine the final standings for the U19 players and a slightly less transparent system to allow the two U17 players to participate.
But the new U17 rule will pave the way for up-and-coming players, such as BU15 champion Edward Columbia of Boston (MA), who hopes to make the US Junior Men’s team in 2010 and 2012. Columbia defeated Devin McLaughlin in the final in four games and was especially proud of the fact that he was able to think and act independently on the court. “My coach, Mo Ayaz, who has been a huge influence on me and whom I love dearly, has been working with me to sharpen my ability to coach myself,” he explained. “I am indebted to the huge efforts my parents have made to support my passion. But when I stepped on for the final, I was completely independent. I was most happy and proud of the fact that I led myself through the tournament and came out on top,” Columbia said.
In a similar fashion, BU13 Champion, Jordan Brail, defeated fellow New Yorker, Mason Ripka, in one of the few three-game finals. Another was the GU11 final between Helen Teegan of Seattle (WA) and local opponent, Casey Wong. Teegan danced through the tournament to the title, showing no mercy along the way and dropping nine points altogether in the final. Her BU11 counterpart, Ryan Murray of Bronxville (WA), defeated Charlie East of Lutherville (MD) in a four game final.
Another talented player from Baltimore, Katie Tutrone, walked away with the GU15 title after running into a spot of trouble in the semifinal against Maria Elena Ubina of Greenwich (CT), to whom she had lost earlier this season in five in the quarterfinal of the U.S. Junior Open. Once again, they went to five games, but this time Tutrone emerged the victor. As last year’s GU15 finalist and the previous year’s GU13 champion, Tutrone met Catherine Jenkins of New York in the final. Jenkins, a first-time finalist, had defeated the top seed, Olivia Fiechter, in a three-game semifinal the previous day. On Sunday, however, she was unable to hold her own against Tutrone. After dropping the first game 10-12, Tutrone came back to win the match in four using her incredible speed and intelligent shot selection to keep Jenkins on her toes.
