By Tracy Gates
Why can’t women play doubles like men? Call me sexist, but I’m also female and I couldn’t help thinking that as I watched match after match of doubles during DONAT (Doubles or Nothing at All) at the Hamptons Squash Week tournament this past August.
I’d heard about the tournament from friends who’d been the year before. It’s held at the Elmaleh-Stanton Squash Center which is part of the Southampton Town Recreation Center. And if you want to watch fantastic squash (and perhaps play, as well) in the summer, you can hardly do better than this. Many squash celebrities were there, including John White, Latasha Khan, and Amanda Sohby, amongst many others. Besides, if you happen to lose, the consolation prize is that you’re free to go to the beach. I received that prize early on, having lost in the first round of the women’s doubles draw; I’m still new to the game and my partner was even newer, so we were thrilled to get even one game off of our seasoned opponents. It was a beautiful summer day and I fully intended to go check out my host’s swimming pool, but then John White got on the doubles court while I was still eating lunch and I thought, “I’ll just watch a bit of this match…” Before I knew it, it was close to dinner time, I’d watched three more matches, and my eyes were still glued to the court.
I know it’s really not fair of me to compare genders, especially given the men’s vs. women’s draw. Most of the players in the men’s draw had been playing doubles for years and many were top level players and pros, including Southampton’s own Mike Weston, the new U.S. SQUASH doubles director Preston Quick, Trinity stars Baset Chaudhry and his partner Gustav Detter, CitySquash Director Tim Wyant, and the list went on and on. By contrast, many of the women were relative newcomers to doubles, with plenty of enthusiasm, but no-where near the expertise of the men. And the strongest women, Emily Lungstrum and Meredith Quick, were miles beyond most of us in their experience and skill level. In fact, the one woman who could’ve given them some competition was playing in the men’s draw. I couldn’t blame Suzie Pierrepont; that’s definitely where the action was. And she looked to be holding her own with her precise and graceful shots that often lifted the ball right over the guys’ heads and into the corners. It didn’t hurt, either, that she looked to be the tallest person on the court.
But as much as I admire precision and grace, I can’t help being awed and entertained by a power fest where the racquets are flying and the ball is a blur. John White was playing with Mike Weston and they were up against two guys in their twenties—Trevor McGuiness and Todd Ruth. McGuiness is not a small guy and I can describe his game with one word: power. Hit the ball anywhere within his reach and it was guaranteed to come hurling back at you. I was very glad to not be in the court with him as I might’ve ended up huddled in a corner with my arms over my head. His opponents, fortunately, used their arms much more effectively and with White’s famous blazing speed with which he hits the ball and Weston’s athleticism and experience, they were able to push the first two games into extra points, despite losing both. And then I believe they began to figure a few things out, including taking advantage of a few of Trevor’s weaknesses. When they pushed harder, Trevor began making more errors. He just couldn’t seem to help himself. He wanted points badly and his shot making under pressure ended up with more tins than points. It also helped that Weston hit more winners when returning the serve, and whenever White got the ball where he wanted it, he often sent it hard and low down the right wall. They quickly got the third game 14-6 and it looked like the match would swing the other way.
However, this match wasn’t that easy to call and deep into the fourth game, a point played out that showed how determined both sides were to win. I didn’t keep count, but this point just went on and on and on until White finally put it away after fifty or more exchanges. I haven’t had the pleasure of watching White in many singles matches (he went on to win the singles PST division of the tournament), but it was interesting to see that in doubles he clears the ball by moving his upper body more than his lower. On many occasions, he just curved his torso around the ball as it came by. He wasn’t going to give up his prime middle of the court position. I’d try it, but I’d probably end up with ball-sized polka dots all over me. The fourth game was more like the first two, going into extra points, only this time it went—just barely—in White and Weston’s favor.
My notes from the fifth and last game are interesting. The score went back and forth, back and forth all the way to 13-12, and then I have scrawled that White and Ruth end up in a pile, and when McGuiness powered the ball back toward the collapsed players, White raised his racquet and hit a winner (where to, I was too flabbergasted to write down) from the floor! I witnessed some truly amazing points later on in the tournament, but that was easily one of the most exciting—especially given that it tied the game at 13-all. I wish I could say that the remaining extra points were as riveting, but fate or youthful determination gave the match to McGuiness and Ruth.
Youthful determination probably also had something to do with their getting through another five game match in the semis against Tim Wyant and Graham Bassett. But Wyant and Bassett are more creative players and both know how to put the ball away without just hitting it hard, although they know how to do that, too. And they are both extremely fit, which they needed to be to get through five games, win, and then a few hours later return for the finals. Bassett, I believe, headed off for a nap, which turned out to be a very good decision given that he and Wyant would be facing Preston Quick, and his partner Jonny Smith, whom I kept trying to place and then realized he looked like he could be Willem Dafoe’s younger brother.
Quick and Smith had played after Wyant and Bassett, but they seemed to have had a much easier time of it, dispatching Baset Chaudhry and Gustav Detter in four games. I had admired Chaudhry and Detter in their first match against Morris Clothier and Dylan Patterson. These young Trinity team alums are great fun to watch for almost opposite reasons—one has amazing power and touch, the other almost unearthly athletic ability—but they’re still very green on the doubles court and Quick pretty much let Smith clean them up, inserting a brain-numbing round the court all-wall boast just to confuse them once in a while. Clearly, Quick and Smith were saving themselves for the finals.
I wished that I had saved myself for the finals; I really hadn’t planned on watching not only one but two full days of doubles. I was hooked. Every match was interesting for different reasons. I was immediately struck by the higher level of play in the final, compared to every match I’d seen earlier. A friend who has played the game for years clued me in: “A match is played to the level of its lowest level player.” It made sense, but in this match I couldn’t decide who that was.
Bassett was the youngest player, but he’s both a great retriever and a shot maker with one of his most beautiful shots being a high backhand volley reverse corner. So beautiful in fact that I worried early on that he’d use it a bit too much and that is in fact what happened. But when it’s on, it was probably the most impressive shot of the match. The most impressive athlete of the match, however, was Tim Wyant. He just doesn’t seem to have an ‘off’ switch; he goes for absolutely everything and gets to balls that even the super-human Detter may give up on. Some of his best shots were while his feet weren’t touching the ground.
Quick and Smith were definitely less flashy than their opponents, and that may have been to their advantage. Smith is extremely consistent and took on a similar job as he did in the earlier match—volleying every ball he could and generally wearing his opponents down. Quick, with his extremely cool on-court demeanor, was the designated closer and confuser. His movements are subtle, but he’s extremely good at getting others to move. He made Wyant bounce around the court with his mix of tornado-like ricochets and bruisingly hard low rails. Wyant looks impressive because Quick doesn’t let him stand still.
And yet I blame Wyant for my starting to think: why can’t women do that?? In one of the last points of the match, he slid to the floor three times while retrieving a ball and still got up in time for the next onslaught. I know that men may be biologically stronger, but women can dive and slide, too, and they are generally more flexible. Witness Nour El Tayeb’s on court full splits. And who hasn’t admired the well-muscled arms of Samantha Stosur, the new U.S. Open women’s champ in tennis? Yes, we can be physically impressive as well. So can women’s doubles be just as exciting as what I witnessed in Southampton? Definitely. Especially if more juniors and top level players pick it up.”
Of course, physical impressiveness doesn’t always win a match. Case in point, the more subtle and sly Quick and Smith eventually wrapped up the final, although not until the fifth game. Perhaps they finally wore their surely fatigued opponents out. With Wyant and Basset down four points 14-10 at match ball, both teams threw everything they had at each other. It was a classic doubles error that did Bassett and Wyant in; they both gave up on a ball, thinking that the other would get it. In some ways, it seemed a fitting end to make the mistake together.
Lucky for me, this summer weekend was not the end but only the beginning of watching and playing more doubles; there’s a whole season just starting. I know that not every player has access to a doubles court, but if you do, trust me, it’s one of the most fun games you’ll ever play. Not to mention, an excellent excuse to come to the Hamptons next summer.