The 2010 Metropolitan Squash Racquets Association (MSRA) Grand Open squash tournament raised an already high bar for amateur squash tournaments by drawing a record number of players to Manhattan for the third straight year. No one, not least the event’s organizers, thought this year’s event would top the 2009 record of 216 players, but the 230 participants playing across 12 men’s and women’s draws meant that even with two weeks to go before the tournament’s start, most draws had waitlists. As is common, the men’s 3.5 to 5.0 draws filled up first, but 2010 saw a large increase in the number of women players.
"The growth in women’s squash has been phenomenal," according to Emily Stieff and Jessica Green, co-chairs’ of the MSRA’s women’s squash program. "Twenty percent more female players showed up to play this year," said Green, "and those numbers quickly spurred us to add much needed women’s 4.5 and 5.5 draws. Normally, talented women like Julie Lilien and Shirin Kaufman would have competed in the men’s 5.0 draw, but there were enough equally competitive women this year that they opted to compete in an eight-strong women’s 5.5 draw."
The 2010 Grand continued its affiliation with the professional Tournament of Champions (TOC) held at Grand Central Station, and all of the Grand’s players had access to thrilling opening rounds of play on Friday and Saturday. Not only were the Grand Open and the Tournament of Champions in play that weekend, but there were junior tournaments organized by StreetSquash, the Event Engine (organizers of the TOC) and the CityView Racquet Club.
With players coming from as far as Florida, Illinois and California for what has been dubbed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg as "New York City Squash Week", it became increasingly harder to predict winners of the draws. No longer could tournament organizers look no further than the rosters from various NY city clubs to seed the draws. With sometimes limited match history, one never knew whether that last minute signup from Dayton, OH was just being sincere or overly modest when he said he was a rusty ex-college player that should be in a lower draw. After making our best attempts to seed the draws, match play started on Friday evening and we were confident that all would be settled on court.
The logistics of running a three-day tournament for such a large group at five different venues are daunting, but match play progressed through the weekend much smoother than it had in the past. In an increasingly more connected world, it was much easier to communicate with players via email and text messaging in the event that match times needed to be moved. And players were much more apt to notify organizers ahead of time if they were injured or likely to be late. Starting on Sunday morning, match play was consolidated at the Sports Club LA for the semi-final and final rounds the take advantage of that club’s open layout and ample spectator space.
Sunday was marked by exciting squash all around, but match highlights came from polar ends of the skill divisions. The men’s 3.5 saw the longest final of the day, with Manish Chopra and Tarit Rao-Chakravorti going back and forth until Rao-Chakravorti won 14-12 in the fifth game. Just after scoring the winning point, he held his head in his hands and walked to the front of the court, and we could all sense the tremendous relief that he felt after having battled back and forth for the better part of 80 minutes. A similar marathon battle was seen in the women’s 5.5 semi-final between Casey Riley and Gwen Tilghman. Casey, a former #24 intercollegiate player former Princeton, easily moved through the draw in what was expected to be a showdown between her and Julie Lilien or Shirin Kaufman. Local junior Gwen Tilghman seemed outmatched much of the first three games, but after settling down (and avoiding getting trapped in Riley’s hard-hitting game), managed a fantastic upset in five games.
The 2010 Grand Open was a crowning moment in a very energetic MSRA season to date. With every draw filled to capacity, the main draw and consolation draw winners of each division know that they had to overcome incredibly deep fields of players to emerge as the victor.
Results:
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Men’s 3.0: Ranga Papanna def. Shyam Gidumal, 3-0
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Men’s 3.5: Tarit Rao-Chakravorti def. Manish Chopra, 3-2
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Men’s 4.0: Greg Burton def. Andrew Strasfogel, 3-0
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Men’s 4.5: Eric Vlcek def. Mithun Mukherjee, 3.0
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Men’s 5.0: Vikas Goela def. John Sayward, 3-1
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Men’s 5.5: Edward Newhouse def. Henry Clutsam, 3-1
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Men’s 6.0: Gary Power def. John Musto, 3-1
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Women’s 3.0: Maggie Durant def. Marjorie Mayrock, 3-0
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Women’s 4.0: Fraser Ross def. Mina Mitby, 3-2
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Women’s 4.5: Martha Kelley def. Jessica Green, 3-2
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Women’s 5.0: Carly Grabowski def. Beatrice Querel, 3-1
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Women’s 5.5: Juliana Lilien def. Gwen Tilghman, 3-1
