Hyder Cup Round-Of-!6 Update: Haycocks Rallies Past Walters, Will Face Top Seed Alister Walker In Quarters

By Rob Dinerman

May 3, 2013 - 8:58am

0 comments

Trailing one game to love and behind in the early portion of the second as well, Jamie Haycocks changed the pace, tightened up his drives and drops and inexorably swept to a 9-11 11-6 11-1 11-6 victory over his British compatriot Lewis Walters Thursday evening in the second round of the 2013 Quentin Hyder Cup before an appreciative crowds at Sports Club/LA in mid-town Manhattan. Current PSA top-80 Haycocks will now face 2011 Hyder Champion Alister Walker, the top seed, who cruised to a straight-set victory tonight over Luke Butterworth.

This was a rubber match between Walters and Haycocks, who had split a pair of late-autumn matches two weeks apart in the British leagues, and Walters, who spent this past season as an assistant coach at Yale working with both the men’s and women’s varsities as the right-hand man of the longtime Eli head coach Dave Talbott, raced out of the gate, forcing the pace and volleying aggressively and fearlessly while keeping Haycocks scrambling and often in desperation-retrieving mode. The fast pace definitely worked to Walters’s advantage, as there is a cat-like element to his movement and when he coils over a ball he can snap it late in his swing to telling effect. Though playing virtually all of that game from behind, both on the scoreboard and in terms of position, Haycocks hung in and extemporized surprisingly well, even fending off two game-balls against and creeping to 9-10, only to then lose the game in potentially disheartening fashion when a Walters forehand working-boast that Haycocks appeared to tracking down instead took a strange low hop (possibly it hit a sweat spot) and stayed down under his racquet.

Walters spun off a few winners in building a 3-1 lead in the second game as well, seemingly confident and in excellent form, when out of the blue he committed three tins, one of them on a serve-return, helping Haycocks to a 7-3 lead, a slump from which Walters would never fully recover. By this time as well, Haycocks had wisely softened and varied the pace, resorting to more lobs and further pushing Walters out of his rhythm. Haycocks, who had been guilty early on of forcing his backhand straight drop, began working other shots in as well when he had an opening on the left wall, sneaking in a roll-corner or a late cross-drop, undoing Walters’s balance and forcing him to frequently reverse direction. By the third game, Walters had fully lost his way, the early-match excellence an increasingly distant memory.

He did, however, begin the fourth with renewed energy and concentration is battling to 4-all. But at this juncture, with the outcome again very much in doubt, Haycocks was able to conjure up a four-point spurt --- on two flawless winners, a Walters top-of-the-tin and a stroke call on a wayward Walters drive that veered out from the front wall --- then picked up another stroke call a few points later to give him a match-ball at 10-6, following which he lashed a midcourt backhand cross-court that a lunging Walters got his racquet on (an amazing retrieval) but hit into the tin. Walters had many more spectacular winners than his opponent, especially on his jumping forehand overheads into the left-front nick, but Haycocks was much more tin-free, playing well even from defensive positions, and ultimately was able to grind enough points out to induce costly impatience and poor shot selection on Walters’s part. It was a good tactical victory for Haycocks, who fully earned his quarterfinal berth and the upcoming challenge of facing Walker Friday evening at the Harvard Club Of New York.