Rochester Squash

Having just travelled to Rochester for an alumni event, I feel fairly engaged in college squash again. Had a great time. Now that I have played with several players on the team and have seen the Rochester-Yale match, I have several thoughts about this year. First, here's my take on each string of the Rochester-Yale result:

#1:
-Bennie Fischer isn't a flashy player, but he takes the ball early with good pace, hitting with great length and width. He also rarely hits tins or mishits balls and sets up his points very nicely so he's going for winners only when they make sense. Kenny Chan is a great retriever and has a good drop shot and himself is consistent, but he couldn't move Bennie off the T consistently and was caught scrambling around the court far too often. The match wasn't in doubt after about the 5th point, honestly.

#2:
-Jim Bristow is an impressive competitor. He is a good athlete and, watching him play, there is a confidence that he will never lose a match: he must be beat. Todd Ruth is a good player in his own right, but despite the close score line, this match was never in doubt. Ruth was particularly bad about physical play, often running right into Bristow very forcefully (my hunch is that he knew he would not win if he couldn't get Bristow off his game), but it didn't disrupt Jim's focus and that was that.

#3:
-Right now, I think that Hameed Ahmed has perhaps the most potent game in college. Having just watched the Trinity top 6, I'd say with confidence that he has the best shot-making of any current player I've seen. Aaron Fuchs is a solid player who battles hard, but this shouldn't have been a 5 game match. Hameed lost two games by hitting too many tins and what seemed like a loss of focus (which I think are the result of exhaustion; perhaps I tired him out in the alumni match the day before... =) ). Of course, he finished by showing phenomenal talent in the final game, where he hit 7 or 8 dead nicks and won in 5 minutes or so.

#4:
-Andres Duany has enormous potential. He is big and moves very well for his size, hits with great pace on both sides of the court, and has a soft touch at the front backhand side. Hywell Robinson is a fantastic retriever and overall has a mistake-free game (I was also amazed and impressed by his fair play). That said, Duany lost in 4, but could have won this if he played with some more unpredictability. I think he's the better player of these two. It's pretty rare that I say a squash player is too patient, but that may be what happened here.

#5:
-Matt Domenick is probably the fittest player for Rochester, and his retrieving is fantastic, but he just didn't seem to be at his best for this match. John Roberts hits with a ton of pace, but he doesn't have a great front court game. The fact that he sometimes took odd angles to get to balls (and then would ask for strokes) was clearly frustrating for Matt, and Matt may have been a bit nicked up in this one, but the match was winnable. Domenick beat Aaron Fuchs at nationals last year, so despite the lopsided score I think this match could go differently on a different day.

#6:
-Will Newnham has a very nice, attacking style of play. He is able to hold the ball a split second extra, which makes solid shots into outright winners. Richard Dodd, by contrast, is a classic player. Newnham is the more skilled player and he took game 1 fairly easily, but then, in my opinion, he lost the match on fitness. Come nationals, this is certainly another winnable match.

I didn't get to see the 7, 8 and 9 matches unfortunately (I had to pick a viewing location that would let me watch 2 courts, and I chose the spot where I could see the top 6 matches). Juan Pablo Gaviria put together a great fight, though, and if the team match hadn't already been decided when he was going into the fifth game, I think he could have pulled through. Especially in the college game, any time you can take a game off of someone when you're both battling hard, you've shown the ability to beat that person. As such, I'm confident that Lopez and Chapman can win those matches if more is on the line, such as at nationals.

All in all, a great time. I can't believe how far this team has come since I graduated in '04...for comparison, I played #2 for Rochester back then. After having hit with several of the guys this last weekend, my estimate is that I'd probably be on the fringe of the 12 man roster if I were playing today. Crazy!