Dominic Hughes And Nigel Thain Capture Record Third Straight U. S. Century Doubles Crown by Rob Dinerman
photos courtesy Kim Clearkin
Dateline January 28th
--- Trailing two games to one and with the entire flow of the match
increasingly swinging against them, Philadelphia-area pros Dominic
Hughes and Nigel Thain responded like champions, noticeably raising
their level throughout the remainder of the match and defeating Liam
Kenny and Pete Bostwick III by a score of 15-14, 12-15, 11-15, 15-4,
15-6 Sunday afternoon at the University Club of New York to culminate
the 11th official edition of the U. S. Century Doubles Championships.
It was a record third consecutive title for Hughes and Thain against
three different final-round opponent (previously Ned Edwards/Ed Garno
in 2016 and John Macatee/Tom Clayton last year) and it was the third of
the day’s six finals that had to be resolved by a fifth game in what
has become one of the most well-subscribed and competitive doubles
tournaments of the entire season. Eighty-seven teams from the United
States, Canada and Mexico thronged to the six New York-area clubs
(University Club, Racquet & Tennis, New York Athletic Club, Heights
Casino and Apawamis) that hosted the event, which, as has been the case
for the past several years, was sponsored by Jefferson’s Very Small
Batch Bourbon.
Each of
the Open finalists had been forced to weather a five-game semi on
Saturday afternoon. Kenny and Bostwick, after a four-game quarterfinal
win over Macatee/Clayton, rallied from one-two down against Morris
Clothier and Dave Rosen and won, 15-11 in the fifth, while Hughes and
Thain led former Princeton captains Bill Ullman and Jeff Stanley
two-love, then lost both the third and fourth games 15-6 before running
away with the 15-5 fifth. The two-time defending champs seemed tight
and impatient at the outset of the final, and they were fortunate to
come away with the first game by running off four straight points (the
last three on go-for-broke forehand reverse-corner winners by Thain)
after falling behind 14-11. Even though they were able to rescue that
game, Thain and Hughes were clearly affected by Kenny’s ubiquity and
clever shot selection and execution, and these factors, along with
Bostwick’s consistent play (and the front-left nick he found at 12-all
in the second that keyed his team’s 3-0 spurt which evened the match at
a game apiece), carried through the third game as well, especially
during the last half of the game, when Kenny/Bostwick went from 8-all
to 14-9. Thain and Hughes, who at times seemed unnerved by the manner
in which Kenny kept materializing, with his graceful, unhurried and
seemingly effortless mobility, wherever he was needed, eventually
succumbed to a bit of desperation in the form of rash attempts at
winners and several consequent costly tins. When Kenny raced to the
front-right and knifed a forehand roll-corner winner on the game’s
final point, he and his partner appeared to be in full command.
Thain and
Hughes later said that between the third game and the fourth they
resolved to be more patient and to make more of an effort to keep their
opponents, especially Bostwick, deep and go for shots only when the
court opened up. But what really swung the match permanently in their
direction was a combination of sharply-angled winners off both their
racquets (especially in early-game runs from 2-all to 9-2 in the fourth
and from 5-4 to 11-5 in the fifth) and Kenny finally becoming fatigued
after covering so much court. His grueling four-day stretch of
high-level doubles squash actually began on Thursday evening, when he
and Bill Mangan lost, 15-14 in the fifth, in Greenwich in the North
American Open qualifying, to Peter Kelly and Dylan Patterson. He was
still getting to almost everything, but his responses became
increasingly defensive, as were those of Bostwick, who bore the brunt
of the Hughes/Thain attack and held up admirably but found himself
pushed deep by Hughes’s parabolic lobs and less able to muster any
offense, or to retrieve the several shallow rail winners that Thain
conjured up early in the fifth. Bostwick, a model of error-free
consistency for much of the match, also committed a few semi-forced
tins during the mid-game portion of the fifth, giving Hughes/Thain
enough of a cushion to attack more fearlessly and confidently. Hughes,
whose several impatience-caused tins had almost cost his team the first
game, finished off the match with a flourish, volleying an untouchable
backhand roll-corner to get to match-ball and then gently guiding a
cross-drop to the front-right that was a winner by 10 feet.
The other
pair of five-game finals were the A Flight, in which reigning U. S.
55’s champs Joe Purrazzella and Charlie Parkhurst rallied from a
two-games-to-one deficit and won the last two games 15-12 and15-6 over
Alfredo Nieto and Enrique Payen, and the 60’s Division, in which top
seeds Andy Nehrbas and Scott Devoy, after leading 2016 Century 60’s
champs Patrick Chifunda and Palmer Page two games to love, lost both
the third and fourth and trailed 5-1 in the fifth before emerging
victorious 15-12. In the remaining categories, Natalie Grainger, making
her first competitive doubles appearance since she and Chris Callis won
the World Mixed Doubles crown this past September, partnered Steve
Mandel to a 15-14 fourth-game final-round win over Susie Pierrepont and
Niko Elmaleh; Will Hartigan and Ed Minskoff won their third straight
Century 70’s title by defeating Scott Stoneburgh and Tony Ross, 15-13
in the third; reigning U. S. 40’s women’s champions Lissen Tutrone and
Kat Grant, lifelong friends since the age of seven, were
extraordinarily sharp, efficient and ruthless in their convincing
straight-game victory over University Club of Boston teammates Hope
Crosier and Jeanne Blasberg (five-game semis winners over Vaughn
Schmidt and Tracy Ball Greer); and Alexander Ma and A. R. Vandoren went
undefeated (3-0) in the Century 80’s four-team round-robin.
Impressive performances abounded throughout the weekend and could be
found in every division (and nearly every round of every division) ---
but the most heroic role, in this Century Doubles weekend as in all its
predecessors, was played by the tournament’s perennial foremost
advocate Kit Tatum, who right from the event’s inception has embraced
and promoted it, recruiting players and matching up partners with an
enthusiasm and fervor that, more than anything else, is responsible for
its continuing growth and popularity. This year he also attained the
semifinal round of the 60’s event with partner Peter Cipriano. At a
time when some tournaments are struggling to maintain their prior
attendance levels, the U. S. Century Doubles remains flourishing,
vibrant and one of the highlights of the U. S. Squash doubles calendar.
