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Barker Challenges in Chicago |
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Sweet Home Chicago Open
Final Report
By Zee Shaan Jamal
What an incredible match we had lined up for tonight. Both of these players making it through to the final without much trouble, especially Peter who had made it this far in the tournament without loosing a single game, impressive indeed.
The crowd filled the stands to their absolute capacity and kept buzzing as they waited for the players to make their entrances. The MC warmed up the crowd with introductions to the players and Adrian Battersby from PSAlive.tv provided the crowd with their history on the court and the recent tournament history of both the players. The stage was now set, from here on it was all on to the players.
Both the players started off well but it was Palmer who seemed to have found the length and width of the court better than Barker. Palmer secured at least four points by plainly hitting the ball into the deep corners of the court and putting it out of Barker’s formidable reach. This led to Palmer claiming a commanding lead in the first game. At 10-6 in the first game, Palmer seemed destined to close it out and it seemed like that we had to wait for game 2 to witness any serious challenge from Barker. But Barker wasn’t done with the game. He fought back to take the next two points and then proceeded further by claiming another two and taking the match into its first tie-break.
At this point, I feel Palmer went on the defensive and now we could see the belief in Barker’s body language that he truly felt that he had a fair chance of turning this game around. After fighting through another four points, Barker finally hit a winner to claim the first game at 15-13. Palmer obviously not happy with the end result of the game but looked determined to mount a stronger challenge in the second game.
Both players started well again in the second game, but this time Barker was up ahead on the court and was absolutely exposing Palmer’s movement and shots in the front two corners of the court. Barker’s subtle holding of the ball on almost every shot (which gave him some time on the ball), was upsetting Palmer’s movement plus rhythm, and also Palmer was not reading Barker’s game as naturally as we have seen him do all week long against other opponents. The combination of these two factors led to a commanding lead for Barker in the second game and he led Palmer with a score of 10-6.
Around this point, Barker got a little nervy, probably thinking a little too much about who he was about to go two one up on, and ran into some careless errors and Palmer took full advantage of that as he closed the gap to 10-9. At this point, they played a rally where Palmer eventually hit a very low forehand drive which Barker retrieved but the referee called down (Palmer’s drive was called down). Barker calmly walked off the court since by the virtue of this decision he had effectively closed the second game with the score of 11-9, but Palmer stayed on court, trying to make his case and explaining to the referee that he was sure the ball was good, his opponent never flinched in playing it either, and the ball didn’t even jump up, all points which lead to the conclusion that the ball was good, but the referee had made his call and it was a majority (2 to 1) decision. Palmer was extremely upset and frustrated as he had the momentum in the game was seemed ready to take the match into its second tie-break but it didn’t happen and the game was awarded to Barker.
Squash fans who know Palmer well, know that he can come back in a match at any point, but to his supporters’ dismay, the fight back was not to come today. Barker sped away from Palmer with a strong 7-1 lead and now the signs were ominous as Palmer’s body language was totally negative. Palmer’s disappointment was evident in the rest of the game, where he seemed to be just going through the motions and Barker closed out the game at 11-2 and thus the match three games to love.
Barker played exceptionally well and put everything Palmer threw at him back into play, moving as smoothly as possible and choosing his attacking shots well and timing them perfectly. Combine that with just four unforced errors in the whole match, and you have a very formidable challenge from Barker.
It should be noted here that Peter Barker won the Sweet Home Chicago Open 2008, without loosing a single game throughout the tournament. What an incredible performance throughout, well done Peter, I am sure this will lead you to many future successes as well. Seems like the hard training you have been undergoing under the watchful eyes of the great Peter Nicol is paying off handsomely.
On the other hand, I am equally sure that David Palmer will be back stronger than ever after this tournament. He’s had a good rest over the summer and now has gotten some quality match practice and will mount a very formidable challenge to one and to all in the upcoming tournaments.
Our thanks to both the finalists for such a high quality match.
For more information
Official Site
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About the Zee Shaan Jamal (in his own words)
I am a student at the University of Buffalo pursuing a Masters Degree in Business Administration.
Have been playing squash for 3 and half years and as you may already know I am a total squash fanatic and a student of many aspects of our wonderful sport.
Check out Zee's videos by clicking HERE
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