Heroic Grant Performance Boosts
Bristol's PSL Play-Off Hopes
Roundup from Howard Harding
England
international
Adrian Grant played the game of his life
to record his first ever win over Australia's world
No6 David Palmer
and clinch victory for
Probuild Bristol
over
west country rivals
Exeter Diamonds in Tuesday's ninth and
penultimate round of the
Premier Squash
League (PSL) - thus keeping alive the
Avon club's hopes of a place in the semi-final
play-offs of the world's most prestigious squash
league.
Bristol
maintain their lead in the Group B table, ahead of
defending champions
PCL Whitehall
Security Surrey H&RC and Exeter - with
all three clubs lined up against lower placed teams
in next week's final round to decide the top two
play-off qualifiers.
By
contrast, former champions
Benz-Bavarian
Duffield and league newcomers
Chapel Allerton
have already
sealed places in the play-offs following
contrasting wins over
Esporta Oxford
and
Pontefract, respectively, in Group A
After
beating Probuild
Bristol 4/1 away from home in the first
half of the season,
Exeter Diamonds were looking forward to
even greater success at home - especially led by
twice world champion and four-time British Open
champion David
Palmer for the first time this season.
And the home club, in its maiden season in the PSL,
looked in good shape after
Emma Chorley
beat the visitors'
Sarah-Jane Perry,
and Tom Pashley
defeated the Bristol captain
Hadrian Stiff.
But
Bristol's Rob
Sutherland, replacing the squad's
anticipated No2
Mohamed El Shorbagy, the
rapidly-improving teenager from Egypt, went down in
straight games to fellow Welshman
David Evans
- leaving Palmer and Grant to play out the
decider.
With six
successive Tour wins over Grant stretching back to
2003 - most of which were in straight games - Palmer
must have expected to extend his run, especially
after taking a two-game lead.
But the
plucky left-hander from London stuck to his task and
ultimately crafted a sensational 7-11, 5-11, 11-8,
11-9, 11-8 victory which gave Bristol their seventh
win of the season.
Title-holders
PCL Whitehall Security Surrey H&RC took a
near full-strength squad to the Sussex coast to face
PNH Properties
Chichester in a repeat of the 2008
final. Vicky
Botwright,
Davide Bianchetti
and Peter Barker
soon ensured a win for the Croydon club, following
victories over the home side's
Dominique
Lloyd-Walter,
Peter Genever
and Tim Vail,
respectively - but Chichester's local star
Olivier Pett,
20, from Sussex, gave the home crowd something to
shout about when he beat
Adrian Waller
9-11, 11-4, 11-2, 11-7.
The top
string clash saw Egyptian international
Wael El Hindi
extending the visitors' lead with an 11-8, 11-4,
11-9 win over the Chichester number one
Alex Gough,
the former world No5 now the CEO of the PSA.
The final
Group B tie saw
UniSport Guildford record their second
successive PSL win with a 3/2 home victory over
Surrey county rivals
TWP St George's
Hill. It was the third string clash
which proved to be the decider as Guildford
part-timer Phil
Rushworth - a full-time coach in
Wimbledon - despatched Tour regular
Philip Nightingale
11-9, 11-7, 11-3 in an impressive victory which
earned the 25-year-old Yorkshireman the evening's
'Man of the Match' award.
It was an
all-Yorkshire battle which saw the most
comprehensive win of the night when Leeds club
Chapel Allerton
hosted and beat
Pontefract
5/0. It was a determined win by the PSL newcomers
over a visiting side which could have been expected
to have provided sterner opposition.
Chapel
Allerton's new national champion
Jenny Duncalf
took four games to overcome Leeds-based
Vanessa Atkinson,
the former world champion from the Netherlands,
11-6, 11-6, 8-11, 11-8 - and, later, Pontefract
stalwart Lee
Beachill, playing his first PSL match
since announcing his premature retirement due to
knee problems, showed that his movement is clearly
far from 100% as he went down to the hosts'
23-year-old Australian
Aaron Frankcomb
in four games.
The final
match saw an exhilarating display between two world
top 10 rivals which could have gone either way. But
it was ultimately French star
Thierry Lincou
who
prevailed, beating Pontefract's world No7
James Willstrop
7-11, 11-6, 11-2, 9-11, 11-9.
The other
tie in Group A saw
Benz-Bavarian
Duffield, one of the league's most
successful clubs of all-time, claim their fifth win
of the season in a 3/2 victory at
Esporta Oxford.
The hosts rued an uncharacteristically disappointing
start by
Madeline Perry, the Irish champion, who
failed to score in the first game against Duffield's
England international
Tania Bailey.
But after
taking the third game, Perry looked to be finally in
control - but Bailey squandered a couple of
match-balls in the fourth before finally prevailing
11-0, 11-6, 8-11, 12-10.
It was
England's top-ranked international
Nick Matthew
who
clinched victory for his club when he beat Oxford's
Australian international
Cameron Pilley
in straight games - but it was the earlier second
string battle which was judged to have been the
evening's outstanding match, when Spanish number one
Borja Golan
brought matters level by beating the visitors'
Joey Barrington
9-11, 11-7, 7-11, 13-11, 11-6.
Round
Ten Fixtures (17-Mar):
Duffield v Chapel Allerton Surrey v Guildford
Pontefract v Nottingham
St George's v Exeter
Bristol v Chichester
