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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
CSA Singles Tournament
Once, Twice, Three Times The Champion... El Halaby Claims Another Title
March 06, 2005 | Men's Squash
March 6, 2005
HANOVER, N.H. - Yasser El Halaby didn't waste any time making Princeton squash history. As a freshman, at the expense of Yale's Julian Illingworth, he rallied from a match ball down to win a match that all-but clinched the Ivy League title. As a junior, at the expense of Illingworth once again, El Halaby went beyond Princeton history.
This was squash history.
El Halaby became the first men's squash player to ever win three national championships by the end of his junior season when he swept Illingworth 3-0 in Sunday's national final. It caps a brilliant run through the 2005 Pool Championship, as El Halaby won 15 of 16 games to capture championship No. 3.
El Halaby faced a familiar foe in Illingworth during Sunday's final. The two competitors split a pair of matches this season; Illingworth avenged the 2003 loss by rallying from 2-0 down for a 3-2 win in a regular season match at Yale. El Halaby bounced back for a 3-0 in the national team tournament on a day when the Tigers shocked Yale for third place. The rubber match, and championship Sunday, belonged squarely to El Halaby. His 9-6, 9-2, 9-1 victory marks the third straight championship match that he has won 3-0. As a freshman, he swept senior teammate Will Evans '03, and last season he swept Harvard's Will Broadbent.
El Halaby was a perfect 15-0 in games during last season's championship, and he was 9-0 after defeating Dartmouth's Hank Alexander, Trinity's Jacques Swanepoel and Trinity's Shaun Johnstone in the first three rounds. The semifinal matched El Halaby with Harvard's Siddharth Suchde, a talented sophomore who was meeting El Halaby for the second straight national semifinal.
Suchde took the opening game 9-5. He took two more points the rest of the match.
El Halaby topped Suchde 5-9, 9-0, 9-2, 9-0 to clinch the spot against Illingworth, who reached his first final by defeating 2002 champion Bernardo Samper from Trinity in four games.
The two could meet again in the 2006 championship, when El Halaby will look to become the first male and only the second player to ever claim four straight national championships. The only women's player to do it is current Princeton coach Gail Ramsay, who swept the crown as an undergraduate at Penn State.
El Halaby wasn't the only success story during the weekend. Sophomore teammate Vincent Yu claimed the Malloy Trophy, given to the winner of the 'B' bracket, by defeated Bates' Gary Kan 10-8, 9-7, 9-1 in Sunday's final. Yu, the former No. 2 player at Princeton who spent most of the season getting back into shape after illness cost him much of his offseason, lost only one game during the championships.