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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Four Squashers Remain In Hunt For National Individual Title
March 02, 2007 | Men's Squash
Three men's players and one women's player advanced to the College Squash Association national individual quarterfinals Friday by winning two matches at Penn. The full draw and schedule, including Saturday's quarterfinal matches for Mauricio Sanchez, Kimlee Wong, Hesham El Halaby and Neha Kumar, can be found by clicking on the top link in the story.
MEN'S POTTER DIVISION
The top 32 men's players began competition for the national title Friday morning at Penn, and five Princeton Tigers began the day with a shot at the national title. The impressive trio of sophomores, who have guided Princeton to two straight national team finals, all reached the second round, but unseeded Vincent Yu and Michael Gilman both suffered first-round losses. Yu dropped a tough five-game match to Harvard's Garnett Booth, while Gilman was shut out by fourth-seeded Shaun Johnstone of Trinity College.
Sanchez entered the tournament as the second seed and dropped only seven points in a 3-0 win over Graham Bassett in the first round. Trinity veteran Eduardo Pereira put up a more significant challenge in the second round, but Sanchez, a 2006 semifinalist, won 9-5, 9-2, 9-6. He will now face the only unseeded player left in the main draw, his classmate El Halaby. The younger brother of the four-time national champion Yasser El Halaby, Hesham made his own splash with an impressive Friday showing. Following a 3-0 win over unseeded Dan Petrie, El Halaby knocked off seventh-seeded Gustav Detter 9-1, 2-9, 9-1, 9-4 to reach the quarterfinal and guarantee All-America honors.
The winner of the Sanchez-El Halaby quarterfinal (2:45 p.m.) will play in the national semifinal against either Johnstone or Harvard No. 2 Ilan Oren, the fifth-seeded player in the draw. Neither dropped a game on Friday.
Form also held in the top half of the draw, which was good news for the eighth-seeded Wong. He also guaranteed All-America honors with consecutive 3-0 wins over Rushabh Vora and Jim Bristow. A third win would provide the upset of the tournament; Wong will take on top-seeded freshman Baset Ashfaq of Trinity. Ashfaq is unbeaten this season and is the only player to take a game, much less a match, off Princeton's Sanchez. The 1:30 semifinal winner will take on the winner of the quarterfinal match between Harvard's Siddharth Suchde and Penn's Gilly Lane. Suchde, the third seed, reached the 2006 final before falling to Yasser El Halaby. Lane owns a win over Suchde this season, although the Crimson senior did have to default the match in the second game with an injury.
The national championship match is scheduled for Sunday at 2:15 p.m.
WOMEN'S RAMSAY DIVISION
The women's national title, named for former four-time champion and current Princeton women's head coach Gail Ramsay, will be won by one of eight remaining competitors, and Princeton still has a chance to claim a double title. Two weeks after winning the national team title, the Tigers have placed their individual hopes on the talented shoulders of Kumar, the freshman No. 2 player for Princeton.
Impressive depth carried Princeton this season, and that depth was evident as the Tigers placed six competitors in the main draw. Fifth-seeded Claire Rein-Weston, sixth-seeded Kumar and unseeded Amanda Siebert all advanced to the second round. The matchups weren't friendly for Casey Riley, Gen Lessard and Carly Grabowski. Riley fell in three games to Jen Blumberg, the No. 2 player for national finalist Harvard. Lessard fell in three games to fourth-seeded Vaidehi Reddy, the No. 1 player for Trinity, and Grabowski fell in three games to second-seeded and defending national champion Lily Lorentzen of Stanford.
Siebert defeated Joann Jee 9-5, 9-0, 9-3 to advance to the second round, but third-seeded Catherine McLeod of Yale took Siebert out in three games. Rein-Weston reached the second round with a 3-0 win, but she was upset by unseeded Supryia Balsekar in a five-game thriller. Balsekar advanced to the quarterfinals with a 9-7 win in the fifth game.
That left Kumar as Princeton's last hope. Following a 3-0 win over Brit Hebden, the Princeton freshman knocked off Tehani Guruge in four games to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals against McLeod. The two players didn't meet in the regular season, as McLeod played No. 1 for Yale and took on Rein-Weston. The match is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m., and the winner will play either Lorentzen or Penn's Kristen Lange in a 4:45 semifinal.
WOMEN'S HOLLERAN DIVISION
The women's players ranked 33-64 began competition in the Holleran Division. Princeton's lone representative is Kaitlin Sennatt, a freshman who dominated the No. 9 position for most of the season. She didn't drop a game during the dual meet schedule, and she was extremely impressive on Friday. In two wins, she dropped a total of one point in six games. She will play Saturday at 1:20 p.m.