Damien Mudge/Ben Gould: Partners for the past two dominant seasons, this pair of contemporaneous (born just six months apart in 1976) Manhattan-based Australian superstars have gone 19 for 20, compiling a 61-1mark in a collaborative effort which debuted in the 2010 Maryland Club Open. There, after falling behind Mark Chaloner and Chris Walker 1-0, 7-4, they then racked up nine straight games (at the expense of, sequentially, Walker/Chaloner, James Hewitt/Greg Park and John Russell/Preston Quick) to emphatically kick-start an undefeated (38-0) run through the 12-tournament 2010-11 campaign. It was the fourth time that Mudge had won this championship, preceded by his three-year skein with Gary Waite from 2003-05, the inaugural editions of the Maryland Club Open, and the third for Gould, who had teamed with Paul Price to prevail in 2006 and 2008. Mudge’s 114 pro-doubles titles are well more than double the total of any other active player, as are his 11 years (seven […]

Throughout its colorful seven-year history (2003-10, with a one-year hiatus in 2009 since Baltimore hosted the U. S. National Doubles that season), the Maryland Club Open, partly as a consequence of its annual mid-October positioning at or near the beginning of the squash season, has had an out-sized influence on the dynamics of the ISDA Tour, even to the point of in several instances serving to redefine the entire competitive landscape by undoing the established pecking order and ushering in an entirely different and significantly transformed era. Perhaps inspired by the impressive trappings of the host club and/or the rich history of doubles squash in Baltimore (which has hosted the prestigious U. S. National Doubles no fewer than 11 times, most recently in 2010, and whose annual BIDS invitational doubles event had for decades been a highlight of the amateur schedule), ISDA players have in disproportionate numbers taken their games to new levels and produced […]

Damien Mudge/Ben Gould: The decision that this pair of gifted Australian compatriots and heretofore fierce rivals reached this past summer to leave their respective prior partners and instead team up for the 2010-11 season may prove to be the most momentous move in the history of the ISDA in light of the firepower and athleticism that each of them possesses. Certainly there is no doubt that this pro-squash-doubles version of The Decision has made their debut performance in Baltimore this weekend the main story-line coming into this Maryland Club Open, where, ironically, four years ago Gould and his then-partner Paul Price won the first of the 22 ISDA titles they would capture, a total that also includes the ’08 Maryland Club Open, with both of those triumphs coming at the final-round expense of John Russell and Preston Quick. Mudge, who combined with Viktor Berg to earn 17 ISDA tourneys during the course of their three-year […]

Dateline July 10 — There have been a host of truly noteworthy developments during the six-year history of the Maryland Club Open, which resumes this weekend after a one-year hiatus caused by the mammoth undertaking by the Baltimore squash community of hosting the (extremely successful) 2010 U. S. National Doubles Championships this past spring. Contenders have emerged, overwhelming favorites have been knocked off and important matches, which have often had long-lasting effects on the dynamics of the remainder of that season’s ISDA tour, have all at one time or another characterized the action on Eager Street throughout the decade of the 2000’s. This article will focus on five individual matches, selected from a list that could easily have run much longer, that stand out not only for the quality of play but also for the influence those matches have had upon the subsequent evolution of the ISDA tour. The tournament’s early-autumn placement at or near […]

This weekend will mark the 75th edition of the U. S. National Men’s Doubles Squash Championship, which debuted in 1933 and has been held every year since except for a three-year World War II-caused hiatus from 1943-45. The city of Baltimore has previously hosted this tournament 11 times (in 1940, ’42, ’46, ’48, ’53, ’58, ’65, ’73, ’81, ’87 and ’96) and those championships have featured some of the game’s all-time leading stars adding to their legend and important chapters in several enduring rivalries, as well as a series of out-of-the-blue one-hit wonders, noteworthy upsets, instances of sibling rivalry as well as partnership, and some of the most riveting final-round finishes in the history of doubles squash. THE 1940’s: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION? A real question has emerged in researching this chronicle as to whether the 1940 National Doubles event was actually held in Baltimore, and 70 years after the fact, no one could be found […]

When Blair Horler and Clive Leach, the hottest team on the ISDA circuit the prior winter/spring with their Canadian Pro and Kellner Cup final-round wins over the previously invincible Gary Waite and Damien Mudge, were unceremoniously ousted, in straight games no less, in the first round of the inaugural 2003 Maryland Club Open by qualifiers Alex Pavulans and Chris Deratnay, they never fully recovered from this unexpected setback and their partnership ended just a few months later when Horler badly injured his right knee that winter. Similarly, when Willie Hosey and Michael Pirnak defeated Pavulans and Deratnay the following day to reach that ’03 final (losing to Waite and Mudge, who would go on to win the next two editions of this tourney as well), they took the first big step in a season that would see them reach four subsequent finals as well. When Ben Gould and Preston Quick, first-round Maryland Club Open losers […]

Damien Mudge/Viktor Berg: Repelled virtually throughout the autumn portion of the 2007-08 schedule in their quest for ISDA titles, and plagued during that period by a preseason hamstring injury to Berg, an 0-3 slate against Chris Walker and Clive Leach and the six-point collapse that undid the 11-9 Big Apple final-round lead they had held over Paul Price and Ben Gould, this pair of first-year partners conjured up the most successful midseason turnaround in the history of the ISDA beginning immediately after Thanksgiving, when they reached the finals of all 10 subsequent ISDA ranking tournament, winning eight of them, thereby solidly earning the No. 1 end-of-season team ranking. Their match record from late November onwards of 33-2 included a 19-0 run encompassing five consecutive January/February/March tournaments (namely Boston, the North American Open in Greenwich, Cleveland, Brooklyn and Denver) that enabled Mudge, playing for the first time on the left wall after all those right-wall years […]

Now entering the milestone fifth year of its existence, the Maryland Club Open already has the seventh longest tenure of any continuing tour stop on the ISDA circuit, a phenomenon which, combined with its colorful albeit brief history of early-round upsets and emerging heroes, its chronological positioning as the first significant ranking tournament on the season’s schedule and the $ 30,000 purse (trailing only the North American Open and Kellner Cup in the 2007-08 schedule), has made this tournament a truly compelling launch-pad for an ISDA professional doubles season. The role that this tourney has often in the past played in defining (and in several cases, RE-defining) the personality of an ensuing season is likely to be even greater this time than ever before in light of the retirement this past spring of undoubtedly the greatest doubles player (statistically and in every other way) in the history of doubles squash, namely Gary Waite. The latter […]

Paul Price/Ben Gould: Winners of a tour-leading five ISDA ranking tournaments (in, sequentially, Baltimore, New York, Greenwich, Boston and Rye), including the two most prestigious and lucrative events on the schedule, namely the $ 1000,000 Briggs Cup and the $ 50,000 North American Open, this pair of Australian gunslingers now beginning the second full season of their partnership will forever be remembered as the team that finally succeeded where so many teams before them had tried and failed in displacing Gary Waite and Damien Mudge from the No. 1 ranking which the latter legendary juggernaut had previously held throughout the seven-year history of the ISDA tour. Price (a former British Open finalist and PSA No. 2) and Gould made an emphatic first step in that direction right off the bat last year in the season-opening Maryland Club Open when they used a one-point second game (on a look-away Price forehand roll-corner that Waite never reacted […]

Gary Waite/Damien Mudge: Four for four in their Baltimore appearances this decade, including victorious runs throughout the three-year history of the Maryland Club Open (also the 2002 BIDS), featuring final-round wins over Michael Pirnak/Willie Hosey in 2003, Josh McDonald/Viktor Berg in 2004 and Preston Quick/Ben Gould last year, this (by far) best-ever pairing in the history of doubles squash won seven of the nine ISDA ranking tournaments which they entered in 2005-2006, their seventh consecutive year in which they easily finished as the No. 1 ranked team. They enter the current season this weekend with milestone birthdays (Waite turned 40 last month, Mudge turned 30 last May) recently behind them, with 71 tournament wins (in 78 attempts) and 76 final-round appearances in their trophy-swollen ledger and with the real possibility of extending already record-setting title runs both here in Baltimore and this winter at the North American Open (where their streak stands at seven and […]