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 […]

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 […]