By Chris Smith, National Teams Manager
The CherryPharm Team USA Squash Tour heated up in March with three events being played. All the events are worth points for the Men and Women to make the teams that will compete at the 2007 Pan American Games this summer in Brazil. The first event in March was the Team USA Squash Tour–Albany, played at Sienna College and run by Capital District Squash. Preston Quick, in his first singles tournament of the season, defeated Julian Illingworth in the semis and took Chris Gordon in five games in the finals.
Two weeks later, the US Championships (which will be covered in full in the May issue of Squash Magazine) took place at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland, Oregon. The US Women’s Championship featured America’s newest citizen, Natalie Grainger. Playing in her first Tour event, Natalie showed her world class status and won the event without dropping a game. On the men’s side, Julian Illingworth avenged his loss to Quick earlier in the month in a five game battle to win the S.L. Green US Men’s Championship for the third year in a row, in front of a large hometown crowd.
