Squash: Feelings of betrayal add fire to Games final

By DAVID LEGGAT

Put an Australian world No 1 up against a former Australian-turned-Kiwi world No 2 - old playing partners, family friends and fierce rivals - and what do you get?

The Body Language final of the Commonwealth Games.

That's what transpired in the women's singles squash final in Manchester yesterday when Sarah Fitz-Gerald won the gold medal, beating Auckland-based Carol Owens in a fascinating contest 9-5, 9-0, 2-9, 10-9.

Human behaviourists would have enjoyed this one.

Owens switched her allegiance across the Tasman last August because she was unhappy at her treatment in Australia.

To her colleagues, especially 33-year-old world champion Fitz-Gerald, that was viewed as doing the dirty on her mates.

So for much of the Games final before a packed house, you could cut the on-court tension with a racquet.

Both players grew up in Melbourne and Fitz-Gerald's mother, Judith, was Owens' first coach, but you did not need a degree in psychology to work out the relationship is perhaps not as cosy now.

There was scarcely any eye contact, and certainly no bonhomie, between the pair in the warmup, or during or after the game.

As they stood a metre apart doing post-game interviews, they could have been in separate rooms.

Fitz-Gerald struggled to find the right way to describe her feelings about Owens' move last year.

"As an Aussie and my former partner [cue long pause], I don't know what the word for it is."

That argy-bargy backdrop had produced a game rich in drama, with some outstanding shotmaking and scintillating rallies over the 55 minutes.

Fitz-Gerald, winner of the most titles on the international circuit, picked up the prestigious Dawn Fraser Award for outstanding contribution to sport by an Australian last year.

She played like a champion, too, for the first two games, winning the second in just six minutes.

It seemed to be time for Owens to pack her tent as she waved her coach away and sank her head into her towel, searching for an answer.

"I had a thousand thoughts running through my mind. I thought if I could think it through myself I'd be better off," she said.

It paid off in the third, as she slowed the pace of the game, used the lob to the back of the court cleverly and found her touch with a string of expert drop-shots.

Now Fitz-Gerald was showing signs of fraying.

In the fourth game, she made the early running. Owens caught up, but when she served the ball out for a third time - akin to dropping the ball while doing a double somersault dive over the tryline - then sent a straightforward forehand drive into the tin, the writing was on the wall.

Owens saved three match points and squandered two game balls of her own before a Fitz-Gerald drive to the backhand corner was too good.

Close, but no cigar for Owens, who drew the best out of the relentless Fitz-Gerald and with fewer unforced errors would have been in with a real chance of a big upset.

"At this level you can't afford those sort of mistakes," the 30-year-old Owens admitted.

"When I was younger Sarah was someone I looked up to.

"When she gets going she goes at 100 miles an hour and there's no stopping her. She's a hard nut to crack."

Owens believed all the pressure was on her opponent - "she's been talking about the Commonwealth Games for about two years now" - but insisted she went into the game feeling she could win.

"You don't put hours and hours of training in, weeks and weeks of hard work, to go out there and think you can't win.

"But she's not No 1 for no reason."

Fitz-Gerald is similar to New Zealand's great Dame Susan Devoy in at least two respects: she is unquestionably the game's best player of her time, and she rarely loses on the big occasion.

She won't be around much longer. She plans to scale down her schedule from the end of this year. The door labelled No 1 will then be open for Owens.

But she would rather force it open first.

Full coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/manchester2002

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