The 2013 World Doubles Championships kicked off Thursday, bringing together 95 of the world’s best hardball doubles players from 19 countries across the globe.
The tournament includes a men’s division, women’s division and mixed division, and is being played at clubs in New York.
The mixed division final will be held 6pm Saturday night at the New York Athletic Club between Australian team Narelle Krizek and Paul Price and USA team Natalie Grainger and Preston Quick.
The match will see last year’s defending champions compete against one another in the final, as last year the championship was won by Preston Quick and Narelle Krizek together.
In the women’s draw, top seeded US team Natalie Grainger and Amanda Sobhy are through to the semifinal which will be played Saturday at 3pm at the New York Athletic Club against England’s Tina Rix and Carrie Hastings.
Also in the semifinals are Australians Narelle Krizek and Natarsha McElhinny who will compete against Canada’s Seanna Keating and Stephanie Hewitt at 4pm Saturday at the New York Athletic Club for a place in the championship final.
The women’s final will be held at Brooklyn Heights Casino at 4pm on Sunday.
In the men’s division top seeds and defending champions Damien Mudge and Ben Gould have cruised through two three-nil wins to potentially make their way towards another championship final, beating US team Christopher Callis and Alex Domenick in the first round followed by South Africans Regardt Schonborn and Jacques Swanepoel in the round of 16.
They will next play eighth seeds Imran Khan and Baset A. Chaudhry of Pakistan in the quarterfinals on Saturday at 1pm at the University Club of New York.
Second seeded men’s team Matt Jenson and Paul Price of Australia are also making their way towards the final, after wins in their first two matches against South Africans Michael Koep and Brett A. Erasmus and Swedish team Gustav Detter and Anders Wahlstedt in three games a piece.
They will play their quarterfinal match against Canadians Freddie Reid and Viktor Berg at 1pm Saturday at the New York Athletic Club.
Other men’s quarterfinal matches on Saturday will be Australians Raj Nanda and Mark Price against Jonny P. Smith and Clive I. Leach of England at 12 noon at the University Club of New York, and England’s Chris Walker and John Russell against USA’s Preston Quick and Gregory Park at 12 noon at the New York Athletic Club.
Winning teams will go on to play the semifinals at the Union Club at 12 noon and 1pm Sunday, followed by the men’s final on Monday evening at 7pm at the New York Racquet Club.
More information about the 2013 World Doubles Championships, including full draws and results can be found at www.ussquash.com/worlddoubles
The men’s quarterfinals, women’s semifinals and mixed final matches will also be live streamed from 12pm Saturday online here
For photos from the event, click here.
By far the most memorable of the early-1980’s World Doubles occurred in 1983, when all four quarterfinals went five games, consuming almost nine hours overall and causing the Committee to push the semis, originally scheduled for Saturday late-afternoon, to Sunday morning. Defending 1982 champions Michael Desaulniers and Maurice Heckscher, who had trailed Victor Harding and Jay Gillespie late in the fifth game in their quarterfinal, eked that game out 15-13 and rolled to straight-set Sunday wins over Briggs/Howe in the semis and Michael Pierce/Tom Page in the final. 