Southampton - The Elmaleh-Stanton Squash Center at the Southampton Town Recreation Center has quickly become one of the sport's premier facilities in the United States. Further evidence of the venue's upward movement came last week when it held both the 3rd Annual Sotheby's Realty Hamptons Junior Open as well as the inaugural US Squash Under-25 Hamptons Doubles Championship.

Greg MacArthur winds up and smashes a forehand during the doubles final on Wednesday.

In the juniors tournament Camille Lanier, of Washington, DC, reeled in first place in the Girls Under-19 draw. Lanier, a sophomore at the National Cathedral School in the nation's capital, took down Claire Blumenthal in three games. She had bested Katherine Elliott-Moskwa, last year's runner-up, in the semifinals in three straight as well. In fact, Lanier's biggest hurdle proved to be in the first round when Ariel Posner took her to a decisive fifth game before Lanier was able to advance.

"She was good player," Lanier said of Posner. "She had really nice shots. Her game was different than my game and it was hard to adjust to."

A five-year veteran of the game, the 15-year-old Lanier (pronounced Lan-YAY) said she hopes to carry her game to the college level. She went 2-2 in the U-17 draw at the United States Junior Squash Championships in March. Lanier also placed fourth at U-17 at July's Dutch Junior Open and Pioneer Junior Open in Cologne, Germany.

Chris Wilkinson, of New York City, took home the hardware in the boys division. The 16-year-old junior at The Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, NJ, needed just nine games to sweep through the first three rounds, including a 3-0 win over Robert Zindman in the semifinals. In the finals, Wilkinson went point for point with Freddy Hernandez before ultimately prevailing in four games.

"That was one of the hardest matches I've ever played," Wilkinson said. "He was an excellent player. I just think I got lucky a couple times and I ended up winning."

Wilkinson, the 13th ranked U-17 player according to U.S. Squash, has played the sport for seven years and traveled to tournaments in Pennsylvania, Maryland and California among other places. He will participate in the Elmaleh Youth Doubles Summer Road Trip tourney in Boston this weekend as well as the Hackley School tournaments next month. Wilkinson said that between events he plays squash 5-6 days a week.

The week's winners (left to right): Chris Wilkinson (right, with Freddy Hernandez and Sayed Selim), Todd Ruth and Trevor McGuinness, and Camille Lanier (with Selim).

Hernandez had already treated the crowd to a thrilling match when he knocked off top seed Will Douglass, 3-2, in the semis. Douglass, who's currently ranked seventh in US Squash's U-17 rankings, won his first two matches in four games apiece but went the distance with Hernandez. A captivated audience watched as Hernandez took the decisive fifth game, 14-12. Despite the loss, Douglass went on to beat Robert Zindman for third place.

Other winners included Andrew Caidenhead (boys U-15), Emily Jones (girls U-15), Stephen Monrad (boys U-13) and Cameron Munn (girls U-11). Monrad knocked off Southampton's own Alex Partricolo in the championship match to win his age group.

Under-19 champion Camille Lanier whips a backhand along the back wall during her semifinal showdown against Katherine Moskwa-Elliott.

The doubles tournament was organized by Gary Waite, the founder of the International Squash Doubles Association who as an 11-time winner of the prestigious North American Open is widely regarded as the greatest doubles player in the sport's history. The finalists both breezed through the qualifying rounds as neither surrendered a game until the semifinals. Todd Ruth and Trevor McGuinness took the first game but dropped the next 15-14 to opponents Graham Bassett and Greg MacArthur. The tandem, which attended the same middle school in Philadelphia before branching off, hung tough to win the third game 15-11 and secured the win by taking the fourth by a 15-8 count.

"I think [our secret to success] was a combination of the way we played together, and Todd was able to get the I was playing with on the left wall off-balance and at the same time setting me up to do some stuff," McGuinness said.

Sport Popularity Growing
Selid expects squash to grow exponentially over the next few years; it already has since the Elmaleh-Stanton Squash Center opened in June 2007. When Selid signed on as squash director last October, he said 4-5 people would play squash on a daily basis. Now he says that figure has risen to or near 50.

"It's a difficult sport to learn and continue, but after a half-year or one year, you see that you'll get better," Selim said. "Next year we're going to work to make squash even more popular."

Part of the plan is to bring the Women's International Squash Players Association tournament to Southampton next summer, ideally to be held at Agawam Park. Selim has laid out preliminary plans to recruit the top female players in the country for the tournament as well as others to participate in exhibitions as an extended celebration of the sport.

The Under-25 Hamptons Doubles Championship brought top-level squash to the Elmaleh-Stanton Squash Center on Tuesday and Wednesday.