The Maine/Maryland at Meadow Mill (M4) Doubles Tournament

The first major doubles tournament of the 2011-2012 season offers an opportunity to win a state championship (for future recognition), to contribute to a worthy urban squash program and help keep hope alive for returning doubles to the great state of Maine.

The Maine/Maryland at Meadow Mill (M4) Doubles tournament will be held September 30 – October 2 at Meadow Mill Athletic Club in Baltimore, and other clubs as necessary. Seven draws are scheduled: an Open, a Women’s draw, a B, and under 30, and three age draws, 50s, 60s and 70s.

It will be the second time this event has been held.  A 2009 tournament drew nearly 50 players from Maine to Maryland, Montreal to Miami and a few cities in between. This year’s event already has that many players committed - from California to Canada, Wilmington, Philadelphia and New York - and promises to be an even more exciting tournament, with limited prize money available in the Open draw.

The tournament also will seek to raise funds for SquashWise, Baltimore’s urban squash and education program.  The after-school program for middle school students is based at Meadow Mill, a popular squash and athletic club operated by Nancy Cushman, and host to the Women’s Howe Cup Team Championships and the National Skills Level Championship for 2011/2012. 

The Maine/Maryland tournament (or M4) was conceived by Fred Hill, a retired State Department official and avid doubles player, and several friends in Baltimore with whom he played doubles at Meadow Mill for many years, notably Paul Harris and Hugh Anderson.  Hill moved to Maine in 2006 to write a book on his family’s 19-century shipyard, and bought a house just 15 minutes from Bowdoin College, which had the only hardball doubles court in the state.

Despite organizing a series of successful doubles tournaments at Bowdoin from 2005 to 2008, the college tore down the doubles court along with its nine old singles courts to make way for a new fitness center.  The college had built a new squash facility, but one with seven softball singles courts and an international doubles court.

The grim irony in the court’s demolition came with the triumph of two Bowdoin squash players, Peter Cipriano and Zach Linhart, who won the intercollegiate Ketcham Cup that same year that the college decided to tear down its doubles court. Linhart and another Bowdoin player, Michael Fensterstock, of New York, who plays in many ISDA matches, won the 2009 Open in this tournament, and one or both may be defending their title this year.

Hill and several friends in Portland, Maine, the most populous city in a state with less total population than most cities with major squash facilities, are trying to build a new squash club in Portland.  They are confident that a new club would attract a strong membership given the lack of good courts in the area (the Portland YMCA has two old hardball courts; otherwise players must travel 40 minutes or so to Bowdoin or Bates College for limited access to college courts).  For more information, contact Fred Hill at fhill207@gmail.com or Mike Brennan at mbrennan@e-specs.com.

Hill and Brennan also are convinced various high schools in the Portland area would love to have an additional winter sport, and that a significant “squash-busters”-like program could be organized.

The group has found a couple of suitable buildings close to downtown and interstate highways, sought bids from leading court builders and are now studying potential ways to raise the necessary funds.  Their plan is to build 3-4 softball singles courts and a hardball doubles court. 

They considered dedicating the 2011 tournament to their efforts, but decided any proceeds should go to an existing program such as Baltimore SquashWise.

So sign up – an invitation form is attached or available on the U.S. Squash website for doubles.  You could become the Maine State champion for 2011.  It might be “unofficial” this year, but you will have a strong case to make it official when Maine regains a doubles court.