After enduring one of the most barren spells of his career, when injury and a loss of form saw him drop from the top 10 to a ranking of 24 in the world, the professional squash career of Irish champion Derek Ryan received a significant boost in New York yesterday when he won the $10,000 Westchester Bolle Open, his first Tour success since January 1999.
"It was badly needed," admitted the 30year-old Dubliner whose morale had slumped after a succession of niggling injuries and first-round tournament exits.
While his five-set victory over Finland's Juha Raumolin (ranked at 45 in the world) is unlikely to improve his ranking dramatically, because the Bolle Open was graded as a one-star event, it at least gets him back to winning ways and gives him a lift ahead of qualifiers for next week's $50,000 Florida Open which will feature the world's top 16 players.
"I needed this for my confidence because even though I felt fine physically coming into the tournament I lacked match practice and wasn't feeling great morale-wise," said Ryan. "I had four tough matches but knowing that I was able to come through them all will do me a power of good. I have a busy schedule until the end of March so hopefully I can maintain my form and pick up some good ranking points along the way."
The final, which lasted 95 minutes, was Ryan's fourth five-set match of the tournament and forced him to dig deep on several occasions, not least when he went 8-4 down in the fourth set. "I was fairly wrecked, the legs were struggling a bit, but it was sheer determination that brought me back into it and in the end I just `gutsed' it out." After the Florida Open, Ryan plays in Heuston before moving on to Toronto for another five-star tournament.
