Verao Open

Verao Open 2006
Santos, Brazil, 28 Feb - 05 Mar, $10k

05-Mar, Final:

[2] Rafael Alarcon (Bra) bt [3] Amr Mansi (Egy)
14/12, 11/8, 11/4

I Love Brazil

Rafael Victorious in Verao
Julio Caseiro reports from Santos

The Final:

The final was a present to the people of Santos. Besides being the first time of the glass court in the city, the players showed a high level performance.

The first game was really tough. During the match the Egyptian would show his tiredness after hard matches played to get to the final. He was beaten by the favourite local player Rafael Alarcon - a winner in his own house !!
The event was very well accepted by The Praiamar Shopping and the new edition is already approved for the next year.

The semi-final:

The semi-finals had the top four tournament seeds. Lots of people filled the Praiamar Shopping to watch two good squash matches.

The first was between the top seed Dylan Bennett and Amr Mansi. Dylan was a little tired and made some mistakes which helped the Egyptian to get to the final quickly.

The second semi-final was played between Sabir Butt (ex-former 18 of the world) and Rafael Alarcon - the coach and his player against each other.

Sabir has been living in Brazil for more than 10 years, and he proved to be a great coach when he was defeated in three games.

05-Mar-06:
MANSI MAKES
SANTOS FINAL

Egypt's Amr Mansi ousted top seed Dylan Bennett in the semi-finals of the Verao Open in the Brazilian resort of Santos.

In the final he will meet local favourite Rafael Alarcon on the glass court at the Praiamar Shopping Mall, after Alarcon, the second seed, beat Canadian Sabir Butt - a long-time resident in Brazil - also in straight games.

The players have been having a fine time, and love it in Brazil ... interviews by Silvia Mathieson

Silvia Mathieson talks to
the players at the Verao Open

04-Mar-06:

Top four through to Santos Semis
Rafael Alarcon reports from Santos

All the seeds went through tonight but each match was well disputed!

Andras Torok was holding his own with top seed Dylan Bennett, but Dylan got off to a quick start in the fourth and closed it out.

Ronivaldo Santos delighted the home crowd with some great shots, but went down fighting to Amr Mansi whose retrieving proved too much for Roni in the end.

Sabir Butt took the first game, lost the second to Tony James, then fell a bit behind on points in 3rd and 4th. A quick start in the 4th and 6 unforced errors put Sabir back in the match and the fifth was up in the air. Both players saved two match balls each but Sabir in the end closed it out 15/13.

My match was a pretty high pace. Tom likes to attack and seemed a bit uncomfortable on the glass court. A few "Brazilian" bounces on the glass helped me get the edge and I snuck it out 11/8.

The second could have gone either way and I worked hard to make it a 2-0 lead going into the third. Tom played some amazing shots in the third, he seemed to find his depth and touch in the front (unfortunately:)!) The fourth I tried to pick up the pace from the beginning and not give Tom a chance to attack as much, and I think near the end that made the difference.

Many thanks to Rafael Alarcon for the results and Report, and to Julio Caseiro for qualifying details and photos ...

verao@squashsite.co.uk

Dylan survives in Santos

Top seed Dylan Bennett survived a scare, when he was down 8/7 in the fifth to Brazilian qualifier Luciana Barbosa, but Luciano couldn't close it out as Dylan picked up the pace and finished off with a 11-9 victory.

The only upset in the first round saw one home qualifier progress though, as Ronivaldo Santos took out England's Jago Nardelli in three games.

The event is in a nice setting by the beach in Santos and the weather is great.

Verao Open 2006 Sao Paulo, Brazil, 28 Feb - 05 Mar, $10k
Round One Mar 02	Quarters Mar 03	Semis Mar 04	Final Mar 05
[1] Dylan Bennett (Ned) 8/11, 11/6, 13/11, 8/11, 11/8 [Q] Luciano Barbosa (Bra)	Dylan Bennett 11/8, 11/9, 3/11, 11/9 Andras Torok	Dylan Bennett 11/6, 11/5, 11/6 Amr Mansi	Amr Mansi 14/12, 11/8, 11/4 Rafael Alarcon
[6] Andras Torok (Hun) 11/8, 11/3, 8/11, 6/11, 11/3 [Q] Rodrigo Pezzota (Arg)
[3] Amr Mansi (Egy) 11/5, 11/7, 11/7 Chris Simpson (Eng)	Amr Mansi 11/9, 9/11, 11/6, 11/7 Ronivaldo Santos
[8] Jago Nardelli (Eng) 11/7, 11/6, 11/9 [Q] Ronivaldo Santos (Bra)
Edilson Nunes (Bra) 11/4, 11/4, 8/11, 16/14 [7] Tony James (Aus)	Tony James 11/7, 5/11, 7/11, 11/6, 15/13 Sabir Butt	Sabir Butt 14/12, 11/3, 11/9 Rafael Alarcon
Marton Szaboky (Hun) 11/1, 11/4, 11/3 [4] Sabir Butt (Can)
[Q] Vinicius Costa (Bra) 11/8, 11/9, 11/7 [5] Tom Richards (Eng)	Tom Richards 11/8, 11/9, 3/11, 11/9 Rafael Alarcon
Robin Clarke (Can) 11/9, 11/7, 11/5 [2] Rafael Alarcon (Bra)

Qualifying:
Ronivaldo Santos (Bra) bt Vini Rodrigues (Bra)     3-0
Luciano Barbosa (Bra) bt Yann Perrin (Fra)          3-0
Vinicuis Costas (Bra) bt Rodrigo Pezzota (Arg)     3-0
Roberto Pezzota (Arg) bt Matiues (Arg)                3-0

Round One:
Luciano Barbosa 3 X 0 Julio Caseiro                11/7, 11/0, 11/2
Vinícius Rodrigues 3 x 0 Antonio Christovam    12/10, 11/8, 11/3
Rodrigo Pezzota 3 X 0 Glaucio Novack             11/4, 11/4, 14/12
Vinícius Costa 3 X 1 Manoel Pereira                 11/5, 11/4, 7/11, 12/10
Matias Valenzuela 3 X 2 Fabio Cecchin             11/13, 11/7, 4/11, 11/5, 11/2

Qualifying in Santos
Julio Caseiro reports ...

The Verão Squash Open is being held at the Praiamar Shopping in the city of Santos. The tournament is offering to everybody the opportunity of getting in contact with a new vision of the squash game. The sport is not much popular in the beaches of Brazil.

It is carnival season and around 3 million people will spend the holidays in Santos and will have the chance of seeing a squash of high level.

The qualifying started with 5 games between 9 brazilians, 3 argentinians and 1 french. The 3 seeds are: the French Yan Perrin, the brazilian Roni Conceição and argentinian Roberto Pizzota. The round was played with no major surprises and the best game was between the brazilian Fabio Cecchin and the argentinian Matias Valenzuela. It was 5 sets of a rush game and people around the mall loved to see it.

The second and last round of qualy is going to start at 4pm and the main game will be between the seed #1 Yan Perrin and the brazilian Luciano Barbosa, the 2000 PanAmerican Champion and 2004 Brazilian Professional Champion.