Suchde Falls in CSA Finals to El Halaby

Junior Siddharth Suchde’s whirlwind 2006 tour has come to a close.

After having an undefeated team season, Suchde was seeded as the No. 1 player in the nation coming into this weekend’s CSA Individual National Championships and fell to three-time defending champion Yasser El Halaby of Princeton, 3-0, in the finals.

“It was fitting that it was Sid and Yasser,” said captain Will Broadbent. “They are the two best college players in the nation.”

Suchde shut out every opponent, 3-0, on his way to the tournament’s finals and received little resistance from No. 5 Mauricio Sanchez of Princeton in a 3-0 semifinal bout, setting up a showdown with No. 2-seeded El Halaby—one of the best college players of all time. Suchde started out the match in a hole, losing the first game, 9-2, and dropping the second game by shutout. He seized the momentum briefly in the third game, but ultimately fell, 9-6.

“It got a little bit close, but he was better,” Suchde said.

El Halaby has shut out every competitor in the finals for the last four years and is the first four-year national champion in the sport’s 75 year history. Upon El Halaby’s graduation in June, Suchde will enjoy an automatic No. 1 spot for next year’s regular season.

“I’m just relieved everything is over,” an exhausted Suchde said. “I’m a little disappointed. But looking back, it has been a pretty remarkable season and I’m looking forward to next year.”

Suchde defeated an injured El Halaby last month in the regular season bout, granting him the No. 1 seed in this weekend’s tournament.

Harvard was billed to send four players to the annual tournament, which collects the 64 best national squash players to determine the national singles champion. Suchde was joined by teammates No. 7 seed Ilan Oren, a junior, and freshman Verdi DiSesa, who was seeded first in the lower Molloy Tournament. Broadbent was given the No. 5 national seed but was unable to go, due to a pulled hamstring in a loss against Trinity at last month’s CSA Team Championships—a tournament in which Harvard ultimately placed third.

Oren shut out Brown’s Dan Petrie before falling, 3-1, in the Potter Quarterfinals to Penn’s Gilly Lane, who lost his next match to El Halaby. DiSesa also progressed to the quarterfinals of the Molloy tournament, where he fell, 3-2, in a close match to Cornell’s Rohit Gupta.