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In Rye, New York, James Stout and Eric Bedell of the Racquet and Tennis Club, Manhattan (R&T), were runners-up to Mike Ferreira and Whitten Morris, also of the R&T falling 3 – 0 in the Final of U.S. Squash’s National Men’s Open Doubles Championships 15-12, 15-12, 15-11.
The three games followed a pattern, the pairs would be closely matched until the score was about 8-7. Ferreira and Morris would then string together a run of points and once the score was around 13-10, Stout and Bedell would regain service. At this stage of the game the initiative was with their opponents and Stout and Bedell would win a couple more points before Ferreira and Morris would win the game.
Recently, Stout and his regular partner, Greg McArthur, were runners-up to Commonwealth Gold Medalist, Australia’s Zac Alexander, and Chris Callis of the U.S.A., losing 3-1 with a score of 15-7, 14-15, 15-7, 15-14 in a little over an hour and a half, in the $40,000 2019 David C. Johnson, Jr. Memorial tournament at the Heights Casino Club in Brooklyn, New York.
On the way to the final, Alexander and Callis, 3/4 seeds, defeated the top seeds Yvain Badan and Bernado Samper 3-1 in the Semi-Finals. Second seeds Stout and McArthur similarly dropped a game in their victory over the other 3/4 seeds, John Russell and Greg Park in the second semi-final.
A victory in the final would have given Stout top place in the Squash Doubles Association March rankings. That position goes to Chris Callis instead, while Stout is in a career-high second place and McArthur is third.
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