Array of Highly Ranked Players Points to Title Chance in Squash

With the 1960 squash season opening Saturday, Harvard's team presents an impressive array of nationally-ranked veterans and boy wonders. And if Coach Jack Barnaby repeats his usual trick of producing men on the bottom who are almost equal to the number one player, the University's chances of walking off with the Eastern Championship are favorable indeed.

Experience and conditioning will be on Harvard's side this Saturday when the team opens against Army at West Point. Since Nov. 10 the Crimson raquetmen have been playing local squash clubs, and once laced M.I.T.'s top men, five matches to nothing.

But reports indicate that Army will be a good team to prepare for, because if the cadets produce their customary brand of squash, their play will be unimaginative but dogged, unspectacular but effective. Conditioning will therefore be a key factor in the games.

The University's other service clash, against Navy a week later, will probably be one of the most important matches. Last year at Annapolis, the Middies were able to capitalize on their overheated courts and over-came the visitors, later winning the Eastern Championship. But this year the game will be in Cambridge, and the squash team is hoping to avenge the defeat.

True, Harvard has lost last year's top man, Captain Charlie Hamm; but three other members of the 1959 top five, Gerry Emmett, Tim Gallmey, and Fred Vinton, are back and playing one, two, and three for the Crimson. Helping them out is last year's freshman star, Romer Holleran, who ranked among the top half-dozen school-age squash players in the country when he played for Exeter.

The final member of the top five is Brazilian-born Jorge Lemann, primarily a tennis player, as are Vinton and Gallwey.

These and the other four men who finally secure stable positions on the ladder will certainly have their hands full with Princeton, although probably not with Yale. The Tigers will always be dangerous as long as they have Steve Vehslage--the top ranked college player in the country, just one notch ahead of Harvard's Emmett.