Winning the 2006 title might thus be considered as his second surprise in two years, except that Matthew had been edging up the pecking order during the previous twelve months, grabbing scalps one by one, seemingly mentally ready to string big wins together.
So, out of respect to a player who may have opened a door to still more success, more factual descriptions of his careerbest triumph might be appropriate and they may also be more revealing.
Amazingly, Matthew is the first home grown Englishman since Jim Dear beat Bert Biddle in the 1939 final to have won the sport’s oldest and most famous event.
Although Jonah Barrington (six times) and Peter Nicol also won the British Open and have strong English connections, each has dual British Isles identities.
Jonah was President of the (English) SRA and had an unrivalled influence on English squash but he competed for Ireland, having had an Irish father, a Welsh mother, and, to use his words, “lashings of gaelic blood cursing (sic) through his system”. Peter memorably helped England win the World Team Championship title last year but represented Scotland for the first half of his career and was born and raised in Scotland.
It might ordinarily seem better to focus on British-ness, but there is a historical reason for making an English distinction here. England gave squash to the world, has always had by far the largest number of players, courts, coaches, competitions, and funds, and yet since World War II, the only home grown English winner has been Matthew.
What does that say about us? That we needed to keep fit, but that we didn’t feel a need to beat the world?
As for what it said about Matthew, what Matthew himself said was revealing: “You can’t mention my name in the same breath as Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan, but I am just happy to have my name on an amazing trophy like this.”
Such self-deprecation as this is, according to some people it is one of the principle reasons why neither Brits nor English succeed as much as they should. But it may also suggest that Matthew feels comfortable with himself, and that to maintain a chance of further success, his head and his feet must remain the same distance apart.
His calm demeanour and methodical approach during an 11-8 5-11 11-4 9-11 11-6 victory in the final over Thierry Lincou showed that the 26-year-old Englishman is well capable of delivering when the pressure is greatest.
True, Matthew had the advantage of an opponent who had had a gut-wrenching 95-minute contest the night before. He nevertheless did most of the things that could be asked of him on the biggest night of his career, extending the rallies and picking carefully his moments to attack the former World Champion from France.
“I rang Peter Nicol to get some help with one or two things last night,” said Matthew. “And he gave me a couple of hints.”
It was not a classic match. That may have been partly because a tiring Lincou had to do whatever was expedient to remain in the rallies, while the fresher, more mobile Matthew was not keen to open up the court.
Sometimes Lincou was more accurate with his driving and wall-hugging clingers, and often gambled well with sudden drops and angles.
He also took advantage of a cooler ball at the start of the fifth game to snatch four quick points, at which stage it seemed the prize might slip from Matthew’s grasp. But once he began to extend the rallies again Lincou’s distress was evident and he performed with great courage to hang on as long as he did.
Lincou also did well afterwards. Within moments he had the exhausting loss in perspective. “I went to the end of what I could do,” he said. “I have no regrets. I have done my work professionally….”
That was the understatement of the week. The previous night against David Palmer, the new World Champion, Lincou won the match of the tournament.
From two games down, and from 3-8 down in the final game he fought back to save five match points and win 8-11 10-11(0-2) 11-9 11-4 11-10(5-3) in one of the finest matches in all the venerable old tournament’s seventy-four years. It was full of long and varied rallies, amazing retrieving, and difficult refereeing decisions, as both men tired and found it harder to clear the ball. The ensuing controversies added ripe dialogue to the simmering tension.
Twice Palmer fell heavily and twice Lincou was accidentally hit by his opponent's racket, and eventually the denouement became so fraught that even the Frenchman, one of the most docile and sporting players of them all, received a code-of-conduct warning for dissent.
But Lincou also won the crowd's support for the way he battled through a pain barrier and against ‘no let’ decisions with which they disagreed as much as he did.
"It isn't in the legs, it's in the mind,” Lincou said after miraculously surviving. “When he was hitting the tin (in the last two points) it felt like a gift from God. I was praying for help like that.”
It was all the more remarkable that Lincou lasted the 95 minutes, given that he had also endured a five-game match against Gregory Gaultier in the quarter-finals.
And there had been another tough one for Lincou against Lee Beachill, as usual. “We will try to break our record of 99 minutes,” he had joked before their first round match.
Matthew’s progress, by comparison, was comfortable: a four-game semi-final against Karim Darwish, three games with Stewart Boswell, and only two with James Willstrop. That was because after winning only five points out of twentyone, Willstrop retired – or more exactly, his father Malcolm Willstrop retired him.
It may have been wise. James looked far from recovered from the severe food poisoning he sustained a fortnight before in Cairo and almost certainly was not quite himself. “Tiredness was beginning to look like distress,” said father.
There was further distress too for Amr Shabana, though of a different kind.
Already upset at his defeat in the World Open which had been created principally for him, Shabana was seeking emotional rehabilitation. Instead he found more pain.
An 11-7 10-11(3-5) 9-11 11-10(2-0) 11-5 first round defeat was inflicted upon him by John White, the oldest man in the tournament. Closer inspection however showed the World No.1’s demise to be less surprising than it seemed.
White, the Australian-raised, US-domiciled Scottish international, was returning to one of his more important adopted homes. He was also renewing a relationship with the Nottingham coach, Vaughan Williams, who had once helped him become World No.1 and now motivated him to a startling victory. He was also coming back to cool conditions, which rewarded uninhibited attack. That is White’s speciality and he fiercely obliged.
But the following day, from two games up against Karim Darwish and on the verge of the quarter-finals, White’s chance of belated glory was snuffed out. Tiring and increasingly error-prone, his gambler’s tilts brought only more mistakes and an Egyptian revenge.
Another notable first round faller was Anthony Ricketts, who was hampered by a troublesome arm and an in-form Ong Beng Hee. It cost the Aussie his title.
The Malaysian, Nicol David, however, retained hers. She did so with gears to spare, losing only thirty-six points in twelve games and four matches. But there were special reasons why David was so intent on doing well here.
The British Open is a symbol of David’s celebrity, which outstrips any other player on the women’s circuit. It was in this event that she began the overwhelming run last year during which she became World Open Champion, World No.1, and one of Asia’s most famous women.
She allowed only nine points in the final to Rachael Grinham, twice the former champion, even though the third seed felt she had played well. David was too fast, too hustling, and allowed her opponent little time.
More significantly, a similar fate befell Natalie Grinham, who earned just eleven points from David in the semi-finals. It was the first meeting between these two since the younger Grinham’s inspired victory at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March.
That affected David so badly that, after starting favourite for a Gold, she ended without a medal, earning criticisms and recriminations instead from a nation notably unforgiving of failure.
So this was more than revenge. It was catharsis. This was what had been driving David on.
Home hopes had jumbled fortunes. Natalie Grainger, the Manchester-born former World No.1 from the United States, caused what was nominally an upset by beating Jenny Duncalf, England’s sixth seed; Natalie Grinham halted Tania Bailey, a resurgent British National Champion, in four games.
But Laura Lengthorn came tantalisingly within a single point of beating the elder Grinham, while Alison Waters did close out a fine win against Vanessa Atkinson, the second seeded former World Champion from The Netherlands. Might there be a female British Open Champion on the horizon? By Richard Eaton