Kasey Brown, a 25-year-old New York-based Australian, was the surprise packet of Commonwealth Games squash when she became the only player to win three medals on Wednesday.
Brown followed her unexpected singles bronze medal on Friday with a gold medal in the mixed doubles and another bronze in the women’s doubles.
For a player who only reached the world’s top ten for the first time this year, it was a tremendous effort.
“Gold means everything,” she said after a long tussle in partnership with Cameron Pilley, in which they beat the New Zealanders Joelle King and Martin Knight 11-8 7-11 11-5.
“It’s absolutely incredible,” added a player who was a surprise quarter-finalist at the World Open in Sharm El Sheikh.
Her second bronze came when she and Donna Urquhart beat their compatriots Lisa Camilleri and Amelia Pittock 11-4 10-11 11-5.
Of the trio of medals she said: “It’s a fantastic feeling, especially representing Australia. This year I have been working very hard.”
The man with whom she has been doing that is her compatriot Rodney Martin, who once beat the two Pakistani legends Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan in the same tournament to win the 1991 World Open in Adelaide.
Another former world champion from Australia, David Palmer, who is likely to retire after the World Open in Saudi Arabia in December, was unable to finish his fourth and last Commonwealth Games with a gold.
He and Stewart Boswell were beaten 11-9 6-11 11-5 in a red-blooded contest of collisions and tortuously extended rallies with Nick Matthew and Adrian Grant, the top-seeded English pair.
It lasted fully 133 minutes.
Grant and Boswell had a spectacular fall together in the first game, Matthew got a cut lip when he was accidentally struck by Palmer’s racquet in the middle of the second game, and Palmer had to take a ten-minute break after falling heavily on his elbow in the third game.
Three points before the end Grant was in the wars again, Boswell’s follow-through catching him full in the face.
Fortunately there were no lasting injuries, except possibly for a while to Palmer’s pride.
His two World Opens and four British Opens make him the outstanding male player of this millennium and it was not the goodbye he would have wanted.
It meant that Matthew, who won the men’s singles gold medal on Friday, became the only player to win two golds.
“Winning two golds is an amazing feeling. It’s definitely the biggest moment of my career,” he said.
“I made the decision not to play a major tournament in Egypt later this week. I put aside thoughts of regaining the world number one ranking for the sake of two gold medals.”
Another player still with a chance of two golds, Joelle King, narrowly failed to achieve that - though a gold and a silver was an excellent achievement for the Kiwi who has yet to break into the world’s top 20.
King and Jaclyn Hawkes came tenaciously back from 6-10 down in the second game to win 11-9, 11-10 against Jenny Duncalf and Laura Massaro of England in the women’s doubles final.
King then had to go straight back on court to play the mixed doubles final, a piece of scheduling which may perhaps have harmed her chances of a second gold.
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