Beachill, Grinham capture US Open squash titles

They were a couple of guys from coal-mining towns, digging in the corners with rackets instead of shovels, a long way from home. Digging for a night's pay. An Englishman, Lee Beachill out of Pontefract in Yorkshire, dug just a little deeper in the glass pit at Harvard's Murr Center last night to keep his US Open Squash Championship.

Down to the last lumps they came, each 3 points from the title at 8-8 in the fifth game of a splendid 84-minute struggle. ''It got desperate, and you just give it everything," said the 27-year-old Beachill, the defending champion who had escaped defeat by 2 points in his five-game semi with Nick Matthew the previous day. His "desperate everything" amounted to three subtle unplayable backhands to seal the 11-7, 9-11, 8-11, 11-1, 11-8 triumph over husky Australian David Palmer, 29, from the coal fields of Lithgow, New South Wales.

It might have been an all-Aussie evening because elfin redhead Natalie Grinham from Toowoomba was too wonderful for England's Vicky Botwright, 9-7, 9-10, 9-3, 9-4, to take the women's title. A zippy 5-foot-1-inch Queenslander, Grinham was probably a beneficiary of older sister Rachel's decision not to enter though she's the world No. 1. But for Grinham, who will marry in March, the $4,000 first prize and her most important title was a nice wedding gift to herself.

The male champ, who wears his website on the back of his T-shirt (LeeBeachill.com), spun a shotmaking web that was worth $7,500. Better than a ton of coal.

BUD COLLINS