IRT Season Kicks Off TODAY, not tomorrow

The International Racquetball Tour (IRT) 2008-09 season kicks off Wednesday, not Thursday. The Racquetball Blog got it wrong yesterday when we said that Thursday was the kick off. The qualifying matches begin Wednesday afternoon in the 2008 Motorola Racquetball World Championships in Denver.

Our apologies. IRT qualifying usually begins on Thursdays, and we assumed that would be the case this week. Nevertheless, it does bring the action that much closer to us, which is a good thing.

We've tried to make up for this error by piecing together the qualifier match-up information available on the R2 Sports site (www.R2sports.com) to give you an idea of who's playing whom and when (remember these times are from the Mountain time zone).

There are 39 players in the Pro Qualifying, and three rounds of qualifying matches.

Men's Singles Pro Qualifier - Round of 64:
Wednesday 3:00 PM : Rafael Filippini (Bonita, Calif.) vs Jose Rojas (Stockton, Calif.)
Wednesday 3:00 PM : Simon Payne (Centennial, Colo.) vs Anthony Carson (Pueblo, Colo.)
Wednesday 3:00 PM : Tyler Otto (Pueblo, Colo.) vs Jose Ramos (Pueblo, Colo.)
Wednesday 3:00 PM : Felipe Camacho (Pueblo, Colo.) vs Gil Del Los Rios (Chihuahua, CH)
Wednesday 4:00 PM : Jordan Walters (Unknown, N.C.) vs Lee Connell (Saskatoon, SK)
Wednesday 4:00 PM : Charles Pratt (Portland, Ore.) vs Anton Roberts (Denver, Colo.)
Wednesday 4:00 PM : Keith Minor (Channahon, Ill.) vs Matt Stamborski (Muskego, Wis.)
Wednesday 4:00 PM : Ryan Smith (Burlington, ON) vs Shai Manzuri (Dallas, Texas)
Wednesday 5:00 PM : Jansen Allen (Rice, Texas) vs Anthony Herrera (Grand Junction, Colo.)
Wednesday 5:00 PM : Woody Clouse (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) vs John Lee Rhodes (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Wednesday 5:00 PM : Bradly Rogers (Wichita, Kan.) vs Kane Waselenchuk (Brownsville, Texas)
Wednesday 5:00 PM : Bryan Crosser (Unknown, Iowa) vs Josh Keil (Saskatoon, SK)
Wednesday 6:00 PM : Andrew Thompson (Tampa, Fla.) vs Cliff Swain (Marshfield, Mass.)
Wednesday 6:00 PM : Alejandro Landa (El Paso, Texas) vs Clint Wolff (Dayton, Ohio)
Wednesday 6:00 PM : Tony Jammal (Pueblo, Colo.) vs Jason Geis (Torrance, Calif.)

Round of 32:
Wednesday 6:00 PM : vs
Wednesday 6:00 PM : vs
Wednesday 7:00 PM : vs
Wednesday 7:00 PM : vs
Wednesday 8:00 PM : vs
Wednesday 8:00 PM : vs
Wednesday 9:00 PM : Polo Gutierrez (Juarez, CH) vs
Wednesday 9:00 PM : vs

Round of 16:
Thursday 10:00 AM : Kris Odegard vs
Thursday 10:00 AM : Juan Herrera vs
Thursday 11:30 AM : Alejandro Herrera vs
Thursday 11:30 AM : Hiroshi Shimizu vs
Thursday 1:00 PM : Andres Herrera vs
Thursday 1:00 PM : Andy Hawthorne vs
Thursday 2:30 PM : Jason Thoerner vs
Thursday 2:30 PM : Travis Woodbury vs

Thus, winners of the first qualifying round will face off in the second round. Then those second round winners will meet one of the eight highest seeded qualifiers on Thursday. Then the successful qualifiers will face one of the Top 8 players later on Thursday in the main draw Round of 16. Here are the start times for those matches by player (with IRT rank from the May 12, 2008 rankings).

1) Rocky Carson - THU 8:30 PM
2) Jack Huczek - THU 7:00 PM
3) Alvaro Beltran - THU 4:00 PM
4) Jason Mannino - THU 5:30 PM
5) Shane Vanderson - THU 5:30 PM
6) Mitch Williams - THU 4:00 PM
7) Ben Croft - THU 7:00 PM
8) Chris Crowther - THU 8:30 PM

So, the IRT action all begins today, Wednesday, September 17, 2008. We're looking forward to it.