Tournaments and Rankings

The draws are out for this weekend's International Racquetball Tour (IRT) events. The Lou Bradley Memorial tournament (a Tier 3 event) in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin has potential semi final matches of Shane Vanderson (1st seed) versus Jason Thoerner (4th) on the top side and Mitch Williams (2nd) versus Ben Croft (3rd) on the bottom.

Over in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the West Michigan Open is going on (a Tier 4 event). Alejandro Herrera is the top seed there. He'll potentially meet 4th seed Eric Desrochers in the semis. The other potential semi could be a drive serving exhibition if 2nd seed Cliff Swain and 3rd seed Mike Green meet up, as they can both serve up rockets.

From the Lou Bradley draw on R2Sports, it seems the men's pro final will be Saturday night, which would be the third match of the day for the finalists. Curious scheduling, eh?

But it does mean that you could take in the Lou Bradley pro final (8 PM kickoff), catch a few winks, then head over to Grand Rapids to see the West Michigan pro final at 1 PM on Sunday. It's merely 328 miles, or 5, 5 1/2 hours driving time, between Sun Prairie and Grand Rapids.

Rankings - Those events are unlikely to affect the IRT rankings much, as there are fewer points for lower Tier events. Thus, the IRT rankings released this week will be very close to what's used to seed players for the US Open next week.

As The Racquetball Blog (TRB) expected, Kane Waselenchuk is still 11th, and well ahead of #12 Juan Herrera, who is in the Lou Bradley draw as the 5th seed. But the Alvaro Beltran and Jason Mannino have changed spots again, as Beltran's gone back to 3rd and Mannino to 4th. Mannino had been in the final of last year's Canadian Racquetball Classic, but only reached the semi-finals this year, so he dropped points from the event this year.

This means that Waselenchuk's path to the finals as the 11th seed would go through #6 Mitch Williams in the Round of 16, Beltran in the quarter-finals, and IRT #2 Jack Huczek in the semis.

The new Women's Professional Racquetball Organization (WPRO) rankings reflecting the Canadian Racquetball Classic results aren't on their website yet, but TRB has got them from Brenda Kyzer.

As expected, there are some significant changes as Angela Grisar has moved up to 3rd and Kerri Wachtel is down to 4th. Also switching places are last week's winner Paola Longoria who's now 5th ahead of Kristen Bellows in 6th. The impressive teen, Veronica Sotomayor, is up to 15th from #20 just behind Jennifer Saunders in 14th.

Saunders made a significant move up 4 spots from 18. However, it seems her Round of 32 US Open match will be a tough one, as she looks to be up against fellow Canadian Christie Van Hees, who has taken a big move down to #19, losing in the 16s of the Canadian Classic after winning it last year. Van Hees and Saunders went tie-breaker at this year's Canadian National Championships, which Van Hees won, and Saunders has been playing well of late while Van Hees has hardly been playing. So, we'll have to see what happens; that is why they play the games.

WPRO Top 20

1 Rhonda Rajsich
2 Cheryl Gudinas-Holmes
3 Angela Grisar
4 Kerri Wachtel
5 Paola Longoria
6 Kristen Walsh-Bellows
7 Adrienne Fisher
8 Brenda Kyzer
9 Doreen Fowler
10 Jo Shattuck
11 Diane Moore
12 Samantha Salas
13 Vivian Gomez
14 Jennifer Saunders
15 Veronica Sotomayor
16 Kimi Ferina
17 Keely Franks
18 T. J. Baumbaugh
19 Christie Van Hees
20 Candi Hostovich

Follow the bouncing ball....