Additions & Deletions

There are two events on the International Racquetball Tour (IRT). The bigger event is the 3rd Annual Carl Myers Racquetball Tournament in Garden City, Kansas, which is a Tier 2 IRT event. IRT top 10 players Shane Vanderson (#6), Ben Croft (#7), Mitch Williams (#8) and Jason Thoerner (#10) will be there. The Herrera count in Garden City is one, as Anthony Herrera is the fifth seed.

Also, there's a Tier 4 event in Leamington, Ontario, where the top seeds will be Brian Simpson (#1) and Eric Desrochers (#2).

It's good to have smaller events to compliment the larger events, as it allows up and coming players to get their feet wet on the tour without necessarily going too far from home. Also, it's good to have more tournaments under the IRT umbrella.

The Leamington event is a new IRT event, and like last month's Keystone Classic, it wasn't on the schedule at the beginning of the year. But it's good to see more events added to the mix and provide development opportunities for more players.

Deletion

On the other side of the ball, the Mexico Open in Tijuana has been dropped from the IRT schedule. Local scheduling conflicts were cited as the reason for the change.

This leaves three major events left on the IRT schedule: two Tier 1 events - Florida Spring Break (Sarasota, Fla.), Dennis Rosenberg Pro Am (Allentown, Penn.), and one Grand Slam event - Motorola Pro Nationals (Chicago, Ill.).

With over 900 points separating #3 Kane Waselenchuk from #1 Rocky Carson in the ranking race, Waselenchuk almost has to win out. Approximately 400 points can be earned for a Tier 1 tournament victory, and 600 points for a Grand Slam victory.

If Waselenchuk doesn't win all of the remaining tournaments, and Carson gets to all three finals (and especially if he wins some of them), Carson may remain on top at season's end. Players can drop two results from their season performance, but Waselenchuk has effectively already done so as he missed two Tier 1 events earlier in the season.

Thus, while the pressure may have been on others to stop Waselenchuk to prevent him from getting to #1 at season's end, the deletion of the Mexico Open shifts the pressure to Waselenchuk to continue to win through the season's end.

Follow the bouncing ball....