Canadian Pan American Team Named

For the past few years, the Open divisions have been scheduled with doubles at the beginning of the week and Singles at the end. This format was implemented this year for every division, with all doubles running from Monday noon until midnight Tuesday, and then all singles events running from 9:00 am Wednesday until Saturday at 4:00 pm. For people playing in two doubles events, Monday and Tuesday were a bit much — six matches in less than two days, and occasional scheduling conflicts as well — but overall most of the players liked the idea of concentrating on doubles for two days before turning their attention to singles. The four days of singles play were much more relaxed, with few players ever having more than one match per day.

For the first time ever, a 70+ singles event was included at our national championships, and five venerable gentlemen played in that round robin division. They also played in the 65+ doubles round robin. As a result, the 70+ gang ended up playing more matches in the week than most other players in the tournament.

In the Men's Singles event, top seed Kane Waselenchuk was a last-minute no-show, meaning that the next two top seeds (Brian Istace and Michael Green) met in the semi-finals. Green dominated that match. The finals opened Canadian eyes to the skills of Corey Osborne, as Green needed a tiebreaker to capture his second consecutive Canadian title.

Osborne and his doubles partner, Francois Viens, were the upset winners in the doubles division as they took out Mike Ceresia and Brian Istace in a Tuesday night match that featured the noisiest crowd ever. Even Ceresia's trademark off-court antics weren't enough to fire him up as the Osborne/Viens team won the right to represent Canada at the Pan Am Games. While Osborne did qualify in both singles and doubles, it is widely expected that he will choose to play doubles, thereby opening the door for Green and Istace in the #1 and #2 singles spots.

The Team Selection process was developed by the athletes a couple of years ago, and is designed to reward players for their performance in three Canadian events. With Waselenchuk a non-participant in any of those three events, Canada's top ranked player is off the team.

In doubles, Jennifer Saunders and Josee Grand'Maitre teamed up to topple the top seeds, Lori Jane Powell and Julie Neubauer who had won the Doubles Selection Event in January. The singles final saw defending national champion Saunders lose 13-11 in the tiebreaker to Powell. With the "double qualifier" (Saunders in both singles and doubles), Powell will play in the No.1 singles position, followed by Saunders in No.2. To build a new doubles team, Neubauer will be teamed with Grand'Maitre for the Pan Ams.

At the Saturday night banquet, Racquetball Canada presented the World Champion Gold Medal men's team with rings to commemorate their win. The best part of this was that there was a first-timer in the group, namely team physio Bob Fong. Throughout the evening, various players praised Bob's contributions to the team, so it was particularly special for us to see him receive his ring.

The highlight of the Saturday night banquet was a power point presentation featuring the winners of all the divisions, as well as photos from throughout the week, all set to music. This was also done last year in Quebec, and it makes for a fantastic end to the day as everyone cheers for their hometown players.

Draw sheets, full results and press releases from the week can be viewed on the Racquetball Canada web site at www.racquetball.ca. Next year's national championships will be held in Burlington, Ontario during the third week of May.