The ladies of the LPRA made the trip to Charlotte for the second annual Dowd Fall Classic LPRA Pro-Am in late September, and this year’s event turned out to be better than ever for the ladies. Twenty-four of the top women players competed for $15,000 in prize money. No, that’s not a misprint; the prize money raised this year was equal to the amount offered at the tour’s most prestigious annual event, the U.S. OPEN. 

Thanks to efforts by tour regular and local organizer Janet Myers, plus the generosity of Bill Belk (of the Belk department store chain), Claude Crocker from South Carolina, and many other sponsors, the event was able to match the prize money from racquetball’s only Grand Slam event. And Belk has vowed to make the event even bigger and better next year.

When Myers originally approached Belk about having an LPRA Stop in Charlotte last fall, he felt compelled to do something for the Queen City. “It creates a reputation that we are a city that can bring the best and brightest here to display their talents,” Belk said. He also views the LPRA athletes as role models, saying, “Young women need to have heroes and get excited about them. We want our children to be exposed to, and be inspired by, the best.” In addition to donating the foundation sum (upon which the remainder of the prize money was built over both years), Belk recruited Bank of America and others to help sponsor the event. And as an added treat for the ladies, Belk opened up his mansion on Saturday night to host a dinner for them and the sponsors. Complete with swimming pool and waterfall, tennis court, home theater, and a full wine cellar, his home is something most of us only get to see in magazines.

Back on the court, the LPRA re-adopted the standard pro scoring system this season, and with the more familiar format, the round or 32 held no surprises as all of the top seeds advanced easily. 

The round of 16 had two great tiebreaker finishes against top seeds. Adrienne Fisher took Kristen Walsh to five before Kristen finally pulled out the win by keeping everything to Adrienne’s forehand. Jen Saunders managed to pull out a good win over Kersten Hallander in another tough match that ended 11-8 in the fifth. Jen had Kersten diving all over the court, but in the end it just wasn’t enough. 

The best match of the quarters had to be the Kerri Wachtel and Jen Saunders match up. Jen came out strong and took the first two games off Kerri, 5 and 7. But last years U.S. OPEN champion was not out of it yet, and she showed up to play the next three games, taking them with scores of 6, 2 and 0. This set the semis as No.1 Cheryl Gudinas against No.5 Rhonda Rajsich in the top half, and No.3 Kerri Wachtel playing No.2 Jackie Rice in the bottom. 

Rhonda seemed to be more comfortable with her game in Charlotte, not making as many of the unforced errors that have plagued her in the past. She played well against Cheryl and was the only player to take a game off her all weekend. But Cheryl was just too strong and took the match in four. Jackie had also not dropped a game up to this point, and seemed to be moving a lot better now that her ankle injury has had some time to heal. She was very intense and took the first two games, 4 and 1, before Kerri mounted a comeback in the third with an 11-5 win. But Jackie wasn’t to be denied her second finals of the season and took the fourth game and match with a score of 11-3. 

The finals featured Cheryl’s patented game plan of keeping the ball in play with perfect ceiling balls until she has the opportunity to hit the great pinch or passing shot, while Jackie just couldn’t seem to keep the ball down as well as she had in her other matches. She seemed to pull it together, and made a good run in the third game, but Cheryl hung tough and took home the winners paycheck with a straight game win.