Last weekend, @Racquetball Canada held the second of their two regular team qualification events in Edmonton. Here’s a quick recap along with links to the data now entered into the database.
Congrats to the two winners:
– Men’s Singles: Samuel Murray
– Women’s Singles: Frederique Lambert
Murray captures his 17th Canadian National or Qualifier title for his career, and the 15th out of the last 16 competed. He continues a run of dominance reminiscent of the eras of @Mike Green , Sherman Greenfeld , and @Lindsay Myers, who won 6 straight Canadian titles between 1977 and 1982. See https://rball.pro/niz .
Meanwhile, Lambert cruises to another Canadian national-level title. She hasn’t lost a Canadian qualifier/national tournament since 2014 and with this win puts herself in pole position for the May Nationals to re-qualify for the Canadian National team for the 14th time. See https://rball.pro/1zb .
Here’s a quick recap of the two draws.
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Men’s Singles
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/ars
Perennial finalist Coby Iwaasa missed this event; he’s the regular finalist to challenge Murray over the past few years. In his absence, we saw a first time Canadian national finalist and a ton of upsets in a draw that normally is the chalkiest of chalk.
Two double-digit seeds advanced out of the 16s in @Conrad Cole and @Leyton Gouldie, who topped two regulars on the Canada scene in @Tanner Prentice and @Christian Pocsai respectively. Cole continued his run by topping #4 Lee Connell in the quarters, while #7 @Nathan Jauvin shocked #2 Trevor Webb in the quarters. The first time finalist across from Murray was #3 Kurtis Cullen , who cruised into the final without dropping a game and even took a game off of big Sam before falling.
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Women’s Singles
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/3aw
The Ladies draw featured all the top players in Canada right now battling it out, but the final came down to a rematch of the last two National Canada events; #1 Lambert versus #2 @Juliette Parent . After years in the juniors, Parent has now established herself as the #2 player in Canada, supplanting long-time stalwarts such as Morissette, Iwaasa, Ramsay (nee Drury), and Keay (nee Richardson). The two top seeds advanced to the final, where Lambert again topped Parent for the title, the third straight finals matchup.
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Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar …
The global Racquetball calendar has a break until the first week of March, and then we have a very busy month of pro, outdoor, and international events. As for Canada, their next national event will be 2024 Nationals the last weekend of May in Calgary.