{"id":675,"date":"2019-07-29T14:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T14:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/?p=675"},"modified":"2019-07-29T14:00:20","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T14:00:20","slug":"irt-season-in-review-2018-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/29\/irt-season-in-review-2018-19\/","title":{"rendered":"IRT Season in Review 2018-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Your new updated IRT logo, branded with the new website.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Pro Racquetball Stats fans may not know it, but at the bottom of the Report selection page for each tour I have some static pages of information that I maintain. One of those is kind of a running diary of the season of “events” as they occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/www.proracquetballstats.com\/i\u2026\/year_end_summaries.htm<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s a list of notable “events” from this past season, which has seen some significant change in the structure of the tour. This is a subset of what’s on the above link, with text abbreviated for brevity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– August 2018: the IRT season opens with questions as to whether\u00a0Kane Waselenchuk<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is actually “retired” after events stemming from the last event in Florida in April and comments made on social media and in interviews over the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Oct 2018: Kane enters and wins the US Open, his 14th title. Kane is now simultaneously the oldest and youngest ever winner of the US Open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Nov 2018: Commissioner\u00a0Andy Kulback<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0takes a “leave of absence” from the IRT, and IRT CEO\u00a0John Scott<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0announces new managerial structure for the tour, which installs\u00a0Mike Grisz<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0as the Chairman of the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Nov 2018: thanks to Kane’s Jan 2018 injury, he drops in the 12-month rolling rankings to #6 while\u00a0Alex Landa<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>ascends to #1. This leads to a series of discussions and criticisms of the tour ranking system in racquetball forums, with calls for protected seeding or changes to the ranking system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Feb 2019: Scott resigns as CEO of the tour after experiencing some medical and personal issues. Current Chairman of the Board Mike Grisz takes over as interim CEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Mar 2019: IRT announces a partnership with\u00a0Pablo Fajre<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to broadcast events, a departure from the existing IRT Network infrastructure and presumably an end to the competing WRT tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Mar 2019: the first ever IRT event occurs in Bolivia, the Open Iris Bolivia Grand Slam. #1 Waselenchuk, along with 4 other top 10 players do not make the trip. Bolivian #1 \u00a0Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0wins the event, defeating IRT #2\u00a0Rocky Carson<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in the final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– April 2019: Former CEO Scott divests himself fully from the IRT by selling his ownership shares to Maryland-based racquetball enthusiast\u00a0Slemo Warigon<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and his wife Charity. This ends Scott’s not-quite two year ownership of the tour, and a much longer involvement in the sport. Coinciding with this move, Grisz takes over officially as both CEO and Chairman of the IRT Board. The IRT is now a fully volunteer-driven organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– April 2019: Former Commissioner Kulbeck returns to the tour with some limited\/as-of-yet to be determined involvement going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– April 2019: Waselenchuk loses a quarter-final match in Sarasota to\u00a0Alvaro Beltran<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0breaking an 83-match winning streak on tour and becoming the first on-the-court, non injury related match loss since Sept 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– May 2019: Kane wins the final Tier 1 of the season in Syosset to secure his 13th pro title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– May 2019: US Open director Doug Ganim<\/strong> announces that he’s retiring after its 25th iteration in 2020, leaving some time to coordinate a replacement plan but also throwing the biggest racquetball event’s future into doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– June 2019: After several non-Tier 1s wrap up, the final 2018-19 season finishes. The final event is won in surprising fashion by\u00a0Javier Estrada<\/strong><\/a>, who takes out a slew of top IRT pros to win the title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

——————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next Up: Pan Am Games. I’ll wait until the knockout draws are produced to do “previews.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pro Racquetball Stats fans may not know it, but at the bottom of the Report selection page for each tour I have some static pages of information that I maintain. One of those is kind of a running diary of the season of “events” as they occur. http:\/\/www.proracquetballstats.com\/i\u2026\/year_end_summaries.htm Here’s a list of notable “events” from … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “IRT Season in Review 2018-19”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,7],"tags":[536,46,534,95,282,89,225,11,535,274,15,537,12],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irt","category-prs-admin","category-singles","tag-alex-landa","tag-alvaro-beltran","tag-andy-kulbeck","tag-conrrado-moscoso","tag-doug-ganim","tag-javier-estrada","tag-john-scott","tag-kane-waselenchuk","tag-mike-grisz","tag-pablo-fajre","tag-rocky-carson","tag-slemo-warigon","tag-todd-boss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":677,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}