IRT 2024 Inland Empire Pro/Am Recap

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by Todd Boss and Karen Grisz

The IRT traveled to the Spokane Club in Spokane, Washington in mid-October.  It was great to see the players back indoors after many of them competed in the World Team Racquetball Championships outdoors in Las Vegas a few weeks prior.

The tournament was missing Conrrado Moscoso due to injury and IRF World Championship gold-medal winner Daniel De La Rosa, and thus the line-up seemed prime for Waselenchuk to continue to move back up in the rankings.  And he didn’t disappoint.  Congratulations to Kane Waselenchuk for his big win and his return to #1 on tour. Here’s a recap of the action.

Round of 32s

We first had a battle of the young guns, with Mexican Diego Gastelum beating USA’s Cody Elkin 15-10, 15-10 to face Kane in the 16s.  Jaime Martell also had a good win over Diego Garcia, 15-4, 15-10. 

Round of 16s

Jordy Alonso, who has had a series of “upsets”, beat Jake Bredenbeck in a tough tiebreaker, 15-11, 7-15, 11-9.  Although seeded 13th, Jordy has shown over the last year how good he is – he just doesn’t play on the tour full-time. 

Erick Trujillo took out Martel, also in a tiebreaker. This wasn’t an upset by seed, but it is a notable result because Trujillo has had some losses recently to his fellow countrymen. This is a solid win over a solid player and gives Trujillo’s top 10 ranking a boost.

Rodrigo Montoya edged his doubles partner Javier Mar, again in a breaker. It is no surprise they went to a 3rd game; even if one is the #2 seed and the other is in the 20s, these two are neck and neck talent-wise.

Quarterfinals

#1 Kane cruised past Alan Natera 15-6, 15-4.  Andres Acuna has a great win over Alonso 15-2, 15-13, thwarting Alonso’s hopes of a Kane rematch. Andree Parrilla beat Adam Manilla 15-7, 15-13, and Montoya advanced over Trujillo.  

Semifinals

Although Acuna kept it close, he was not good enough for Waselenchuk, who got a 15-10, 15-7 win to advance to the finals.  Parilla beat Montoya 15-9, 15-6, to once again face Waselenchuk.

Finals

Kane and Andree have a history playing each other. One of their first meetings was a 0,0,0 embarrassment at the 2016 US Open when Andree was a budding player on the competing WRT. They met in the final of Chicago a few months later and Parrilla pushed Kane in at least one game, showing a bit of a gumption at the time. They’ve usually played close games, albeit mostly Kane wins …then Parrilla got an 11-10 finals win over Kane in January 2022 in Atlanta. 

In Spokane, Kane jumped out to a massive first game lead, ahead 10-0 at one point, but Parrilla showed his mental toughness and ran off ten unanswered points himself to tie the game; Kane had to press to win it 15-14. Game two was one-way traffic for the Mexican, who easily won 15-3 to force a tiebreaker.  Fun fact: on the IRT, when players split the first two games, the player who won the second game has the advantage, having won 51% of the time.  But Kane showed us why he is the GOAT, winning  11-3 and taking the title. match. Andree scored 32 total points, Kane 29 … but it was the points at the end that counted.

Kane regains 1st place on tour, for the first time in several years. 

Kane Waselenchuk Inland Empire Champion
International Racquetball Tour

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