IRT 2024 Inland Empire Pro/Am Recap
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.