PRO RACQUETBALL COMES TO SOUTH CAROLINA
Greenville SC -The Steadman Hawkins Clinic of the Carolinas 2008 IRT Greenville Open, presented by Synnex IBM and Geiss and Sons, was held at Sportsclub Greenville on June 19-22, 2008. This event featured some of the world's top ranked men's professional racquetball players, including current #1 player in the world, Rocky Carson and 3 time world champion, Kane Waselenchuk.
The weekend began with a VIP reception held Thursday night at the Hilton hotel. The event included drinks and appetizers for the pros and the tournament sponsors, and #1 Rocky Carson was rushed from the Atlanta airport to Greenville so that he could charm those attending the reception. Mitch Williams, Shane Vanderson and Andy Hawthrone mingled with the sponsors and fascinated them with war stories from the IRT tour.
The round of 16 began on Friday morning, and no real surprises unfolded. #1 seed Carson, #3 seed Williams, # 5 seed Hawthrone, # 6 seed Waselenchuk and # 4 seed Vanderson all made easy prey of their opponents, as no match saw more than 3 games. Newcomer Daniel Case from Kentucky defeated Randy Forrest of Orlando in a battle for the right to play into Rocky Carson in the quarters. #2 seed Alvaro Beltran got to sit ringside as his opponent was a forfeit due to injury.
In the quarterfinals, Mitch Williams defeated Andy Hawthrone, but from outside the court, it was hard to tell if Andy was winning or losing as his pace of play and constant diving never changed. Atlanta’s, Dave Sable did lose to Alvaro Beltran to 4 games, and this was definitely the best match of the morning for entertainment value as Sable amused the crowd with his typically bantering with the referee.
Rocky Carson was just too much for Daniel Case who lost in three games, and Kane Waselenchuk was on fire against Shane Vanderson, overpowering Shane with crisp backhand splats and photon like drive serves to win in 3 games.
The semi final rounds were staged for Saturday, and the Greenville Open stole some of the format of the US Open by having Otto Dietrich introduce the players amid laser lights, blaring music and smoke machines. The crowd was electrified as Kane and Alvaro took the exhibition court. A standing room only crowd sat mesmerized as these two pro’s waged battle. Kane had a mission quest to get to Rocky in the final round, and Alvaro was not able to muster a game plan to defeat Kane. The other semifinal between Mitch and Rocky showed the crowd why Mr. Carson finished the season no. 1 as he glided and stoked beautiful backhands and forehands from all over the court. Although Mitch delivered a few photons of his own, THE ROCK was not to be denied his encounter with the former world champion.
Sunday finals had the tension of an epic battle, as Kane and Rocky were introduced to the large crowd on hand. Kane won the first two games by neutralizing Rocky’s nick lob to his backhand with powerful rollout splats and by hitting accurate drive serves to Rocky’s backhand. Rocky showed what a class act he is in game 2 as he overturned the referee’s call on a couple of points and allowed Kane another chance to win the point. Game three would be Ricky’s as he came back from a 7-1 start and started forcing Kane to make some mistakes .It looked as though a five game final was imminent. However, in game 4 Kane regained his focus and despite Rockys incredible gets, the game ended and the first Greenville Open champion was crowned.
Article submitted by South Carolina Open event staff.