1996 - Montréal, Québec

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Montreal throws a party

From Canadian Racquetball, October 1996, Vol. 1, No. 2 (author uncredited)

The 1996 Canadian Senior National Championships were held at the Nautilus Plus Club in Ville d'Anjou, Québec. Michel Gagnon headed up an enthusiastic committee that were determined to make this years Nationals memorable.

With National Team berths riding on both the men's and women's open singles draws as well as a chance to represent Canada at the upcoming World Championships later on in the summer, the week promised to showcase some very exciting play among our nation's elite athletes as they vied for a spot on the World's Team.

The women's draw was interesting because there was parity throughout the draw. An example of this came when 16 year old Lisa Kerr gave #1 seed Josée Grand'Maître the scare of her life in the first round. Grand'Maître finally prevailed, but not before being extended to an 11-6 tiebreaker. The semi-finalists were defending champion, Lori-Jane Powell against Christie Van Hees and Lucie Guillemette playing against her doubles partner Josée Grand'Maître. Van Hees came back from a 2 games to 1 deficit to slide by Powell 11-5 in the tiebreaker. Grand'Maître advanced to the final with a tidy 4 game win over Gillemette. Josée saved her best match of the tournament for the finals. She hit her backhand well and also rekilled many of Van Hees's powerful drives. The outcome had Grand'Maître capturing her first Canadian women's singles title by a score of 3 games to 1. Lori Jane defeated Lucie to finish in third place.

The veteran doubles team of Vicki Shanks and Debbie Ward captured the Canadian Women's doubles title over Grand'Maître and Guillemette. Shanks and Ward play very intense doubles and this intensity seemed to be the difference in this match of two fairly even teams.

The men's draw had potential to be very interesting from the quarter's on. However the top four seeds all advanced with 3 game victories. Greenfeld, Roy, Ceresia and Demers defeated Kelly Kerr, Tom O'Brien, Brian Istace and Mike Green respectively. The semi-finals were a different story. Sherman had never lost to Jacques heading into their semi-final. Greenfeld controlled the first two and 3/4 games before attempting to coast to an easy victory. Demers seizes the opportunity and stole game 3, 11-10. Game 4 took about 30 seconds as Greenfeld came unravelled. Game 5 was more of the same as Jacques led 9-1 and then 10-5. Incredibly Demers missed setup after setup until "Houdini" Greenfeld escaped with a heart-stopping 11-10 victory.

The second semi-final was anti-climatic as Simon Roy won game one, but saw Mike Ceresia come back and win the next 3 in a close match of doubles partners. In the end it was Greenfeld defeating a fatigued Ceresia as he won another Canadian Men's singles title.

The Men's doubles final had defending champions Simon Roy and Mike Ceresia playing Mike Green and Tom O'Brien. The match was a good one, lasting some two and a half hours and it had what has to be one of the strangest finishes in Canadian Nationals history. [Ceresia and] Roy led 10-2 in the tiebreaker when O'Brien and Green caught fire. Suddenly the score was 10-9. Green was serving drive Z serves to Roy on the right side. Serving at 9-10 Green hit another drive Z that Roy hammered off the front wall about 6 feet high. Green was setting up for an easy kill when the ball rolled flat off the back wall for a side out. The odds against a ball rolling off the back wall flat are astronomical. Miracle #1. At match point Roy served a lob to O'Brien that hit the glass door and bounced at a strange angle. Normally this would have been a court hinder because of the bad bounce, but there were no court hinders at this years Nationals because this rule has been adopted by Québec. O'Brien let the ball bounce for a second time, thinking that it was a court hinder. Miracle #2. Game and match to Roy and Ceresia that will always be remembered as the introduction of the "O'Brien rule."

The 1996 Nationals showcased a high level of racquetball in all divisions. Congratulations to the volunteers and the organizing committee for making this years Nationals one to be remembered.