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| 2002 National Championship - May 20, 2002 |
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May 20, 2002 Kane’s pain hurts Canada Brossard, Quebec – Canada’s number one player is sitting home in Houston after hurting a finger of his left hand and suffers pain to his left elbow during the final of a pro tour event in the U.S. a few days ago. His absence means Canada will have a new champion at the end of this week and possibly a new team for the World Championships, this summer in Puerto Rico. “This could hurt his chances for Puerto Rico because of the point system we work with for the selection of the national team and it does hurt the whole team overall because the lowest player we will have won’t make up for the fact that Kane is not there,” says Cal Smith, Racquetball Canada’s vice-president for High Performance. Waselenchuk, an Edmonton native, is the number two player on the American professional tour. He has won the last two national singles championships and holds the Canadian doubles title along with Brian Istace of Calgary. “I was a little lucky to find a quality doubles’ partner at the last minute to take Kane’s spot,” says Istace about new partner Bill Shepley, who’s also from Calgary. “You’re never gonna replace a player of Waselenchuk’s quality but we can at least stay in the tournament and have the opportunity to win. I’ll be happy if we make it to the finals and I think we’ll do fine if we get there.” Istace and Shepley won their quarter final’s match with a pair of 15-6, 15-6 victories over Kam Bartesky and Loren Prentice, from Saskatoon. Only one seeded pair got sidelined through the quarter finals. Fourth seeded Corey Osbourne of Toronto and Greg Starodub of Winnipeg lost in two straight matches to local favorites Vincent Gagnon and Francis Guillemette. Another pair of favorites, Michael Green, of Toronto and Tom O’Brien from Hamilton had a hard time getting through local hopefuls Francois Viens and Jean-Philippe Morin while Mike Ceresia and Gary Waite of Toronto had to use the tiebraker to go through Kris Odegard and Ryan Powell, of Saskatoon. All the favorites got through in the women’s tournament. In Tuesday’s semifinals, Amanda MacDonald and Kristina Odegard, from Saskatoon, will face Julie Nebauer of Calgary and Veronique Guillemette, of Deauville, Quebec, while Josee Grand’Maitre, of Longueuil, Quebec and Chantal Turgeon, of Sherbrooke, Quebec will face Jennifer Saunders of Winnipeg and Lori-Jane Powell of Calgary. |
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