1993 - Cochabamba, Bolivia
Team : L'Équipe
Josée Grand'Maître, Sherman Greenfeld, Carol McFetridge, Simon Roy
By Dave Hinton, from "First Serve", Vol. 7, No. 4, Summer 1993.
Shorthanded, sunshine success and silver pretty much cover Canada's participation in this years Tournament of the Americas held from April 3rd to 10th in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Shorthanded we knew we would be even as early as mid February what with some of the National Team players making themselves ineligible by not attending one of the first two monitoring events and others writing exams. Knowing this and the financial constraints of the assoication the decision was made to fund a team of five (two women, two men and one support staff [Josée Grand'Maître, Sherman Greenfeld, Carol McFetridge, Simon Roy and D'Arcy Bain]).
The other two eligible players [Vicki shanks and Haydn Jones] were offered support while they were in Bolivia buy would be responsible for getting there themselves. Vicki, through partial support from the B.C. Racquetball Association came up with the funds while Haydn was not as fortunate and had to decline the offer. So we were all set - right? WRONG!! With about two days notice, Sherman had to drop out due to severe pneumonia. So the scramble started - could we change tickets [probably], could Haydn now go [no, could not get the time off work], could one of the girls play doubles with Simon [although no ruling by the International Racquetball Federation they did not think it would be possible] and so on. Finally, when we all met up in Cochabamba it was now a team of three women [Carol, Josée and Vicki] and one man [Simon] and they would do the best they could come what may.
Sunshine, yes glorious sunshine and warmth buy oh how the altitude affected us [8,200 ft above sea level]. "It's been hard to adapt here at such high altitude," says McFetridge. "We've been tiring very fast." En-route to Cochabamba we landed at La Paz, Bolivia [the highest capital city in the world - 11,500 ft above sea level] and with just moving the luggage around you had to stop and catch your breath. The combination of daytime temperatures of 30 degrees and the altitude meant that the unwritten law of "thirty minutes maximum in the sun" was hard to following [sic] especially for those of us having recently left varying degrees of cold, wet and snow.
And on to the success. After an interesting if not lengthy opening ceremonies with the usual speeches and some "down home" entertainment by local dancers it was immediately off to the courts to start the competition. With the Chairman of the Bolivian Olympic Committee and the Minister of Sport for Bolivia in the crowd it was a great honor to have Canada's Simon Roy open the tournament in the first match.
The competition is [sic] divided into two three day sections with the first three days being the preliminary competition and the final days the medal rounds with seeding determined upon your results in the preliminary rounds.
Remember the altitude? "These courts are extremely fast so you have to be in control," said Roy. The ball was like a bullet with ceiling shots bouncing over the rear wall into the gallery after hitting the floor. Had it not been for the new IRF ruling where players in the Open division are allowed only one serve it would have been a servers game. "I like it because I don't have a big serve," continues Roy. "It certainly speeds up the game and gives everyone a fair chance." All of the Canadian players advanced into the medal rounds in their respective division (Women's Singles - Josée, Carol and Vicki; Women's Doubles - Josée and Vicki; and Men's Singles - Simon [no Men's Doubles]) with Josée and Vicki being the only two players to face losses (against American players) in their Singles competition [sic].
The standard "day off" between the preliminary round and the medal round afforded us the opportunity to sight-see [sic], shop, or in some cases rest and try to get over the Bolivian equivalent to "Montezuma's Revenge."
Back to the courts and our drive for medals. The first rounds of the medal section were more or less setting the stage for what everyone expected - a Canada/United States confrontation.
On the Women's Singles side this occurred in the quarter-finals wehre Vicki Shanks bowed out to Jackie Gibson. In what most people would ahve termed an upset (we in Canada expected it though) Josée Grand'Maître defeated long time American National Team player and regular on the Women's Professional Tour, Malia Bailey. Carol McFetridge being the number one Canadian on the team and Kaye Kuhfeld of the United States both had an easier time of it against Mexican players. This set a semi-final match-up of McFetridge vs. Grand'Maître and Gibson vs. Kuhfeld and ensured that there would be a Canadian in the final. With both McFetridge and Gibson winners in the semi-finals it now came down to the top Canadian against the top American. "My game is to keep the ball in play and that was hard to do on a fast court like this," said McFetridge after her loss to Gibson 15-6, 15-11. "Gibson certainly had an advantage on me with her power game. I felt I didn't have very good concentration throughout."
In Women's Doubles nothing was changed from the anticipated match-up with Josée Grand'Maître and Vicki Shanks facing the newly installed American team of Mary Lyons and Susan Morgan. A 15-9, 15-7 loss meant that we were adding to our silver count. "They beat us with high shots off the wall which we fished for," said Shanks. "We should have been more patient and kept the ball in play more."
Our other event, Men's Singles had Simon Roy taking on the three Americans. With the number one and three of the Americans facing one another in one semi-final match, Roy was left to face John Ellis. A quick ending to the match left Roy time to recover and prepare for the finals against reigning World Champion, Chris Cole. "I had a rough night but the finals was more mental fatigue than anything" said Roy who was severely ill with stomach troubles the night before the finals. Even so, he burst to a 12-0 lead in the first game but weakened dramatically afterwards. Although he managed to hold on for the win, Cole cruised to final victory, 10-15, 15-9, 11-5. "I certainly didn't get overconfident," said Roy. "I had never played Cole before but we have the same style. We both have endurance games and the rallies were long."
Another one of the unexpected upsets occurred in the Men's Doubles when the Bolivian team (currently unranked in the world) defeated the number three world ranked Mexican team. This defeat helped solidify Canada's second place finish in the Team Event and vaulted Bolivia past the Mexicans for their third place finish. The United States took first.
"These were the best results we have had in years," commented National Team Coach Gary Ness, "when you realize that we we won silver medals in every event that we entered and every one of our players came home with a silver medal."
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