IRT - MonaVie Salt Lake City Pro-Am Preview

The International Racquetball Tour (IRT) has gone from one of its biggest draws of the season last weekend at the Florida Spring Break Pro-Am in Tampa to one of its smallest, as there are only 16 players in qualifying at the MonaVie Salt Lake City Pro-Am in Salt Lake City, Utah. That means there will only be one round of qualifying matches on Thursday.

Last week The Racquetball Blog said the big questions for the Florida Spring Break tournament were: "Will Kane Waselenchuk win another tournament? Will Rocky Carson pull off the big upset that he was so close to last time out? Will Ben Croft get back to his winning ways?"

The answers we got from Florida were yes, no, and yes, as Waselenchuk won again, defeating Carson in the final, and Croft had a better tournament in Florida than in San Diego. He reached the semi-finals and was one game away from the finals, going five games with Carson in the semi-finals.

This week in Salt Lake City, Javier Moreno is in qualifying and will potentially play Andy Hawthorne in the 16s and Croft in the quarter-finals. Other interesting potential match ups are Anthony Herrera versus Jose Rojas and Charlie Pratt taking on Chris Crowther, but both Herrera and Pratt need to win their qualifying matches first.

A note about scheduling: the final will be played on Saturday, so the same day as the semi-finals. The semis are set to go at 11 AM and noon on Saturday will the final at 7 PM. All times are MDT.

We expect the IRT Network will begin web-casting the MonaVie Salt Lake City Pro-Am matches beginning Friday at 11:30 AM MDT with Round of 16 matches.

2011 MonaVie Salt Lake City Pro-Am, Salt Lake City, Utah
Qualifying Round

Q8: Arthur Schmeiser v. Joe Workman
Q1: Charlie Pratt v. Jarred Torres

Q4: Tony Carson v. Andrew Gale
Q5: Felipe Camacho v. Brad Brumbaugh

Q6: Mike Orr v. Steve Bohman
Q3: Javier Moreno v. Brandon Gould

Q2: Anthony Herrera v. Matthew Majxner
Q7: Stacey Young v. Peter Wrigley

Main Draw - Round of 16

Kane Waselenchuk v. Q8
Chris Crowther v. Q1

Shane Vanderson v. Q4
Jack Huczek v. Q5

Ben Croft v. Q6
Andy Hawthorne v. Q3

Jose Rojas v. Q2
Rocky Carson v. Q7

Follow the bouncing ball....