2024 Ballarat Racquetball Tournament

The 2024 Ballarat Racquetball tournament was held at the Ballarat Squash & Racquetball Fitness Centre, Wendouree on 7^th–8^th September 2024.  Victoria’s early spring made the centre much warmer than last year, but the cool change on Friday still made the heated club rooms welcome, players were also able to watch matches live on courts 1 and 2 from the club room on new TVs and cameras that have been installed in the centre, good to see our sport starting to embrace technology. Our numbers were similar to last year with 36 singles and 42 doubles players entered. New Centre Manager, Jess Parker was fantastic as Tournament Director, I am really impressed with her enthusiasm and commitment to grow squash and racquetball in Ballarat. Little touches like additional caps and head bands to the winners, made the tournament presentation great and she spent a lot of Saturday chasing doubles partners for the Sunday. Also thanks to Marilyn Anderson, who volunteered to run the canteen all weekend – those hamburgers were amazing. Also had some good chats with Club President, Michael Adamson, who also shares a good vision for the future of the sport. Saturday Night dinner served up some good pub tucker at the Sporting Globe Bar and Grill and we all had a good time.

In the Men’s Open, we had an extremely strong field with the 4 top ranked Victorians all playing. Cam White continued his unbeaten run by easily overcoming Sam Ejtemai, who had an exhausting semi final against Ryan McCarter. Once again, we only had one entrant in the Woman’s Open, we have now had 3 tournaments in 2024 without a Women’s Open, so we need to get interest back. The Open doubles was taken out by Cam White and last minute draftee Mark Edwards, who won all 3 of their pool matches. The Open doubles matches were extremely long and even with 4 out of the 6 matches lasting nearly 90 minutes each.  

Results and review can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/mr3sdjuc