Sunday, July 19, 2009

2009 World Games - Round of 16

The World Games racquetball competition begins Tuesday in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. There are 16 players in both the men's and women's events, who qualified based on last year's International Racquetball Federation (IRF) World Championship results. They will play the Round of 16 on Tuesday, the quarter finals Wednesday, and the semi-finals and finals on Thursday.

None of the men's first round match-ups catch our eye, but the women's matches are another matter, as there are several up and coming junior players who had good results at last year's World Championships and this year's Pan Am Championships.

Current World Champion, Rhonda Rajsich (USA) will face Christina Amaya of Columbia in the 16s, and they went tie-breaker at the Pan American Championships in April, when Rajsich won.

In an all Jen match, Canadian Jennifer Saunders will is up against Jenny Daza of Bolivia, who beat Rajsich in the preliminary round of the Pan Am Championships in April. Saunders's team-mate Josée Grand'Maître is also in tough against Maria Paz Munoz (Ecuador), who was a bronze medalist at last year's World Junior Championships.

2009 World Games - Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Women's Round of 16

USA - RAJSICH Rhonda vs COL - AMAYA Christina
MEX - ACOSTA Susana vs BOL - SABJA Yazmine
CHI - GRISAR Angela vs CHI - MARQUEZ Fabiola
CAN - SAUNDERS Jennifer vs BOL - DAZA Jenny
MEX - LONGORIA Paola vs ECU - CORDOVA Cristina
CAN - GRANDMAITRE Josee vs ECU - MUNOZ Maria Paz
JPN - SAKAMOTO Toshiko vs JPN - KAJINO Harumi
KOR - ANE Jung Eun vs USA - GUDINAS HOLMES Cheryl

Men's Round of 16
USA - CARSON Rocky vs ARG - MAGGI Daniel
CAN - GREEN Michael vs BOL - MONROY Ricardo
MEX - GUTIERREZ Leopoldo vs BOL - ZAMBRANA Jorge
MEX - BELTRAN Alvaro vs CRC - VILLEGAS Ivan
CAN - GAGNON Vincent vs DOM - SIMO Leonel
ECU - RIOS Fernando vs JPN - HIROSE Takaaki
JPN - KONO Michimune vs CRC - CAMACHO Felipe
DOM - PEREZ Luis vs USA - HUCZEK Jack

Follow the bouncing ball....

2 comments:

RC Development said...

Thank you for keeping the world informed on racquetball. I have looked on the web to try and find out information on the World Cup but other than your site, I have not been able to find articles.

Keep up the great work.

Cheers

The Racquetball Blog said...

Thanks.

There have been promotional ads for the World Games on TSN in Canada, but it seems they are simply promotional. It's not clear whether there will be any coverage of the games.

Cheers,

The Racquetball Blog