The WPRO Racquetball Tournament

November 18th-21st, Will and I ran the biggest Racquetball tournament in WA history right here in Olympia. What made it so special was that we had raised the money over the last year to bring in the Women's Professional Racquetball Tour in as well, and we got to watch them play all weekend long.

The weeks before the tourney are always a bit stressful, even though we spread the planning over the whole year. Unfortunately, despite securing our $10,000 with the WPRO, I got word 9 days before the event that the #1 player in the World couldn't come. I cried. Seriously. When you work so hard to makes things perfect for months then something out of your control happens, it's pretty frustrating.

The great news was that the reason Paola Longoria would be missing was because she was receiving the "Best Female Athlete" award for Mexico, which is HUGE for our sport's exposure and also landed her a chance to meet the President of Mexico (oh, and receive $50K). Can't blame her for staying, though I know personally she was pretty bummed about not coming and will struggle now to keep her #1 position simply because she missed the event.


Anyway, enough about that.........

The other hitch in our plan was that there was a HUGE wind storm the week of the tournament, which knocked out our power (and my computer) and the actual gym power for a day. Will and I had tons of set up that we needed to do and we did much of it in a dark gym with headlamps on!!

So many people had contributed to this even and I tried to make sure everyone got the credit they deserved. Here is the poster of the Tournament Staff. These guys worked none stop the weekend of the event.
And $10,000 doesn't come out of nowhere. We had tons of Sponsor support through out the year and a bunch of fund raising events. This poster showcased some of them.
Then we had a poster that explained a little more about the Top 10 WPRO Players and showed where they were from. We had girls coming from as far as Chili.
Will and I attend several tournament a year and we always try to do a few extra fun things at ours to spice it up.........like having a Ping Pong table in the gym.
Oh, my sweet husband. Poor guy learned a little too late in this marriage that I dream big. Having the Pro ladies come in and getting the chance to play with some of them was a huge "Bucket List" item for me, and he supported me every step of the way.
The actual tournament started on Thursday. Our Top 8 Sponsors got matched up with our Top 8 Pro's for a fun Doubles event, as a way to thank them for their support. Some of these guys had brought in over a thousand dollars individually. Thank you!!!
After the Doubles event, we took the Pro Ladies and the Sponsors to dinner at Izzy's. It was great to get to know them a little better.

Above: TJ Baumbaugh, Cheryl Gudinas, Jack Zollo, Keely Franks and Jen Saunders.
Adrienne Fisher, Jo Shattuck, me, Dan Furman, Beth Neff, Damonique Davis and Kerri Wachtel.
Towards the end of the night, our kids showed up from Gymnastics and were super excited to get their pictures with Rhonda Rajsich, the #1 at the event and #2 player in the World.
Rhonda is a gem and is SO GREAT with everyone who wants to meet her. I've gotten to know her a bit over the years (having had the chance to play her once about 4 years back for fun) and she has always amazed me with the way she engages with the endless throngs of people that want to meet her.

So Friday was one of the best days of my life (of course aside from childbirth, marriage, etc). Friday at lunch I got to play Susy Acosta from Mexico in the Women's Open Division. Susy is the #14 in the World and just a doll. She was so great.

I had NO IDEA how I was going to match up against this caliber of a player. I'm the #2 player in WA........but it's just WA. I was worried I'd not even be able to get into the match at all, despite how hard I've been training. Plus, I never play my best at my own tournament. WAY too much going on in the brain.

In the first game, it took me a long time to figure out what to serve her, but it was only a matter of a few points before I started realizing that I could compete with Susy. We had lots of fun rallies and I kept telling myself, "You deserve to be here!". I figured out what to serve a little too late and lost the first game 15-8.

The second game I came out hitting and the game was close the whole way. I was right there with her. What I never could have expected was what happened with the crowd. There was about 75 people watching and they were definitely cheering on their home town girl. Every time I hit a shot to win a rally, the crowd went wild. I kept tearing up and getting chills every time I heard someone yelling my name. It meant so much to me that they were rooting for me so passionately and I think they really believe I could win.

Long story short, I stayed with here until 13-13 and then she served the game out for the win. Again, she was SO great to play. She was super competitive and serious, with a great balance of having some fun on the court. In the picture below I had just lost to her........I don't look too sad, huh?
Here is another pic with Susy later in the weekend and with Jen Saunders from Canada.
Only a few hours later, it was time to play my PRO match.....against Samantha Salis also from Mexico and the current #3 player in the World. Just so you know, there is a BIG difference between #3 and #14. Samantha has been having the season of her life this year and it was great to meet her and especially get the chance to play her.
Here we are choosing serve for the match. I won the serve (it's just a luck thing) and I was so grateful that at least ONCE I would get to serve the ball. I was really worried the whole match was going to take a whopping 3 minutes.
Samantha was super gracious on and off the court. I just hoped she was willing to "play" with her meat before she ate it.
In the first game, I started out strong and stayed with her to 4-4, and then I think she realized that I could actually play ball a bit and she totally stepped it up. Again, I won several rallies and got up to serve, but I couldn't find a good serve to actually score any points. (Let's just say I definitely know what I'll be working on in the coming months).
I did not play my best during this match, and she was relentless and on a mission. Pro matches are games to 11 and I lost 4,1,1. Again, the crowd was totally engaged and cheering for me (when they had something to cheer for) and I was really touched.
Here we are just after the match with Dave Ellis, the Deputy Commissioner of the Tour and a legend in our sport. Samantha went on to win the whole tournament!!!

I did play a bit more during the weekend, but it was all local girls. I got lots of chances to pick the brain of many of the Pro girls to learn from them.
This is TJ Baumbaugh, who was also my Sponsor Doubles partner.
Here I am with Rhonda.
Will doing a little tournament work though out the weekend. It takes a village to manage the 177 players that we had.

Above Jo Shattuck, Keely Franks and TJ. Jo took the time with me after my match to teach me a few things, which I really appreciated. Keely had been tremendously helpful to me before the event with getting me graphics.
Keely, who is the #8 in the World, having just won the Women's Open Division. I really enjoyed watching her play. I'd like to model after her style a bit. She was super fit which I admired that as well.

Saturday night I played in the Women's Open Consolation side and won my first match 21-3. I was on fire after playing the Pro girls and I played great.

Sunday morning I had one more match to win the WO Conso against my good friend Beth Neff. We had a great match and it slid in my favor with a 15-13,-15-13 win. Beth is a great player and I've learned TONS from her over the years.
Picture below is of Rhonda and Cheryl Gudinas before they played doubles on Thursday night.

Love the picture above. These are some of my bestest friends and they helped me SO MUCH during this tournament. Sorry it's so small!
Here I am with Keri Wachtel before she played in the finals against Samantha. I had the chance to play Keri in Cincinnati earlier this year while I was visiting my friend Christy.
Jimmy Lowe won the Men's Open side. He is a good friend and a classy, classy guy. He, too, is a legend in out sport and he comes from Hawaii to compete.

Another pic with Rhonda.
This is Vicki Panzeri and Fran Davis. Both live here in WA and both use to play the Women's Pro Tour in the 80's!!! I love that they live here and I get to learn from them. I play Vicki pretty regularly at WA tournaments.

The Women's Pro Final was great. These two girls are super intense and with out having Paola around (the #1 in the World) both girls REALLY wanted to win........badly.
The girls did not lets us down........and Samantha came out on top.
There was about 115 people watching and we played music to fire things up a bit.

Here I am again with Dave Ellis. He was a HUGE help to me as I planned and prepared this event for the last year.
Here I am awarding Samantha the $3,000 she won for 1st place.
Will and I with Keri and Samantha after the final.
And with Dave Ellis.
Here are some of the many sponsors that made this happen. So very grateful for each and every one of them.

Below is a super short video of me playing Samantha (the #3). Feeling a little helpless, but having the time of my life!!!




So all in all, it was a HUGE success. Several of the Pro ladies said it was one of the best events they had been to in years. It was a lot of work, but I think it paid off. What I love most is giving our local players a chance to see Racquetball at such a high level. The Racquetball Community here in WA is a tight knit group and many are very dear friends of Will and I. It was great to enjoy such an event with so many of them.

So my plans personally.........now that I know I can ever so slightly hang with just a few of the girls, I hope to head to another stop maybe next year just for fun (one that I have not planned ideally). But for now, I am training hard in hopes of trying to win the State Championships in April.

Again, thank you to many of you that also supported this event, just by helping with my kids and such. It really was a dream of mine, and it came true.

With that said, I'm glad it's over. :)

Have a great weekend!!!