Kathleen Carter a top squash and tennis player proved too strong for the field in this first Racketlon event held in the Hamilton area. She first reached the final by defeating 1st ranked player Line Bellerose from Montreal by a 16 points margin, losing table tennis and badminton before dominating squash and tennis. In the final, she faced another tennis specialist and national team member Mary Hall. When often the case when you face a player who is better than you in your best sport, it was not a close contest since Mary’s good squash and tennis were way below Kathleen’s. It was a deciding win for this great athlete. Marie-Hélène Bédard took the third rank. On the men’s side table tennis specialists Horatio Pintea (ex-olympic athlete) and Quebec junior star Pat Laplante, were above the field in this first major racketlon event of the 2011 Canadian Tour. Laplante caused the upset in the semis by ousting #1 ranked player in Canada Jeremy Easterbrook. His 19-21 badminton score against this badminton expert paved the way for a deciding win in tennis. Pintea was only to lose squash to Darryl Desbarres in his way to the final. The forecast for the final was ; easy win for Horatio in table tennis, close battle favoring Horatio in badminton, also close in squash for Horatio and advantage Patrick in tennis. The actual outcome was not what we’ve expected. Pat held his ground in table tennis even earning a game point before losing 20-22. He also did win badminton. A very good start for the yougster from Granby. Squash was won by Horatio by a small margin thus forcing either player to win tennis in order to secure the overall victory. Pintea using his regular “never give him a free point” approach almost caused Laplante to faltered but in the end a sudden push of adrenaline made Laplante hit a few winners in his way to his first win on the Canadaian Tour and the prize money. With this result, Easterbrook and Pintea secured their sport for the World Champs while Laplante has to wait a few more days to see how the compilation of ranking and tournament points turn out. Morgan Latremouille from Victoria (winner of the Pacific Rim Open ) also secured his spot on the team. Other winner are: Men’s B: 1st Mike Fedryck 2nd Jaimie Herman Men’s C 1st-Mike Wang 2nd Nitin Sodhni 3rdMike Martynyshyn 62 entries were recorded for this first edition. Keith Griffiths and his team did a great job, we saw kids in the tournament, mother and father, young adults, older people etc. They promished to repeat the experience next year. That makes us all very excited. Thank you Keith.
