Not being seeded, he had to battle through three rounds before reaching the final (Turcotte, Bedard and Mikovich). People are still buzzing about his 21-0 win in badminton against Steve Mikovich who is a decent badminton player. Higher in the draw, Horatio Pintea seemed to be cruising towards another title. In the semis, he encountered a major obstacle: number 1 Canadian junior Jeremy Easterbrook; who has been training every day this summer in order to improve his game. After a predictable win in table tennis by Horatio and a similar win in badminton for Jeremy, Horatio fought hard in squash to score 15 precious points. This ought to be enough, since Horatio’s tennis is more consistent than Jeremy’s…or is it? Against all odds, Jeremy took an 18-10 lead in tennis to secure his spot in the final round. Two top badminton players in the finals. Jeremy’s training in table tennis paid off, 21-12. In badminton, there was some fuss concerning Jay’s early start while receiving. The score ended 21-18 in favor of D’Amours, who at 38 seems to be as athletic as ever. Squash was the best contested sport with a 21-20 win by Easterbrook, both players leaving their guts on the court. But could Jeremy repeat his tennis performance from the semis? He almost did playing his best tennis. Frederic had the perfect tennis game for racketlon: good high top spin from both forehand and backhand and a good footwork. Final score: 21-7 thus resulting in a +7 win for D’Amours. On the women’s side, the final featured the finalist from the 2009 Canadian Open, Mary Hall, and the first ranked women in Canada, Line Bellerose. These two players had met in Toronto and Mary defeated Line with an interesting strategy in tennis (slicing from both sides). Line won the first two sports quite easily, so did Mary in squash (but Line did score more points than in Toronto). Would Mary’s tennis make the difference again? It was close, but with only four points needed for a win, Line was able to keep her composure against her opponent’s unusual strategy. The final score in tennis was 21-14 for Mary. In the end, it gave a +11 total for Line. Congratulations to Myke Sylla, who dominated the “B” division. See you in the “A” division next year Mike! Another special mention to Brian Eldrige and Frank Lee who demonstrated fantastic pool skills at the Mac Laren pub on Saturday night, although they almost lost to rackethletes Line and Marie-Helene, but Line was kind enough to miss the 8 ball “on purpose”… let’s hope their male dignity stays intact. Thanks Steve for running this event. Next year more players from Toronto and Montreal will show up. See you in Victoria BC in October (FIR Challenger tournament) or Laval in September. Rod Bedard President of Racketlon Canada
