Queen of Australian racquetball returns for Ballarat Open

Squash & Racquetball Victoria Legend Paul Vear provides us with a comprehensive preview of the 2016 Ballarat Open Racquetball Championships to take place on September 10-11.
 

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The third-longest running racquetball tournament in Australia, the Ballarat Open will hold its 32^nd edition this weekend at the Ballarat Squash and Racquetball Centre in Wendouree.

117 aspirants from across Australia will be vying for the booty on offer, plus it will be their final hit out prior to the pinnacle event of the year, the 2016 Commercial Club Albury Australian Open Championships to be held in Albury/Wodonga on October 14-16.  

Although the Men’s Open will be without fourteen-time Australian Open champion Cam White who is currently preparing for the Australian Open in Thailand, the event has attracted all of the other top ten Victorian Grand Prix Men’s Open players.

2016 Wangaratta, Geelong and Victorian Open winner Steve Andrewartha brings strong form into the Ballarat event, and is seeded to meet Victorian ranked number two and nationally ranked number three Peter French in Saturday’s final.

Andrewartha is at the peak of his career being on top of both the National and Victorian Men’s Open Grand Prix rankings, and it will take a herculean effort to dethrone him from at least the top of the Victorian rankings this year.

The high quality field also comprises of injury plagued Garry Pedersen, a winner of this event in 2012 and 2013 and runner-up to White in the past two years. Andrewartha's Dromana stablemate, Chris England, who was runner-up to Pedersen in this year’s ESRA Open, is likely to feature in the pointy end of the tournament, as are top Tasmanian duo Leigh Mitchell and Matt Creely, who are also the current Australian Open Doubles Champions.

This event sees the return of seven-time national racquetball champion and five-time world open squash champion Sarah Fitz-Gerald, who has downed tools from building squash courts across the country and will start as favourite to annex another Women’s Open crown.

Fitz-Gerald’s stiffest opposition will come from 2016 Tasmanian Women’s Open champion and South Australian Open runner-up Kristel Proctor, 2016 Victorian and Tasmanian finalist Wodonga’s Laura Shobbrook, plus fourth seeded South Australian Karin Gaard, who eventually finished a very close fourth in this year’s South Australian Open.

With only one more Victorian Grand Prix Tournament Circuit event to be conducted this year (the Lakes Classic on November 5-6), all open and graded players will be striving to capture valuable ranking points to claim individual Grand Prix Champion status for their respective grades this year.