The racquetball club hosted its annual invitational tournament Friday and Saturday at the Carmichael Complex. It welcomed 167 total participants and is on record as the largest racquetball tournament in North Carolina history. Club president Amanda Ganes, a junior in biological sciences, said these two factors garnered positive feedback from the competitors.
“We’ve had great, positive feedback from everybody,” Ganes said. “So far, this is the biggest tournament held in the history of the state of North Carolina. We have the most courts in the state and even in the surrounding states. So we’re really proud that we were able to have a tournament here and host it. The fact that there were 167 participants is really great. We’ve also made a good amount of money off it.”
As a result of the positive feedback, the club is looking to host another tournament next semester and expand the women’s collegiate portion of the tournament to have a beginners division like the men have.
The competitors included both collegiate and non-collegiate players across several men’s and women’s divisions. The divisions included men’s and women’s advanced and intermediate, men’s beginner, and the Open A-D singles and doubles divisions, which were available to non-collegiate players.
Clubs from other schools such as the University of Connecticut, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and Duke University all came to compete in the tournament.
Ganes said she was pleased with the experience she gained in her individual matches.
“Today, my first match was 15-7, 15-8,” Ganes said. “It wasn’t super hard; it was pretty easy. I played a UConn player. She is the third ranked player on their club. Then I had my doubles mixed, which was men’s and women’s. But I broke my knuckle, so we lost the match.”
Junior Carter, a sophomore in educational studies, said he had more difficulty in his games.
“I played Friday, and I lost both of mine in tiebreakers, so they were really close,” Carter said. “I ended up losing both of mine. I couldn’t move very well around the court.”
Carter played in the men’s collegiate intermediate and Open C divisions.
“The level of competition, especially in the C bracket, you’ll get a lot of good players,” Carter said. “It is always the biggest bracket in the tournament. It had thirty-one people in it when no other one had more than sixteen or so. It’s a lot of variety of competition and you’ll get some players that are OK. I like to rank myself around the middle of the pack.”
