Racquet for the Cure - Day 3
February 11th, 2007 by Geoff Thomsen
Adam Katz to the rescue, with another great writeup of the action at day three from the 2007 Racquet for the Cure WPRO racquetball championships (copyright 2007 Adam Katz):
Each woman in the semifinals has a realistic shot at the coveted year end number one ranking, and so the tension was quite thick as Rhonda and Kerri moved to the Championship court and Christie and Cheryl moved right across the way to their court.
I called lines on the Rajsich/Wachtel match so that is the one I can talk freely about.
Kerri came out very strong in this one keeping Rhonda guessing and diving throughout the first game as her drive z to the right was falling perfectly in this one. She either got the straight winner off the serve or got the weak return for an easy kill quite frequently in this first game winning at 3.
As Rhonda walked off the court, her nose started to bleed so there was a little delay to the start of the second game. Rhonda certainly used that time to regroup as she came out on fire and jumped to an early 5-0 lead. Kerri was able to fight back to 5, but Rhonda had stepped up her game and wasn’t about to fall two games down.
In the third game, it was a back and forth fight from the opening serve but Rhonda managed to stay at least one point ahead throughout to gain the win at 7.
Now trailing 2 games to 1, Kerri tried to regroup and come out strong in the 4th. Rhonda, however, had a different idea and jumped to a 5-1 lead. Kerri did fight back to 5 all but the effort seemed to take something out of her and Rhonda used that to rebuild the lead to 9-5. Again Kerri dug deep and again Kerri came back. Rhonda did serve for the match at 10-9 a couple of times and then Kerri gained the upper hand and moved to game point at 11-10. A timeout each and some truly great retrievals by Rhonda and solid shot making from Kerri kept the crowd on edge until Rhonda finally finished that match off 13-11.
The crowd then moved over to catch the end of Christie vs. Cheryl. Between the first and second game of Rajsich/Wachtel, I walked over to see what was going on and Cheryl was up 9-3 in the first game. I walked back over after game two and Christie had tied the game at 9. At first, I thought that they were in the second game as well, but it was just that good of a game, so I was sorry to have missed it. Cheryl managed to finish it off at 9.
That must have fired Christie up as I was told she came out very strong in game two and didn’t really give Cheryl a chance winning 11-3. The third game had both players settled down and hitting solid shots throughout and 11 points weren’t enough to settle it as each player was “in the zone”. Christie managed to put together the final run at the end to win it 12-10 and take the 2-1 lead into the fourth game.
They moved the 4th game over to the Championship court as Rhonda and Kerri had finished. This and the lead in the match seemed to fire Christie up even more as she just didn’t miss in this game. Her backhand was back to its devastating best and Cheryl just didn’t have an answer on this day as Christie finished it off 11-4.
This sets up the Rhonda and Christie final at 4 this afternoon.
Both players looked very strong heading into this championship match in the 8th Annual Racquet for the Cure as they had each only lost 2 games on their respective ways to the finals.
Christie came out flat rolling everything in sight to build a 4-0 lead in the first game, and then she stalled. Rhonda slowly crawled back into the match and ultimately got the game to 5-5. At that point, Rhonda hit the momentum changing shot of that game. With the very lively Ektelon Red Fireball bouncing towards her left side as she ran to her right on the right wall, she reached behind her back and hit a perfect down the line pass that eluded a fully stretched Christie and the 6-5 lead. The players continued fighting on point for point for the remainder of that game until Rhonda put together the late run and the 11-9 win.
As the second game started, the crowd was hoping to see Christie tie things up, but Rhonda clearly had other ideas as she built a comfortable lead early and finished the game as quickly as she could. It seemed that Rhonda was just able to get everything and Christie felt the pressure as she was still hitting great shots, but she knew that they had to be even better to finish off a rally.
After the second game, most in the crowd had started to expect that this might only go 3 games, but Christie certainly had other ideas as she built another lead in this one. But again, Rhonda chipped away to square the game at 6 and then put together another run to bring herself to the brink of the title. Christie did manage to get the game back to 8, but Rhonda would not be denied and she gave a quick fist pump when the final point had been earned.
The banquet was another great event to finish off this long, but enjoyable, day of racquetball. A special thank you to Malia Bailey for coming out for the Racquet for the Cure and for sharing your story at the banquet tonight…there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It’s always great to see you, and it was a lot of fun watching you play this weekend…she really played great! As did all the ladies pro and amateur.
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