NEWS PHOTO SEAN ROONEY
Brad Ambrosi (left) plays a backhand shot against Mark Holtom during the Gas City Open squash tournament Thursday, March 28, 2019 at the Downtown YMCA.
srooney@medicinehatnews.com@MHNRooney
The little black ball was batted around as usual to start the Gas City Open squash tournament Thursday at the Downtown YMCA, but for the first time in seven years there were no professionals on the court.
Due to two major sponsors pulling their funding, this year’s event is essentially just for amateurs, though hometown pro Brock Janzer will be in action starting later tonight.
“We had two sponsors lined up this year, unfortunately within about a month, the beginning of January, we had one of the significant sponsors pull out due to financial reasons,” said tournament organizer Scott Richter of the YMCA. “Something else happened with our other sponsor, so we had to really sit back and look, we were about a month away from the tournament and we made the decision not to have a PSA this year.”
Janzer, ranked sixth in Alberta, got a bye to the second round and isn’t technically the top seed. That honour goes to Calgary’s Jake Hooker, No. 4 in Alberta. Nobody would be surprised if the two wound up in Sunday’s 2:45 p.m. final.
Janzer was a regular in the event since the pro-am began in 2013, working his way up from the junior ranks and eventually turning pro. Richter said the plan is to find a sponsor and resume the pro side of things next year.
For now, they’ll focus on locals and the handful of visitors vying for the $1,000 pots in both men’s and women’s draws.
“We have 40 players this year, so we’re down about 25 amateur players,” said Richter. “We’re down a few out-of-town players, but we still have people from Red Deer, actually a couple from Whitefish. It’s still going to be a great tournament, we get to focus a little bit more on our players this year.”
