Former Rochester Pro champs duke it out in Colombia

August 17th, 2008 Mithun Mukherjee Posted in General, Tournaments

If you’ve followed our annual Rochester Pro-Am professional tournament for a while, the South American squash talent that has poured into our event over the past few years should be familiar. This past weekend in Bogota, two recent Rochester Pro champions squared off against each other in the final of the $30K XI Abierto Colombiano PSA tournament. (Official site from Bogota).
(Interesting statistic: the tournament featured TEN former Rochester Pro participants including THREE former Rochester Pro champions.)
It took Colombian Miguel Angel Rodriguez (2006 Rochester ProAm champion) almost 50 minutes and four games to overcome Jorge Baltazar from Mexico (2007 Rochester ProAm Champion). And as Rochester has witnessed Miguel’s sheer agility and Jorge’s masterful racquetwork in past finals, this final was probably a delight to watch as well. Earlier in the first round, Jorge produced an upset by toppling the #5 seed and 2003 Rochester ProAm champion, Rafael Alarcon from Brazil.
Over the years it has been fun to track the progress of our “Rochester Pros” from their early beginnings in our satellite event to the new heights (and world rankings) they continue to scale in the world of professional squash. And to know that Rochester has been a stepping stone in their success is sort of neat in its own way!