Mike Ceresia

Mike Ceresia is a former Canadian professional racquetball player from Sarnia, Ontario. He won 5 International Racquetball Federation World Championship Gold Medals. This remains the highest total of IRF Gold Medals by any Canadian. In addition, he won 10 Canadian national titles (2 singles and 8 doubles titles) and was a member of the Canadian national racquetball team for 16 years.

Professional

Ceresia has a BA degree in Social Sciences from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Across his career, he has acted as an agent for players, managed sales for Harrow Sports and has helped train and/or manage 5 players who went on to win world championship titles. In 1993, Ceresia started a successful career in sales: he has been a professional salesperson with the National Hockey League, Canadian Golf Magazine and Corus Radio Properties in Toronto and Hamilton. Since 2004, he has excelled in collaborative media sales with Corus Radio; he now works for Corus Radio Toronto.

International competitive record

Ceresia won IRF world championship gold medals in Hamburg, Germany, Phoenix, Arizona, San Luis Potosi, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The competition in Mexico was the first time in the history of the competition that the Canadian team won both the men’s gold medal and the overall team combined gold medal. They defeated the United States in the final. Ceresia partnered three different doubles players to win the match which secured the gold medal for Canada. In the 2002 world championship, the last shot hit by Ceresia secured the men’s team gold medal for Canada, defeating Ruben Gonzales and Mike Guidry of the USA.

Ceresia competed in eight separate IRF world championships and never finished below 4th place. He scored his best results in the team competition of the world championship, and he is one of only five players in the history of the competition to have reached the final in both the singles and doubles at the world championships. He is the only player ever to have won the world championship gold medal in 3 different decades; in addition, he won one silver medal in the world championship singles and three silver medals in the world championship doubles. Ceresia also won a team silver medal at the Pan Am Games in Argentina.

During his career, Ceresia scored victories over many players who were ranked number 1 in the World including Kane Waselenchuk, Ruben Gonzalez, Jason Mannino, Sudsy Monchik, Egan Inoue, John Ellis and Rocky Carson. Ceresia was a part-time player on the International Racquetball Tour for 20 years.

Canadian record

Ceresia won the Canadian national singles title twice, and appeared in the finals on three other occasions. He won Canadian national doubles title eight times and was in the final five other times. Ceresia won double titles partnering Simon Roy, Gary Waite (a very well-known Canadian squash player), Paul Shanks, Jacques Demers, Roger Harripersad and Mike Green.

Sarnia Sports Hall of Fame

Ceresia was inducted into the Sarnia Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.

Racquetball industry

Ceresia negotiated one of the largest ever contracts in professional racquetball for Kane Waselenchuk, the current world number 1. Waselenchuk was 18 years old at the time.

Personal

Ceresia was born in Sarnia, Ontario and excelled in a number of sports during his youth. He was working as an Assistant Golf Pro in Montreal when he met his wife Claudine. They have two children and currently live in Burlington, Ontario.

References

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1. "Canadian National Champions". Racquetball.ca. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
2. "Mike ceresia honoured". Racquetballontario.ca. 2008-10-31. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
3. "Mike Ceresia - USA Racquetball Match History". Usaracquetballevents.com. 2012-01-08. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
4. "Sarniasports". Sarniasports. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
5. "Penfield Pro-Am Racquetball Tournament 2015" (PDF). Penfieldfitness.com. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
6. "SLAM! SPORTS: 28TH ANNUAL CANADIAN SPORT AWARDS". Slam.canoe.com. Retrieved 2016-01-07.