Category: IRT

Congrats to your winner on the weekend … well, there was no Pro winner this weekend. For just the 2nd time in recorded pro tour history, an event was started but not completed. #1 Daniel de la Rosa and #7 Kane Waselenchuk had just finished game one of the singles final when the viewers saw them talking with the IRT commissioner @Pablo Fajre on the court … and then we saw nothing but commercials for what seemed like 10 minutes straight before the feed cut out. We eventually got the explanation; wet courts and safety concerns.

IRT statement on the situation: https://www.facebook.com/racquetballtour/posts/10159763607656737

It’s a bummer, because Kane was as dialed in as I’ve ever seen him this weekend and had just taken the first game 15-4. But, the court conditions (which by all accounts were already sketchy all tournament) turned unbearable after an HVAC issue overnight turned the courts into skating rinks. The players will split the points and money, and we’ll have a ? for the winner in the database for the rest of time.

What was the other IRT tournament that never finished? That would be the 2005 Summer Cooler traditional season opener that used to happen in New Orleans every season. But in August 2005 … Hurricane Katrina bore down on the town and the players had to get out of town after completing the quarters on Friday night. The tourney was never finished, Katrina decimated the area … and there’s never been another tournament in New Orleans since.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=38842

Lets review the notable matches in the Pro Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: http://rball.pro/5BBBF2

In the 128s and 64s: Here were some of the eye-brow raising results for me in the first day of qualifying:

• Bravo to the traveling Ecuadorian pros, who fared very well this weekend. Cueva won a round before losing to Horn, and Ugalde made the round of 32s before playing Fernandez tough and losing 13,10.
• Bolivian junior Ezequiel Subieta got two solid qualifier wins over Warigon and Salvatierra before falling to Garay.
• Flight issues took Cardona out of the event, giving Iwaasa a clearer path to the 32s.
• – Mexican junior Guillermo Ortega Jr. got a couple of solid wins over established international pros Gomez and Cuevas to get into the 32s.

In the 32s:

• Horn upset #9 Jake Bredenbeck with relative ease 7,10.
• #12 Manilla was pushed to a 11-9 breaker by Guatemalan Galicia
• Acuna and Iwaasa played a very close match, with Acuna advancing 10,14. Iwaasa could absolutely be a mid-teen ranked player on tour if he played regularly.
• Bolivian junior qualifier Hector Barrios got the biggest win of the round, taking out #10 Franco 14,11.
• Another top 16 seed upset was #15 Robbie Collins, taken out by the young Mexican Ortega.

Three qualifiers into the round of 16.

In the 16s:

• #1 DLR calmed the upstart #16 Alonso
• Underseeded Horn gave Mercado everything he could handle.
• #12 Manilla took out another top 8 player, this time the #5 seeded Portillo in a breaker.
• Fernandez was just a couple points away from an upset of #4 Landa … but couldn’t convert and Landa squeaks by 14,13.
• Murray and Garay played a close game one, and a not-so close game 2 as the Canadian advances 13,0.
• #6 Moscoso made fast work of his oft-difficult rival Acuna 6,4
• #7 Waselenchuk put on a clinic against the young Bolivian Barrios, winning 3,5
• – #2 Parrilla was made to work for it by his young Mexican rival Ortega, but advanced 9,12.

In the Quarters

• DLR held off the mercurial Mercado in a breaker.
• Landa cruised past Manilla in two.
• Murray put another loss on Moscoso. This is the third time in five meetings that Murray has controlled Moscoso and put a loss on him, something that observers continually seem shocked by.
• – Waselenchuk made a statement against Parrilla, donuting him in the first and ensuring that there would e no repeat of Atlanta.

In the Semis

• DLR survived match point against his long-time rival Landa and moved into the final.
• Waselenchuk crushed his Canadian rival Murray 1,1 in another statement win.

In the Finals … as mentioned above Kane was cruising. DLR’s points all came on aces or service winners, which is a difficult strategy to maintain when that’s the only way you can score.

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Points Implications of results
Kane and DLR split the points, getting 350 each, which doesn’t make much of a change in the standings. The top 8 should stay the same after this event, which expires the 2020 Lou Bradley.
DLR (who didn’t play the Lou Bradley in 2020) only expands his lead at the top of the points; he now leads #2 Parrilla by 1400 points, a huge margin. The rest of the top 8 tightens: the difference between #2 and #8 is now less than 500 points, and we’ll see some major jostling in the 2-7 spots after every event going forward.

Acuna should rise to #11, his career best. Manilla should also see a big jump to #12. Beltran will drop, possibly to #15 by virtue of his absence here and expiring points. The other big mover will be Alonso, who will jump from in the 30s to in the 20s.

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Men’s Open and other draws

• Men’s Open Singles had 33 players, and the final featured two veteran international competitors in Canada’s Iwaasa and Ecuador’s Ugalde. They played the “perfect” match, with Iwaasa winning 14,(14),10.
• Men’s Open Doubles featured more of the tour regulars with no pro doubles component, and the competition was fierce. The final was won by Acuna/Alonso topping Fernandez/Ortega Jr in two close games. Great event for Ortega jr.
• – The U21 was a new event here, with players representing SEVEN different countries competing. In the end #1 seeded Bolivian Hector Barrios took out #2 Cuevas in the final, but lots of top young players competed and fared well.

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Dean Baer, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew

Next up?
We’ll recap the LPRT event tomorrow, then talk about what’s next on the calendar

Congrats to your pro singles winner Daniel de la Rosa for his win in Canoga Park on Saturday 4/30/22.

He secures his 8th career Tier1 title, which moves him into a tie for 13th all time with newly inducted Hall of Famer John Ellis . 12th on the list is 1981-82 pro tour champion and fellow Hall of Famer @Dave Peck , who won 11 tier1 titles.

See this link for a list of all 42 historical Tier1 IRT pro tourney winners: http://rball.pro/1D09B4

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=38996

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Lets review the notable matches in the Pro Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: http://rball.pro/22795E

In the 128s and 64s:

• Great showing this weekend from Bolivian Junior @Hector Barrios, who won twice on Thursday, including an upset of IRT regular @Erick Cuevas Fernandez, to get into the round of 32.
• @Alejandro Cardona ‘s return to the IRT started out well, with two quick wins over seeded competition.
• @Jim Douglas secured his first career IRT win in the round of 128, taking out @Brad Levine in a breaker.

In the 32s, some big upsets.

• #17 upset #16 when @Sebastian Fernandez took out @Thomas Carter in two. Patata can’t seem to get out of the #16 seed at IRT events and will shoot for the big upset on Friday.
• #9 Mario Mercado almost fell to former IRT touring pro @David “Bobby” Horn, but outlasted him 11-8 in the breaker. Its hard to win three matches in a day.
• #21 @Jordy Alonso got the biggest upset of the day, continuing his excellent streak of play lately and beating #12 @Sebastian Franco in two 6,13. Alonso is making a statement lately, now with wins in the last few months over Horn, Franco, and Bredenbeck.
• Cardona made quick work of a hobbled #11 @Alvaro Beltran 13,2 to move into the round of 16
• #18 Mexican junior phenom @Erick Trujillo staved off match point against in game two versus #15 fireballer @Eduardo Garay, then raced to a 11-3 tiebreaker win. Trujillo continues to get solid wins against solid pros.

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In the 16s, two upsets by seeds and a couple other notable matches:

• #8 @Rocky Carson made quick work of #9 @Mario Mercado 6,11 in the 8/9 spot that generally sees really competitive matches. Mercado won his first Tier 1 recently, but has scuffled as of late both professionally and internationally.
• #13 @Adam Manilla got one of the best wins of his career, topping #4 Alejandro Landa in an 11-8 tiebreaker.
• #3 @Andree Parrilla was pushed to the edge by the improving @Andres Acuna but prevailed 10,14
• #6 @Conrrado Moscoso shook off the jet lag after falling behind big in the first, then raced to a two game win over Cardona 14,4.
• In the always competitive 7/10 match, #7 @Eduardo Portillo took a solid win over #10 @Jake Bredenbeck in a tiebreaker
• #2 @Kane Waselenchuk was a no-show, reportedly having “flight issues,” which gave Mexican reigning 18U World champion @Erick Trujillo a walkover into the quarters, his career best.

In the Quarters

• #1 @Daniel de la Rosa reversed his previous result against #8 Carson, topping him in a breaker. These two had met in the last event at this juncture and Carson upset the #1 player; not this time.
• #5 @Samuel Murray cruised past the upset-minded Manilla in two games. It is difficult to come back after a career win and compete in the next round, especially when its just a few hours later.
• #3 Parrilla showed pretty sturdy mental game against #6 Moscoso, coming back from 10-0 down in the first to win 15-12. He then ground out a 15-13 game two win against the talented Bolivian to get a really solid win and move into the semis.
• #7 Lalo put his foot down against his junior Mexican rival, topping Trujillo 8,4 in a dominant showing to move into the semis.

In the Semis

• #1 DLR improved to 5-1 lifetime against Murray, playing a solid match to advance despite Murray’s best acrobatic efforts 13,9.
• #3 Parrilla played a masterful tactical match against #7 Portillo, frustrating his young San Luis Potosi rival to advance 8,8.

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In the Finals, DLR improved to 9-2 career against Andree and took care of business, driving the action and out playing Parrilla en route to a comfortable 8,11 win.

Points Implications of results

The IRT for the time being is doing the ranks on a rolling 11 Tier1 basis, dropping the lowest Tier1 showing and any other events that add up to more than 11 played events. That means this tournament “retires” two Jan 2020 events, where DLR had a win and a final, so he had 700 points to defend. This means his lead at the top will shrink, but he will remain #1 by a sizeable margin.

The big move will be Kane dropping; he had a win in Austin in January 2020 to defend, and earned zero points here, so he’ll drop at least a few spots (my projection shows him dropping to #5 on tour). This means that Parrilla will ascend back to the #2 spot, Landa moves up to #3, and Murray to #4.

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Men’s Open Singles and Doubles draws
No pro doubles here, so a lot of the non top 8 also entered Open Singles … and then a lot of them dropped out, giving a bad look with a ton of WBF-ns on the sheet. Four of the top 8 seeds forfeited out at the round of 16.
The semis featured a very international flavor, with two Bolivians, a Guatemalan, and a Colombian competing. Bolivian 16U payer @Ezequel Subieta took out Colombian vet @SeSet Cubillos in one semi, while Mexican youngster @Miguel Arteaga Guzman got a walkover against Guatemalan vet @Juan Jose Salvatierra in the other. The final thus was #15 versus #16, with Arteaga taking out Subieta 11-10 in a thrilling match.
In Open Doubles, seeds held to the semis, which was full of IRT touring regulars. #1 Garay/Franco (a good representation of the top Colombian doubles team) beat the young team of Trujilo/Rodriguez in one semi, while the excellent pairing of Acuna/Alonso topped the NorCal duo of Antone/Horn.

In the final, Acuna/Alonso prevailed over the hard hitting Colombians, winning easily 13,5.

Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Dean Baer and Leo Vazquez , who flew in specially for this event. We also got to see a ton of streaming from @JTRB , thanks as always for all you do. Thanks also to @Wayne Antone who did some great work on the mike and reffing.

Reminder to Players! Please like and follow this page so that when I tag you, you see it. Facebook will only retain tags of people that like/follow a page, which means lots of you are not getting the notoriety of getting tagged and noticed on Facebook. If your name is here and it isn’t tagged … it probably means I attempted to tag you but Facebook stripped it.

Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar …
https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…/

We have a break next weekend, then on the 5/15 weekend both pro tours are back in action. IRT is in NYC, while LPRT has its Grand Slam in South Carolina.

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The IRT returns to Southern California and its rich player base for the first time in 2.5 years with the SoCal Open. The tournament will be held at the Canoga Park club, which hosted an annual IRT event recently and is now back in the fold.

Play starts today 11am PDT/2pm EDT.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=38996

There’s a huge draw: 42 singles players are entered in to the pro singles draw, with a good chunk of them also playing in the “Open Doubles” draw.
top20 players missing; #13 Bolivian @CarloCarlos Keller did not make the long trip from Bolivia for this one. #15 @RodriRodrigo Montoya and #20Javier Mar are both missing (they may have burned their available vacation for long PARC trip). Otherwise the full top 20 is here plus a ton of guys ranked in the next 10.

Notably, #2 @Kane Waselenchuk was a very-last minute commit, which sets up back end of this tournament well and should be a boon for neutrals and Kane fans.

Lets preview the draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that i’m looking forward to:
In the round of 128:

• Colombian @JJuan Pablo Rodriguez takes on NorCal’s Wayne Antone IV in a fun opener.
• Bolivian junior @Hector Barrios has a solid opener against Texas’ DJ Mendoza
• Former WRT #1 @Alejandro Cardona returns to the IRT for the first time in more than 3 years and faces IRT regular @Anthony Martin in his opener.
• – top SoCal amateur @Iain Dunn takes on Colombian international veteran @Set Cubillos

In the round of 64:

• @Jordy Alonso should face a tough qualifier against the winner of the Rodriguez/Antone match.
• @Erick Cuevas will face a stiff challenge from the Barrios/Mendoza winner for a spot in the main draw.
• Top Guatemalan @JuanJuan Jose Salvatierra has the tough task of facing Cardona, assuming Alejandro wins his opener.
• – An international-heavy quadrant in the draw will see the Colombian Cubillos challenged by Mexican up and comer @MiMiguel Angel Arteaga for a spot in the main draw.

Projecting the 32s: some guys face a third singles match on Thursday, a difficult proposition for any player… so factoring that in, here’s some interesting round of 32s to get into the main pro draw:

• #16/17: Patata versus @Thomas Carter . Carter has been playing well, but Fernandez is better.
• #9 @Mario Mercado faces a very tough draw against #24 @Bobby Horn … who is 7-1 lifetime against him. But, Horn will be playing his third singles match of the day. Mercado is coming off a relatively disappointing PARC event on his native soil … will he bounce back against an opponent he’s struggled against historically?
• #12 @Sebastian Franco has serious upset potential versus #21 @Jordy Alonso. Alonso took out Bredenbeck with relative ease at the last event and may get the upset here as well.
• #11 @Alvaro Beltran is the unlucky recipient of Cardona’s qualifying spot … but again, Cardona will be on his third match of the night. Can he muster enough juice to top the hobbled Beltran? He may. Upset watch here.
• – Lastly, in the 15/18 spot we have a great potential match, with @Eduardo Garay set to take on the up and coming Mexican @Erick Trujillo . Trujillo is fresh off his U21 wins at PARC and his first real big win on tour in Chicago. Look for Trujillo to move on here.

Round of 16: I’m predicting a couple of upsets, otherwise chalk.

• #17 Fernandez pressures but fails to supplant the #1 Daniel de la Rosa
• #21 Alonso continues his run and takes out #5 Samuel Murray .
• On the back of his big run at PARC, #14 @Andres Acuna takes out #3 @Andree Parrilla
• – While not necessarily an upset, #7 @EduaEduardo Portillo takes out #10 @JaJake Bredenbeck to setup a meeting with the King.

Projected Qtrs:

• #1 DLR over #8 @Rocky Carson; It’ll be two matches on Friday for these two, and I think DLR can get some revenge from his upset loss in the last event
• #4 @Alejandro Landa halts the Cinderella run of Alonso
• #14 Acuna falls to #6 @ConrradoConrrado Moscoso in a rematch of the PARC final earlier this month.
• #2 @Kane Waselenchuk wipes out Mexican youngster Trujillo in a rematch of their Atlanta meeting in January.
  
  
  Semis:
• #1 DLR over #4 Landa: DLR is 10-5 career over his Mexican compatriot and moves on here.
• #2 Kane over #6 Moscoso; these two have met several times and the matches can be super-fun, but the Bolivian needs a better strategy than he had in Chicago.
  
  Finals;
• – #2 Kane over #1 DLR. Odds are we won’t get this matchup but this is what all the neutrals want. Kane is still the king, but how far has DLR come?

Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the IRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live.

Look for Dean Baer, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew all weekend on the mike, calling the shots! @Leo Vasquez is also flying in this weekend to help broadcast, and of course the venerable JT R Ball is based in Southern California, so he should be in the streaming mix too!