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LPRT 2025 Arizona Open Preview

Rhonda is back! Photo Src: © Mike Boatman 2010

Welcome to one of the longer running events on tour, the Arizona Open, run by hall of famer @Jim Winterton in Tempe on the campus of Arizona State University.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=45386

We’ve got 27 pros entered in the singles division here, which is a high water mark so far for the new season and seems to indicate a slight increase of “tour depth” from last season.

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Let’s preview the singles draw.

In the 32s:

– We get a rematch of Lotts/Ros in the 16/17 from the Lombard event in November; Lotts won 11,10 back then, but Ros is improving by the month.

– We get a rare sighting of Lucia Gonzalez, former Mexican junior phenom. She takes on Amaya in the 32s, but based on Cristina’s form I don’t see an upset here. Gonzalez, in case you didn’t know who she was, won 7 IRF Junior world titles in her junior career, including the 18U world title in 2013 at a time when the 18U world champion basically was a guarantee of a top 10 LPRT pro (the 2 18U champs preceeding and following Lucia? Lambert, Vargas, Hererra and Mendez).

– Michelle Key, now all the way up to #12, takes on former touring pro regular MRR.

– Lexi York takes on Annie (Roberts) Sanchez, looking to take a step up after finishing off her junior career last December. Sanchez hasn’t had the success on tour that she’s had internationally and this is a good test.

– We have a @Rhonda Rajsich sighting! She’s entered an LPRT event, in her home state, for the first time in two years. She has an easier round of 32 this time than she did two years ago (when she faced Vargas), but she’s still and underdog against #6 @Kelani Lawrence .

– A tough matchup of Mexican top 10 veterans Parrilla and Enriquez is set for the 10-23 round of 32.

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round of 16:

– Amaya/Salas projection in the 8/9 match for the fourth time in a year. Salas has generally been winning these veteran battles, but they’re usually going tiebreaker.

– Gaby-Key in the 5/12: these two have been meeting somewhat regularly in international play for a decade, with Martinez holding the edge.

– Mendez vs the Enriquez/Parrilla winner. Mendez has struggled in her career against Parrilla, but has been playing well as of late and has been playing to her seeds pretty frequently.

– Vargas vs Barrios: this is brutal draw for the #2 seed Vargas, playing a player who has a slew of career wins over her. They’re 4-4 for their career against each other, though Vargas has beaten her handily in the two meetings they had last year. Nonetheless, this is about as big of a contrast in styles as you’ll see on tour and this will always be an upset watch.

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Projected Qtrs:

– 1/8 @Paola Longoria over the Salas/Amaya winner; if its Salas, it would be their 63rd professional meeting.

– 4/5 Herrera vs Gaby; this isn’t a great matchup for Gaby, who has lost to Alexandra the last three times they’ve played. They’ve all been close, but Herrera’s game style seems to stymy Martinez. I’ll go with the lefty to win here.

– 3/6 Mejia vs Lawrence; they’ve played 3 times in their careers, none were especially close. Mejia to advance.

– 2/7 Vargas tops her doubles partner Mendez, to whom she’s never lost in singles.

Semis: It’s more of the same; last event Herrera missed but Laime filled in, but was still the same crew in the semis that i’m projecting here.

– Longoria over Herrera: Alexandra had Longoria’s number for a brief moment, but seemingly no longer. Paola to the final.

– Vargas over Mejia: somehow these two have avoided each other for nearly a year on tour despite both being ranked in the top 3 that entire time. Vargas has had the upper hand lately, but this is always a fun one to watch because of the power-first style of both players. Vargas to win again.

Finals; Another Paola vs Vargas matchup. Did you know these two have played 55 times in pro and high-level IRF events over their careers? It’s been a tale of two players in their head to head career:

– From their first meeting at 2012 Worlds to this Arizona event in 2023, Longoria held an astounding 41-2 over Vargas. She won their first 26 meetings.

– From Feb 2023 to now? Vargas leads 7-5.

Yes those are arbitrary endpoints. But we know Vargas flipped a switch in 2023, which led to her first title in June of 2024, and that switch has stayed on. These two have met in two finals so far this season, splitting them both, both in TBs. No reason not to think that’ll happen again here. When Vargas has an easier semi, she seems to have an easier final; i don’t see that here. So i’ll go with Longoria to win.

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Doubles review

There’s some interesting developments in the Doubles draw. Herrera/Mejia are #1 as expected, but Vargas is playing with Centellas, not Mendez. Both represent Argentina, and they’ve never once played together previously. So, Mendez picks up one of the best doubles players in the world in Michelle Key and they’re the #2 seeds.

Key/Mendez will have their work cut out for them, as team Guatemala is the #7 seed and is a favorite to upset them. Meanwhile, the experienced team of Scott/Lawrence will test the new-look Argentines in the 4/5 matchup.

At the end of the day, I th ink its the two top Mexican teams facing off once again in the final, with Herrera/Mejia topping Longoria/Salas for the title.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Look for Timothy Baghurst, Sandy Rios, Jerry J Josey Jr., and Tj Baumbaugh on the mike, calling the shots!

Coincidentally, if you’re interested in playing Fantasy Racquetball for this event, the links to the brackets are advertised on LPRT’s main page. The winner each week gets free swag!

Associations

@LPRT

Hashtags #racquetball #proracquetball #lprt

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5th Annual Average Joe’s Tournament Recap

Jake with the double in Jersey. Photo Kevin Savory 2020 USAR national doubles

This past weekend was a fun annual tradition; the racquetball-mad Kelley brothers hosted their 5th annual Average Joe’s Event at their custom built court on their property in New Jersey.

Last year’s event was plagued with issues, when a foot of snow hit the Kelley house and wreaked havoc on the electricity.

So, what happened in 2025? Well, four current or former touring pros showed up on the Kelley’s doorstep, which pushed 2024 champ Sendrey down to be the 5th seed. Your top 8 seeds in singles were: Sebastian Franco, Jake Bredenbeck, Momo Zelada, Sam Bredenbeck, Cole Sendrey, Joe Kelley, Jose Flores, and Kyle Ulliman.

Ulliman fell in the 8/9 game to co-host and 2023 champ Sam Kelley; the rest of the seeds went through unscathed. All four top seeds took care of business in the quarters to face off in the semis. There:

– In the top half, Franco moved past Sam Bredenbeck

– From the bottom half, Jake took care of Momo to give us a 1v2 final.

In the final, Jake took out Franco to claim the singles title.

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In doubles, Sam & Joe Kelley upset the #2 seeds from Maryland Momo & Franco early, but couldn’t take out two-time defending doubles champ Dylan Pruitt & parter Sendrey from the bottom half, putting the two young guns in the final.

The Bredenbeck’s held serve as the #1 seed, topping the team of Dixon & Flores in the other semi.

In the final, Jake made it a double for the weekend and prevented a 3-peat by Dylan by taking the title with brother Sam.

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Event Winner Archive:

Singles:

– 1st Annual in 2021: Joe Kelley over Austin Cunningham

– 2nd Annual 2022: Kyle Ulliman over Victor Migliore

– 3rd Annual 2023: Sam Kelley over Victor Migliore

– 4th Annual 2024: Cole Sendrey over Kyle Ulliman

– 5th Annual 2025: Jake Bredenbeck over Sebastian Franco

Doubles:

– 2021: (no doubles event)

– 2022: (no doubles event)

– 2023: Pruitt/Bleyer

– 2024: Pruitt/Cunningham

– 2025: Bredenbeck/Bredenbeck

That’s it for the 2025 Kelley Invitational.

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IRT 2024 Season Recap Part 3: Notables outside top 20 and Commentary

Carson extends his season tournament streak. Photo Portland 2019 via Kevin Savory

In part 3, we’ll talk about the notable players outside the top 20, talk about who’s left the sport or seems to be leaving the sport, and then at the end talk about the recent IRT ownership news and provide some commentary about the state of the sport.

Notable Players outside the top 20 this year:

– #22 @Sam Bredenbeck played the first three events of the year, then opted out of everything after May. His brother continued to tour for the rest of the year. Is Sam done playing the tour? He’s entered 28 tournaments in his career, with 8 round of 16s to his name. Round of 16 money isn’t enough to justify the expenses of touring.

– #23 Rocky Carson showed up for 2 events this year to secure his 29th career season with a tournament played. He’s now 3rd all time in terms of seasons with appearances behind Cliff’s 35 and Ruben’s 32.

– #25 @Jim Douglas played all 6 events, lost in the round of 32 in all six events, but is one of the few to play in every event this year.

– #26 @Jhonatan Flores could be the next big thing coming from Bolivia. He cruised to the 2024 18U junior world title (defending the same title he won in 2023), only dropping two games in the semifinal against Mexico’s Eder Renteria. He popped into the USA to play two events in March, and made a run to the quarters in Lombard with wins over James Black, Jake, and Collins. He took then stretched Kane to a tiebreaker, eventually losing 3, (13), 7. This guy is the real deal … and of course he’s Bolivian so we’ll probably barely see him on tour thanks to financial challenges inherent to the sport.

– #32 Diego Garcia Racquetball , another guy we rarely see in the states but who very well might be one of the best 10-12 players in the sport. His IRT results were lacking this year, but his international results were decent (semis at PARC, qtrs at Worlds).

– #36: @Alejandro Cardona, Mr. WRT, is still playing events and getting results. He played the first three events of the season and still can hit the ball.

– #38: @Daniel De La Rosa , 3-time IRT tour champ, now retired from touring. Despite what he said publicly in October 2024 and despite what his sponsors promised, his pickleball calendar basically crushed his racquetball season. After entering the season-opening Lewis Drug event, DLR wasn’t seen on the IRT again. He made time though to dominate US Nationals, and then cruise to a world title in San Antonio. He also played the team event at 3WB, then hopped a red-eye to make his MLP event in Virginia Beach. But the realities of the pickleball commitments are clear; he’s done playing racquetball on any regular basis. The Pickleball community values having “the racquetball champion” play their sport, so i’m sure he’ll find time to play amateur nationals and major IRF events going forward, but his time on the IRT may be done.

– #45 Gerson Miranda, #47 Hector Barrios, and #55 Sebastian Hernandez are all top-notch junior players who would represent the next generation on tour if they could play it regularly.

– #60: @Coby Iwaasa played one event, another guy who probably could be a top 15-20 player or better if there was the financial incentive to tour.

– #65: @Alvaro Beltran managed to play one event; he played the Lewis Drug and got beat by Lalo in the opener. He’s still a fantastic doubles player and continues to be a force in outdoor, but his singles time may be done except for the occasional drop-in event close to home.

– #77 @Brad Levine played the SoCal Open, and in doing so extended his own personal record of being the oldest known entrant to an IRT event.

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2024 saw an entire season pass without appearances from several notable players who have been active, and in some cases highly ranked, in the past few seasons.

– Alejandro Landa has retired as announced and has not appeared.

– Sebastian Franco, a regular tour player in 2022, did not play a single event this year.

– Maryland resident, former top 10 player, and Formula Flow partner @Mario Mercado did not play a single event. His business partner Zelada had one result.

– Carlos Keller Vargas continues to represent Bolivia internationally but did not play a single tour event in 2024.

– Nick Riffel, who is Adam Manilla’s regular outdoor partner and former touring pro; zero results this year.

– Sebastian Fernandez filled in last minute to win a US National title but played no pro events.

– Bobby Horn did not even enter his own event this year, but apparently is training to compete at the Lewis Drug later this month.

– Charlie Pratt’s usual single season appearance at his home town event didn’t sanction this year.

– Nothing from Mexican talents Javier Estrada, Eduardo Garay, Christian Longoria, or Gerardo Franco.

With several top-10 stalwarts now gone, there’s certainly opportunity for the next generation of players to move up, and we’re already seeing that with new players in the top 10 this year.

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Thoughts on 2025 and the future of the Men’s Pro Sport.

It’s not really controversial, or even penetrating, to say that the sport is in trouble. The Men’s tour in 2024 had just six stops; Lewis Drug, Minnesota HoF, Shamrock Shootout, SoCal Open, Inland Empire, and the Golden State Open. Only three of these even existed a few years ago.

That means that, just from the 2022/2023 seasons, the IRT has lost:

– Longhorn Open (UT changed its policy on hosting)

– Suivant Consulting/Williams Accounting Atlanta event (has Donald Williams stopped sponsoring events?)

– New York Open (Baer brothers stepped away)

– World Singles & Doubles (coming back in 2025 but probably for last time)

– Capital Classic (IRT co-owner Warigon has stopped sponsoring IRT events)

– Tracktown Open (maybe a one and done for 2023)

– Dovetail/Sarasota Open: Kinkin redirecting funds to support Jrs and USAR

– Rally for our Warriors in Boston (Stuart Solomon has a longer history sponsoring LPRT)

– US Open (USAR financial debacle with then-staff failing the sport and the event)

– John Pelham (more money for charity, less for pros)

That’s an entire TOUR worth of events gone in 2 seasons.

Go back a couple more years and you have former events like Arizona Open, the Lou Bradley, the Valentine Open, the Los Compadres guys in SoCal, an event in St Louis, and event in San Antonio, and the Mercedes Benz sponsored event in Cincinnati. All of these tournament directors and events are gone. Can they be reclaimed?

The 6 events last season is the fewest number of events on tour (skipping the covid-related 2021) since the tour collapsed in 1988-1989. They were able to recover then; can they now? In both cases new ownership took over; this time its Keith Minor, who has brought along the financially-connected Negrete, the motivated Manilla, and a big checkbook to hopefully rebuild relationships with the 15 or so tournament directors who have left the sport in the last few years.

Also, nowhere on this list is a single event outside the United States. The tour is dominated by Mexicans; when was the last time an IRT stop was held in Mexico? The answer? 2011. LPRT has had stops in Mexico pretty regularly but nothing for IRT. The WRT came and went, holding dozens of Mexico based events and driving a huge following in the country, and then the IRT literally hires the WRT founder … and still no Mexican events. It’s just as bad for Canada: last pro stop north of the border was in 2008 despite a Canadian national winning a dozen titles since then. We managed to put one event in Bolivia, that sport-crazed country, in 2019 … but nothing since. On the one hand, yes I understand the financials and exchange rates. But on the other hand … where the hell are the sponsors in these countries? Racquetball is crazy popular in both countries, but there’s nobody who can get a pro stop funded??

2024 Junior Worlds showed the Mexican/Bolivian dominance in the sport pretty well: 29 of the 30 titles were won by Mexican or Bolivian players/teams, yet those two countries never host pro events, and as a result their top players struggle to compete on the established pro tour of the sport. I’d really like to see how U21 winner Acha or U18 winner Flores would fare if touring regularly; instead we may get one or two annual trips from them and probably a seeding in the 30s and a brutal round of 16 loss with almost no prize money to dissuade them from coming back.

The tour is likely going to be won by a 44 yr old next year, with a slew of 29-yr old players populating the rest of the top 10. Where’s the next generation of players who will take the mangle? Can a 22yr old like Erick Trujillo step up, or will we see a 50-yr old Kane still winning titles in the year 2030?

I’m hoping to see a more robust tour schedule for 2025; we’ve already seen a slew of new event announcements, which is a good sign. My conversations with Keith indicate we may literally double the stops in 2025 from 2024 (fingers crossed), but certainly we’re in a better place than we were on tour late last year. The new group has some new ideas, and that might bring a spark to the sport.

Best of luck to Minor and the new team, and I can’t wait for the first event of 2025.

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IRT 2024 Season Recap Part 2: Players ranked 11-20

Alonso was one of the biggest stories of the year. Photo via Alonso Twitter page

We went through the top 10 in part 1. Lets talk about the guys who finished 11-20, which include a combination of grinders, former top 10 players who missed time, guys on their way out, and guys on their way in.

We start with the #12 ranked player b/c there was a tie for 10th on tour, so technically our first post had one additional player reviewed.

– 12: @Jordy Alonso . One of the biggest stories of the season was the run Alonso made at the SoCal Open in May (see https://rball.pro/pno for the match report. As the #30 seed, he won a round of 64 against Mexican Alejandro Bear, then gave Kane Waselenchuk his earliest career loss in the 32s, beating him in the breaker 11-1. He didn’t stop there, then topping Collins, Martell, and Montoya to make the final before falling to Moscoso. Making the final as a #30 seed was the second highest seed in the history of the sport behind only Kane’s return from his 2-year suspension as a #39 seed making a final. He continued getting success the rest of the way and nearly powered into the top 10. Alonso is not a flash in the pan; he had gotten signature wins before, whether it was on the IRT or it was in Mexican Nationals, but has rarely played on tour over the years.

Outlook for 2025: if he plays full time, he’s got the talent to finish deep in the top 10. I think he’s better than the guys who all finished in the 6-11 range, and could push deep into the top 10 with some results. Prediction for 2025: #7

13. Carlos Ramírez ; the Torreon, Mexico native quietly has played nearly every event on tour over the last two years, becoming a constant presence in the main draws, and for his troubles earned enough points to finish #13 on tour. He’s never advanced past the round of 16 in his career; his best result on tour probably was a tie-breaker loss to Carrasco at the 2024 Minnesota event.

Outlook for 2025: Ramirez is a regular on tour, and regularly gets to the 16s. That means he’s bound to finish in the 13-16 range; i’ll guess he gets pushed down a couple of slots and finishes in the 15-16 range in 2025. Prediction: #16

14. @javier Mar; Mar had his typical IRT season: played about half the events, got a couple of solid results (made a semi in Pleasanton), upset a couple of top-10 players (Jake, Acuna) had a couple of early round battles that didn’t go his way (round of 32 losses to Carson, Trujillo), and showed well on the doubles court (won a title in Pleasanton and finished #6). He can really shock the field (in 2022’s Capital Classic he beat, in order Roland Keller, Garay, Parrilla, Jake, and Murray to make a final). He struggled with a core injury that limited his singles play for months, and has a career that prevents him from committing to the tour full time.

Outlook for 2025: I’ve always been a fan of Mar, ever since watching him stare Kane down at the 2018 US Open and play him as tough as anyone had played him, losing 12,10 to a guy who owned the tour at the time. But Mar has had trouble replicating those results on the regular. It seems like this is who he is: a guy who makes about half the events, can get a run going, but just doesn’t play enough to crack the top 10. Prediction for 2025: #15

15. Eduardo Portillo Rendon : After four straight season in the top 10, including some significant wins and a title in 2022, Lalo missed four of the six events this season while doing flight training, studying to become a pilot. If he plays the tour regularly, he’s a top 6-8 player easily. But his schedule is an unknown; it may be very difficult for him to commit to a 4-day weekend to play a tour event while being low-man on the pilot totem pole call sheet.

Prognosis for 2025: I’m going to assume he’s missing a big chunk of the season again, playing when he can, and thus will be limited in what he can accomplish. I’ll guess #13 for next year.

16. @Robby Collins continues to chug along on tour, playing all six events, making four round of 16s but taking a couple of early losses. This has been his pattern over the past three season and seems likely to continue. He’s a veteran player who’s a tough out for a lot of his typical round of 32 opponents, but a long shot to advance past a top8 player.

Outlook for 2025: the new US Junior national team coach and sometimes-partner to Horn and Manilla in their organizational exploits seems set to continue touring regularly, so a 16-18 finish seems likely once again. Prediction: #17.

17. Diego Gastelum comes in at #17 and along with Trujillo represents the next generation of top players in this sport. Trujillo, Gastelum, Acha, Sebastian Hernandez, and Jhonatan Flores are all in the 18U/21U circle and are of similar talent levels, and they seem set to follow in Trujillo’s footsteps to try to make noise in the sport. We havn’t seen a ton from some of these players yet domestically (cost and visa issues), but some we have, including Gastelum. He beat this year’s U21 world champ Acha at worlds last year, and has some back and forth results with Trujillo in both juniors and adult events.

Prognosis for 2025: I sense Gastelum will continue to tour regularly, and I favor him to make a bunch of 16s. I can see him incrementally jumping up the ranks. I’d love to see him h2h against players like Natera or Carter or Collins to see where he rates. Prediction: #14

18. @Samuel Murray . Murray showed up at the season opener and won it for his second career tier 1 title… then he missed the rest of the pro season. He continued to play for Canada and Internationally, but not on the pro tour. Right now, he represents a first for the sport; he won his last event and may actually be retired. If this is the case, he walks off Pete Sampras style with a win, and may end up breaking a bunch of my reports that all assume players lost their last match.

Outlook for 2025: is he retired? Seems like it. He’s now 31 and is in kind of the same boat as Jake Bredenbeck: he’s a power-guy who’s aging and spent most of his 2023 season struggling to make the quarters on tour. He’s got a good thing going in Canada though, where he hasn’t relinquished the National title in a decade and thus guarantees an influx of money from the association for a while. Still, I have to think he’ll sneak across the boarder for the Lewis and Minnesota events and may get some results. I’ll go #20 next year.

19. @Kadim Carrasco continues to do what he’s done for the past few season: plays most of the events, sometimes gets to the round of 16, never beyond. In 33 career pro events he’s never gotten to the quarters. But, he has had decent success on the doubles court with Moscoso and can hold his own on the forehand side.

Outlook for 2025: more of the same; at age 36 he’s still solid and apparently likes the travel, so I’ll guess he finishes in the 19-20 range again. Prediction: #19

20. Cole Sendry. one of the top USA juniors has been a traveling man this year, flying all over the country to play pro-stops and top events. He’s shown some solid progression, with a win at the Kelley Brother’s event, and he’s gotten some decent IRT results, generally winning when he should have . His IRT losses this year were mostly understandable (Carter, Cuevas, Jake, Parrilla, Portillo). He made two round of 16s, lost in the 32s the other times.

outlook for 2025: clearly he’s actively touring, so I’d expect him to rack up points similarly to the way Carlos Ramirez does. I’d like to see him get some wins against the likes of Cuevas and Ramirez, but his seeding often has him playing a tougher opponent in the 32s. Still, playing all the events and getting wins guarantees a top 20 finish these days. Prediction: #18

Stay tuned for part 3.

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IRT 2024 Season Recap Part 1: the Top 10

Another title for Kane. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

Hello Racquetball Fans! Welcome to my annual tradition of recapping the results of the Men’s pro International Racquetball Tour season. This annual set of posts is to notify the community of the final season rankings now being loaded and live in the database, to publish some useful links wrapping up the season, and then to talk about the players.

We’ll do 3 parts:

– Part 1: Top 10 ranked players and master links

– Part 2: Players ranked 11-20

– Part 3: Notable Players ranked outside the top 20 and commentary about the state of the sport.

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First, here’s some quick links for the 2024 rankings and how they present in the database:

– 2024 Rankings, from 1-77: https://rball.pro/lwj

– 2024 Season Summary Report for all 2024 players: https://rball.pro/hx0

The season-ending ranks for each player also flow to their personal Season Summary Reports for their careers. For example, here’s Adam Manilla’s Career Season Summary report, showing his year-end rankings per season: https://rball.pro/r8k

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Now, lets run through the year’s top 10.

1. Kane Waselenchuk , He wins 4 of the 6 events for the year after missing an entire year due to his blown Achilles heel injury. He breaks several age-based records in tour history: he’s now the oldest to finish #1 by 4+ years (besting Rocky’s 2018 accomplishment) and is now oldest to win a tournament (besting Ruben’s long standing 1993 record). He wins the tour title by more than 800 points (that’s two tier 1 wins) thanks to ill-timed injuries to his strongest competitor, and things will get worse for the rest of the tour before it gets better: his first 2024 tournament to expire was a semis loss, so he’s favored to replace that result with a win to increase his lead to start the 2025 season. Some will call his 2024 performance an indictment of the depth of the tour, others will continue to see Kane for what he is: one of the most dominant individual athletes in the history of sports.

Prognosis for 2025: Honestly, I see no reason he can’t repeat as #1. The two players who can really challenge him regularly (Montoya and Moscoso) still can’t seem to put together a complete match to beat him. Kane may be 43, but he still has pinpoint accuracy on his serves and can power nearly everyone off the court without expending a ton of energy. He’s most vulnerable in events where he has to play twice in a day, or against players who can get him off-balance with the serve consistently; that’s a short list in the pro game right now. Prediction for 2025: Repeats as #1.

See https://rball.pro/4oa for more age-based records.

2. Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball : Montoya had a career season, finishing ranked #2 on tour, the highest he’s ever been ranked. He didn’t find the winner’s podium this year, but did make a final (losing 11-10 in January to Murray) and three semis along the way . After years of promise and part-time touring, he’s finally seized his spot amongst the tour elite. He also remains the #1 doubles player in the world, finishing atop the IRT Pro Doubles ranking list.

Prognosis for 2025: Montoya played every event in a season for the first time in his career, but he has a full time non-rball career that may cost him appearances here and there. I think he slips down behind Moscoso for next year. Prediction for 2025: #3.

3. Adam Manilla jumped his year-end ranking from a 2023-emulating #6 to a career-best #3 with a surprise run to the finals of the season’s final event (which awarded Grand Slam points due to the total prize purse). Manilla has toured for years now at age 29 and has generally been a “quarters” ceiling kind of player, but got a career-best win in his home event over Montoya to make his first career final and jump his ranking to #3. This was all the more impressive because, as anyone who’s run a tournament knows, running an event and trying to play in it can be really difficult.

Prognosis for next year: With all due respect to his finals run, Manilla is hitting in rarified air right now. He’s got 58 career events and has made it past the quarters just twice. I think he’ll continue to make quarter finals regularly and will finish in the 5-6 range like he did in 2023. Prediction for 2025: #6

4. Conrrado Moscoso ; Many thought 2024 would be Moscoso’s year; he ascended to #1 early in the season with DLR’s January upset and subsequent leaving the tour, and held the #1 ranking until he got hurt. Just ahead of the October 2024 Inland Empire event, Moscoso announced an arm injury and subsequent surgery for a condition that was called “periostitis.” Googling that term, we discover sometimes called “Tennis Elbow” and is a repetitive use injury. Conrrado missed the last two events of the season and slipped to 4th in the standings. As of this writing, we’re assuming he’s back and healthy for the start of the 2025 season. But time is now officially running out for Moscoso to make his mark; he’s 29, has been touring for years, and has missed a couple of real opportunities to finish #1 on tour. Interestingly though … I don’t sense that’s his real priority; based on conversations with tour insiders, Conrrado is far more interested in international titles than he is in winning a tour title. I’m sure he likes the money though that comes with IRT titles; a dollar here is worth seven Bolivanos, which makes for a great payday if he cashes cheks here.

Prognosis for 2025: assuming he’s healthy, he’ll have his work cut out for him early; being the #4 seed means he plays into #1 Kane in the semis and will struggle to defend his early 2024 results. But, if he can get himself back to the #3 slot on tour, he’ll favor his chances when he faces #2 Montoya (8-2 in their last 10 meetings). He also seems to now be free of a couple of players who have had success against him on tour (Sam Murray has 6 tour wins over Moscoso since 2018), which will clear the path for him into the later stages of events. But, I still don’t see him supplanting Kane when they meet up. Prediction for 2025: #2,

– #5 @Andree Parrilla : Another up and down season for Parrilla, who finishes 100 points behind #3 Manilla but had a better season on paper with 1 final and 2 semis reached. Still, its his sixth straight season in the top 5 on tour, but he seems mired in the 4-5 spot on tour, always coming up short against the top players on tour. Well, now one of those top players is out of the picture in DLR, so there’s room for the SLP product to move back up. He missed an event, then had an unlucky draw in Pleasanton (losing in the 16s to Lalo), else he may have easily finished 3rd this year.

Prognosis for 2025: Parrilla’s big challenge will be when running into Moscoso in the quarters in the 4/5 quarter, but once that gets cleared up Andree has owned the career h2h versus Manilla and should be favored to gradually pull ahead in the poitns race throughout 2025. Generally the only players he’s losing to right now are Moscoso & Kane. He always plays Montoya tough, if he can work his way up to force that as a regular matchup, which may help him finish high. I think though, he settles back into his regular 4/5 spot at season’s end: Prediction for 2025: #4.

#6: Andres Acuña finished around 100 points back of Parrilla for 6th, his career high finish and the sixth straight season he has improved on his season-ending ranking. He made 2 semis, 2 quarters, and had 2 round of 16 losses this year (once to Kane, once an 11-10 heart-breaker to Martell). He probably should have finished higher. Nonetheless; 2 semis are his career best, and he had a couple of really impressive results this year (a win over Montoya, plus a win over the red-hot Alonso). Acuna couldn’t stay away from Kane this year, losing to him four times in 6 events.

Prognosis for next year: If the only person you lose to is Kane, you’re going to do well on tour. Acuna is at his peak age (29) and can build on some momentum. I think he continues to get some solid wins and stays right in that 5-6 range next year. Prediction for 2025: #6

#7 Erick Trujillo finished around 100 points below Acuna and is the first player we’ve encountered in these rankings that i’d call the “new generation” of players. Every one of the following players is either 28 or 29 right now: Moscoso, Montoya, Parrilla, Manilla, Acuna, Mar, Natera, Carter. Of the regular touring players who get results, really only Trujillo and Portillo are at an age where they’re still improving as opposed to being at or near peak age 28-29. This season, Trujillo definitely had some consistency and made the quarters in 5 of 6 events (hence the #7 ranking). he had some solid wins; he beat Jake this year, has wins over Natera and Martell. He had some success at Mexican Nationals but lost to a relative unknown Acha in World Juniors.

Prognosis for next year: He should continue to make quarters, but at #7 and without the flip seeding of yester-year, he’ll continue to run into a #2 seed and lose at the quarter final stage unless he can break through with a big win and change the story. I’d like to see him with a win over Montoya or Moscoso before believing he can improve on a 7-8 range finish. he also is in jeopardy of getting passed by a couple of players who finished in the teens but who are better players. Prediction for 2025: #9.

#8 @Alan Natera showed real improvement in 2024 over past seasons, making the quarters in 4 of 6 events (versus just 2 of 9 events in 2023), but only saw his ranking rise one from the prior seasons.

Prognosis for 2025: #8/#9 can be tricky; you’re always faced with a similarly skilled opponent in the round of 16 only to face off against the top seed a round later with little hope of advancing. Natera solved these 8/9 matchups in 2025, but then would get waxed in the quarters by either Kane or Moscoso. It’s hard to break out of this spot, and for that reason I think he stays right in this general area again in 2025 save an injury above him. Prediction for 2025: #10

#9 @Jake Bredenbeck is at a career cross roads; he’s now hit age 33, which has proven to be a critical year for pro racquetball players historically. There’s dozens of examples of pro players who retired right in the 32-33 age range because they face the same problem Jake does: the tour may be passing him by. A year after he had a win and three finals, Jake failed to get even to the semis of any event this year and took four losses in the 16s or 32s (Trujillo, Flores, Alonso, and Mar). A couple of these were certainly unlucky matchups, and he can improve on his ranking for sure, but is this what he wants to keep doing?

Prognosis for 2025: He’s had some success against Natera, who he’ll run into in the 16s now, and I think he’ll be able to replace some 16s with some qtr losses. He’ll favor his chances if he’s playing Trujillo at the same junction. He can push Kane/Conrrado in a 1/8 quarter but will struggle to get to a semi going forward. At some point he may face the same question many before him have: is it worth it to tour and spend money flying around in order to get round of 16/quarter final money at best when you’re in your mid-30s and are starting to wear down physically and may be thinking about your future? I think he hangs around for one more season but time is running out. Prediction for 2025: #8.

#10T: Jaime Martell Neri and Thomas Carter . Amazingly Martell and Carter finished with identical points for the season, each making one QF and other wise losing in the 16s. I say this is amazing because players get fractional point credits for losing in three games versus two, making it really difficult to tie across an entire season. Martell achieves his first ever top 10 finish on tour after barely touring until 2017 and then not having a single IRT result for three seasons. He’s a solid player who can certainly get wins, and is dangerous if he gets hot . His quarterfinal this season was achieved with an 11-10 win over Acuna.

Meanwhile, Carter also achieves a career first top 10 and got his one quarter final this year with a solid win over Carrasco. He’s very consistent in his career: 33 round of 16 finishes across a decade of competing, with five total QFs spread across five different seasons.

Outlook for next year: I think Martell is better positioned to keep a hold of a top-10 ranking; Carter faced off against Natera in the last three events of the season in the 8/9 spot and lost each time; those have to turn into wins for Carter to move up. I’m sensing though that a couple of guys who played part time in 2024 will jump them both for the top 10 in 2025, something we’ll talk about in part 2 of this series.

Prediction for 2025: Martell #11, Carter #13.

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That’s it for Part 1. Tune in tomorrow to talk about the 11-20 ranked players for the season.

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Racquetball 2024 Year in Review

Here’s a collection of the notable/seminal moments in the sport this year, primarily focusing on those events that impacted the pro game. As I could think of them, I threw in other events of note, though I’m sure one could argue I’m missing items.

– 1/14/24: @Maria Jose Vargas wins her third straight LPRT tournament in a row, taking a commanding lead in the season to date points rankings for the 2023-24 LPRT season.

– 1/28/24: On the IRT at the season’s first event, 3-time defending champ Daniel De La Rosa is soundly defeated by Kane Waselenchuk in the round of 16 as the #1 seed,

which immediately puts a huge dagger into DLR’s fleeting chances at retaining #1 on tour for 2024. He had already announced he will not be playing a full slate of 2024 events, but losing in the 16s makes it even that much tougher. As it turned out, this was the sole IRT event DLR played on the year, with his pro pickleball commitments turning into a full time job.

– 2/1/24: Conrrado Moscoso ascends officially to #1 on the IRT for the first time, a seminal moment for the sport. This is the first time a non-north American

has held the #1 spot on tour.

– 2/11/24: LPRT #4 and USA #1Erika Manilla is forced to retire the US National singles final due to what was thought to be a back injury at the time. Subsequent tests and MRIs show that Erika suffered a hip labrum tear. She goes in for surgery to correct the issue mid March. She doesn’t return for fully 10 months, costing her huge portions of both the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons as well as multiple international tournaments representing Team USA.

– 3/1/24: During the Minnesota Pro/Am, Mark Gibbs of the IRT ownership group discloses publicly that the the IRT ownership group has opened discussions

related to attempting to resurrect the US Open. This information leaks on KRG, as someone publishes the zoom link that preliminary discussions were held on without the knowledge or permission of the people on the call. Eventual discussions with the USAR board go nowhere due to the planned proximity of the US Open to 3WallBall, and the project is dropped.

– 3/3/24: Kane tops Moscoso to take the IRT Minnesota Hall of Fame event, and in doing so wins his first Tier 1 event in nearly two years. His last win was March of 2022, and he clearly showed emotions on the court after finishing off his final’s win over new IRT #1 Moscoso. With the win, he becomes the oldest player to win a Tier 1

at 42yrs, 114 days, breaking a 30-year old record held by Ruben Gonzalez.

– 3/3/24: Despite losing in the semis of the weekend’s LPRT event, Vargas ascends to #1 on tour for the first time in her career. She now leads both the rolling 365 calendar and the season to date points rank and is the odds-on favorite to take the 2023-24 title.

– 3/3/24:Paola Longoria announces her candidacy for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies (the US Equivalent of the House of Representatives) from District 5/Nuevo Leon. Elections are in June. @Samantha Salas Solis, who has family connections to Mexican politics, also runs.

– 3/24/24: Erika Manilla is featured in a full-page story in the Denver Post.

– 3/30/24: Team USA wins its first Combined Team championship in several years at the 2024 Pan Am Racquetball Championships in Guatemala.

– 4/2/24: IRT #1 Bolivian Conrrado Moscoso is chosen to light

the flame at the semi-annual Bolivarian Youth Games.

– 4/28/24: Maria Jose Vargas wins her 5th event of the season at the Sweet Caroline grand slam, essentially wrapping up the 2023-24 title. It’s her first pro title, and

she dominated the tour this year. She topped Paola in the final 11-10, and Longoria’s husband posted ugly rants on social media in the aftermath, claiming biased

refereeing (one of the line judges was Argentine for the final) as the main reason that Paola lost and has been losing all season.

– 5/25/24: Kane Waselenchuk is upset in the first round (round of 32) at the 2024 SoCal Open by Jordy Alonso . It’s the earliest defeat of his career. He had one

round of 64 forfeit from mid 2023, but otherwise he had never been defeated in any qualifying round before the 16s, even during his tour debut. As it turned out, this blip on Kane’s comeback meant little, but it propelled Alonso to make a deep run at this event and others throughout the rest of the season.

– 5/29/24: Racquetball Warehouse announces in an email to its customers that it will be closing its doors, selling itself to RacquetWorld. This is a very long-running, well known name in the industry.

– 6/5/24: Neither Longoria nor Salas, both of whom were running for the Mexican chamber of Deputies, were directly elected in the National elections. They

can still be selected/appointed by the party.

– 6/9/24: Vargas officially wins her first ever pro title by entering the season’s final event in Chesapeake and advancing past the opening rounds. She had a large enough lead on Longoria to essentially have the title wrapped up after Greenville, so this was a formality to complete her dominant season. She becomes the third

different pro to win the last three LPRT seasons.

– 8/3/24: after missing basically the entire 2023-24 season, Valeria Centellas is back and committed for the new season.

– 8/31/24: IRF Worlds are completed in San Antonio; its the first time the US has hosted a PARC or Worlds in nearly 30 years. De La Rosa wins two titles (Singles and Mixed) for team USA to power them to a #2 overall team standing behind Mexico, but then USA wins the team knockout competition to give Daniela 3-gold weekend.

– 9/1/24: Word comes out that Longoria has been selected by her party (Movimiento Ciudadano, or Citizens’ Movement, abbreviated MC) to serve in the 66th Legislature

of the Mexican Congress. This has the likelihood of restricting her travel flexibility and could impact the 2024-25 title race.

– 9/25/24: the first ever World Team Racquetball event is competed on the Las Vegas 3Wall courts. The event features four teams of players competing in doubles for a price purse. Team Dovetail wins.

– 10/4/24: Cliff Swain and Jeff Collins announce preliminary plans to bring the US open to SW Missouri State University in June 2026. They apparently

do this and publish a video before talking to the USAR board. As i can attest, being on the board for the March 2024 discussions with the IRT group, there’s a lot of steps involved with this property before it can just be handed over. I’ll certainly be curious to see how this project evolves over the next 1.5 years.

– 10/10/24: IRT #1 Conrrado Moscoso withdraws from the Inland Empire Pro/Am with an arm injury. Two days later he has surgery to treat what is described

as “periostitis” in his right arm. Then, days later the IRT issues a press release that says that the injury was “more serious than expected” and that Moscoso is now out for the rest of 2024. Moscoso’s missing the remaining events almost certainly locks up the 2024 #1 spot for Kane Waselenchuk.

– >10/13/24: Kane wins the Inland Empire event over Parrilla in a final that was marred by cross-talk between the players that spilled over into social media in the days following. More importantly, Kane regains the #1 ranking on tour for the first time since the 2021 US Open and is now the clear favorite to win the year end title at the age of 43.

– 10/20/24: In a one week period, three former IRT touring pros were all inducted into local Hall of Fames. Mike Ceresia was inducted into the Ontario Sports hall of fame, Scott Oliver was inducted into the Stockton Athletic

Hall of Fame, and Andy Roberts was inducted into the Memphis Sports Hall of Fame. Congrats to all.

– 10/31/24: young up and coming Bolivian Micaela Meneses Cuellar announces her intentions to leave the sport due to a lack of financial support from the Bolivian ministry of Health and sports and a lack of recognition to the Bicentennial Dream program. This seems to be a common refrain from Bolivian athletes, more than a dozen of whom have switched away from their home country to compete internationally for other South American countries (usually Colombia or Argentina).

– 11/5/24: Erika Manilla does a FB live session giving updates on her playing status, hip rehab, etc. She’s going to play her first tournament back at the IRT Golden State Open to test out fitness, hip, recovery, etc.

– 11/18/24: Kane Waselenchuk wins the final event of the IRT 2024 season, the Golden State Open, and with it secures his 15th career pro title. He wins in dominant

fashion, never seriously challenged, and will end up winning the year end title by more than 800 points. It is an amazing accomplishment for the 43-yr old.

After the final, he gave a heart-felt, emotional, and classy speech thanking his sponsors the tournament hosts, and his life partner for all their support in his journey back to the top from injury.

– 12/6/24: Manilla makes her return to the tour, seeded 16th at the Xmas classic. She won her opener but fell to #1 Vargas 4,8 in the round of 16. The injury ends

up costing her 10 months of the tour and she’ll have her work cut out for her to get back to the top 10 by season’s end.

– 12/9/24: Longoria re-takes #1 on tour for the first time since Dec 2023 with a win at the Xmas Classic. She’s now halfway to another pro title after two seasons of losing out to her rivals Vargas and M ejia.

– 12/15/24: IRF’s World Juniors finishes in Guatemala, with players from Mexico and Bolivia winning 29 of the 30 junior titles. Team USA had just a handful of players even making event finals and finished a distant third in the team rankings.

– Dec 2024: sources noted that Head/Penn will not renew its ball contracts that remain with any organization (they already lost the IRT contract some time ago after putting in a non-competitive bid) and sources say that Head is leaving the racquetball R&D space altogether. This would remove one of the major racquet manufacturers from the industry.

– 12/31/24: as has been known for some time, USAR’s Mike Grisz steps down from his volunteer stewardship of the role of Executive Director. Grisz’s legacy as ED will be the saving of the sport financially in the wake of the 2022 US Open financial debacle, and his championing the return of Worlds to the US in 2024.

– Dec 2024: Sudsy’s Florida based Treasure Coast series finishes for the season, having held14 events this year. It’s the only such series in the country and proof that tournament racquetball can still be successful. Monchick, who has relocated to the Pacific Northwest for work, is planning to continue the series in his new home area.

– 12/20/24: Major News in the pro sport: the IRT has reorganized and installed Keith Minor as the new majority shareholder. Minor has brought in a new leadership team and shaken up the existing organizational structure. Former IRT owner/commissioner (he was the commissioner from 2001-2009) Dave Negrete returns as the President of the tour and returns as its new Commissioner. Former Commissioner Pablo Fajre drops to be the Deputy Commissioner but retains the title of Head of Media. Pro player Adam Manilla is installed as the VP and Secretary of the tour. Immediately, there’s action taken on the months-dormant IRT website, with four new events announced for the first quarter of 2024.

– 12/21/24: USAR announces the “Office of the Executive Director” as the replacement for Mike Grisz. A three-woman team of Karen Grisz, Cheryl Kirk, and Kristin Wattz will share the executive duties of the sport on a volunteer basis going forward.

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Tags

International Racquetball Tour

LPRT

USA Racquetball

International Racquetball Federation – IRF

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2024 IRF Junior Worlds Recap

One of the biggest tournaments of the year just wrapped up; Junior Worlds 2024, held at the fabulous facility in Guatemala City for the fourth time in out of the last five years. More than 200 Juniors from 14 countries competed there for the last week.

Champions were crowned in Singles, Doubles, and Mixed Doubles in six age groups: 21U, 18U, 16U, 14U, 12U, and 10U, as well as a team competition, meaning that in essence this tournament actually held 30 separate competitions. All 30 competitions are now in the database; If you see any typos, or name corrections, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Reminder: as a practice, Pro Racquetball Stats does not capture full draws for any groups younger than 14yr olds; for the 12s, 10s, and younger we just capture the champions for historical reporting. Junior Doubles only has the gold medal match, not the full draws. If you’d like to see more data than this for juniors in the database, reach out and I’ll guide you on doing data entry.

Congratulations to your champions:

Boys Singles:

– Boys 21U: Jhoel Acha Portugal, Bolivia

– Boys 18U: Jhonathan Flores, Bolivia

– Boys 16U: Sebastian Terrazas, Bolivia

– Boys 14U: Santiago Borja, Bolivia

– Boys 12U: Alejandro Robles Picon, Mexico

– Boys 10U: Vincent Riveros, Bolivia

Bolivia takes 5 of the 6 Boys titles. Not only that, but every single final was lost by either a player from Team Mexico or a fellow Bolivian for a clean sweep of both Gold and Silver across the board.

Girls Singles:

– Girls 21U: Camila Rivero, Bolivia

– Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar, Mexico

– Girls 16U: Miranda Barraza, Mexico

– Girls 14U: Larissa Faeth, Costa Rica

– Girls 12U: Mary Hinojosa Garcia, Mexico

– Girls 10U: Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico

Mexico takes 4 of the 6 Girls Singles titles. Mexico was also the finalist in 4 of the six draws, showing a real dominance this year.

Team USA had a few of its singles entrants advance to the quarters, but USA did not have a single finalist at this event. The best result in singles for any American was @Annie Sanchez making the semis of U21 and @Naomi Ros making the semis of 18U.

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Boys Doubles:

– Boys 21U: Erick Trujillo/Sebastian Hernandez, Mexico

– Boys 18U: Eder Renteria/Jorge Gutierrez, Mexico

– Boys 16U: Sebastian Ruelas/Nicolas Galindo, Mexico

– Boys 14U: Santiago Castillo/Brian Axel Sanchez, Mexico

– Boys 12U: Alejandro Robles Picon/Max Soto, Mexico

– Boys 10U: Leonardo Zuna Campero/Benjamin Lino Daza, Bolivia

Mexico wins 5 of the 6 doubles titles, losing on the Boys 10U doubles title, where they made the finals. The losing finalists were mostly Bolivians and Team USA, the best result for USA for the event (Sendry/Mendoza losing finalists in 18U and Mangalampalli/Williams making the 14U doubles final).

Girls Doubles:

– Girls 21U: Camila Rivero/Natalia Mendez, Bolivia

– Girls 18U: Adriana Noelia Blacutt/Natalia Mendez, Bolivia

– Girls 16U: Andrea Perez Picon/Miranda Barraza, Mexico

– Girls 14U: Julia Rebello/Angelica Villaroel Garzon, Bolivia

– Girls 12U: Sofia Rocabado/Adriana Bazan, Bolivia

– Girls 10U: Lia Medrano/Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico

Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Girls doubles titles, including a doubles double for Natalia Carolina Mendez. Team USA Victoria Rodriguez & Montserrat Tores made the 16U final for our best result.

Mixed Doubles:

– Mixed 21U: Erick Trujillo/Ivanna Balderrama, Mexico

– Mixed 18U: Nicolas Ramiro Iglesias/Florencia Villazon Chalco, Bolivia

– Mixed 16U: Sebastian Ruelas/Andrea Perez Picon, Mexico

– Mixed 14U: Santiago Borja, Valentina Villarroel Garzon, Bolivia

– Mixed 12U: Hermann Racial Gracia/Michelle Gomez, Mexico

– Mixed 10U: Kerman Damian Gracia/Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico

Mexico takes 4 of the 6 Mixed doubles titles.

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Grand total of Titles won by Country:

– Mexico: 16 of 30

– Bolivia: 13 of 30

– Costa Rica: 1 of 30

There was just one Triple Crown winner on the weekend:

– Girls 10U: Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico

These players earned two titles:

– 21U Boys: Erick Trujillo, Mexico (2 doubles titles)

– 16U Boys: Sebastian Ruelas, Mexico (2 doubles titles)

– 14U Boys: Santiago Borja, Bolivia (singles and gender doubles)

– 12U Boys: Alejandro Robles Picon, Mexico (singles and gender doubles)

– 21U Girls: Camila Rivero , Bolivia (singles and gender doubles)

– 21U Girls: Natalia Mendez, Bolivia (who won both 21U and 18U doubles)

– 16U Girls: Miranda Barraza, Mexico (singles and gender doubles)

– 16U Girls: Andrea Perez Picon, Mexico (2 doubles)

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Team Winners:

– Boys Team: 1. Mexico, 2 Bolivia, 3 USA, 4 Costa Rica

– Girls Team: 1. Mexico, 2 Bolivia, 3. USA, 4 Guatemala

– Combined Team: 1. Mexico, 2. Bolivia, 3. USA, 4.

– Boys Esprit cup: 1. Bolivia, 2. Mexico, 3 Costa Rica, 4. USA

– Girls Espirit Cup: 1. Bolivia, 2. Mexico, 3. USA, 4. Ecuador

– Combined Espirit Cup: 1. Bolivia, 2. Mexico, 3. USA, 4. Ecuador

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Every singles and doubles draw has a match report in the database that you can run: instead of repeating dozens of links we’ll give some examples here. Surf to www.proracquetballstats.com, click on either Juniors or “Junior Doubles” database, then at the very top you can pull down a match report. You can also run a number of different reports for singles and doubles.

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Singles Draw commentary

Now some quick commentary division by singles division, mostly to recognize winners who have earned multiple Junior World titles over the years, and to provide some commentary on the older divisions with players who have already competed on the pro tours…

I use these “Matrix Reports” constantly; they show all the Junior winners across every age group for all of time. These links are for the Junior Worlds and date to 1989, the first ever Junior Worlds event, but are also available for USA, Canada, and Mexico.

Boys Singles Matrix Report: http://rb.gy/acygod

Girls Singles Matrix Report: http://rb.gy/yfsvqq

Boys 21U: #1 seed Bolivian Jhoel Alexis Acha took the U21 world title, topping current IRT top-10 ranked Erick Trujillo in the semis and Sebastian Hernandez in the final. This immediately makes Acha one of the top 20 players in the world in my personal pecking order, by virtue of the company he’s keeping. One thing Junior Worlds provides is a pathway into the top players in Bolivia, who we never get to hear about other wise.

Boys 18U: Jhonathan Flores repeated as 18U World Junior champ. The only player to get a game off of him the entire tourney was in the semis, when Mexico’s #1 Eder Renteria took him to five games. Flores, for those who forgot, took out Jake, Collins, Ulliman, and Alonso in Chicago’s IRT event in March. He’s legit, and as an 18yr old is probably better than any of the U21 players still juniors-eligible.

Boys 16U: Bolivian Sebastian Terrazas wins his 2nd career junior world title; he took 12U title in 2021 previously. Terrazas did not win his own National title this year, losing to Bismark Pereria (who was upset early here), but took out both of Mexico’s top 16U players in the semis and finals to win.

Boys 14U: Bolivian Santiago Borja repeats as 14U champ, but the story of this draw was the sole South Korean entrant at Junior Worlds: Taein Woo came in and upset Mexico’s Santiago Castillo 12-10 in the fifth to open the event, then made a run to the semis before falling to the eventual champ Borja.

Boys 12U: Alejandro Robles Picon, who made the rare switch from USA to Mexico for the start of 2024, captured his first ever Junior worlds title. He and his sister had huge weekends.

Boys 10U: Bolivian Vincent Riveros starts out his junior career with a win.

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Girls 21U: Camila Rivero, who briefly switched to play for Colombia but who now is back in the Bolivian fold, repeated as U21 champ. Last year she also won the 18U title, meaning she has another two years in the U21s. She’s got a few LPRT results on her resume from a few years back, but her most notable result may be a quarter finals finish at Worlds in San Antonio earlier this year when she played Longoria tough in a loss.

Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar topped America’s best chance for a medal in Naomi Ros in the semis, then beat her country-man Cynthia Gutierrez for her first World title.

Girls 16U: First time singles winner Miranda Barraza topped Andrea Perez Picon in the final to win the all-Mexico gold medal match.

Girls 14U: Costa Rican Larissa Faeth won the sole medal at these competitions not won by someone from either Mexico or Brazil, She moved up to 14U after winning 12U last year and claimed the title in her age 13 season.

Girls 12U: Mary Hinojosa Garcia moved up from 10U to win back to back titles.

Girls 10U: Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, the sole triple crown winner, got started with a singles title.

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Thanks to the International Racquetball Federation for hosting the event, thanks to the great hosts in Guatemala, thanks to all our the coaches and parents who sacrificed to get your kids down there, especially this close to the holiday season, thanks to @Gary Mazaroff for the streaming and broadcasting with partners all tournament.

That’s it for the 2024 Racquetball year. I still owe an IRT season summary article (waiting for the final season rankings to publish), plus I’ll throw together a recap of the calendar year of events before the year is out.

International Racquetball Federation – IRF

Posted on

32nd Annual LPRT Christmas Classic Wrap-Up

Longoria is back on top, both in Maryland and of the tour. Photo via US Open 2019, Kevin Savory

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Paola Longoria

– Doubles: @Montse Mejia and Brenda Laime Jalil

comments on winner; updated # of tourneys, updated season, etc

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=46046

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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/bd7

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In the 32s:

– @Erika Manilla made a winning return to the tour, topping newlywed Maria Renee Rodríguez 11,7 in the opener. She fell to Vargas in the next round, but she’s back on tour, which is the best news following her 10-month injury absence.

– @Frederique Lambert blasted Michelle Key 6,1 in a surprise first round matchup. Key is coming off taking Longoria to a breaker in the last event but was handled easily by the part-time player/ER doctor Lambert.

– @jesJessica Parrilla topped @Laura Brandt 0,4 to move on. Notable only because Brant’s appearance on tour at age 62 was the 3rd oldest known tour appearance in the history of the Ladies pro tour. https://rball.pro/nyi

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In the 16s:

– #9 Carla Muñoz turned the tide on a recent lost to Cristina Amaya Cassino , topping the #8 seed in a breaker. This could be a fun rivalry for a while.

– #3 Mejia was pressed by @Valeria Centellas but moved on 10,14.

– #11 Parrilla got a solid win over #6 @Kelani Lawrence to earn a rare quarter final.

– #7 @Natalia Mendez kept her recent streak alive over #10 @Samantha Salas Solis , going breaker to advance.

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In the Quarters

– #1 @Maria Jose Vargas moved past Munoz 1,11

– #4 @Ana Ana Gabriela Martínez held off #5 Laime in a close 10,12 match.

– #3 Mejia moved past country-woman Parrilla with ease 4,5

– #2 Longoria was not troubled by Mendez, winning 6,8

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In the Semis

– Vargas and Gaby went down to the wire, with Gaby having a match point at 10-10 but was unable to convert. This was just the opening Vargas needed, as she rolled off a couple points 9-10 down to win the semi 11-10 and move on. Heartbreak for the Guatemalan.

– Longoria continued her recent mastery over Mejia on the singles court 13,5 to earn another final.

In the Finals, Vargas and Longoria had another back and forth affair, this time with the long-time #1 coming out on top.

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Points Implications of results

With this win. Longoria should take back over the #1 spot on tour, which she relinquished in December 2023 for the first time since 2008. Munoz and Amaya should switch spots at the 9/10 range. Michelle Key rises to #14, which may be a career high. Lastly, Manilla comes in at #20 and will have her work cut out for her as she regains ranking points here on forward.

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/rve

Manilla and her Team USA teammate Michelle Key topped the #2 and #3 seeds to earn a final, but lost to the #1 seeds Mejia & Laime there. Still, a great result.

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Open Singles, other notable draws

– Women’s Open Singles: Centellas got the title, with a win over MRR in the final. MRR had topped Parrilla in the semis for a solid win.

– Men’s Open Singles: Local IRT veterans @Mario Mercado and MoMo Zelada , co-founders of @Formulaflow and playing out of their home club, met in the final, taken by Zelada in three.

– Mens Open doubles: IRT staff member Samuel Schulze and local Maryland player John Behm shocked Mercado/Zelada in the Open doubles final.

– The Simmons Father/daughter duo took the Mixed Open/Elite doubles title, topping two local players Imani Valentine & Chris Ruano in the final.

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

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.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMbIP9SZd0MssH_nPGU/edit?usp=sharing

the International Racquetball Federation – IRF World juniors event is underway in Guatemala, with group stages going on now. We’ll possibly post a preview of the knockouts based on time this week, otherwise we’ll recap it next week. There’s one big outdoor event happening this weekend, then the year wraps up.

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tags

LPRT

Posted on

LPRT 32nd Annual Christmas Classic Preview

Erika is back for the first time in months. Photo 2021 US Open via Kevin Savory

Welcome to the halfway point of the LPRT season, and the final pro event of the 2024 calendar year. It is the long-running DC-area based Christmas Classic, which has been an LPRT stop for years. The event is in its 32nd year, which puts its first iteration in the 1991.

I first helped out with this event, as far as my old files tell me, in the 8th iteration in 1999 when the event was run in at the Tysons club in Tysons Corner (McLean) Virginia. The event has moved around the DC area as clubs were closed or lost enough courts to make hosting impossible; the event has gone from Tysons to Crystal Gateway in Arlington, to Sportfit in Laurel Maryland, and now at the Severna Park Health & Racquet facility in Millersville/Severna Park area closer to Baltimore. LPRT sanctioning began in 2007 and has been consistent ever since, making it one of the longest continually running pro events out there, for either the Ladies or the Men.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=46046

There’s 24 players here this weekend. Top players missing include #4 Herrera, #15 Barrios, #19 Ros and #20 Scott.

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Let’s preview the draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that i’m looking forward to:

In the 32s:

– We have the triumphant return of @Erika Manilla , who comes in at the #16 seed. She’ll face off against another player who’s attendance has been spotty lately , long-time tour player #17 Maria Renee Rodríguez for a shot at #1 Vargas.

– The 24th seed out of 24 is California @Erica Williams, who’s flow 3,000 miles from her home town in the Bay Area to play and watch. Williams is one of the biggest supporters of racquetball on the west coast and its great to see her in the DC area.

– Two top Canadian players are entered this weekend; @Juliette Parent faces off against #12 @Lexi York in what could be a great match. Meanwhile, Frederique Lambert makes a rare appearance coming off her Canadian National selection event win last weekend; she plays into #13 Michelle Key , who’s been on fire lately.

– #12 @Jessica Parrilla faces off against Laura Brandt , who is playing this event in her age 62 season, which has to be close to a record for the LPRT. Hmm; that sounds like a query worth writing: oldest player ever to appear in a pro event? That might be a fun one.

– In the 15/18 we get María Paz Riquelme versus Khyathi Velpuri , a good test for the young Colorado based American.

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Projecting the round of 16:

– #1 @Maria Jose Vargas has to contend with Manilla in her first event back: it may be a bit too early for Erika to take out Vargas, but this is a semis-quality match in the 16s.

– In the 8/9 @Carla Muñoz and Cristina Amaya Cassino face off in the round of 16, in this 8/9 match, for the 4th time since May. Munoz won the first two this year, but Amaya got her two weeks ago in Chicago. Coin flip.

– #4 @Gaby Martinez is here, making a somewhat rare appearance, and she gets the winner of the Lambert/Key match as an opener. Gaby is a threat to win whenever she enters and has three tournament wins in the last four seasons. If she’s to go on a run she’ll have a tough opener to get her started.

– #6 @Kelani Lawrence makes the drive up from Virginia and gets a second ever meeting against @Jessica Parrilla . Kelani beat Leoni in May; can she do it again?

– #7 @Natalia Mendez and #10 @Samantha Salas Solis look to meet for the third time in the round of 16 since June; Mendez has crushed Salas the previous two times.

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Projected Qtrs:

– #1 Vargas over Munoz/Amaya winner; Vargas is 15-1 combined against her two possible opponents career on the LPRT and is coming off a win in Chicago two weeks ago.

– Great potential quarter between #5 Brenda Laime Jalil and #4 Gaby. Laime had Longoria beat two weeks ago in Chicago; I thought she rolled out match point before having it called a skip and then losing 11-10. If she’s playing at that calibre, then she’s going to be tough for Martinez to beat here. These two met in the semis in Denver, a tough TB win for Gaby before she won the title. however, these are Laime’s home courts, and they’re not playing at altitude as they did in Denver (where Gaby lives and trains and had the advantage). I’ll go with Laime in the upset.

– #3 @Montse Mejia versus the Lawrence/Parrilla Winner: Mejia got waxed in the last pro event, and hasn’t made a final since April. She shouldn’t be troubled by either player at this juncture, but can’t look forward to her anticipated semis meeting against Paola.

– #2 Paola Longoria likely faces Mendez, just as she did two weeks ago, and likely moves on with little trouble.

Semis:

– Vargas over Laime. They’ve played 5 times, but most are older results. The last time they met was in June 2023, a tie-breaker win for Vargas. I sense Laime presses Vargas to a breaker but falls.

– Longoria over Mejia; they’ve met 26 times in top-level/non-regional event competitions. After a spell in 2022 when Mejia had her number, Longoria has taken back over the h2h rivalry and should win here.

Finals; I like Vargas over Longoria again to keep her lead atop the rankings.

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Doubles review

The partnerships in DC are crazy this week, with Longoria curiously not playing and Herrera missing. After winning the previous title with Key, Laime picked up Mejia and are the #1 seeds. meanwhile, Key teams with the returning Manilla to form a pretty solid team on paper; all depends on how rusty Manilla is. Team Argentina remains #2, while team Guatemala is #6 and is a real favorite from the bottom half. The two top Canadians are here, but both Lambert and Parent are playing with others (instead of getting cycles playing together for future IRF events). So, interesting draw for s ure.

I’ll go with #1 Laime/Mejia from the top, Rodriguez & Martinez from the bottom, and Laime/Mejia title.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Look for Timothy Baghurst, Sandy Rios, Jerry J Josey Jr., and Tj Baumbaugh on the mike, calling the shots!

Associations

@LPRT

Posted on

Racquetball Canada Fall Selection Event Recap

Sam Murray wins his 19th career Canadian title (photo via Rball Canada)

While us pilgrims in the US were celebrating Thanksgiving and watching football, Racquetball Canada held the first of its two “Selection” events for its national team, with the nation’s top players heading to Brandon, Manitoba, Canada for the 2024 Fall Selection Event.

Here’s a quick recap of the event with some fun stats.

Website for results: https://secure.racquetballcanada.ca/entry-list/matches/1014507/

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Men’s Open singles Recap

Match Report in PRS database: https://rball.pro/oe6

@Samuel Murray and Coby Iwaasa met in the finals for the 15th time out of the last 16 Canadian national events, continuing their collective stranglehold on the Canadian men’s scene. In this final, Murray collected his 19th Canadian title with a come-from-behind victory over his long-time rival.

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Women’s Open Singles recap:

Frederique Lambert also won her 19th career Canadian Nationals event, topping Danielle (Drury) Ramsay in the finals. Ramsay upset @Juliette Parent to get to the finals, breaking up what had been the last four Canadian national event finals.

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Next up for Racquetball Canada will be the second Selection event of the 2024-25 season next February, both of which help seed players for the May 2025 Nationals that determines their National team.