Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend
– Singles: @Kane Waselenchuk
– (there was no Pro doubles this weekend)
TL/DR Executive Summary: Kane breaks his 3-match losing streak to Moscoso in an epic 11-9 final and puts his 16th career year-end title within reach.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=51931
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/30fb39
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In the 32s, we had just one “upset” and a whole slew of blowouts. In case you’re ever wondering why the tour used to give byes into the round of 16 to its top eight players in lieu of doing pro-ams or sponsor doubles, this is why. Here’s some of the scores of the top seeds in their round of 32 matches:
– 2&1, 1&6, 3&6, 1&3, 1&3, 1&1, 3&8, 4&7, 4&4, 2&2, 6&1
Of course, there were some decent matches in the 32s, but they were in the places one would have expected: the 16/17 and 15/18 seed games, the solid international player who only plays a handful of pro events every year (Salvatierra) and the one involving former tier 1 tour champ making a rare appearance on tour (Pratt).
– Manilla being upset by former tour event winner Charlie Pratt was the biggest result of the round. Manilla goes from beating Moscoso two weeks ago to losing in the 32s, and does a massive amount of damage to his chances of finishing in the top 10 this season.
– Trujillo edged Collins in the 16/17 match 15-13 and 15-13, continuing his “come back” after some time off.
– Carter was pushed by Salvatierra but advanced 10,7 in the only other real upset-watch match of the round.
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In the 16s:
– Pratt continued his run by topping Portillo 12,12. I’m not sure what this says about the state of the tour, though I know what my friend Sudsy Monchik would say…), but when a retired 30-something tour veteran pops in and beats two top 10 players, one has to ask some questions about the depth of talent on tour.
– Mar was pressed heavily by Martell, saving a match point in game two before advancing. (14),14,5. Tough loss for Jaime; when you have match point on your racquet and can’t convert, it can be a tough pill to swallow.
– Acuna was pressed heavily by Gastelum before advancing 11-8 in the third. Great showing for Diego, who continues to incrementally push forward as a pro. He was the 14th seed here, and it seems like just a matter of time before he gets a really big win.
– Flores got a 15-7, inj default win over Carter. The first game was back and forth; i did not see the injury but Flores gets a break in the round.
– Natera spanked Alonso 7,6 to get back to the quarters for just the 3rd time this season. A solid win.
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In the Quarters, I did a second preview video for the tour ahead of the QF round, which hopefully everyone saw. I hope you’re enjoying the previews I’m doing, which I try to make stat-based and interesting.
– #1 Kane ended Pratt’s run in about 15 minutes 15-0, 15-2. In my preview, I surmised Kane would have a tedious, tactical match here against either Portillo or Manilla, neither of whom go down easily … but a 0,2 quarter final result drastically reduces the “load” on the #1 seed, which would come into play heavily in this 2x back-to-back schedule.
– #4 Montoya handled his doubles partner #5 Javier Mar 8,7, as he normally does.
– #3 Acuna hung with #6 Flores for two games, then got wiped out in the breaker 11-0 to fall for the second event in a row to the Bolivian.
– #2 Moscoso cruised past Natera 6,7 to setup a juicy semi final against his countryman.
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In the Semis, we got perhaps the best possible matches we could ask for.
– Kane had the expected back and forth power-hitting battle with Montoya in the first semi, grinding out a 13,9 win. In game one, Rodrigo was up 9-6 at one point before Kane was irked by a call, got fired up, and went on an 8-point run to have game point at 14-9. Montoya got it back and went on a run himself, bringing it back to 13-14 before Kane hit a between-the-legs roll-out off the backwall for 15.
In game 2, a back-and-forth early affair led to Kane dominating the mid-game and building a 4-5 point lead that Rodrigo would never be able to get back, eventually leading to a 15-8 win.
– Moscoso-Flores is a matchup that we’ve seen a few times now; 3 times on tour and at least one additional time we know of in Bolivian Nationals earlier this year. For as exciting as Jhonathan is, and having just gotten his first tour win last month, he’s not really close to beating his Country’s #1 yet, though we saw some signs that he’s getting closer.
Game one featured a huge unanswered run of points from Conrrado to flatter Flores a bit with the final 15-10 score-line, then in Game 2, Flores jumped out to a huge lead (8-1 and then 11-3 at one point), before Moscoso outscored him 11-2 the rest of the way to take game two 15-13 and move on.
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In the Finals, we got an epic battle between the two best players in the sport right now, the sixth time they’ve met since last September, and the third straight time they’ve met in a final. Moscoso had gotten the better of Kane 3 times in a row, a shocking run for a player who usually has his total losses in a season measured on 1-2 fingers.
Game one featured a typical Kane early run before Conrrado came from 3-10 and 4-14 down to pull within 13-14. Kane had multiple attempts to close out the game, but Conrrado kept getting chance after chance and closed the gap. Serving at 13-14 and seemingly on the precipice of pulling a game win from the jaws of defeat, Moscoso made several of the better diving gets I’ve ever seen to extend the point before Kane put the ball away to get back in the box. After a timeout and another back-and-forth, Kane finally secured game one on his 7th attempt.
Game two turned into a blow-out quickly, with a tight early game seeing Moscoso go an a similar run that he did in Game one, though this time he was extending his lead instead of chasing the game. We started to see the California heavy air impact the cement walls in game 2, with the crew toweling things off so the balls were bouncing true. Eventually Moscoso finished off game two 15-7 to setup the tiebreaker.
In the breaker, Moscoso jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead and fans may have been worried that Kane was spent and that we’d see a non-competitive tiebreaker. At 4-0, a weird moment where Kane hit a diving pinch shot back at himself that seemed to hit him as he lay prone on the floor, but Conrrado dove over him whimsically … a play that eventually was ruled a replay. Moscoso didn’t fuss nearly as much as the crowd, but it led to Kane immediately getting back into the game a bit with a couple of quick points.
At 2-5 down, Kane went to work and ran off three quick to tie it at 5. The court conditions seemed to be deteriorating quickly, with frequent towel breaks as the floors and walls needed constant drying off to maintain the integrity of the surfaces. The two went back and forth at 5-5 several times before Kane finally breaks the tie with a ripped forehand winner. It took nearly 15 minutes of clock time to just break the 5-5 tie. Kane jumped out to an 8-6 lead, which Conrrado quickly got back to 8-8. The pair had passed the 2 hour mark at this point, and it was a 3-point match.
Moscoso aced Kane for 9-8 and had the momentum; what a timely ace. Kane left a second serve return way up and Moscoso buried a sitter into the ground for a shoulder-slumping mistake at such a crucial time in the match. At 8-9, Kane hit an amazing lob 2nd serve and buried his third shot for 9-9. He got another poor return off a lob for a kill shot for 10-9 … then went for a jam serve at match point and was assessed a penalty hinder when Moscoso held up on a backhand that may (or may not) have been right into Kane’s torso. It’s the kind of avoidable call that usually isn’t given in the pros, since these guys are jumping over returns half the time, but the ref gave it to Kane’s disbelief.
The next rally ended with a disputed non-called wet ball when Moscoso couldn’t return a tight backhand … not that Kane was going to have any empathy after being on the wrong end of a weak avoidable. After a tense timeout, Kane finished the match with an emphatic drive that the athletic Moscoso, who seemingly was getting everything all day, couldn’t retrieve. 11-9 win for Kane after 2hrs 10minutes, and he deservedly celebrated with both hands held high in exaultation.
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Points Implications of results
Kane’s win extends his lead at the top to nearly 500 points, which (as we’ve explained before) still isn’t nearly as much of a lead as one might think thanks to the 1.5 year “best 10” logic being used. However, the win nearly seals up the title for Kane; At this point Conrrado has to win the last to events to win the title. No ifs, ands, or buts. If Conrrado doesn’t win and Kane makes at least the final in both, it’s game over.
Here’s a link to my IRT Rolling 2year Calendar XLS, which I use to approximate the points after each event. It is not exact but it’s usually close enough to the actual rankings, which @Ryan Rodgers does with @R2 Sports App on behalf of the tour after each event, to allow some quick post-event analysis before the rankings post.
men
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– In Men’s Open Singles: Trujillo beat Gastelum in the final, a rematch of some round of 32s matches earlier this season. Sendrey and Bredenbeck semis.
– LPRT touring pro Carla Munoz made the finals of Men’s Elite but fell to San Luis Potosi’s Juan Carlos Castillo.
– In Men’s Open Doubles, which was stacked in an event with no IRT Pro doubles, the two veteran IRT pros Collins and Pratt shocked Beltran & Trujillo early, then held on to beat Sendrey & Bredenbeck in the final.
– Brenda Laime & Erica Williams won the Women’s Open Doubles draw.
– Laime teamed with Carlos Ochoa to win the Mixed Open draw for two golds.
Lastly, There was an Outdoor competition alongside the pro event, which featured a slew of top Outdoor players who regularly dot the leader boards of Outdoor Nationals.
– In the Outdoor Doubles Open final, Javier Mar & Patrick Allen took out Danny Lavely & Eduardo Portillo.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Carrie Reitmeier, Favio Soto, Brian Pineda, Pablo Fajre, and the entire IRTLive crew.
Thanks to the Tourney Director Jerry Hall and Rocky Carson for putting this event on!
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 …
Next weekend, Los Cab hosts the Paddleball US Open, a crossover event that draws many familiar names from the racquetball world. There’s also going to be an IRT U21 event at the Battle of the Alamo in San Antonio and an IRT-150 event in Des Moines. The first weekend of May features the return of Pro Nationals in Montana.
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tags
@iInternational Racquetball Tour
