– Women’s Doubles Alexandra Herrera & Montse Mejia
TL/DR Executive Summary: Huge weekends for Portillo and Herrera, who both win their first ever Mexican National adult singles titles. Portillo & Parrilla win their second National doubles title in the last 3 years, while Herrera/Mejia win their 3rd out of the last 4 years.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=52435
Mexican Nationals runs as the rare double elimination event, at least for its singles draws. Qualification works like this: the winner of the winner’s bracket in Singles is qualifier #1, then the winner of the Loser’s bracket becomes qualifier #2. This may not necessarily be the other winner’s bracket finalist, and often is not. We only load the winner’s bracket matches into the PRS database.
Furthermore, unlike USA, Mexico does not run Mixed Doubles draws, instead choosing from their qualifiers to put together a mixed team at each Int’l event.
Here’s the Match report links to the four main draws this past weekend:
– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/363a40
– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/a7ff86
– Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/fc5f23
– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/0f9c1a
And, here’s some historical links showing all the past Mexican champions in one spot. This data only goes back to around 2014 or so, which is when the current FMR regime “took over” and basically wiped out all the history. I’ve tried to create some placeholders to give past champions due credit, but if you’re reading this and you’re from FMR or from Mexico and you’d like to help build older Mexican nationals history so we can recognize accomplishments of Mexican Legends like Aliv, DLR, Gilberto Mejia, etc reach out please.
– Mexican National Champions history: Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/1ae500
– Mexican National Champions history: Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/1ae500
– Mexican National Champions history: Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/298f76
– Mexican National Champions history: Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/298f76
Let’s recap the four draws.
——————
Men’s Singles
The big early upset was Sebastian Hernandez, who just aged out of Juniors by reaching the semis of World U21s last December, taking out Andree Parrilla in the qtrs. Hernandez has NEVER played on the IRT but has represented Mexico internationally at the adult level twice. Mar took him out in the semis but he continues to get results. Portillo upset Montoya in the winner’s bracket semi with relative ease, then topped Mar for the title and #1 qualifying spot. Montoya dropped into the loser’s bracket and beat both Trujillo and Parrilla to get to the consolation final, where his doubles partner Mar gave him a walkover for the #2 spot on the team.
——————
Women’s Singles
I generally don’t like to talk about who wasn’t there … but in this case it needs discussing. Paola Longoria, who has won every single Women’s Mexican national title save for one since the 2007-08 timeframe, was not here. It was inevitable that she’d eventually have to miss an event like this due to injury, work, or life, but here we are. It will be the first time in a generation that she’s not leading the charge for her country internationally. In her absence, the two top seeds Mejia and Herrera cruised into the final, with the lefty Alexandra topping her doubles partner to claim her first national title. Mejia took out Jessica Parilla in the consolation bracket to claim the #2 spot on the team.
——————
Men’s Doubles
Portillo and Parrilla may only have a couple pro titles under their belt, but they’re becoming a force in world doubles. They cruised past both Hernandez/Trujillo in the semis and Montoya/Mar in the final to regain their title first won two years ago.
——————
Women’s Doubles
The Mexican National doubles title has historically been a battle between Longoria/Salas and Herrera/Mejia … the two pairs have met 7 times out of the last 8 years for the title. But, with no Longoria or Salas here, Mejia & Herrera faced little resistance rolling to their 3rd title together. They beat Jessica Parrilla and Anna Rivera in the final.
There was an IRT satellite last weekend in Portland which we’ll recap soon, then next weekend is the IRT Minnesota Hall of Fame event as well as USA Racquetball High School Nationals.
Erika triple-qualified at US Nationals. Photo 2021 US Open via Kevin Savory
Congrats to your Open winners and new US National Team representatives: weekend:
– Men’s Singles: Jake Bredenbeck d Daniel De La Rosa
– Women’s Singles: Michelle (Key) Anderson d Erika Manilla
– Men’s Doubles: Daniel De La Rosa & DJ Mendoza
– Women’s Doubles: Erika Manilla & Michelle (Key) Anderson
– Mixed Doubles: Adam Manilla and Erika Manilla
Executive Summary: Erika Manilla wins 2 golds and triple-qualifies, while DJ Mendoza makes the adult national team for the first time. DLR also double qualifies in a Worlds year and will have a chance to defend his 2024 world singles title. Adam Manilla returns to the national team after a year’s absence due to injury. Michelle (Key) Anderson wins her first ever National singles title. Lastly, Jake Bredenbeck continues his long run on the National team by winning his first National singles title since 2019.
Congrats to all.
They join a distinguished list of direct US National team qualifiers, which I keep a roster of at this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hfxiw8chi8Dpl8U0E4LjShVKaqY2OLqbhqBDpgYX7zU/edit?usp=sharing
The Winners and Finalists of the Singles competition, plus the Doubles winners in each discipline will have first right of refusal to represent the USA at two upcoming 2026-27 events: the 2026 IRF Worlds in August at a site TBD, and then the 2027 annual Pan American Racquetball Championships in late March 2027.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=50421
Here’s links to historical US National Team finals for the various disciplines. These go back all the way to 1968 for the Men, 1970 for the women, and 2022 for Mixed as a relatively new category.
– US Men’s Singles finals; https://rball.pro/85i
– US Women’s Singles finals: https://rball.pro/24a5f1
– US Men’s Doubles finals: https://rball.pro/adf3cd
– US Women’s Doubles finals: https://rball.pro/9c5514
– US Mixed Doubles finals: https://rball.pro/ffd5bf
Lastly, here’s the links for the 5 match reports for the 2026 event in one spot:
– US Men’s Singles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/95a133
– US Women’s Singles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/f9a662
– US Men’s Doubles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/d03fe6
– US Women’s Doubles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/0a6212
– US Mixed Doubles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/c58778
——————
Let’s review the notable matches in the National team qualifying draws.
Men’s Singles:
There weren’t any major surprises in this draw early; #5 Sam Bredenbeck upset #4 Thomas Carter in the quarters to make the US semis for the first time in his career; for his troubles he had to match up against his brother Jake. The two had only played competitively once in their entire careers, amateur or professional, prior to this meeting. Jake took out younger brother Sam in the semis to make the finals and guarantee his 6th singles qualification to the US team. Meanwhile, a rusty Daniel De La Rosa had to fend off an in-form Adam Manilla in the bottom semi, eventually pulling away in the 5th to win, advance to the finals, and setup a third successive match against Jake for the US National singles title. More importantly, he guarantees his 4th US National singles spot. DLR didn’t play for the US in any of the 2025 competitions thanks to his pickleball commitments, but in a Worlds year he’ll be highly likely to look for a shot at defending his 2024 World singles title.
In the final, Jake dominated play, with solid defensive ball and excellent court coverage. He wins going away 11,8,3 to claim his first National singles title since 2019.
————————
Women’s Singles:
The Women’s singles draw was upset-city from the start. Defending US Champ Naomi Ros was ousted in the 1st round by veteran American player Lexi York, immediately ending any thoughts of a back-to-back title for the Texan. York ended up pushing #1 Manilla to five games before falling, but achieved her best singles result here in more than a decade (she finished 3rd in 2014).
Meanwhile, it was a tournament to remember for Michelle (Key) Anderson, who upset #2 Lotts and #3 Sanchez to reach the singles final and directly qualify for the US Team in singles for the first time in her career. This won’t be the first time she’s played singles internationally, but it’ll be the first time she’s in a US final.
In the final against her doubles partner, Anderson overcame Manilla’s power and played a better end game at every step to win a 4-game close match and claim her first ever National Singles title.
——————
Men’s Doubles:
Daniel De La Rosa won his third US National title, this time with a player with whom he had little to no prior playing experience with, dragging along Texas junior DJ Mendoza to the title. DLR and Mendoza, seeded 4th, had to dig deep just to upset the top seeds Carson & Manilla in the semis, then played a very close tactical game against the Bredenbeck brothers in the final, outlasting them 11-7 in the fifth. It’s the 5th time in the last 6 years that the brothers have made the national final but come up short, ending an agonizing day for the Minnesotians.
——————
Women’s Doubles:
Three teams of ladies battled it out for the US National title. The two 20-somethings Naomi Ros & Annie Sanchez fell in quick succession to the two veteran teams, leaving the defending champs Manilla/Anderson to face off against two long-time Team USA combatants Lexi York & Sheryl Lotts for the title. After two games of shot making split the teams, Manilla & Anderson pulled away and claimed their 2nd title in a row. It’s Manilla’s 4th Women’s doubles national title, Key’s second.
——————
Mixed Doubles:
The Mixed Doubles competition was the first to finish, with the finals played late Thursday before many had even arrived at the event. The first National champions crowned were the brother/sister duo of Adam and Erika Manilla, who earned the title with a hard-fought 5-game thriller over Jake Bredenbeck and Michelle (Key) Anderson.
With the win, Manilla earns his 3rd career National Team appointment and his second career Mixed Doubles title with his sister. Meanwhile, Erika earns her 3rd career Mixed US National title and ensures her 7th straight US National team appointment.
There’s an IRT satellite in Portland honoring the late John Pelham, a long-running IRT-affiliated event. Mexico has their National championships next weekend as well, always one of my favorite tourneys to cover. Then we get into a very busy March on the calendar, with a slew of major events across pro, international, and outdoor disciplines.
Adam Manilla is back after a year’s absence and ready to compete for US titles.
Photographer Kevin Savory
This weekend, the top players from around the country descend on Arizona State University in Tempe for the National Indoor Championships. This is the 58th year of National Singles in this country; every year save for 2020 since 1968, the absolute longest running single event in the sport. We combined National Singles and Doubles a few years back into the “National Indoors” event, so in addition to all the amateur events this tournament will name the participants to the US National Team for the 2026-27 season (2026 Worlds and 2027 PARC).
Here’s quick previews of the five US National team draws
Men’s Singles: defending champion Daniel De La Rosa is here, and faces an interesting career decision. The 3-time IRT pro tour champ left professional racquetball for professional pickleball, but is currently out of contract with the pro pickleball tour. He has not appeared in a pro pickleball event since his contract termination last October, but has been seen on the racquetball courts, so he should be somewhat in-form to defend his title. He’s the #3 seed here; US National team qualifying draws goes straight from the current USAR rankings, and does not “protect” last year’s finalists like we used to do. Jake is #1, Adam Manilla is now #2 ahead of DLR.
DLR has to fend off Charlie Pratt to face Manilla in the semis, while Jake looks set to face the winner of his brother and Thomas Carter in the top semi. I’d guess we’re going to see a rematch of 2025’s final between DLR and Jake, with Jake taking the title over DLR. But I honestly have no idea how rusty or in-form DLR is; Manilla has been playing great lately and absolutely could take him out in the semis. We’ll see.
Women’s Open Singles: In a cryptic message, long-time US National team member Hollie Scott announced on the eve of the event that she was switching countries and would play for Guatemala going forward. This robbed the Women’s Singles draw of its top seed (Scott is currently the #1 ranked American) and elevated 3-time National champ Erika Manilla to the #1 seed. Long-time top US player Kelani Lawrence has stepped back from playing events as well, which thins the field significantly. Manilla projects into the defending US champ Naomi Ros in the semis, meaning someone’s going home off the National team between the two most recent Singles champs. From the bottom half, I could make an argument for any of the four to make a run: Annie Sanchez has been playing great lately, Hall of Famer Rajsich can still get wins, Michelle (Key) Anderson is a threat, and #2 seed Lotts has been getting career wins lately.
I’ll go with Ros over Sanchez in the final, a big youth movement statement for the two current/recently matriculated juniors.
———————————
Men’s Doubles:
Defending doubles champ Rocky Carson is back, this time with lefty Adam Manilla, to form the formidable #1 seed. They’ll have to fend off 2-time champ De La Rosa, playing this year with fellow Texan DJ Mendoza, but should be the favorites in the final against the Bredenbeck brothers.
———————————
Women’s Doubles:
There’s just three teams competing; the top seeds Manilla & Key are probably favorites, but if I just predicted a Sanchez-Ros singles final there’s no reason not to think that Sanchez/Ros as a team couldn’t win this.
———————————
Mixed Doubles:
Last year Erika won the mixed with Erik Garcia (her brother was on the mend); they’re back together this year with a strong chance of repeating their 2024 title together as brother & sister. They’ll likely have to go through the very strong looking Bredenbeck/Key team to do so.
———————————
Look for Carrie Reitmeier, Richard Eisemann, Sandy Rios, and Karen Grisz on the mike streaming off of the USAR’s facebook page all weekend.
Thanks to the Tourney Director Jonathan Greenberg of the USAR staff.
Juliette Parent takes the Canadian Women’s singles title. Photo by Mike Sudoma/COC *MANDATORY CREDIT*
Congrats to your Open winners on the weekend:
– Singles: @samuel murray
– Doubles: @juliette Parent
TL/DR Executive Summary: Murray continues his dominance of Men’s racquetball north of the border, with his 22nd career Canadian national team event win. Meanwhile, Parent takes advantage of Lambert’s absence to claim her second career Canada-level title.
Trackie App home page for event: https://secure.racquetballcanada.ca/event/racquetball-canada-easterns-winter-national-team-selection-event/1017382/
——————
Let’s review the notable matches in the Men’s Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/d89e3a
The final came down to Murray and Iwaasa, as it has done for nearly every single Men’s event for the last decade. Sam wins again to take a big lead into Canadian Nationals in May to continue to represent Canada on the international front, even as his pro career seems to be waning. Solid runs by Leyton Gouldie to get to the semis for the second time. Also, a rare sighting by Canadian legend Roger Harripersad, now 61 yrs of age, who lost in the first round.
——————
Women’s Singles recap
match report in PRS: https://rball.pro/f18826
Five ladies battled it out in a Round Robin, with Juliette Parent topping all comers to take the title.
Moscoso gets a dominant win over Kane for his 12th career title. Photo unk from Bolivian IRIS
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Conrrado Moscoso
– Doubles: @Eduardo Portillo & @Andree Parrilla
TL/DR Executive Summary: Moscoso wins his 12th career title in dominant fashion, while Portillo and Parrilla get a solid win in the lead-up to Mexican Nationals in a few weeks.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=51976
——————
Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/16c211
—————-
In the 32s:
– Garcia took out Sam Bredenbeck, but needed a breaker to do so.
– Trujillo’s return proved fruitful, taking out Gastelum in the 32s and (as we’ll see later on) winning the Men’s Open title.
– Parrilla was pressed by the Canadian Connell but moved on.
– Carrasco gave Sendrey a setback 11,9.
– Former touring pro Pratt gave Portillo a lot more than he wanted in a round of 32 match but fell in two.
—————-
In the 16s:
– My two favorite players to choose for upset wins early (Garcia and Flores) ended up playing the tourney’s two top seeds, and neither came much close to an upset. Kane beat Garcia 5,9, while Moscoso beat Flores 13,8 to move on. As it turned out, this was the closest match Moscoso would have in South Dakota.
– Natera made a statement against Alonso in the 8/9 game, cruising to a win.
– Trujillo pressed Parrilla but fell 12,13.
– Manilla got a great win, topping Portillo 9,7 to move on.
—————-
In the Quarters
– Kane blew past Natera 5,2
– Parrilla dominated his long-time Rival Montoya 9,6
– Bredenbeck did not seem troubled by Mar 8,7
– Moscoso cruised past Manilla 5,2.
This setup a pure chalk semis.
—————
In the Semis
– Kane utterly destroyed Parrilla 2,0
– Moscoso wasn’t too troubled by Jake and won 6,9
In the Finals, we got the match most were looking for; 1v2, Kane v Conrrado. Legacy champ versus the up and coming possible replacement. The pair met in the semis of the SoCal Open in December, with Moscoso putting together a comprehensive game one and holding on for dear live to win in two .
On this day, Moscoso looked unstoppable. Game one was close for a while, but instead of Kane pulling away after a long mid-game period of closeness, it was his opponent, who turned a close game into a 15-9 win. In game two, it was one way traffic. Conrrado could do no wrong; he blitzed service returns, he hit his lines, he put away pinch shots, he played great defense, and Kane had no answers. Conrrado won game two 15-3 to take the title. Its Conrrado’s 3rd straight title, 14 match wins in a row, and his 12th in his career, tying him with DLR for 12th all time.
—————-
Points Implications of results
With the win and with Acuna’s missing the event, Moscoso edges a bit closer to Kane and now sits in 2nd place. I’ve got them about 400 points apart, which seems like a lot, but the way the tour is going to determine the 2025-26 champion makes this race a ton closer.
At the end of June, presuming the US Open happens, the tour will have had somewhere in the range of 13-14 Tier 1s in that time along with a bunch of satellites. But, only the best 10 results will contribute to your final ranking. So, Right now Conrrado trails Kane by a ton of points, but their Tier 1 results since Jan 2025 look like this:
– Kane: 3 wins, 2 finals, 1 semi, 1 missed event
– Conrrado: 3 wins, 0 finals, 2 semis, 1 round of 16, 1 round of 32, 1 missed
So, if Conrrado has the opportunity to turn those last three results into a bunch of semis and finals, even if he doesn’t win out between now and June he’s got a ton of opportunity to catch up. This title race may very well come down to the last event.
Elsewhere in the top 10: Jake also jumps Acuna for 3rd, meaning that if i’ve got my spreadsheet estimate right, Acuna plays into Kane in the semis at the next event. Also, Natera now moves into 8th ahead of Lalo, Carrasco is up to 14th, and Gastelum drops down to 16.
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.
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/6d76e5
This was a super fun draw. Two legends flew up to SD to play in Alvaro Beltran and Rocky Carson and they put on a show. Beltran teamed with the young phenom Flores and nearly took out the Montoya/Mar top pair, losing 11-10 in the quarters. Eventual winners Parrilla/Portillo barely got out of the first round, advancing over the Bredenbeck brothers by 14,14. Meanwhile, the legendary Carson teamed with lefty Adam Manilla and went on a huge run, upsetting the #2 seeds and making the finals before falling 14,7.
—————-
Open Singles, other notable draws
– My two favorite youngsters Trujillo and Flores made it to the Open final, where they played a barn burner won by Trujillo 11-7 in the third, a pretty significant win for a player who’s taken some time off, and over a guy who a lot are looking at as the best of the next generation of players.
—————-
Fantasy Racquetball Competition Wrap-up: Sam Murray is back on top after pipping me in the results this weekend.
—————–
Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Favio Soto, Steve Schulze, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew
We’ve got one big event each weekend this month: Canadian Selection event next weekend, then USAR Nationals, plus Mexican Nationals is sometime in Feb, and then we get another IRT Satellite at the end of the month.
Trujillo back after an extended absence.
Photo US Open 2021 via Kevin Savory
One of the longest running events in the land, and one of the most important and most popular events on the Men’s schedule each year is upon us: the 46th annual Lewis Drug Pro Am in sunny, warm Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
This player favorite provides great hospitality and camaraderie and is always one of the best attended events on the calendar. This year is no different, with 35 singles pros and a slew of legends playing doubles only making their way to Sioux Falls. Thanks as always to tournament director and part IRT owner Mark Gibbs for making this event happen year after year.
top20 players missing include #2 Andres Acuna (out for a travel issue) and #13 Argentine Gerson Miranda. Past that, the entire top 20 and a bunch of the 20-30 ranked players are here, making this a really solid draw top to bottom.
——————————
Let’s preview the draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that i’m looking forward to:
——————————-
In the round of 32:
– Right off the bat, the 16/17 is a banger, with Diego Garcia taking on hard-hitting Sam Bredenbeck. I’m always favoring Garcia to make deep runs in events on account of his international success; lets see if he can take the first step.
– Montoya takes on Emir Martinez, a doubles specialist veteran from Mexico who used to have solid success on the old WRT.
– Erick Trujillo is back after some time away; he’s seen his ranking plummet and he has to face tough countryman Diego Gastelum first round.
– Cole Sendrey, fresh from World Doubles in December, gets veteran Bolivian Kadim Carrasco to start. If Sendrey wants to move up in the rball world, this is the kind of match he needs to win.
– Former Bolivian junior champ and now DC suburb resident Ezekiel Subieta faces off against Javier Mar in a tricky match.
– World 16U junior finalist Santiago Castillo makes his IRT debut against Adam Manilla, who’s been pulling double duty helping with tour operations and trying to play. A distracted Manilla could take a shock loss here.
——————————-
round of 16:
– The two players I always favor to get upsets (Diego Garcia and Jhonathan Flores) are routing right into the #1 and #2 seeds here in Kane and Conrrado, which takes away some of the fun. Anyone else in the draw, i’d think about picking an upset, but these two would have to pull a massive upset to move on.
– Alonso/Natera in the 8/9 could be a fun one.
– Parrilla takes on the Gastelum/Trujillo winner.
Otherwise the 16s looks pretty straight forward for the upper seeds this week.
——————————
Projected Qtrs:
– Kane over Alonso: I will say this, as i said on the podcast. If Kane is to lose this weekend, it’ll be highest likelihood in this QF match here, against a guy whose beaten him in the past and in the second of a back to back round day. Kane’s got to win his 16s against a tough opponent in Garcia, then rest, then recover, and then play another guy who can play him tough.
– In the 4/5 Montoya vs Parrilla for about the 1,000th time in their long careers.
– Bredenbeck plays into Mar this event. Mar has a couple wins over Jake, but Jake beat him in Sept, so advantage USA
– Moscoso, if he gets past Flores, has to fend off Portillo in the quarters, a trouble spot versus a player who gets wins every time he shows up.
Semis:
– Kane over Montoya; I just don’t think Montoya has the consistency to beat Kane, despite having the athleticism and power.
– Moscoso over Jake: too much firepower
Finals; So, last time we saw Conrrado-Kane the Bolivian pitched a near perfect game in game one to blow away Kane, then held him off for a win. Can he do it again? We have a new ball in SD that should play faster, plus concrete walls, which could make for some fireworks. Nonetheless, if kane gets here i’m favoring him to win.
——————————-
Doubles review
Love seeing Alvi and Rocky in the draw; they’ll shake things up. The top half of the draw is stacked; if Montoya/Mar can get past Alvi and Flores in the quraters, they’ll cruise to the win. On the bottom half, I love what Rocky and Adam might do to the field and like them for the final.
———————————
Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the IRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Look for Carrie Reitmeier, Favio Soto, Samuel Schulze, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew all weekend on the mike, calling the shots!
IRT Club Fantasy: If you’re in the IRT Club, sign up to play Fantasy Racquetball along with myself, Brian Pineda, and other club members. Also, be sure to tune into our Fantasy Fast Break podcast, which we do before and after every IRT Tier 1 event!
Camila Rivero continues her dominance of World Juniors 21U, winning her third straight title. Photo via deportes de Bolviia
So, I’m a little behind on this one. World Juniors was in mid December in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and to be completely honest the timing of the event along with the timing of other events I cover, as well as a mid-December work trip and then mid-December holiday travel completely conspired against me having any shot of doing the massive amount of work required to enter the data for World Juniors, nor to recap it until now.
However, this is one of the most important events of the year to cover, because it’s often the first time we hear about top-level juniors coming from Bolivia and Mexico who might suddenly start getting wins in the pro tours. It’s also a great way to see how the other leading countries’ juniors are stacking up.
So, with that said, lets recap. We’ll list all the singles winners, then do some quick narrative discussion by division.
Here’s the “matrix reports” of Boys and Girls Junior Worlds champions historically:
– Boys: https://rball.pro/ff5caa
– Girls: https://rball.pro/t6e
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 2025 World Junior champions:
Boys Singles:
– Boys 21U: Jhonathan Flores, Bolivia
– Boys 18U: Marco Mamani Aguilar, Bolivia
– Boys 16U: Santiago Borja, Bolivia
– Boys 14U: Hanz Vega, Bolivia
– Boys 12U: Max Soto, Mexico
– Boys 10U: Damian Gracia Castro, Mexico
Summary: Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Boys titles. Not one final included a player from outside Bolivia & Mexico. Furthermore, and even more shocking, there was just one player from outside Mexico/Bolivia to even make the SEMIS in any of these draws. The dominance in World Juniors of these two countries is unlike anything we’ve seen since the old days, when every final was a rematch of the USA Junior National finals.
Girls Singles:
– Girls 21U: Camila Rivero, Bolivia
– Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar, Mexico
– Girls 16U: Luciana Illanes Quenta, Bolivia
– Girls 14U: Larissa Faeth, Costa Rica
– Girls 12U: Mary Hinojosa Garcia, Bolivia
– Girls 10U: Briana Ampuero, Bolivia
Summary: Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Girls Singles titles, and we get the first singles titlist from outside the big two countries.
———————
Boys Doubles:
– Boys 21U: Sebastian Hernandez/Jorge Gutierrez, Mexico
– Boys 18U: Eder Renteria/Diego Romano, Mexico
– Boys 16U: Santiago Borja/Sebastian Terrazas, Bolivia
– Boys 14U: Alejandro Robles Picon/Elias Medrano, Mexico
– Boys 12U: Max Soto/Hermann Gracia, Mexico
– Boys 10U: Juan Ignacio Morales/Benjamin Lino Daza, Bolivia
Summary: Mexico takes 4 of the 6 Boys doubles titles, while Bolivia takes the other two. There’s some penetration from other countries into the back ends of the doubles draws, but it continues to be Mexico/Bolivia dominated.
Summary, as in 2025, Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Girls doubles titles, while Larissa Faeth leads the charge for Costa Rica to break through the Bolivia/Mexico dominance.
Mixed Doubles:
– Mixed 21U: DJ Mendoza/Naomi Ros, USA
– Mixed 18U: Nicolas Galindo / Yanna Salazar, Mexico
– Mixed 16U: Santiago Borja/Suszel Andrea Pairo , Bolivia
– Mixed 12U: Dylan Zambrana / Mary Hinojosa Garcia, Bolivia
– Mixed 10U: Benjamin Lino Daza / Briana Ampuero, Bolivia
Summary: Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Mixed doubles titles, all of them the youngest of the six. Team USA gets its sole win of 2025, and Costa Rica’s Faeth is robbed of a triple crown by losing in the Mixed 16U final.
—————————
Grand total of Titles won by Country:
– Bolivia: 18 of 30
– Mexico: 9 of 30
– Costa Rica: 2 of 30
– USA: 1 of 30
Bolivia has taken over Junior Racquetball in a strong way.
———————————-
Triple Crown Winners:
– Boys 16U: Santiago Borja, Bolivia
– Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar, Mexico
– Girls 12U: Mary Hinojosa Garcia, Bolivia
– Girls 10U: Briana Ampuero, Bolivia
Double Gold Winners:
– Boys 12U: Max Soto, Mexico; Singles and Boys Doubles
– Girls 14U: Larissa Faeth, Costa Rica: Singles and Girls Doubles
– Boys 10U: Benjamin Lino Daza, Bolivia: Boys and Mixed
– Girls 14U: Valentina Villarroel Garzon, Bolivia: Girls and Mixed
——
Team Winners of the older competitions (16U and up)
– Boys Team: Bolivia 1, Mexico 2, USA 3, Costa Rica 4
– Combined Team: Bolivia 1, Mexico 2, USA 3, Guatemala 4, just edging out Costa Rica by 6 points for 4th.
Team winners of the Esprit divisions (14U and down)
– Boys Esprit Cup: Bolivia 1, Mexico 2, USA 3
– Girls Espirit Cup: Bolivia 1, Mexico 2, USA 3
– Combined Espirit Cup: Bolivia 1, Mexico 2, USA 3. Ecuador was 4th in all three divisions.
A clean sweep of the Team Cups for Bolivia, to no real surprise.
——
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. Any Singles age group 14 and up will have the full RR and knockout draws, while any Singles age group 12U and below will just have the finals. All Doubles have just the finals.
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.
—————–
Let’s run through the Singles draws and provide some commentary.
Boy’s 21U Singles: After a completely clean round-robin, with basically no upsets of any of the top 10-12 seeds, we got a relatively true knockout phase highlighted with the top four seeds from Bolivia and Mexico. The two team USA players fell in the quarters to the two top seeds. In the semis, the two Bolivian players Flores and Iglesias topped their Mexican rivals, ensuring an all-Bolivia u21 final and a rematch of the Bolivian U21 national championship. There Flores finished off the win, taking the U21 title in his first year of eligibility after winning the last two U18 titles, and doing it without dropping a game. It is Flores’ 5th Junior World title, and he seems set to run the U21 table for the next couple of years as well.
Boy’s 18U Singles: Marco Mamani Aguilar, the 16U world champ two years ago, returned to the top of the podium in his first year of 18U. He and fellow Bolivian Sebastian Terrazas (who won the 16U title last year) both were in the DR for this event, but Terrazas fell to Mexico’s Eder Renteria to prevent an all-Bolivia final. Aguilar finished off another solid World title with a 3-game sweep of Renteria in the final.
Boys 16U Singles: Costa Rica’s Alvaro Guillen became the first from outside Bolivia/Mexico to break through into the semis with an upset of #3 seed Mexican Axel Sanchez in the quarters, but Bolivia’s Alfredo Santiago Borja blew through the draw and took the 16U title after winning the last two 14U World Junior titles. He beat Mexica’s Santiago Castillo in the final, who got there by the skin of his teeth with a 16-14 Game 5 win in the semis over the Bolivia #2 Ruiz Michel.
Boys 14U: 14U and below played Olympic style brackets (Gold, Red, Blue, White) and did not limit participants to 2-per-country, meaning a massive gold draw with 4-5 participants from some countries. This also meant that top seeds gifted to players by virtue of their predecessors performance were exposed early. Both the #2 and #4 seeds from Costa Rica were ousted in the first round, as were the two USA entrants. By the time the semis rolled around, we were back to two Bolivia-Mexico matchups, as has been the pattern in the older boys divisions. Alejandro Robles Picon, American converted to represent Mexico and World 10U champ in 2021, was upset in the semis by Vega in five. The final was (presumably) a rematch of the Bolivian 14U final, taken by newcomer Hanz Vega over his countryman and #1 seed Gustavo Cordova, coming back from 2 games down to win 15-13 in the fifth, an amazing match.
In Boys 12U, it came down to the two top seeds and another Mexico-Bolivia battle. In the final, Mexico’s Max Soto got his first world junior title, beating Bolivian Santiago Cruz Arteaga in three. Arteaga was the 2023 10U world champion. 2024’s 10U world champion was inexplicably seeded 29th in the draw (Bolivia’s Vincent Riveros) and lost first round to Mexico’s Hermann Gracia (the 2022 10U champ). Definitely something to watch, having so many Junior World champs in one age bracket moving forward.
In Boys 10U, Mexico’s Damien Gracia Castro took out the #1 Bolivian Mateo Crespo, then another Bolivian along the way before beating his countryman Daniel Rodriguez in an all-Mexican final
—————-
Girls 21U: Bolivia’s Camila Rivero blew through the draw and won her third straight U21 World Junior Title. Inexplicably, despite being the 2-time defending champ, she was only seeded 2nd in the draw. Make that one make sense. She beat USA’s reigning U21 and reigning National champ Naomi Ros in the quarters, topped the upstart Guatemalan Andrea Gabriela Reyes in the semis, then beat her countrywoman Rebecca Amaya Ardaya in the final to claim the title. She’s still got one year left in U21 and could go for an unprecedented 4-peat in 2026.
Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar repeated as Junior world 18U champ from the #3 seed spot thanks to her loss to Mariafernanda Trujillo in Mexican Junior Nationals last July. Nonetheless, she powered through both Bolivian entrants in the semis and finals to take the crown.
Girls 16U: newcomer Bolivian Luciana Illanes Quenta dominated the draw from start to finish, beating Mexico’s Andrea Perez-Picon in the final. Perez-Picon upset the top seed and favorite, Bolivian Nicol Abril Mansilla in the semis to break up the all-Bolivian final. Of note: Mansilla played in both 16U and 18U, losing in the semis of 16U and the finals of 18U.
Girls 14U: Costa Rican Larissa Faeth, who jsut got her first LPRT tour win at the Arizona Open a couple of weeks ago, repeated as World Junior 14U titleist. She beat Mexico’s best in the semis and Bolivia’s best in the final. For reasons inexplicable, she was only seeded 5th in the draw despite winning last year. Yes, I realize the seeds are done by country, and by last year’s country finish, but not having a repeating champion in the top spot tells me your seeding criteria is wrong. This has been a problem with IRF seeding for decades, nothing new.
Girls 12U: Bolivia’s Mary Hinojosa Garcia repeated as 12U world juniors champion, topping countrymate Sofia Rocabado in the final. All four semi-finalists in this draw were from Bolivia.
——————
Phew! Ok well if you’ve read this far, here’s some thoughts. Mexico still maintained control of the Junior categories last year for the most part, but Bolivia took a huge step forward this year. Meanwhile, former blue blood countries in the sport USA and Canada were generally nowhere to be found as the sport’s growth continues to concentrate south of the border.
Costa Rican junior phenom takes the Pro/Am Doubles and gets a win in the main draw. Photo via RG Deportes
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Maria Jose Vargas
– Doubles: Montse Mejia & Alexandra Herrera
– Pro/Am Doubles: Natalia Mendez & Larissa Faeth
TL/DR Executive Summary: Vargas wins again, in dominant fashion, never truly challenged in this event. She’s now won 5 of the last 6 LPRT events and is starting to truly take over on tour. See https://rball.pro/499ce2 for a list of all finals to see how dominant Vargas has been as of late.
Meanwhile, the Mejia/Herrera doubles team won their third straight doubles title, and should be near returning to the top. See https://rball.pro/4d751c for all LPRT doubles finals.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=47436
——————
Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/4d751c
—————-
In the 32s
– Acosta played her second event of the season, her 28th on tour.
– Recently elected USAR hall of famer @rhonda rajsich played, beating NorCal’s Erica Williams in the first round before being relegated to referee duty in the 16s.
– Costa Rican’ junior phenom Larissa Faeth got a solid win over MRR before falling to Herrera. Faeth is the 2-time defending 14U junior world Champion and has also been representing CR in Adult events, and per insiders seems to really have what it takes to make a splash on tour, and soon.
– We got a rare appearance from Lucia Gonzalez, who won a slew of Junior World titles in her career (7 in total, plus all her Mexican junior titles), but whose pro career never materialized. She took out Stephanie Synhorst before falling to Gaby 12,4.
– Manilla continued her comeback efforts, blasting Mexican veteran Nancy Enriquez before falling to #2 Mejia.
—————-
In the 16s:
– Annie Sanchez got her best career win, and her first pro quarterfinal, topping Colombian turned Italian Cristina Amaya.
– Carla Munoz, who has slipped in the rankings after taking a few events off mid 2025, got a solid win over #5 Mendez to push back towards the top 10
– York pushed Centellas in the 7/10 match before ultimately falling 10,12
—————-
In the Quarters, seeds took over, as all top four seeds won. Longoria had the hardest go of it, having to face her former vanquisher Herrera, who’s on the downslope from her peak a few years ago. Gaby was pushed to double digits in one game, otherwise the top four seeds advanced without opponents reaching 10 in any game.
—————
In the Semis:
– Vargas crunched Martinez 6,9. Vargas has really taken over on tour.
– Longoria-Mejia needed nearly 2 hours, and needed to go to 10-10 in the breaker before a winner was determined. The two split games, then were neck and neck in the breaker before a mini-run from Mejia gave her match point at 10-7. Longoria saved it, then ground out 3 points to put it at 10-10 … where Mejia got a gutsy side-out on a fly-ball kill shot. Longoria wasn’t out of her own bag of tricks, crushing a cross court to get back match point on her racquet, which she took with a well-struck deep court forehand kill for the win. Someone had to lose, and it was Mejia.
In the Finals, anticlimactic after the semis, as Vargas won her 3rd in a row, and 4th of the season, crushing Longoria 4,5 to leave no doubt. She’s won 5 of the last 6 events (making the final in the other), and has opened a massive lead atop the standings.
—————-
Points Implications of results
Here’s a link to my LPRT Rolling 2year Calendar XLS, which I use to approximate the points after each event. It may not exactly match the LPRT’s standings, but should be close enough to gauge post-event results in the immediate.
Vargas, on the strength of 3 in a row and 5 of the last 6, has opened a massive lead atop the standings. She’s up by more than 500 points now to 2nd place (Longoria, who overtakes Mejia with the head to head win). But, Vargas will need to have something catastrophic happen to be caught this season at this point.
Other notable movement: Sanchez should enter the top 10 for the first time, and Munoz should be right on the cusp at #11. Lawrence, who seems to have quit the tour lately, will drop to #15.
—————-
Doubles review
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/fd24f8
Mejia and Herrera beat Vargas & Centellas for the title for the 3rd straight event running, but they had to work for it. They squeaked by Manilla/Key in the quarters, then had to outlast the solid new-look team of Longoria/GAby in the semis to make it there.
—————-
Other Notable Draws:
– The LPRT ran a super-fun looking event called the “Pro/Am Doubles,” where pros teamed up with “Open players,” which usually means low-end/younger pros, for a fun pro/am division. It was taken by Mendez & Faeth, who took out Mejia and Mexican junior Yanna Salazar. Great idea, hope to see more of this in the future.
– The Men’s Open was not complete as of this writing, but is headlined by top-10 IRT pro Alan Natera, in town supporting his wife Carla Munoz. I may regret writing this, but its hard to imagine him losing this draw.
—————–
Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., JTRball, and Tj Baumbaugh
Next week is an IRT satellite event at the long-running Carl Myers event in Kansas, then the week after that is the annual Lewis Drug pro-am in Sioux Falls, the long-running event that’s a huge favorite of players on tour.
Rhonda Rajsich continues her comeback tour.
Photo 202 USAR Doubles by Kevin Savory
The pro first event of the 2026 season us, as the ladies head to Tempe for a long-running event in the Arizona Open. Legendary coach Jim Winterton has organized the event once again and has a solid draw of ladies pros in town.
I’m going to do the preview a little different this time, since to me there’s now a very clear-cut line between the top 4-5 players on tour and the rest of the draw. I’m going to call out some storylines to watch instead of playing out the entire draw.
– Mexican junior Mariafernanda Trujillo is set for just her second ever LPRT appearance after a long junior career; she’s still 21U eligible.
– Former top junior and a constant dark-horse when she plays Lucia Gonzalez is here, and she has a relatively winnable first round to get to the 16s.
– Newly elected Hall of Famer Rhonda Rajsich is playing in her home town; she says she’s playing the tour full time this season; can she get back to the top 10?
– Costa Rican phenom Larissa Faeth is here with a good shot at getting into the 16s.
– Erika Manilla is here, but runs into the #2 seed in the 16s. Coming back from zero points is super tough.
– Semis: hard not to predict the top 4 to the semis in Vargas, Longoria, Mejia, and Gaby.
– Vargas has won three straight, and I think she’s winning here again.
– Longoria is #3, but I like her for the final.
——————————-
Doubles review
There’s interesting teams here: Longoria no longer has her long-time partner Salas to depend on here, so she’s partnered with Gaby and they’re just the #4 seed. Watch out for that pair. Manilla & Key are seeded dead last but would probably cruise to the US national title right now. Munoz and Rajsich are the #6 seed; i’d be deathly afraid of this team in Outdoor; can they make it happen in indoor?
prediction: Herrera/Mejia over Longoria/Gaby in the final
———————————
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!
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.
Joe Kelley with the double on the weekend on his home court. Photo via Ken fife
Last weekend the Kelley Brothers invited out some of the best talent on the East Coast to their home #4 court for the 6th Annual Average Joe’s Tournament. Here’s a quick recap of the action.
I have to admit, I didn’t even know this was going on this year, despite posting recaps on it every year since its inception. I’m lucky to have seen some of the live streams pop up from players I’m friend with on FB.
Singles recap:
The top 8 seeds went (in order): Jeremy Dixon, Cole Sendrey, Ezekiel Subieta, Victor Migliore, Joe Kelley, Dylan Pruitt, Jose Flores, and Sam Kelley. There was a full round of 16 and play-ins to there, meaning there were nearly two dozen players hanging out on the Kelley property this weekend.
In the quarters, top seed Dixon held off the host Sam Kelley, the 2023 champion, enabling Sam to work on hospitality the rest of the way. Host Joe Kelley and 2021 champ upset Ohio-native Migliore, who is a two-time finalist here exiting early. Bolivian U21 star Ezekiel Subieta took out his former Maryland-neighbor Dylan Pruitt, and lastly 2024 champ Sendrey, fresh off a trip to World Juniors last month, took out top NE player Jose Flores to move on.
In the semis, Joe Kelley kept up the upset run, taking out Dixon with a dominant show of drive serving. From the bottom half, Cole took out Subieta to get back to the final. In the final though, Kelley was on fire, bombing more drive serves against his young Texas rival and took the title 10,4. He wins the title on his home court for the second time.
————-
Doubles recap
Joe Kelley teamed up with Ezequiel Subiata to make it a double on the weekend. From the #3 seed, they upset Jeremy Dizon & Jose Flores in the semis, then took out the top seeds Dylan Pruitt & Cole Sendrey 14,13.
————-
These champions join the following honor roll of past champs in this event:
Singles:
– 1st Annual 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
– 6th Annual 2026: Joe Kelley over Cole Sendrey
Doubles:
– 2021: (no doubles event)
– 2022: (no doubles event)
– 2023: Pruitt/Bleyer
– 2024: Pruitt/Cunningham
– 2025: Bredenbeck/Bredenbeck
– 2026: J.Kelly/Subieta
That’s it for the 2026 Average Joe’s/Kelley Invitational.
