Some of you may know, or some of you don’t, that I presently serve as the chairperson of the USA Racquetball Hall of Fame Committee. We’re mid-cycle for the 2027 class deliberations, so nothing to announce yet, but I wanted to share some data assets we’ve created to help with consideration of candidates that we receive.
These spreadsheets summarize and aggregate data that’s available elsewhere on either USAR’s home page, or on Pro Racquetball Stats. Some of it i’ve created specifically to assist with the committee’s work.
Anyway, thought the community would enjoy. Thanks to Facebook’s new embedded link limitations, I’m putting the links into the first comment of this post as a work around. Let’s see if it works and if that’s a good way of going forward with this new platform restriction.
1. USA Racquetball Hall of Fame Roster. This is a Roster of the 80 current members of the Hall. It includes their induction category and some summary data.
2. US National Team Alumni. Dating back to the first US team named in 1981, it has all the qualifiers for the US team each year.
3. US Nationals Age Group Titles: this spreadsheet aggregates all the Age group singles titles players have captured historically, since one of the Categories of Hall of Fame induction is Amateur Age Group champion. The player’s hall of fame status is also listed for context. Mary Lou Acuff is the current leader with 28.
4. US National Title counts: this spreadsheets aggregates all National titles (singles, doubles, mixed) by player. It’s sortable by discipline and has a summary count. Hall of Fame status is also listed per player. In case you’re wondering, Rocky Carson is the going-away leader in overall titles with 21.
On WordPress, we have no link issues so here they are:
There’s some gaps in these spreadsheets that, with time or research may be improved. I’d love to add in Age Group doubles titles, because there’s a few Hall of Famers who made their bones in doubles moreso than singles, and I’d love to be able to answer the question, “who has qualified the most times to the US National team?” (difficult to do because the qualification steps have changed over the years, and direct qualifiers don’t always then represent the team internationally (like this year, when DLR came in 2nd at National singles but didn’t play for us at Worlds). There’s a weird gap on the USA Racquetball historical records pages for 2004 (all the 2004 Nationals age group winners are missing), and no age group titles are documented for any year before 1983. We also seem to have lost the 19+/24-/All Age group winners over the years.
Anyone who can help figure these out would be greatly appreciated.
Vargas wins her first ever World title. Photo via usaracquetballevents.com
The 23rd International Racquetball Federation – IRF World Championships bracket events are in the books. Here’s a recap of the knockout stage action, along with links for the results as entered into the Pro Racquetball Stats database.
– Women’s Doubles: Alexandra Herrera & Samantha Salas, Mexico
– Mixed Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya & Samantha Salas, Mexico
Executive Summary: Mexico dominates the doubles to take all three team titles, and the two top-ranked pros on the pro tours hold serve to take World titles.
r2sports home page: (redacted for FB’s new Meta One policy)
Pro Racquetball Stats DB match results. Click on these links to see the match results for this event in the DB: (redacted for FB’s new Meta One policy)
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For the rest of the event, they will play a “Team competition” Davis-cup style where countries play singles and doubles as a team to advance; we’ll cover this and its World Games qualification import in an other post. Meanwhile, for decades all the individual play has historically resulted in separate “Team Standings” for IRF events. I’m not sure, with the advent of the team play recently, if IRF even maintains the Team Points results anymore … but we do for historical purposes. So…
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Team Points Results
The “Team Standings” were determined by a standard algorithm that awarded points based on group stage and knockout performance.
(You can get these “team results” via queries available from the IRF singles page off of the Pro Racquetball Stats historical site)
Combined Team (Overall)
1st – Mexico
2nd – USA
3rd – Bolivia
4th — Argentina
Comments: Mexico dominates, wins all 3 doubles titles. Two finals powers USA to one of its best finishes in years. Despite having almost no results in Mens, Argentina somehow finishes 4th.
Men’s Team Results
1st – Mexico
2nd – Bolivia
3rd – USA
4th – Canada
Comments: Canada’s finish powered by Webb’s semis and the men’s doubles team making the final. Not sure why Sam Murray and/or Coby Iwaasa don’t also choose to play singles in these competitions; their team would be better for it, with all due respect to Webb’s accomplishments this week.
Women’s Team Results
1st – Mexico
2nd – Argentina
3rd – USA
4th – Guatemala
Comments: Pretty impressive for Guatemala to finish 4th … with just Gaby representing them. Mexico wins in a transition year; this is the first year that they did not have Paola Longoria leading the line in nearly 20 years.
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Let’s run through the individual draws and talk about notable results.
Men’s Singles:
The group stage featured some interesting results; Canadian @Trevor Webb took out USA’s Sam Bredenbeck to earn the #3 seed in the knockouts. Mario Mercado returned to represent his home country and took his group. Argentina’s missing top players robbed two groups of a pro-quality competitor, making those groups wide open and resulting in two players advancing into the knockouts who probably didn’t expect to be there.
In the knockouts, Webb beat Sam Bredenbeck for the 2nd time in 3 days as they matched up once again; how is it we can’t manage to figure out how to fix the knockouts so at least there’s a different matchup than what we saw in the group stage? Seriously. It really isn’t that hard. Players from the same group and players from the same country cannot meet in the first knockout round; it’d take ChatGPT about 5 seconds to lay the brackets out so this doesn’t happen. It seems like every single time i look at an IRF draw i’m dumbfounded. rant off.
Webb then took out IRT touring vet Alan Natera to make the semis; a fantastic result for Canada. Moscoso eased past Parrilla in the qtrs, the best match of the round. In the semis, #1 USA Jake Bredenbeck got what most consider an upset win over Portillo, while Moscoso cruised past Webb to make the final. In the final, Jake held off Conrrado for a bit and took game three, but Moscoso took the title.
It is Moscoso’s 9th IRF singles title, but more importantly his 2nd career World Championship title. He won in 2022 and now again in 2026.
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Women’s Singles:
There weren’t many surprises in the group stage of the Women’s singles competition. The closest group was Group 6, where three ladies all finished 2-1 (Faeth, York, and the Bolivian 21U Amaya Ardaya. it went down to point differential, and Ardaya was left out. This was especially cruel since Ardaya beat York head to head, the group winner, and thus was left out of the knockout stages.
In the knockouts, Carla Munoz took out the Costa Rican teen phenom Faeth but then fell to Vargas in the next round. USA’s Michelle Anderson fell to Argentina’s Mendez in the first knockout round, a tough beat. Mendez then took out the tourney’s top seed Herrera before falling in the semis to Gaby Martinez, the sole female representative from Guatemala. In the final, Vargas continued her dominance over world Racquetball by taking her 7th career international singles title, but more importantly, her first ever World Title.
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Men’s Doubles.
the group stages went chalk, setting up a solid knockout bracket. The top four seeded teams advanced into the semis as expected, though both USA and Mexico needed 5 games to do so. From there, #1 Canada took out #4 USA in three to return to the final, while #2 Parrilla/Portillo reversed a recent IRT pro trend of losing to Bolivia’s Moscoso/Carrasco, winning in 3 to get to the final. In the final, Team Mexico made fast work of Murray/Iwaasa to take the title.
With this win on Thursday, Mexico sealed both the Men’s and the overall team title for their country at this year’s worlds.
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Women’s Doubles:
In the group stage, pre-tourney favorites Argentina and Mexico advanced easily, but Canada slumped toa 1-2 group stage record with a shock loss to Costa Rica to be eliminated at the group stage and pave the way for USA to move on as the #3 seeds.
In the knockouts, USA’s Manilla & Anderson got a very solid semis win over Vargas & Centellas, but then lost in a 5th game heartbreaker to Mexico.
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Mixed Doubles
A couple of interesting upsets occurred in pool play, most notably the Chilean husband/wife team Munoz & Natera, who were upset by the Costa Rican team of Guillen & Faeth and failed to qualify for the knockouts. This is the winning Mixed team from the 2025 PARC championships and they went 0-2. The Bolivian top seeds were beaten in another group, playing with a weakened team thanks to the missing top player Flores.
In the knockouts, the top seeds and 2023 Pan Am game champs USA brother/sister duo of Erika and Adam Manilla were beaten in the semis by team Guatemala, comprised of Gaby Martinez and Edwin Galicia. Guatemala could do nothing in the final against the powerful Mexican team of Montoya and Salas, who won 2022 PARC and 2022 Worlds and have historically been one of the best mixed teams in the world.
With this win. Mexico sweeps the doubles finals and finishes off a dominating Worlds 2026.
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A quick editorial:
Despite this being the World Championships, ostensibly the biggest event on the international calendar for these players … we were missing some major names from this event. On the Men’s side, defending World champion and former #1 player Daniel De La Rosa, despite earning his spot to represent the USA earlier this year, did not attend, Costa Rican’s men’s team was weakened by the loss of Andres Acuna, who may be out injured. Bolivia’s #2 Jonathan Flores did not make the trip despite it being in the country next door to Bolivia (his spot was taken by Mercado) despite earning it earlier this year. And both of Argentina’s top men (Garcia & Miranda) were absent, leaving two unknowns to hold the flag, and both went 0-3 in the group stage to not even qualify for the knockouts. Guatemala’s stalwart representative Maria Renee Rodriguez was missing and they did not send a second female, meaning that they had no Women’s Doubles entry; weird. There’s plenty of players in Guatemala who could have played here. Colombia did send a contingent… who then apparently no showed and forfeited out of all matches.
Observationally, it was disappointing not to see the best players at the biggest, most important international event on the calendar. Perhaps another sad note in the gradual decline of funding in our sport.
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Congrats to the International Racquetball Federation for another successful event. Thanks to the IRT streaming crew, and thanks to @Gary Mazaroff and Gustavo and all his co-announcers for their hard work all week.
Next up on the Racquetball Calendar …the Golden State Open on 11/8/26 weekend, featuring the IRT and the LPRT together for the Ladies’ first stop of the season.
TL/DR Executive Summary: Moscoso cruises to the singles title without dropping a game and beating Kane in the final somewhat convincingly. Mar & Montoya take the win over new pro doubles #1 Moscoso/Carrasco.
IRT Semis and Finals go to IRT Club; some thoughts.
The 2026-27 season will now live stream the semis and finals of IRT events solely on the IRT Club platform, which requires a $15/month subscription. I knew about this change months ago as we began discussing the new season internally, and the reaction this week has been pretty predictable.
I have held off weighing in on Reddit and the various Facebook comment sections, but I’ll put some thoughts here now.
Most of the complaints seem to be summarized by the following generic statement:
“Why can’t I continue to get something for free on the internet that I have gotten free for years and that I do nothing else to support?”
That’s it. That’s the salient issue. For the last 8 years, ever since Mark Gibbs bought out the paid subscriptions of the old Irt Network, the community has been blessed with something that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the Pro Sports world; absolutely free content. Yes there’s advertisements on the stream; they do not come anywhere near covering the costs of the equipment, the staff who come in early to set things up, the broadcasters who spend all weekend at the event donating their time, the hosting, the website development, the administration, the business subscription fees for Facebook and YouTube, etc. The IRT isn’t in the same boat as the NFL with a billion dollar broadcast TV package; they have a handful of well-meaning tour sponsors who stream quickie ads as part of their overall benefit for writing a check to the tour every year. Nobody’s earning back an ROI; it’s all for the love of the game.
I’ve seen the tacked on cliche complaints that seem to also accompany every discussion on racquetball these days: “This is why the sport is dying.” “How does this support Juniors?” or, “How does this help grow the game?” You know what? You’re right; It doesn’t. Because that’s not the “job” of the professional tour. The job of the IRT is to hold a pro tour that supports a small group of pro athletes competing at the highest level, somehow continuing to raise enough money to keep events going and keep these top players interested enough to make the commitment to keep coming back.
Grassroots development of the sport? Not the IRT’s job. Juniors? Not the IRT’s job. The IRT and pro racquetball has been essentially underwritten for 2 decades by a handful of wealthy benefactors and local enthusiasts who cobble together $20k or so to host a local event. The “tour” itself for years and years has been essentially run by volunteers who have forgone any semblance of pay in order to keep things running.
Let’s face it: people who seek out the semis or finals of a pro racquetball tournament at this point … they’re already fans. Racquetball already “got you.” The nominal fee the IRT club is asking isn’t a blocker to gaining new fans: its (finally) a donation to help offset the real costs of producing what you seek. In what other world does anyone just get something you want for free, all the time? You don’t walk into Starbucks and get free coffee. If you want a coffee, you plunk down a few bucks and you get it. Same thing here. It is patently amazing to me that people complain about having to pay a pittance of money to get something they want. $15 is nothing. The average median household income in this country is now nearly $90k, meaning a $15 fee is roughly 1/6th of an hour of labor across an entire month. That’s what we’re talking about here.
Do you love the sport? Do you want to see it continue? Then pay the fee, help support the tour, help keep the lights on. Because this may be the sport’s last shot. The Ladies tour is in dire straights, having held just one tournament since January, and without the current ownership group financing things on their Amex cards, the Men’s pro tour would be in the same boat. So, pay the fee, help create some revenue streams to support the tour, and maybe we’ll continue to have a tour. Because even rich guys will stop writing checks at some point, even if its a labor of love.
Now, back to the recap.
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
In the 32s, not much notable; only two matches even featured a game getting into the double digits. @Jordy Alonso took out USA junior national Vaishant Mangalampalli 10,6, while the closest match of the round was US Junior National coach @Robert Collins taking out one of his former pupils in Cody Elkins 10,10.
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In the 16s, there was just one major upset and a couple of close matches:
– @Erick Trujillo trounced #4 @Andres Acuna 7,0 to move into the quarters for the 7th time and to continue is recent spate of success.
– @Alan Natera beat @Diego Gastelum 9,12 in the 7/10 seed matchup, a good result for Diego as he continues to look for his 2nd quarterfinal.
– In the 8/9 matchup, Lalo Portillo cruised past Thomas Carter 2,8.
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In the Quarters
– #1 Moscoso made fast work of Portillo 8,6: Portillo is probably better than his current seed thanks to schedule conflicts, but this is still a more dominant win than I would have expected.
– Parrilla took out Trujillo 13,10 in a rematch of a crucial consolation bracket match from the FMR selection event a few weeks ago.
– Montoya needed three to take out his doubles partner Mar, as one would expect from two players who know each others’ games so well.
– #2 Waselenchuk let Natera get to 15-11 in game one, then turned on the jets to donut him in game 2 to move on 11,0.
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In the Semis, Moscoso held off Parrilla’s improvement in game two to win 4,11 and get to the final, while Waselenchuk was not troubled moving past Montoya 3,6 to setup the 1-v-2 match all the neutrals wanted.
In the Final, Moscoso came out very sharp, jumping out to a big lead in game 1 before Kane reigned him back in. From there, a back and forth battle ended up with Conrrado winning game 1 15-12. Game two was never that close, with Moscoso on top of his drives all day to win 15-7 and take the title.
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Points Implications of results
There won’t be much movement after this event; Moscoso will expand his lead atop the standings to nearly 500 points thanks to the 2025 Tracktown open expiring, but he’s then going to enter a months-long stretch where all he’s doing is defending winner’s points; he won 4 straight tourneys between the 2025 Golden State Open in October 2025 and the Minnesota HOF in March 2026. So Kane knows what he needs to do: just win.
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.
Mar & Moscoso take the win over new pro doubles #1 Moscoso/Carrasco to deny Moscoso a double for the weekend.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– Emir Martinez beat Vaishant Mangalampalli for the Open singles title.
– Gastelum & Alonso won the Open Doubles dropdown out of Pro.
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Fantasy Racquetball Competition Wrap-up
With the redesign of IRT club, we haven’t started the Fantasy competition yet. So, we’ll revisit this after the next event.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Carrie Reitmeier, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre, JT Rball, and the entire IRTLive crew.
Thanks to the Tourney Director Gerardo Duenas for putting this event on!
Thanks to the Tourney Gold sponsors: NMRA and Cindy Tillbury, Jamal Khawaja with Kind Home Loans and Friends of Pakistan USA community group, along with
Silver sponsors: Placentia Town Center and Jeff Gold, HMS Realty and Ken Courtney, Reyes Single Ply Roofing contractors and Francisco Reyes. Without you, we do not have a pro sport.
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.
there’s an IRT satellite in two weeks’ time in Chicago land, then Worlds in Chile over the final weekend of October. The IRT returns to action the 2nd weekend of November with the big Golden State Open.
post publishing edits: thanks to readers Anthony Martin and Asceric21 on Reddit for pointing out two incorrect names in the post. Both have been corrected.
Moscoso takes back over #1 for this event. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory
Hello Racquetball fans! We are back after a summer off, ready to kick of the 2026-27 @International Racquetball Tour season. This weekend, the tour is in Fullerton, California for the 2026 SoCal Open, held at the WallisBank Qube fitness center.
We’re glad to be back in Fullerton for the second year running, and glad to back in Southern California for the first time since the Players Championship last April.
R2 link for the weekend: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54373
This is the first Tier 1 of the season, but we’ve hosted three satellite events in August and September to get ready
– Costa Rica Open in August: Parrilla beat Montoya in the final.
– the DMV invitational in Sept: Gastelum beat Franco in the final.
– Garden City Carl Meyers event last week: Manilla beat Carter in the final.
Despite winning the 2025-26 title for his 16th career season ending title, Kane enters this event ranked #2. How is that possible? Well I’ll tell you. The 2025-26 season was a special one, extended to be an 18 month season so as to move back to a fall to spring schedule. Each Player’s best 10 results from all the way
back to Jan 2026 counted in their rankings.
As of the beginning of the new 26-27 season, we’re back to a 365 day rolling calendar, meaning a player’s best 10 results now start, as of this event, as of the end of September in 2025, which was the 2025 Tracktown Open. Based on that sample, Moscoso has taken over as #1 on tour.
Intersetingly, despite being the two highest ranked players, both Conrrado and Kane only have 8 results in the sample size, so their first two results in the new season will be pretty important to determine who has the upper hand in the early part of the season. When Trackdown expires (which Kane won and Moscoso lost in the semis), Conrrado will get a bit of a bump, but when the next event falls of (the Mid Oct 2025 golden state open), Kane will get a big bump b/c he missed that event altogether.
Quick look at the draw
24 players. 32s on thursday, 16s friday, then quarters and semis on Saturday before a noon sunday singles final.
Big story: missing #4 Flores thanks to some visa/immigration issues, which immediately puts him behind the 8ball this season to try to move into the top echelon of tour. We’re also missing #6 Jake Bredenbeck and #7 Adam Manilla, both of whom had personal conflicts for this one.
Projected early matches to watch out for
32s: Trujillo-Emir Martinez, bobby Horn-Diego Gastelum
Predictions? The loss of Flores really opens up the top half of the draw for Moscoso. You never root against Kane, who will probably have to beat
both Natera and Montoya on Saturday to give us another match against the Bolivian number one, but that’s what we’re all hoping for by Sunday.
Look for Carrie Reitmeier, JT Rball, Rodrigo, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre, and the IRTLive crew all weekend on the microphone, calling the shots!
This week starts the new IRT Club exclusive broadcasting of Saturday and Sunday’s matches, so make sure you sign up for the IRT Club so you don’t miss out on the action.
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Before we leave, a quick shoutout to our sponsors, without whom professional racquetball would not be possible.
This weekend’s tournament Director is : Gerardo Duenas
Gold sponsors: NMRA and Cindy Tillbury, Jamal Khawaja with Kind Home Loans and Friends of Pakistan USA community group.
Silver sponsors: Placentia Town Center and Jeff Gold, HMS Realty and Ken Courtney, Reyes Single Ply Roofing contractors and Francisco Reyes.
Adam Manilla takes the Garden City in a warm up for Fullerton. Photographer Kevin Savory
We’re still not yet to the Tier 1 starting line of either pro tour this season, but the IRT did hold another satellite event this past weekend in Kansas, teaming up with the Garden City crew to hold an IRT-600 level satellite alongside its long-running Carl Myers memorial event.
IRT pro singles: Two top 16 pros made the trip, and they ended up meeting in the final. Current IRT #7 Adam Manilla took out Spears and Yelverton to make the final from the top half, while #11 Thomas Carter beat Cardwell and Emir Martinez to make the final from the bottom half. In the battle of lefties, Manilla took out Carter 6,3 for the title.
In the LPRT Exhibition, three touring pro ladies made the trip, Erika Manilla, Annie Sanchez, and Cristina Amaya. They were joined by Colorado’s Michelle Dockter to play singles and mixed. In the final, Manilla beat Amaya in a 3-game thriller where she saved match point against in game 2 before winning the breaker.
In the Mixed Open Doubles, Carter/Amaya and Sanchez/Yelverton shared the crown by going undefeated but having to miss the final RR game.
In Men’s Open/Elite doubles competition, which had all the mixed teams pouring in as well, Carter & Martinez ended up beating Manilla/Manilla in the final.
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the IRT season kicks off in earnest this coming weekend, with the first Tier 1 of the season in Fullerton, CA. we’ll be back later this week with a preview and predictions for the first full-field pro event in months.
Vargas wins twice and powers Argentina to the team win. Photo via usaracquetballevents.com
The @iInternational Racquetball Federation – IRF hosted the racquetball component of the 2026 South American games this week, just the 4th time that this regional competition has hosted the sport.
The South American games were created way back in 1978 and serve as a regional Olympic-style sports competition for just the countries of that continent. Thi
Racquetball first made its way into the competition in 1998, the 6th iteration of the event, but the results of that tournament are lost to history. It did not return until 2007, when the IRF held an out of cycle event in Ecuador. Then the sport was omitted for the next couple of events, returning in 2018 when the event was held in racquetball-crazed Cochabamba, Bolivia.
This past weekend technically is thus the 4th time the sport has bee included in the 13 iterations of the event, and once again the host city/country seems to play a part, since Argentina is hosting this year’s competition.
Five countries participated: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. Despite efforts to relaunch Colombia’s NGB, there were no Colombians here, nor players from other SA countries that have sent representatives internationally in the past like Venezuela and elsewhere.
In the end, as one might expect, the competitions all ended up being Bolivia vs Argentina in the latter stages, technically being Bolivia versus “players who were all born in Bolivia but who now play for Argentina.”
here’s a quick recap:
Congrats to the champions:
Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso Women’s Singles: @Maria Jose Vargas Men’s Doubles: Conrrado Moscoso & @Kadim Carrasco Women’s Doubles: Maria Jose Vargas & @Valeria Centellas Mixed Doubles: @Diego Garcia & Natalia Mendez V.
Argentina takes 3 of the five draws against its rival Bolivia to “win” the event.
PRS links to draws in the database: Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/6b326d Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/ed5c01 Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/cef63f Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/cef63f Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/3f1835
Men’s Singles: The group stage was chalk, and the best match of the competition was probably the semifinal between Flores and Garcia. Flores took it 11-9 in the fifth, but it was yet another reminder that we need to see Garcia on the pro tour more regularly. I have a hard time not believing he’d be pushing for a top 5 spot if he made 100% of the events. In the final, Moscoso remained undefeated against his countryman across Amateur, IRF, and IRT events with a 3-game win.
Women’s Singles: Bolivia has seen a bit of a gap in its top women’s competitors thanks to Barrios’ knee injury; their representatives here were Camila Rivero and Valeria Miranda Martinez, who both fell to LPRT regulars in the knockouts. Rivero is the 3-time defending World Junior 21U champ but who has only a handful of pro tourneys under he belt; she lost in the semis to top-8 pro Mendez in five. Vargas cruised past her country-woman and now former doubles partner Mendez in the final.
Men’s Doubles: Ecuador’s Ugalde & Cueva was the top seed here thanks to their making the semis at PARC earlier this year (the highest finish of any South American country), and they finished 2nd in the group stage to the powerhouse Bolivian team of Moscoso/Carrasco. Argentina was missing Gerson Miranda, leaving the veteran Kurzbard playing along side Diego Garcia. The Argentines avenged a group stage loss to Ecuador in the semis of the knockouts, but then took a heavy loss to the Bolivians in the title game.
Women’s Doubles: It was Argentina and Bolivia 1-2 in the group stage, and then 1-2 in the final. Rivero teamed with long-time Bolivian veteran @Jenny Daza to press the Argentines in the final to 5 games, but they ultimately fell.
Mixed Doubles: The power of Flores could not push team Bolivia over Argentina, as Mendez outhit Dava one the right-hand side to make the difference in both their group stage and in the gold medal match.
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For the rest of the weekend’s competition, the players are all playing “team” competitions.
Portillo is taking over Mexican Racquetball. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory
For just the second time that I can recall, the @federacion Mexicana de Raquetbol (FMR) held a stand alone qualification event to determine its team for an upcoming International event. In this case, Mexico’s best descended upon Tijuana last weekend for the 2026 Worlds Selection event, playing the whole slate of events (singles, doubles, and Mixed) to determine the team that will be heading to Worlds in Chile this coming October.
This was a special event for the history of Mexican Racquetball; the legendary multi-champion @Alvaro Beltran played in all three divisions, reportedly to be the final time he competes for Mexican Nationals after a decades long career at the top.
Here’s a recap of the play. As with their Jr. Nationals events, the singles draws play double elimination, with the winner’s bracket champion and the consolation bracket champs earning the right to represent.
Congrats to your Winners and team representatives:
– Men’s Singles: Eduardo Portillo and Andree Parrilla
– Women’s Singles: Alexandra Herrera and Jessica Parrilla
For the doubles: the winners will represent Mexico:
– Women’s Doubles: Alexandra Herrera & Samantha Salas
– Mixed Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya & Samantha Salas
Here’s links to the draws/data in ProRacquetballStats.com:
– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/b841e9
– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/c9dba7
– Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/fb49e0
– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/b5eb15
– Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/e141e1
R2sports link for the event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54255
And here’s recaps of the five pro draws.
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– Men’s Singles:
Some of the up-and-coming players in both Mexico and the Pro scene fought well, but couldn’t overtake the veterans in the FMR. Trujillo, Hernandez, and Gastelum all pushed but eventually fell to Parrilla, Mar, and Montoya respectively in the early rounds. The Trujillo-Parrilla 4/5 seed quarter had to be amazing to watch, going to a 5th game and ending 17-15 in favor of Andree.
In the semis, reigning Mexican national champ Eduardo Portillo held serve against Parrilla to advance from the top seed, while #2 seed Rodrigo Montoya continued his recent dominance over his doubles partner Mar to also reach the final and setup a rematch from earlier this year between the two top players. In the final, Lalo once again came out on top, claiming the automatic berth to Worlds and the title. In the consolation final, Parrilla once again got the better of his long-time rival Montoya in a brutal 5 game match that included several “overtime” games.
– Women’s Singles:
This draw looked quite odd, in that it was missing the very-pregnant Paola Longoria and arguably Mexico’s top player Montse Mejia. In their absence, Alexandra Herrera cruised to the title, beating Jessica Parrilla in three. Parrilla came back around to claim the 2nd Worlds spot with relative ease, beating Rivera in the consolation final.
– Men’s Doubles:
Men’s Doubles saw a possible “changing of the guard” match happen, when the long-time dominant doubles team in the country Montoya & Mar were upset in the semis by the young team of Trujillo and Gastelum in five. They earned the right to take on defending Mexican doubles champs Portillo & Parrilla in the final. There, for the second time this year, Lalo & Andree won a Mexican major title to earn the right to represent Mexico; they both will now be the singles and doubles representatives in worlds.
– Women’s Doubles
With her long-time doubles partner Mejia missing, Herrera picked up the legendary veteran Samantha Salas for this event. Only three teams entered, so Herrera/Salas won their semi to take on Parrilla/Rivera in the final. There, Herrera and Salas took the title to send Samantha back to an International event for the 13th time in her career.
– Mixed Doubles.
In the somewhat recent history of top-level Mixed Pro Doubles action, Rodrigo Montoya and Samantha Salas have proven to be perhaps the best Mixed doubles team we’ve ever seen, regularly winning or making the finals of major Mixed competitions. They teamed up again this weekend as the top seeds and took out Mar/Herrera in the final to claim their spots for Chile. Salas double-qualifies for Worlds with the win.
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Congrats to the Mexican team heading to Worlds; they’ll certainly be tough to beat. They’ll enter as favorites alongside Bolivia, who shouldn’t have any travel issues with an event in South America and should be sending a full strength squad.
Diego Gastelum with the double in DC. Photo via Ken Fife
The second satellite event of the new 2026-27 @International Racquetball Tour season was last weekend; here’s a quick recap of the pro draws.
Severna Park used to host a full tier stop in the fall, but for the last couple of years has downsized to a Satellite event (this event was an IRT-400, which prevents any of the top 4 players from even entering), but it still draws from the big Bolivian community in the DC area as well as from the general mid-Atlantic region. In fact, it is at this very club where Waselenchuk tore his Achilles in Sept 2022, which sent the player and the tour on a several-year whirlwind of results and champions, now ended with the return of Kane to the top for the last couple of seasons.
Here’s a quick recap of the play this past weekend.
Men’s Pro Singles
The draw featured two touring regulars; #1 Thomas Carter and #2 @Diego Gastelum. They’re currently ranked 12th and 14th on tour, but Gastelum has been getting a bit of attention lately for his solid results on tour at the end of last season, especially a win over Montoya at Pro Nationals that earned him his first quarterfinal. Also lurking in the draw was @Sebastian Franco, a long-time top-10 pro who lives in the area after retiring from touring. Franco made fast work of solid NY-based open player Aaron Dardani, then took out Carter in the quarters 10,10. He ground out a tie-breaker win from Ohio-based Victor Migliore to make the final from the top side.
From the bottom half, another solid international living in the area Ezequiel Subieta advanced to the semis before falling to Gastelum in two. In the final, Diego cruised past Franco 4,6 to take the singles title.
Men’s Doubles
Gastelum teamed with Subieta to take the Pro Doubles title, beating Juan Pablo Rodriguez / Thomas Carter in the final to give the Mexican the double for the weekend.
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Next up for the tour? Another Satellite in Garden City, Kansas later this month, then the first Tier 1 is in October in Fullerton. We’ll be back on the Fantasy Fastbreak Podcast before then.
In Mid August, The Federacion Mexicana de Raquetbol (FMR) held the 2026 Mexican Junior National tournament in the Mexican racquetball hotbed of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Mexico is the last of the “big 3” North American countries to hold its Junior Nationals (Canada held theirs along with their Adult nationals at the end of May, while USA had theirs at the end of June), and the results of these events determine the national team members that will represent their country at the upcoming World Juniors in December in Bolivia.
Here’s a quick recap of the qualifiers and some commentary. It always takes me some time to get to the data entry for junior tourneys (its like entering the data for 18-20 pro events at once), but with this posting the PRS database is live with these results.
Mexican Junior tournament and qualification goes as follows: the entrants play a double elimination singles draw; the winner of the winner’s bracket is the champion and Junior National titlist, while the winner of the loser’s bracket is the 2nd player to join the delegation. This consolation bracket champ often is not the winner’s bracket finalist, and the format gives players hope of getting back on the team even with an early loss.
Mexico does not normally play any official doubles competitions at its junior nationals; the 2 singles qualifiers will form the gender doubles teams at Worlds. However, this year they played a full slate of Mixed doubles draws which WILL determine the representatives at Junior Worlds in the Mixed doubles competition. Thanks to Tourney Director and IRT broadcasting legend Favio Soto for the details.
R2 site for 2026 Mexican Jr Nationals: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=54254
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Congrats to the following Boys Singles winners and finalists for team Mexico (each has the winner’s bracket titlist listed first, then the consolation bracket champion and second national team representative second)
(click here https://rball.pro/olf for a Matrix of all Mexican boy’s titlists loaded into the database currently, dating to 2012)
– Boys 21U: Jorge Gutierrez, Sebastian Chevaile
– Boys 18U: Sebastian Reulas Reza, Nicolas Galindo
– Boys 16U: Santiago Castillo, Axel Sanchez
– Boys 14U: Alejandro Robles Picon, Matias Sandoval
– Boys 12U: Kerman Damian Gracia, Daniel Rodriguez
– Boys 10U: Daniel Alejandro Ayala, Angel Perez Rodriguez
– Boys 10Udb: Leon Sebastian Cardona
– Boys 8Udb: Mateo Ochoa
– Boys 6Umb: Carin Mora.
Commentary on the divisions:
In 21U, Gutierrez (the 2023 and 2024 18U champion) returns to holding a Mexican title with the graduation of 2-time defending champ Sebastian Hernandez, while Chevaile tops last year’s 18U champ Eder Renteria in the consolation bracket final to claim the 2nd national team spot as the 5th seed.
In 18U, all four top-4 seeds lost in their first round of playing in a rather large indictment of the seeding in this bracket (not an uncommon issue in these Mexican Junior tournaments). The 9th seeded Sebastian Ruelas ended up winning his 4th Junior national title and first sine holding the 2023 16U title. Top seeded and 2024 16U champ Galindo came all the way back in the loser’s bracket after losing to Ruelas in the quarters to claim the 2nd spot.
In 16U, Santiago Castillo repeated as 16U champ, beating his top rival Brian Axel Sanchez in the final. Sanchez won two 14U titles over Castillo, but now Santiago has his number. Sanchez secured the 2nd qualifying spot after losing the title game by winning the consolation bracket.
In 14U: US Expat Alejandro Robles Picon, who converted along with his older sister to represent Mexico in early 2024, won his first Mexican Junior National title as the #1 seed in 14U. He beat multi-junior titlist Hermann Raciel Gracia in the final, but Gracia got pipped for the other national team spot by #2 seeded Matias Sandoval, who Gracia had beaten earlier in the event.
In 12U, Kerman Damian Gracia, despite being the 2x defending 10U champ moving up to 12U, was the 12th seed but nonetheless made it 3 titles in a row. He beat 14th seeded Daniel Rodriguez in the title game, who then came back around to join him on the national team.
10U was won by Daniel Alejandro Ayala, his 2nd career Jr title. In the younger divisions, we got first time winners in 10Udb, 8Umb, and 6Umb by Leon Sebastian
Ochoa, Mateo, and Mora, Carin respectively. World Juniors no longer holds divisions for age groups younger than 10, so these national titlists will have to wait to compete internationally.
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Congrats to the following Girls Singles finalists for team Mexico:
(click here: https://rball.pro/qcm for a Matrix of all Mexican Girl’s titlists loaded into the database currently, dating to 2012)
– Girls 10Udb: Regina Castillo and Andrea Cancino both went 3-1 in their gruop stage.
– Girls 8Umb: Natalia Serrano
Commentary on the Girls divisions:
In 21U, Balderrama wins back the 21U title she lost last year in her final year of eligibility. She’s joined by Yanna Salazar on the team, who was the 18U champ two years ago. All Five ladies in this draw are former Jr National champs, and last year’s 21U champ Angelica Veronica Ortega didn’t even make the consolation bracket final to defend her title.
In 18U, Miranda Barraza ascended to #1 seed with the matriculation of both of last year’s finalists, then cruised to the title. She’s joined on the national team by Andrea Perez-Picon, last year’s 16U champion who made her way through the consolation bracket and secured the national team slot with a walkover against the player (Guillen) who knocked her out of the winner’s bracket.
In 16U: Maria Malo, who hadn’t won a junior national title since 8U in 2019, took the title. She’s joined by Selene Bernal, the 14U finalist two years ago to give the Mexican team some new faces in this age group.
In 14U, Michelle Gomez repeated as 14U champ by cruising through the draw. She was joined on the national team by Valeria Covarrubias Delgado, a newcomer.
in 12U, first time winner in Lia Medrano. In 10U, Jocelyn Dominguez Chavez repeated as the titlist. There were no girls-only multi/double bounce draws; they played co-ed in these draws and the champions were declared in the database from the best-finishing girl in each division.
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Here were the winners of the Mixed Doubles competitions:
Parrilla takes the Costa Rica Open with three solid wins. Photo 2019 US Open via Kevin Savory
The 2026-27 @iInternational Racquetball Tour season technically kicked off this past weekend with a Satellite event in San Jose, Costa Rica at the home club of current #3 ranked pro @Andres Acuña , the 2026 Costa Rica Open.
This was rated as an IRT-600 event, so one level below a full Tier 1 IRT-700 event. However, because it’s a satellite, the rules governing entry limit the field to only four of the current top 8 players, with no limit on the number of players entering outside the top 8 at the time of the event.
The top 8 ranked players in this event were: #3 Acuna, #4 Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball , #5 @jhonatan flores, and #8 @Andree Parrilla. They formed in this order the top four seeds. But, the event drew a slew of IRT regulars as well, making this a very solid event from the 16s onward. The rest of the top 8 seeds were all IRT veterans: Mar, Carter, Trujillo, and Gastelum, and then the event featured a slew of international regulars who we normally see in IRF events.
Here’s a quick recap of the notable results.
In singles: the top 8 seeds advanced into the quarters without too much trouble: #8 Diego Gastelum was pressed to 13,12 against Guatemalan number one and #9 seed @Juan Jose Salvatierra, while #7 Trujillo dropped a game to former top Bolivian junior and current DC area native Ezequiel Subieta, but the rest of the top 8 made it through unscathed.
In the quarters, #1 Acuna was pressed in game 2 but beat Gastelum 5,14 to move on. Parrilla had to dig deep to top Mar 7,12. Flores had little trouble with Thomas Carter 1,6, and then Montoya ground out a 12,11 win over Trujillo in a matchup that seems to be closer and closer as Trujillo continues to move his way up the ranking boards on tour.
In the semis, Parrilla got an injury walkover against Acuna, leading 12-8 in the first game when Acuna couldn’t continue. Parrilla continues his career dominance over Acuna (he’s 7-3 in tier-1/international events over the Costa Rican). In the other semi, another injury issue, as Montoya won a close 1st game over Flores 15-13 then got a walkover early into the second game.
In the final, Parrilla got a in in the latest episode of their long running rivalry with Montoya, winning 12,11 for the title. Montoya leads the Tier1 h2h 13-9 over their long career, so this isn’t a completely unexpected result, but a good sign for Parrilla as he tries to work his way back up the rankings for next season.
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In doubles, the world’s best team Montoya/Mar took the title as the top seed, beating the #2 seeds Parrilla/Trujillo in two quick games for the doubles title.
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We’ll get a couple more IRT satellites in September (one in DC, one in Kansas) before our first tier 1 event in October in Fullerton.
In the meantime, i’ve updated the Running IRT points spreadsheet for this event as the points calendar switches back to a 12 month schedule.
