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.
R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=51976
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.
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Let’s preview the draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that i’m looking forward to:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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