Pelham Memorial Tourney of Champions quick recap
There was an IRT-600 level satellite last weekend with some very solid international players making the trip up early to get in two IRT events along with next weekend’s Minnesota HoFame event; lets do a quick recap.
The Pelham Memorial in Portland has served as a Tier 1 in the past but has downgraded over the past couple years so as (per my understanding) to give more to the charities it supports. This year, the 600-level means that half the top 8 can enter along with anyone outside the top 8, which gave us a 21-man strong field.
r2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=50667
Reminder: we don’t load non-Tier 1 events into the PRS database.
Your top 4 seeds here were Acuna, Natera, Carter, and Martell. They were set to face a stiff challenge from a slew of South Americans who made the long flight up. Lets recap what happened.
From the top half, #1 Acuna cruised into the semis, where he faced #4 Martell. Martell got a very solid win over #5 Miranda in the quarters, making this trip worthwhile since he missed Mexican Nationals for it. Acuna cruised past Martell in the semis to make the final from the top-side.
Meanwhile, the seeds in the bottom half ran into South American trouble early, as #2 Natera was taken out in the quarters by Diego Garcia, and #3 Thomas Carter was dominated by Bolivian Jhonatan Flores in the other quarter. In a battle of two of my favorite dark horses, Flores topped Garcia 7,8 in the bottom semi to move into the final.
There, Flores didn’t seem too troubled by Acuna, winning 9,6 to take the title. Flores has mostly been ousted of IRT tournaments lately by the likes of Waselenchuk and Parrilla, but Acuna is by far the biggest scalp he’s taken so far in his pro career, and sets him up nicely from a confidence perspective for Minnesota in a few days’ time. Not to spoil the Minnesota Preview, but Flores’ seed and pathway gives him a solid chance to go deep.
Flores also entered in the Men’s Open singles draw (instead of doubles), winning that over former Bolivian junior Ezequiel Subieta for a dual singles title winning weekend.
In Doubles, the Argentine national doubles team Miranda/Garcia took the title over Alan Natera and super-sponsor Mark Frank.
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Next up; Minnesota. We’ll be publishing a podcast for the IRT club later this week and I’ll do a preview once we have the draws and matchups.