Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– IRT Singles: Kane Waselenchuk
– LPRT Singles: @Maria Jose Vargas
– Mixed Pro Doubles: @Javier Mar and Maria Jose Vargas
TL/DR Executive Summary: Kane beats Conrrado in the IRT final when Moscoso retires, while Vargas cruises through the draw to win for the 7th time in the last 8 LPRT events.
R2 Sports App home page for event: See comments
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Let’s review the notable matches in the IRT Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: see comments
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In the 32s:
– Diego Garcia beat #12 Diego Gastelum 6,(13),7 for the biggest upset by seed of the round, even though we’ve talked at length about Garcia’s bonafides.
– Juan Jose Salvatierra beat Bolivian Kadim Carrasco by the “perfect score” of 14,(14),10. This is the first time in the IRT’s history that a match has gone 14,14,10. The closest we ever came was a 14,(13),10 match between Murray and Diaz at the 2018 Shamrock shootout.
I once played a (14),14,10 match at Virginia States in like 2002 or 2003, saving match point against in game two and another match point at 10-10 before winning an 30+ match. I still think about the shot I hit at 10-10 down to get the serve back to win it.
– Robbie Collins outlasted Jaime Martell (2),11,6 in a bit of an upset
– Natera took out the top Mexican junior Santiago Castillo 11,0
– Erik Garcia played pretty well in his match against Kane, losing 8-5.
That’s better than the typical 1,3 shellacking Kane gives out in his openers.
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In the 16s:
– #8 Portillo was ahead of #9 Trujillo when the latter retired due to injury, robbing the round of perhaps its closest match.
– Diego Garcia came from a game down to beat #5 Jake Bredenbeck. This is a huge upset by seed, but not so much on the court, as Garcia now has four straight h2h wins over the Minnesotan.
– Guatemalan veteran Juan Jose Salvatierra shocked #4 @adam Manilla, ensuring that a 20+ seed would be in the semis here.
– Natera outlasted Mar in a 3-game thriller to move into the quarters.
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In the Quarters
– #1 Moscoso crushed Portillo 3,4. Amongst the “next group” of potential rivals to the top dogs on tour, Lalo is high up there on my list, and this kind of beating was indeed shocking.
– #21 Garcia cruised past Salvatierra to earn his first career IRT semi final appearance.
– Parrilla handled #3 Acuna in two easy games, an unsurprising result despite the current seeds of the players.
– #2 Kane Waselenchuk was not terribly troubled by #7 Natera, winning in two.
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In the Semis
– #1 Moscoso was not troubled by Garcia, winning 5,5 against a player who beat him back in 2025. Moscoso returns to the finals for the 6th time in the last 8 events.
– #2 Waselenchuk had to work a bit but advanced in two 9,6 against Parrilla to also get to the final for the 6th time in the last 8 events.
In the Finals … what started out promising ended in a dud; after holding firm to about 4-4 in the first, Kane blew Conrrado out and it became clear that the Bolivian was hurt. He lasted until 7-0 in the second before defaulting, giving Kane the title
It is his 134th career title.
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Points Implications of results
With this win, Kane takes back over #1 on tour. It’s still neck and neck at the top with Moscoso, and a reverse of the final this coming weekend could cause another switch at the top. Other notable rankings changes include Flores dropping out of the 3-spot with his second event missed this season. Parrilla jumps up a bit at the expense of Jake and Adam, both early round losers here. Garcia’s huge run improvers him from #27 to #17, and Salvatierra’s big showing moves him up from 25th to 19th.
Here’s a link to my IRT Rolling 2year Calendar XLS, which I use to approximate the points after each event. see comments for link
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LPRT Singles review
Match report in the PRS database: see comments
The ladies singles draw of 17 players was missing a slew of LPRT regulars from the past couple of seasons. Mejia, Longoria, Gaby Martinez, Munoz, Laime, Synhorst, Lotts, MRR, York, and Rajsich all out of this draw, which thinned the competition considerably. Some of these are “known” absences, but others could be indicative of another paradigm shift on tour.
The singles draw went chalk; no real upsets and only a couple of closer matches in the early rounds. Herrera needed a tiebreaker to get past her long-time Mexican rival Salas in the quarters. From there, #1 Vargas moved past Herrera in the semis and Mendez in the finals, with all three traveling Argentines making the final four of the event.
Vargas win 12,5 over her countrywoman and her long-time doubles partner, for her 7th title in the last 8 LPRT events. Vargas’ dominance on tour right now is unmatched, and in a draw missing all her top rivals, her title win is not surprising.
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Mixed Pro Recap
The tournament directors did a fantastic job seeding the Mixed Pro division; normally the seeds on this rarely seen draw are completely out of whack with the results, but this weekend the seeding held all the way through to the final. In the final, #1 Moscoso & Centellas fell to #2 Mar & Vargas, giving Vargas the double gold for the weekend.
(reminder: there is no Mixed Pro database).
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Open Singles, Doubles, and other notable draws
The GSO chose to have Mixed Pro with pro-level prize money instead of Pro doubles for the IRT or LPRT, thus the Open doubles draws were stacked. Here’s how they went along with the big singles draws.
– Men’s Open Singles: top seed Salvatierra dropped out when he made the IRT quarters, clearing a path for Costa Rican Antonio Sanchez to make the final. Unfortunately he had to catch a flight, giving Guatemalan and #2 seed Edwin Galicia the title.
– Women’s Open Singles: Naomi Ros took the round robin, winning the event over 2nd place Canadian Juliette Parent.
– Men’s Open Doubles: Natera & Gonzalez beat Galicia and Salvatierra for the doubles title. Quite a weekend for Salvatierra.
– Women’s Open doubles: Andrea_Perez-Picon / Verónica Santibáñez took the round robin group. 2nd place was Erica Williams & Sandra Ramos
– The brother/sister junior pair of Andrea Perez-Picon / Alejandro Robles Picon took the Mixed Open title.
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Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar (see comments for link)
The IRT is right back in action, heading to Louisiana for the first time since Hurricane Katrina washed out a pro final for the first time ever for the 2026 34th Annual Turkey Shoot Presented by Team Elmwood Racquetball.
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tags
International Racquetball Tour
@ladiesprofessionalracquetballtour
@lprt
URLs for this article:
Men’s singles draw in PRS: https://rball.pro/221a45
women’s Singles draw in PRS: https://rball.pro/2fefa8
r2 link for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54262
IRT rolling rankings: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z6eg6NJT6fjGMfRRyKTNLShAiDoz0TzzmQCt1_SbNBo/edit?usp=sharing
LPRT rolling rankings: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16o0aE4YophvlQdezlMVj_dqPRUoDQqwE5-LtsLbOncg/edit?usp=sharing
Master Racquetball Calendar: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMbIP9SZd0MssH_nPGU/edit?usp=sharing