Month: December 2021

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IRF 20th World Championships Wrap up

Landa wins Worlds. Photo from 2020 USAR National doubles by Kevin Savory


Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

  • Men’s Singles: Alex Landa
  • Men’s Doubles; Rodrigo Montoya/Javier Mar
  • Women’s Singles: Paola Longoria
  • Women’s Doubles: Paola Longoria/Samantha Salas
  • Team: USA

All four draws have been loaded to the database (the official Team results are pending). Here’s those links:

Men’s Singles: http://rball.pro/5E56AA

Men’s Doubles; http://rball.pro/6A670B

Women’s Singles: http://rball.pro/F31645

Women’s Doubles: http://rball.pro/8F6654

Home page for the event: https://www.internationalracquetball.com/xx-world…/

Here’s some commentary and observations on the four draws.


Men’s Singles:
Alex Landa wins his second “major” IRF event (he previously won the 2017 PARC event in San Jose, Costa Rica) by cruising through the group stage as the #1 seed entering the event. In the knockouts, he overcame a first game 15-3 blow-out loss to my pre-tournament favorite Conrrado Moscoso to win that semi with relative ease the rest of the way (3),8,6. A great adjustment by Landa to get to the final form the top-half. Moscoso had taken a close quarter final against #4 seed Andree Parrilla to get to the semis.
From the bottom half, Andres Acuña entered the event as the #13 seed in the round robins before blowing out pre-tournament #2 seed Rodrigo Montoya Solis 5,4 to seize hold of the #2 seed in the knockout stages. But the bottom half was stacked with talent and the touring pros all beat each other up to make the final. USA’s Jake Bredenbeck got a great win over Montoya to vanquish him in the 16s, but then Jake fell to Colombia’s #6 Mario Mercado in the quarters. Mercado and Acuna played an absolutely fantastic match in the semis, a back and forth excellent display of shot making and cliff hangers before Acuna put Mario away to earn a spot in the final.

The final was anticlimactic, especially given all the “history” between Landa and Acuna. This is a frequent matchup as of late; the two have met in the 16s four times in the last five IRT pro events, with Acuna finally taking a match from Alex in Sarasota in the last event prior to Worlds. But the final turned into a route, as Landa played like the Landa we know from 2019-20, the one who took over the #1 spot in the world. Landa wins 6,6 to take the title and make his country switch all the more meaningful.

Women’s Singles

1 Paola Longoria blew through the draw, never dropping a game and only getting stretched to double digits twice, in winning the singles title. This title is her 21st international singles title overall; 4 Worlds, 3 Pan American Games, 8 PARCs, 2 World Games, and the rest regional titles.

The gulf between Paola and the rest of the professionals playing continues to be large. The current #2, #4, #5, #6, #8 and #10 ranked players on tour were all in Guatemala … and none of them even made the final to challenge Paola. That challenger was the surprising Kelani Lawrence, who got a couple of really solid wins over fellow touring pros Carla Muñoz Montesinos, Angelica Barrios and then against her fellow teammate Rhonda Rajsich in the semis to earn her spot in the finals. There, Paola cruised 6,1 to win the title.

Rajsich had a great tourney, rebounding from a 3rd place finish in the RRs and a #15 seeding in the group stage to oust #2 overall seed Maria Jose Vargas Parada in the 16s, then crush home-town favorite Maria Renee Rodríguez in the quarters to make the semis.

Men’s Doubles
The Mexican pairing of Montoya & Mar has now won three straight Mexican national doubles titles, twice beating the presumed #1 doubles team of Daniel De La Rosa and Alvaro Beltran in the final. And now they’ve won the last two IRF competitions together, both times vanquishing the top Bolivian pair of Moscoso and Roland Keller in the final. They’re a young pairing, but they clearly are making their mark on international racquetball.
Women’s Doubles

Longoria and Samantha Salas Solis continue to add to their amazing collection of titles by cruising through the draw and topping team USA in the final 14,6. This 2021 Worlds title is their 15th international title together as a team (4 worlds, 3 Pan Am games, 7 PARCs, and one regional title), to go along with 35 pro doubles titles since 2014 and somewhere in the range of 14-15 Mexican National doubles titles. Just amazing.

Team competition.
Despite taking 3 of the 4 titles, team Mexico was pipped at the top of the team rankings on the strength of Landa’s singles win, two finals appearances and the early round upsets by two Mexican men’s singles players. Bolivia was a distant third.

This is the first time team USA has taken a combined team win since the 2014 Worlds, breaking a streak of 7 straight team wins by Mexico.

Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from the IRTlive broadcasting team Dean DeAngelo Baer, !Gary Ga Mazaroff, and Pablo Fajre.

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 FB. If your name is here and it isn’t tagged … it probably means I attempted to tag you but FB stripped it.

Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar …
https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…/

  • IRF World Juniors has already started and overlapped with the end of Worlds in Guatemala City; that tournament will run through the weekend.
  • Next weekend, the LPRT heads to my old stomping grounds in Severna Park for the last pro event of the season.
  • There’s also a lower-tier IRT event in Atlanta the weekend of the 12th.
  • then, two fun events for the 12/19 weekend: one is the return of racquetball to the outdoor courts in Hollywood Florida, the other is Court Wars, hosted by the Manillas and featuring a number of compelling matches, including a rematch of the World men’s singles final.
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IRF Worlds Knockout Draw Preview

Acuna with the big upset in the RRs. Photo US Open 2019 Kevin Savory


XX World Racquetball Championships Guatemala 2021


We’re through the RRS, and with no rest for the weary the knockouts start today at 9am Central.


Here’s a quick preview of the four draws:
Men’s Singles:
There was just one major upset in the Men’s Singles RR, which led to the inevitable question: which top seed would get screwed by having Rodrigo Montoya Solis drop to a low seed? The answer is: USA’s Jake Bredenbeck, who gets Montoya as a #14 seed in the round of 16 later today (presuming Rodrigo advances out of the 32s of course). These two have not met since the last of their 6 WRT meetings and they’re 3-3 h2h …but I think i’m favoring Jake here this weekend. Montoya has been nursing a shoulder injury and I don’t think he can hang with Jake’s power right now.
Other 16s that could be interesting include a possible all Guatemala matchup at 8/9 between @Juan Jose Salvatierra and Javier Martinez, #5 Conrrado Moscoso versus his former country-man Diego Garcia Quispe (who now plays for Argentina), and an all-Costa Rica matchup between doubles partners #2 Andres Acuña and #15 Felipe Camacho.
Predictions: I’m going Chalk to the quarters; hard to see any of the top 8 players getting upset. In the quarters:

  • Alex Landa over Martinez
  • Moscoso over Andree Parrilla; a great quarter final of contrasting styles. Parrilla has a win over Moscoso on the IRT, so this is no cakewalk for the most recent IRT pro champ. Look for this to go tie-breaker.
  • Mario Mercado over Jake: Mario really gets up for international competitions, and will be a dark-horse to advance.
  • Acuna over @Luis Aguilar, if he gets here. Aguilar is the most vulnerable of the top 8 seeds to get upset early, but if he beats Jose Daniel Ugalde Albornoz in the 16s he’ll face an uphill challenge to top Acuna.
    Semis:
  • Moscoso over Landa: Moscoso is hot, Landa is still not back to 100% form from his ailments of the summer.
  • Acuna over Mercado: wow; last time I have these two guys playing is in 2014 Junior Worlds 18u, when Acuna topped Mercado in the group stage before Mario raced to the junior 18U world title over none other than Moscoso, his likely opponent in the final. This is a tough one to predict, but i’ll go with Mercado.

Final: Moscoso over Mercado. They met recently in Sarasota, a very close 14,13 win for Moscoso, so this is no gimme. Look for an entertaining match as the spirited Mercado pushes the more talented Moscoso the entire way.

Women’s Singles preview
The women’s RRs featured a couple of group seeds fall, but not unexpectedly, since (for example) Chile’s Carla Muñoz Montesinos was seeded 17th despite being nearly a top 10 LPRT player. So the knockout se eds look pretty straight forward.
In the 32s, USA’s Kelani Lawrence faces the improving Ireland #1 Aisling Hickey in what looks like the toughest play-in of the bracket.
In the 16s, a couple of fun matches await:

  • Defending World champ Ana Gabriela Martínez projects to face tough Ecuadorian vet Maria Pazita Muñoz Albornoz.
  • Both Bolivians are drawn into the same 16, with Angelica Barrios set for a Bolivian Nationals final rematch with Micaela Meneses Cuellar.
  • #6 Munoz, for her troubles in winning her group likely gets fellow LPRT regular Lawrence … who beat the Chilean at the 2019 Pan Am games.
  • two long-time LPRT touring pros in Maria Renee Rodriguez and Amaya Cris face off in the #7/#10. MRR beat her 11-10 at the US Open a few months back, but generally Amaya has held the upper hand in the head-to-head. We’ll give the nod to the home-town favorite here.
  • Lastly, Rhonda Rajsich projects into the #2 seed Maria Jose Vargas Parada, a tough first rounder for the Argentine.
    My projected quarters:
  • Paola Longoria over her doubles partner Samantha Salas Solis
  • Gaby over Natalia Mendez Erlwein
  • Barrios over the winner of Munoz/Lawrence (who i sense will be Munoz)
  • Vargas over MRR. She may be on home soil but beating the #2 player in the world is tough.
    Semis; here’s where the rubber meets the road.
  • Longoria over Gaby; so, Gaby topped Longoria to win the 2018 Worlds in a huge shock, and Gaby is on home soil. But these two have played 19 times, that one win in 2018 remains Gaby’s sole victory over Paola, and the last few times they’ve played it has been a beat down, with Paola winning by scores like 6,5 or 1,7 or 2,5. Paola is very sharp right now and is destined to win this tournament.
  • Vargas over Barrios: another interesting matchup between two native Bolivians with really contrasting styles. In their last meeting, Barrios won the first game before Vargas figured something out and raced to the next two games. I’m guessing with hyper-involved coaching and national team members cheering her on, she won’t make that mistake twice.

Final: Longoria blitzes past Vargas like she generally does for the title.

Men’s doubles:
I’m liking Team USA vs Team Mexico in one semi; that’ll be great theater. I’m favoring Mexico to the final; they’re a more experienced team and did not struggle with inferior competition in the RRs like USA did.
On the bottom side, Team Canada is going to get a rematch with team Bolivia just to get back to the semis, and Team Colombia has a chance at revenge against team Argentina for the same. The bottom half is wide open, but i’ll go out on a limb and put team Canada in the final.

Mexico over Canada in the final.

Women’s Doubles:
I’m liking team Mexico over team Guatemala in the top half. In the bottom half i’m liking team USA for the upset over Bolivia in the quarters but then to lose the rematch against team Argentina in the semis.

Mexico over Argentina in the final

So far we’ve depended a ton on individuals streaming, such as Malia Kamahoahoa Bailey on the Team USA coaching staff or the individual players (Meneses, Barrios, Moscoso are always good for live streaming their matches). But the IRT crew has just arrived in town so look for Pablo Fajre and Dean DeAngelo Baer to get setup and start broadcasting today.