Month: August 2022

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21st IRF World Championship Wrap-up

Moscoso is your new World champ. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory


Congrats to your individual winners on the weekend:

  • Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso
  • Women’s Singles: Paola Longoria
  • Men’s Doubles; @Alvaro Beltran and Daniel de la Rosa
  • Women’s Doubles: Longoria & @Samantha Salas Solis
  • Mixed Doubles: Salas and Rodrigo Montoya
    Obviously a huge week for team Mexico, which wins four of the five draws on home soil in San Luis Potosi, strongly taking back the crown of best Country in the sport.
    After the individual events, the countries played “team” events, which were both won by Mexico (Men’s over Canada, Women’s over Bolivia), further cementing Mexico’s reclaiming of their top-country status.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=39914

Here’s a quick recap of each draw, with some observations.
Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/9s5
Bolivia’s Moscoso took out USA’s long-time representative @RRocky Carson in the final to secure his third IRF title and his first world title. Rocky loses in the final of Worlds on the same court where he made his Worlds debut back in 2000, an amazing feat considering that he’s still making the back end of tournaments 22 years later.
Some of the storylines of the knockout draw for me:

  • Moscoso really dominated this event. He beat Landa 2,3,2 (the 2021 World Champ), then turned around the next day and beat Montoya 4,2,6 (the 2018 World Champ). These were absolutely dominant wins even by rally scoring standards, and its hard to understate just how well he was playing. His serves were as fast as I’ve ever seen in a pro or IRF event, thanks to altitude in SLP and where Conrrado is right now.
  • The biggest storyline besides Moscoso has to be the shock upset loss of DLR in the 16s to Guatemalan @Edwin Galicia . This is the currently ranked #1 pro in the world, who should have been in the final against Moscoso. It is really a shocking loss for the world’s top player.

– Rocky came from two games down in the semis to down @Andres Acuna , who continues to make the case that he belongs in the discussion of the top players in the world.

Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/uw5
Longoria secures her amazing 23rd international singles title, losing just one game the entire tournament. Her first title was in 2006, and now in 2022 she’s just as dominant.
Other storylines for me:

  • I realize its the IRF and they make their own rules … but the women’s draw seeds show why you cannot seed by country. Your 1-4 seeds were Manilla, Mendez, Rajsich and Centellas, giving USA and Argentina the top four seeds based on their finishes last fall. All four players lost in the quarters. Seeding is important in tournaments, and time and again the IRF’s country-based seeding results in weird looking results (like the decade-long #1 LPRT player Longoria being the #6 seed here).
  • Manilla’s loss to Barrios wasn’t that big of an upset, in that they’re #6 and #7 on tour right now, but Manilla’s loss to Angelica (or is it Steffany now?) coupled with her loss to Enriquez at the pro stop last week does not portend well to her aims to challenge for the upper echelons of the tour rankings.

– The second straight week that #2 Herrera has lost to one of her top rivals. Last week it was Mejia, this week Gaby. Is she really ready to challenge Paola for the #1 title, or were her two wins last spring just a good run of form?

Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/1hb

  • DLR and Alvaro return to the top of the IRF doubles world, winning Worlds again. They were 2018 World champions together. This represents Beltran’s 11th career IRF doubles title, and he does it in his final appearance before retiring from play.
  • They certainly earned this title, taking out the very solid Ecuadorian team in the quarters, the US team in the semis, and then coming back from 2 games down to beat the excellent Bolivian team in the finals.

– Was slightly surprised the Canadian team didn’t get to the final, but its also an indicator of just how well Moscoso was playing this week. And @Roland Keller is a fantastic right-side player.

Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/8hc

  • First the obvious; Longoria and Salas of course are the most dominant pro doubles team, and continue to be the best team in the IRF. This title is their 16th IRF title together. to go with more than 30 pro doubles titles. Its really amazing.

– Bravo to the Argentina team, who beat the team i thought was a shoe-in to get to the finals (USA), then crushed an over-seeded team Canada to get there. And they nearly won; taking the champs to 5 games and a 12-10 5th game loss that could have gone either way. Would love to see what Mendez/Centellas can do going forward, and see if they can challenge the other top teams on tour (Mejia/Herrera specifically).

Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/g75

  • Montoya and Salas are clearly the best mixed team in the world right now, having won their second straight Mixed IRF major to go with their title in the 2021 Mixed pro event in Denver.

– Mixed doubles is a great addition to these tournaments and I hope we get more combined pro events so we get more full-strength mixed pro draws.

Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend; thanks to IRT crew and @Pablo Fajre for making it happen, thanks to @Gary Mazaroff and Alexis Iwaasa for your time on the mike.

Thanks to USA Racquetball for streaming the USA matches when not on the main court, as well as other orgs/players who live streamed their matches for us to benefit from afar.

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

IRF Seniors is in Albuquerque next weekend (home of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul!), and then the pro tours kick into action with two straight weekends of Mid-Atlantic tournaments; the LPRT in Chesapeake VA on the 9/11 weekend, and then the IRT in Severna Park the 9/18 weekend. Both of these sites are drivable for yours truly (now living in Richmond), but we’ll see which ones I can get to.

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XXI 2022 Worlds Preview

Beltran goes for a title in his final Worlds. Photo US Open 2019 via Photographer Kevin Savory


Hello! I’m a few days late to this preview … but now that the knockout brackets have been set, i thought i’d set the stage for the rest of this week.
The 2022 Worlds tournament is the 21st iteration of the tournament. The first one was in 1981, held at the inaugural World Games in Santa Clara, then the second held three years later in 1984 in Sacramento (it didn’t move far). From there, it has been regularly held every two years at increasingly distant spots in the world from Racquetball’s origin in the states. Places like Germany, Venezuela, Bolivia, South Korea, Colombia, Guatemala, and Ireland have held the event over the years. The USA has now hosted it four times .. but none since 1996. Canada has hosted it twice.
But this year it is in San Luis Potosi, Mexico’s hotbed of racquetball, which now hosts this event for the third time. SLP was set to host in 2020 but Covid knocked the racquetball world for a loop, but here we are, back in SLP and at the amazingly beautiful La Loma Sports Center.
This being racquetball … it wouldn’t be an international event without some interesting stories. In the lead-up to this event, we discovered that:

  • The FMR (Mexico’s federation) is badly in arrears in its payments and paperwork with CONADE (the Mexican equivalent nationals porting body to the US’s US Olympic Committee). This was discovered when the entire Mexican team went to gofundme/facebook to ask for funds to cover their travel with a week’s notice. The FMR and CONADE traded accusations in the media, each disputing the other’s story.
  • The Colombian Federation apparently has dissolved, meaning that the two frequent ladies representatives Cristina Amaya and @Maria Paz Riquelme not only had to fund their own trip … but they had to cover their own and their association’s fees to the IRF which together are thousands of dollars). Not surprisingly, there are no Male Colombian competitors, robbing the worlds of the typical presence of @Mario Mercado , @Sebastian Franco , @Eduardo Garay (if he still even represents Colombia) , or lately Gerson Miranda , who just switched from Bolivia last year. Not good.
  • The European Federation announced that they were not sending any teams this year … but that didn’t stop @Fabian Balmori from coming to represent Spain. Balmori represented Venezuela at various international events from 1993 until 2008, and has two IRF Men’s singles titles to his credit (in the 1993 and 1998 Central American & Caribbean Games events).

The IRF has come to its senses and now uses R2; here’s the link https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=39914

Quick recap of the interesting machinations of the RR groups before we get to knockout predictions.
Note: the top 2 competitors from each group advance to the knockouts, while the non-qualifying players/teams move to the consolation knockout brackets.
In Men’s Singles:

  • #2 seed and defending World champ @Andres Acuna was upset in the RRs by Ecuadorian @Jose Daniel Ugalde in five games. Big-time upset and this will shake up the bottom-side of the draw.
  • Argentina’s Diego Garcia was surprisingly eliminated inthe group stage.
  • Japan’s @Michimue Kono upset the #1 seed @Ssergio.acun in his group, and then Canadian @Kurtis Cullen had an amazing down-two-games come-back to win the group and the top seed; final score against Acuna was (7),(7),9,0,0. Sounds like a possible injury here; we’ll see what the knockouts bring.
  • Most of the rest of the groups went chalk, with #1 overall seed @RRocky Cars and IRT #1 ranked pro @DanielDaniel de la Rosa giving up the fewest points (36 and 37 respectively) in the group stage.
    In Women’s Singles, only a couple of notable results in a very chalk-y RR stage:
  • I was surprised @VValeria Centellas got a win over Steffany Barrios (formerly Angelica) ; big win that hopefully propels her to success in the knockouts.
  • A solid win byAna Gabriela Martinez in the group stage to topple current #2 LPRT player @AleAlexandra Herrera , a 5-game see-saw affair.
  • Both Cuban entrants played their first couple of matches , then no showed. Turns out, they used this opportunity to defect. Bravo to them, and I hope they find success.
    In Men’s Doubles:
  • Kind of surprised the Ecuadorian Men’s team didn’t fare better, after their excellent runs in past events.
  • The Canada-USA match was the highlight of the opening round, with both teams really powering the ball. Hope to see this matchup again.
    In Women’s Doubles:
  • Two of the groups went chalk/predictably, but Group 2 featured three teams to go 2-1, beating each other up and forcing the places to go down to points differential.
    In Mixed Doubles:

– Slightly surprised that the Bolivian team of Moscoso/Daza outlasted the Canadian team of Murray/Lambert.

Predictions/Knockout Preview
Lets run through the knockout draws and make some predictions.
Men’s Singles: The quarters look to be great.

  • #1 @Rocky Carson , who owns 8 IRF singles titles, likely faces Keller, a 2-time PARC champ. Carson has never lost to Keller, and should advance here.
  • #5 @DanieDaniel de la Rosa , who owns 3 IRF titles, likely faces defending champ Acuna,, who should advance as the #13 seed in the 16s over Canada’s @Kurtis Cullen . I don’t see DLR losing here.
  • #3 @Alejandro Landa faces a very stiff challenge against #6 Conrrado Moscoso in what should be the best match of the round. Landa has downed Moscoso two straight events, but neither has been in the race-to-11 rally scoring method. I think the altitude and pace of Moscoso works to his favor and he gets the upset here.
  • For his excellent RR finish earning him the #2 seed, Ecuador’s @Jose Daniel Ugalde is set to face 2-time IRF champ Rodrigo Montoya , who always elevates his game in IRF events. Montoya to advance.
    In the semis:
  • DLR should advance past Carson, though Rocky skipped out on Doubles specifically to focus on singles here while Daniel is still pulling double duty. On paper this is a DLR win .. but Rocky got a win over DLR back in Chicago in March. Could go either way.
  • Montoya has shown a propensity to control Moscoso … but Conrrado has turned the tide. These two met in the semis of PARC in April, a close 3-game win for the Bolivian, and I predict the same here.

In the final: DLR vs Moscoso is a fitting final, a contrast in styles. I think DLR’s patience and maturity on the courts will earn him a close win, similar to the way he ground out a win the last time they played, which was in Denver, at altitude, in Aug 2021.

In Women’s singles, as with the Men’s, the quarters are going to be great:

  • #1 Erika Manilla will have her hands full with the likely play-in winner Barrios (who has to top Chilean vet @Carla Munoz first). Manilla topped Barrios in Vero Beach … but Barrios just won the PARC event (albeit on home soil). A coin flip, but Manilla is slightly favored.
  • The #1 LPRT player @Paola LPaola Longoria is seeded 5th in the knockouts but should have little trouble topping #4 Centellas.
  • #3 Rhonda Rajsich faces a tall task in #6 Gaby Martinez; this should be an upset by seed.
  • Despite the seeds, #7 Herrera should make quick work of #2 Mendez.
    In the semis:
  • Longoria over Manilla; Erika has exploded onto the women’s scene, but isn’t ready to beat Paola, especially on home soil.
  • Martinez over Herrera: this would be an upset by seed, and by LPRT ranking … but Martinez has had consistent success over Alexandra and is an excellent international player.

Final: a rematch of the famous 2018 worlds title for Gaby, her sole career win over Longoria. Not this time: Longoria will not be stopped in her home town.

Men’s Doubles prediction:
I think seeds will hold to the semis. There we get some awesome matches.

  • #1 Mexico should advance to the final over #4 USA. @Alvaro Beltran is seeking to go out on top in his final World tournament.
  • #3 Canada is looking really strong and should topple #2 Bolivia.

In the final, I like DLR/Beltran

Women’s Doubles prediction: its hard not to predict a Mexico-USA final, but these teams will have to beat some solid teams to get there.
Longoria/Salas are pretty unbeatable right now, unless their opponents are Herrera/Mejia, so i’ll predict them to top Lawrence/Scott in the final.

Mixed Doubles prediction: I think Mexico is a shoe-in for the final from the top, but any of three teams (USA, Canada, or Bolivia) could win from the bottom. Whoever advances though will be hard pressed to beat Montoya and Salas.

Streaming is being done by the IRT team for this event (thanks to Pablo Favre ) and the lead broadcasters are the excellent @Gary Mazaroff and @AlIAlexis Iwaasa . Follow @internaInternational Racquetball Federation on Facebook and sign up for live notifications.
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.
Associations
International Racquetball Federation – IRF
USA Racquetball
Racquetball Canada
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Hashtags #racquetball #proracquetball #irt #lprt

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Paola Longoria Grand Slam Wrap-up

Longoria wins her namesake event. Photo via US Open 2019, Kevin Savory


Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

  • Singles: Paola Longoria
  • Doubles; Alexandra Herrera & Montse Mejia

    This was a unique tournament featuring Paola’s “personal” portable court, which was setup on a covered court outside of the Deportivo Ferrocarrilero club in Aguascalientes, AG, Mexico.
    It is a spectacle of a court, but the outdoor setting features very difficult sight-lines for players, especially in the later afternoon where the sun glared into the court from all sides. This seemed to really vex some players, as we saw all kinds of upsets in this event. They had to have a thunder delay midway through the event, something I can’t quite say i’ve heard of before.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=39838

Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/k9q

In the 32s, no surprises from the 5 relative newbies to the LPRT tour.

In the 16s, we started to get some surprises.

  • In the 8/9 match, @Samantha Salas Solis got a solid win over top10 rival @Carla Munoz 5,13. Is this the return of Salas to the top 10?
  • #5 Angelica Barrios escaped by the skin of her teeth, winning 11-10 over #12 Sheryl Lotts.
  • The shock result of the round of 16 was former top10 player Nancy Enriquez blasting #4 Erika Manilla 10,4 to move on. Not a good start to Manilla’s pro season.

– #6 Jessica Parrilla was stretched to an 11-7 breaker win over #11 @Maria Renee Rodriguez

In the Quarters

  • #1 @Paola Longoria topped her doubles partner Salas 8,4 to move on. These two have met more than 70 times now on the pro tour, by far the most frequent rivalry in the tour’s history.
  • #5 Barrios had a comprehensive win over upset-minded Enriquez 11,5 to move into the semis.
  • #6 Parrilla continued her recent record over #3 Natalia Mendez , advancing to the semis.

– #7 @Montse Mejia dominated her doubles partner and #2 player @Alexandra Herrera 7,5. This is the most significant result of the round; Mejia is one of just a handful of players who have ever gotten a win over Paola, and this result spurred her into the finals.

In the Semis

  • Longoria flew by Barrios 3,6 to move into the finals in her namesake tourney. In 6 games she’s given up a grand total of 23 points and looks unstoppable as always.
  • Mejia had little trouble over her country-woman Parrilla, moving into the finals 5,6. Mejia definitely looks “on” this weekend.

In the Finals, a great back and forth match between Mejia, a young player who when “on” can beat anyone in the world, and Longoria, the veteran who has proven time and again she knows how to win. Mejia raced out to an early lead in game 1, but Paola came roaring back to win it. Instead of being deflated, Mejia returned the favor in game two to force the tiebreaker.. In the breaker, Mejia was first to match point but could not convert, then Longoria worked the last two points to win 11-10 in the final. The fans could not have asked for a better singles final.

Points Implications of results
No changes in the top 3: Longoria did not play in Denver last year, so she had no points to defend and thus turned her 600 point lead over Herrera into an 1100 point lead overnight. Wow; Herrera really needed a result here to make the race this season close and missed out on a huge opportunity.
There was some big-time movements though, both by players who were here and players who were not. Mejia’s result vaults her immediately to #4 on tour, jumping both Mendez and Manilla. Munoz moves into the top10 at #9. Salas continues to climb backup the rankings, now sitting at #12.

However the most impactful change is to Gaby Martinez, who plummets from #5 to #15 on tour. Martinez won the 2021 Denver event but defends none of those points and thus drops 320 points in an instant. This will make future seeding quite interesting, as she now projects to face a top 4 player in the 16s.

Doubles review
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/hu4
The 8-team doubles draw resulted with the expected 1-2 final. The two top ladies doubles teams in the world (Longoria/Salas and Mejia/Herrera) met in the final just after the singles final, and the losing singles finalist Mejia helped power her team to a comprehensive finals win, beating the #1 seeds 7,7.

Herrera is on quite a roll in doubles; she has won 4 of the last 5 pro doubles titles now and has done it with multiple different partners as Mejia does not always travel. It seems likely Paola will lose her #1 doubles ranking soon.

Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., and Maria Renee Rodriguez.

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

It is time for 2022 Worlds! Its being held just next door to Aguascalientes in San Luis Potosi, one of the hotbeds of Mexican racquetball. There’s been all sorts of funding drama leading up to the event (well publicized elsewhere); lets hope the Mexican players do actually attend.

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LPRT Paola Longoria Grand Slam Preview

Manilla has a career high seeding. Photo 2021 US Open via Kevin Savory


Welcome to the 2022-23 LPRT season! The LPRT starts off with a bang; a Grand Slam season opener and a return to tournament racquetball in Mexico.
For three years running, from 2017-19, the “Paola Longoria Experience” was held in her hometown of San Luis Potosi as a kickoff tournament for the tour each season, but then Covid hit and the tournament took three years off. But we’re back, and this time the tournament is being held 100 miles west of SLP in the town of Aguascalientes.
R2 Sports App link:https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=39838
Perhaps due to fixture congestion, the draw for the opener is way down, with just 21 players entered (by way of comparison, the Supermax GS in Kansas City in June had 25% more players with a 28-person draw). A huge chunk of the ladies tour is qualified for Worlds, taking place the starting next weekend in SLP proper, and its likely that many decided not to add a week to their next trip. Understandable.

As a result, this event is missing 6 of the top 20 players in the world: #3 Vargas (pregnant), #5 Gaby, #9 Rajsich (which is odd; she’s missed just 3 events in her entire career!), #12 Lawrence, #13 Laime, and #16 Scott all are out of this draw, which will give us a ton of elevated seeds and solid opportunities for lower ranked players. Most of the American national team is missing the event, which could have been a nice tune-up for Worlds.

Lets preview the singles draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that I’m looking forward to:

The round of 32 features 5 relative unknowns playing 5 regular LPRT players. We may see some upsets, but not likely as the LPRT veterans advance.

Round of 16: there are a few compelling matches:

  • In the usually competitive 8/9 seed game, we get two players in Carla Munoz and @Samantha Salas Solis who have had some battles in the past. Some of Munoz’s best ever wins have come at the hands of Salas, so she’ll be confident. Salas saw her ranking dip out of the top 10 last season, but she finished strong with a semis appearance in Kansas City. Great match here. I’m leaning Munoz to win here.
  • Long-time international rivals #3 Natalia Mendez and #14 Cris Amaya are set to meet for the 8th time in all competitions. Mendez leads h2h 5-2.
  • #6 @Jessica Parrilla takes on #11 Maria Renee Rodriguez. MRR is a long-time tour competitor and will seek a top10 win for her resume.

– In the 7/10 matchup, we get a very competitive match between @Montse Mejia and Valeria Centellas . Mejia is undefeated against the Argentinian in her career, and as I frequently intone has the talent to be in the top 4 on tour, but needs consistent attendance and consistent performances.

Projected Qtrs:

  • #1 and tournament namesake @Paola Longoria should advance over the Salas/Munoz winner.
  • A great match is projected between #4 Erika Manilla and newly crowned World Games champ #5 @Angelica Barrios. These two met in Vero Beach, a two game win for Erika, and I’d expect the same here, but under-rate Barrios at your peril.
  • Upset watch for #6 Parrilla over #3 Mendez: these two met in South Carolina and that’s exactly what Leoni did. She’s finally back into the top 10 consistently after her knee injury and will look to stay there.
  • #2 Alexandra Herrera projects to meet her long-time doubles partner Mejia in the quarters. They’ve met more than a few times, and Herrera has taken their last couple of meetings, but Mejia is arguably the better player, but needs to overcome the mental aspect of playing her friend and partner. Based on where these two are right now, i’m going with the lefty.
    Semis projection:
  • Longoria over Manilla: this is becoming somewhat of a famous matchup, and many see Manilla as a leading rival to take down Longoria. Can Erika take a big step here? The game plan for beating Paola has been demonstrated by Herrera recently; simply put, don’t make errors. Easier said than done.
  • Herrera over Parrilla: I still think there’s a huge gap from the top 2 players to the rest of the tour, and see no reason not to predict a 1v2 final.

Finals: Longoria wins her namesake tourney and starts off the season with the upper hand against her primary rival for the 2022-23 title.

Doubles review
There’s 8 doubles teams here … with some new teams competing thanks to regular partners missing. However, the top 2 seeds are the regular dominant teams of Longoria/Salas and Herrera/Mejia. It is difficult not to predict another final between these two teams, who have been battling for pro and National titles regularly for years.
I am intrigued by #3 seeds Manilla/Parrilla: both have regular partners at this point (Scott and Perez respectively), and it should be interesting to see how they play together. Both are great doubles players.

In the final i’ll go chalk, with Longoria/Salas raising another doubles title together.

Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live.

Look for Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., and Tj Baumbaugh on the mike, calling the shots!

Coincidentally, if you’re interested in playing Fantasy Racquetball for this event, the links to the brackets are advertised on LPRT’s main page. The winner each week gets free swag!

LPRT
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Alex Landa Open Recap

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


Here’s a recap of the excellent satellite IRT event from this past weekend in Juarez.
Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

  • IRT Singles: Andree Parrilla
  • Open Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya & Javier Mar
  • IRT21 Singles: Erick Trujillo

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=39837

Lets review the notable matches in the Pro Singles draw.
Not too many surprises before the quarters; Cuevas got a walkover against Christian Longoria, @Jordy Alonso was a no-show, giving Diego Gastellum a pass into the 16s, otherwise the top players advanced.
In the 16s,

  • Andree Parrilla took out former WRT #1 Alex Cardona in two games.
  • Gastellum got a marquee win, topping Cuevas to get to the quarters.
  • Rodrigo Montoya handled former Mexican national champ Polo Gutierrez in two, a solid win against a very tough opponent.
  • Alvaro Beltran went breaker to top the under-rated Jaime Martell (who I thought would get this upset).
  • #2 and tournament namesake @Alex Landa had his typical slow start and dropped a game to Sebastian Hernandez before advancing.

All in all, only a couple of minor surprises into the quarters.

In the Quarters

  • #1 Parrilla handled the upstart Gastellum in two to advance to the semis.
  • #4 Montoya blitzed #5 Sebastian Fernandez , donuting him in the first to advance in two. Kind of a shocking result honestly.
  • “The Kid” Erick Trujillo took out the Veteran @Alvaro Beltran in a breaker. It looked like it would be a two game win, but Beltran had a huge comeback in game two to force the breaker, where Trujillo ran away with it 11-2. Another excellent result for the reigning 18U Mexican national (and World) champ.

– Landa made a statement against his long-time Mexican rival @Javier Mar, taking game one 15-1 and holding on for a two-game win.

The Semis went chalk:

  • #1 Parrilla, who has a losing record in tier1s against his long-time rival Montoya, flipped the script and took out Rodrigo in a breaker. After saving match points against in game two, Parrilla blew out the breaker 11-1 to win.
  • #2 Landa won two close games against the upstart Trujillo to move into the final.

In the Finals, it was a tale of streaks between the two top seeds. Landa cruised to a game one win, then Parrilla ran of a ton of points straight to win game two … then Landa blew it out in game three 11-1 to take the title in his home town tourney.

Open Doubles review
The doubles draw was relatively chalk into the finals, where the two top seeds of IRT veterans (#1 Montoya/Mar and #2 Landa/Beltran) were set to meet.

In the final, the #1 seeds took a close game one win, then cruised to a two game victory and the title.

IRT 21 Singles results:

  • #1 Trujillo advanced to the final from the top half, but not before getting pressed by Luis Renteria , who is playing in his age 17 season.
    The bottom half featured a big run of upsets by @Jose Ramos (who holds 6 junior Mexican titles himself and just matriculated out of 18U), who topped both Orteaga and Cuevas with relative ease to make the final.

In the final, Ramos gave Trujillo everything he could handle, and it went down to the wire, with Trujillo taking a thrilling 11-10 win.

Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Dean Baer, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew

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.

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

there’s a break in the schedule on the 8/7 weekend, then 8/15 marks the first pro tournament since May, with the LPRT returning to Mexico for a grand slam kickoff to their new season.

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International Racquetball Tour