The Men’s draw came down to the same final that we’ve seen in the last 12 events prior to it; Murray vs Coby Iwaasa . This time around, the IRT touring pro left little doubt, cruising to a title. (see https://rball.pro/we5 for all Canada National event Men’s finals)
The Women’s draw saw Dr. Lambert win for the 6th time in the last 7 national events. See https://rball.pro/bni for all Canada National event Women’s finals)
The end of the IRT season is a-coming: the men are heading to Portland for a Satellite event this weekend, then to Pleasanton for the final event of the season. The #1 ranking is up for grabs.
After that, the LPRT heads to DC for its annual Xmas classic, to wrap up the year.
Vargas dominates to win in Chicago. Photo US Open 2019 Kevin Savory
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Maria Jose Vargas
– Doubles: Montse Mejia & Alexandra Herrera
Vargas wins her 6th career LPRT singles title, bringing her back into a tie with current #1 Montse Mejia for 13th all time. See https://rball.pro/4vk for a complete list of LPRT tournament winners with their career totals.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=41683
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Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/ng0
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In the 32s, Floridian Chanis Leon got a solid win over Colombian Maria Paz Riquelme , while @Lexi York got the win over fellow American @Stephanie Synhorst to move on.
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In the 16s:
– Natalia Mendez took a topsy-turvy match over Carla Muñoz in the 8/9 match-up, winning the first game 15-5, then losing the second game 15-1, before cruising in the tie-breaker 11-2. Odd score-line for sure.
– #10 Kelani Lawrence got a first career win over #7 Samantha Salas Solis 12,11.
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In the Quarters
– #1 Monserrat Mejia dropped the first game against Mendez before advancing.
– #4 Vargas ground out two close game wins against #5 Alexandra Herrera 13,11.
– #6 Erika Manilla got her first career win over #3 Brenda Laime Jalil with a very solid 9,7 win.
– #2 Paola Longoria subdued Kelani 9,6 to move into another semi.
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In the Semis, two upsets.
– #4 Vargas crushed #1 Mejia 7,7 to move into the final. Vargas continues to show why she’s putting her name in the hat for #1.
– #6 Manilla got her career best win, topping the 13-time LPRT tour champion Longoria in a tie-breaker ot move into the final. It’s her second career final after last year’s US Open.
In the Finals, Vargas was just too strong and cruised to a 9,5 win in a match between the two hardest hitters on tour. Vargas completes a dominant performance in Chicago, where not one player even scored double digits on her the entire weekend.
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Points Implications of results
Vargas should move up to #3, pushing Laime down a spot Herrera’s loss will push her back to #7, a spot she hasn’t seen in nearly a decade. With Alexandra’s falling, Manilla moves up to #5 and the absent Gaby up to #6. Mendez rebounds back up to #8.
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Doubles review
The doubles contest came down to the two top Mexican teams as expected, with Herrera & Mejia winning their 7th pro doubles title together.
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/6z9
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– Lawrence took the Women’s Open draw over Munoz.
– Thomas Carter beat fellow Illinois native Jeremy Dixon in Men’s Open.
– Carter teamed with @Alok Mehta to win Men’s Open Doubles too.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend from the LPRT crew.
We get a break for turkey day, then there’s just 3 pro tournaments left. An IRT Satellite in Portland, then the final tour stop of the 2023 season for the men in Pleasanton, and lastly the long running Xmas Classic in the DC area for the ladies.
Can Laime make another run? Photo US Open 2019 Kevin Savory
The LPRT is back in action after a 3 month hiatus; the last time we saw the pro ladies on the court was in Denver for World Singles & Doubles. This is the 5th year in a row the famed Glasscourt club in Lombard outside of Chicago has hosted the Ladies for the “Turkey Shoot,” and it’ll be great to see the pros battling it out on the “Fishbowl” court in the club (which features glass on three sides).
We have a bit of a smaller draw than expected: just 18 players here in Chicago. Two of the top 10 are missing (Barrios and Gaby) but most of the rest of the top 10 is here, making for a pretty solid draw.
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Lets preview the draw. With 18 players there’s just two play ins: @Lexi York takes on @Stephanie Synhorst and @Maria Paz Riquelme takes on Chanis Leon . Both could be pretty tight, and it’ll be interesting to watch the two lefties (Riquelme and Leon) battle for a spot in the 16s.
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round of 16: Some fun matches coming our way in the opening round:
– 8/9: Carla Muñoz versus Natalia Mendez : Carla is just 1-8 lifetime against the Argentine. They’ve split their last 2 meetings, but Natalia got her in Denver at this same juncture.
– 5/12: @Alexandra Herrera versus Jessica Parrilla . Herrera has slipped out of the top 4 for the first time since January 2018. Parrilla spent all of last season in the top 8 and now is on the outside looking in. These two have met 13 times in all competitions, and Leoni hasn’t gotten a win over her lefty counterpart since 2016. Odds are Alexandra is moving on here.
– 6/11: @Erika Manilla versus @Valeria Centella : Centellas shocked Erika in December of last year, and Erika won the rematch rather handily in May in Greenville. Which Centellas shows up here? Manilla is coming off a gold medal in Chile, a career accomplishment, and is riding high.
– 7/10: Samantha Salas vs Kelani Lawrence: 4 career meetings between these two and Samantha is 4-0. Kelani has pushed their last two meetings to the bring though and will be pushing to get a breakthrough win.
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Projected Qtrs:
– #1 Monserrat Mejia over Mendez. Montse is 3-1 lifetime, but they’re usually close. But Mejia should advance here.
– #4 @Maria Jose Vargas over Herrera. Vargas is 9-2 lifetime, and Herrera’s wins came during a time when Vargas was down and Alexandra was seriously “up.” The tides have changed now, and Vargas is going to be tough to beat.
– #3 Brenda Laime over Manilla: Laime has quietly ascended to #3 with a slew of top finishes this season. But she’s jeckyl and hyde: in six events in the calendar year 2023, Laime has three round of 16 losses … and two finals. She’s 2-0 over Manilla this year, handling her with relative ease in their last meeting in Denver, and her time training with Mercado & Zelada is paying off. She moves on.
– #2 @Paola Longoria over Salas: Longoria and Salas meet again; they’ve met 60 times previously on the LPRT (and more in Mexican nationals) and they’ll meet again. Longoria moves on.
Semis:
– Mejia over Vargas: despite Vargas’ career rebound, Mejia has owned her in 2023, winning all three of their matchups. Mejia’s mental game is solid and she handles Vargas’ power with ease.
– Longoria over Laime: Brenda may have famously beaten Paola in Virginia last September, but Longoria otherwise has owned this matchup. Laime needs to play flawless racquetball and have a strategy to win here.
Finals; Longoria over Mejia.
I do think Paola is highly motivated to regain #1. And despite Mejia winning the title and being ranked #1 right now, Longoria has won their last three matchups (Mexican Nationals in Feb, World Singles in Aug, and then the Pan Am Games gold medal match). Three wins, three different confederations.
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Doubles review
Just 8 teams competing, but all the regulars partnerships are present. Longoria & Salas are #1, Herrera & Mejia are #2 and are the favorites to get to the final to battle again. Team Argentina (Vargas & Mendez) will try to stop Longoria & Salas in the semis, while an intriguing team of Laime & Manilla will test their mettle against the long-time partners Scott & Lawrence before getting to the semis.
Look for Mejia & Herrera to take this.
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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Regular broadcaster @Timothy Baghurst is busy coaching the kids in Bolivia, so look for others on the mike this weekend to join Jerry J Josey Jr. ., and Tj Baumbaugh on the mike.
Thanks to the Tourney Director Dan Jaskier for putting this event on!
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.
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!
Parrilla gets back into the winner’s circle in Boston
Photo 2019 US Open via Kevin Savory
Congrats to your IRT Singles Pro winner on the weekend: Andree Parrilla
Parrilla surprises the field, taking out the #1, #2 and #4 seeds en route to the title. This is Andree’s 3rd career IRT tier 1 title, and he becomes the 5th different player to take a tier 1 title this year. Each of the top 5 ranked players on tour have taken a title this year, after 6 different players won last year, continuing to show the diversity on tour that we have right now.
– 14-time IRT season-ending champion @Kane Waselenchuk made his return to pro singles, nearly 14 months after he tore his Achilles heel, and on the weekend of his 42nd birthday. He had entered Denver in August but pulled out last minute. Not this time, as he took the court against fellow lefty veteran Robert collins to open the event. Seeded 22nd out of 22, Kane made fast work of the #11 seed Collins 5,5 to announce his return to the sport.
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In the 16s:
– #8 @Andres Acuña got a nice win against the streaking Alan Natera 13,13.
– Kane survived his first real test against a top ranked opponent, taking out #6 Adam Manilla with ease 2,4.
– #7 Samuel Murray was taken to a breaker by veteran lefty #10 Thomas Carter but rebounded to advance in three.
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In the Quarters:
– #1 @Daniel De La Rosa was pushed to the limit by Costa Rican Acuna, advancing 14,14. It doesn’t get much closer than that, and it makes this observer wonder if DLR is entirely “into” this tourney.
– #5 Parrilla reverses a recent trend of losing to his long time Mexican Rival #4 Rodrigo Montoya , winning an 11-7 breaker to move into the semis.
– In the match that I, along with many neutrals wanted to see, former #1 King Kane trounced #3 @Conrrado Moscoso 8,6 to move on. Kane mixed up power and touch masterfully, using power-based accuracy on his serves to force attackable returns from Conrrado, and then using his amazing touch in the front court to dink balls away for winners. Moscoso was unable to adapt his all-attack game and had no answers really for Kane’s approach. The scores probably weren’t as close as they indicated, as game two was mostly one way traffic once it became clear Conrrado had no answer. This was a real eye-opening result for this observer; i was certain a 42-yr old Kane coming off a massive injury would fall here, and It really makes me question the status of the current top ranked pros in the game’s hierarchy if Kane can win so easily. More importantly to the 2023 points race, this early round loss combined with DLR’s advancing to the semi most likely sealed the 2023 title for DLR; more on that later.
– #2 Jake Bredenbeck survived match point against versus Big Canada Murray to move on to the semis for the 8th time in 9 tournaments this year, continuing to be the most consistent player on tour.
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In the Semis
– #1 De La Rosa frittered away game one 15-14 against Parrilla and then played catchup most of game 2 before losing 14,13 and missing out on an opportunity to really seal the 2023 title.
– #2 Bredenbeck showed more of a game plan against Kane than the opponents prior, but still had to survive another match point against in game two to get this to a tiebreaker. There, a clearly injured Kane limped his way to an 11-4 game3 loss that he probably should have just forfeited. Nonetheless, its Jake who advances to the title game.
In the Finals, Andree and Jake gave a fantastic showing, with the game going to the very end. Andree takes the title with an 11-10 thriller.
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Points Implications of results
In the short term, I believe making the finals will vault Jake to the #1 spot on tour, if just barely over DLR. I say “I believe” because my working XLS doesn’t take into account the slight points totals that the players earn for losing in three. If this happens, it’d be the first time Jake has officially ascended to #1, even if briefly.
In the longer term (i.e. for the rest of the season), DLR increases his “season to date” points lead over Moscoso to 495 points (his lead over Jake is 540 points once you drop the lowest scores for all players). This means the following: If Pleasanton is a normal Tier 1 event in terms of points awarded, then DLR has now sewn up the year end title for 2023. If however Pleasanton is counted as a grand slam (which awards 600 points to the winner), the title technically is still up for grabs. There’s also a chance that Boston counts as a Grand Slam as well (though doubtful, since there was no money in Pro Doubles), but we’ll have to see what happens when the rankings run on Tuesday.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– In Open Singles Trujillo defeated Murray (who was “allowed” to enter Open since he has dropped out of the IRT top in the final. Top NE players Flores and Keegan Smith were in the semis.
– Open Doubles: competed on Sunday, Flores teamed with Orlando Cabana to take the doubles title, beating Alok Mehta and Erick Cuevas in the final.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters @FavFavio , Steve Schulze ,Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew
Thanks to the Tourney Director @Stuart Solomon or putting this event on!
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.
The LPRT visits Chicago next weekend, and World Juniors has already started down in Tarja Bolivia. After that, we have 3 more pro events to finish out the calendar year; a satellite IRT in Portland, the Pleasanton IRT event, then the LPRT returning to Severna Park for the Xmas classic.
DLR can lock up the 2023 title in Boston. Maybe.
Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory
After months away, the IRT is back in action, heading to Boston for the 2023 Rally for our Warriors. The LPRT was at the same club (Wayside Athletic in Marlborough) back in March, but it has been some time since the Men’s pros were in the Boston area. You have to go all the way back to March of 2007, for the Red Swain Memorial for the last time the IRT was in Massachusetts, so congrats to Stuart Solomon for putting this together.
The draw is a bit diminished for this event (22 pros are in town, probably a side effect of the expense of the Pan Am games and other travel this summer), but the stakes couldn’t be higher. With just this event, the satellite in Portland, and then the season finisher in Pleasanton, there’s very little time to settle the 2023 year end title. Assuming that this event and Pleasanton are regular Tier1 tour stops, #1 seed @Daniel De La Rosa can secure the year end title with a win here in Boston. however, #2 Jake Bredenbeck and #3 Conrrado Moscoso can both really put a monkey wrench into those plans with winning performances here.
Also interesting: none other than Kane Waselenchuk is in this draw. He turns 42 today. We havn’t seen Kane in singles since his Achilles injury in Sept 2022. Will he compete? He entered singles in Denver but withdrew, so it remains to be seen. If he competes, he’s seeded 22nd out of 22 by virtue of having expired all his previous rankings points, and is scheduled to play #11 Robert collins at 4pm EST. If he wins, he plays into #6 Adam Manilla and then to #3 Moscoso, so that’d be a heck of a test for him.
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Lets preview the draw. Only the singles draw has been released as of this writing.
Two top 10 players are absent: Portillo and Landa. this slightly changes the projected round of 16 matches for the top 3 players, which could play into the year end standings heavily.
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In the 32s, some notable matches:
– Should be fun to see what Mexican Axel Barojas can do against the Chilean national Rafael Gatica
– Kane should have a decent shot against Collins in a battle of veteran pro lefties.
– top New England player @JoJose Flores should move on against IRT regular @Jim Douglas
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round of 16:
– The 8/9 matchup between Alan Natera and Andres Acuña could be great. Natera has been on fire lately and could push the Costa Rican here.
– #4 Rodrigo Montoya will get an early test against Erick Trujillo , who has seen his progress stall a bit after some eye opening early results.
– If he plays, and if he advances, all eyes would be on #22 Kane versus #6 Adam Manilla in this round. It’d be another matchup of lefties, but a different battle for Kane. Manilla is fresh off a gold medal in Chile in Mixed, and has been getting some pretty solid results lately. He beat Diego Garcia in Chile, he’s got pro wins over Murray and Acuna this season, and he took out Jake at USA Nationals. This would be a great litmus test for Kane’s comeback, but I suspect Adam would be too much for him.
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Projected Qtrs:
– #1 DLR over the Natera/Acuna winner. I don’t think either player has what it takes to take out Daniel right now.
– #4 Montoya over #5 @Andree Parrilla ; these long-time adversaries are now settling into the realization that Montoya has the upper hand in their rivalry.
– #3 Moscoso versus the Kane/Manilla winner. Well, I’m certain that neutrals (myself included) would love to see Kane versus Conrrado. It would certainly put and end to the social media campaign that believes that Kane still would beat anyone who he plays. Many believe that, even if he got by Manilla, Kane would be overpowered at this juncture against a player who is probably the most talented in the world.
– #2 @Jake Bredenbeck over Big Canada #7 Samuel Murray
Semis:
– DLR over Montoya. Montoya does have a handful of wins against DLR in their careers. I also think DLR knows precisely what he needs to do to secure the title and will be rather motivated here.
– Moscoso over Jake; Jake may be seeded #2, and Jake may have beaten Conrrado in their last meeting in Chicago, but Conrrado’s the better player.
Finals;
– Moscoso over DLR. Moscoso is on a run, fresh off Pan Am gold, and looks unstoppable. He wins Boston to force Pleasanton to count.
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Doubles review: no draws as of this publishing.
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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 Favio Soto, Samuel Schulze, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew all weekend on the mike, calling the shots!
in the final. Top NE players Flores and Keegan Smith were in the semis.