Congrats to your Pro singles winner on the weekend: Rodrigo Montoya
The Pelham Memorial was dropped from a full tier 1 (which it has been for a few years) down to an IRT Satellite event for the 2023 season, but still featured a really solid draw with 4 of the top 5 players in the world all advancing to the semis. A reminder: non tier 1s are NOT loaded to the Pro Racquetball Stats database, but i’m covering his b/c of the strength of the draw and because of the year end race implications.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=41520
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Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
In the 16s, the top 8 seeds advanced as expected but we got some solid matches. I the 8/9, @Sam Bredenbeck pushed Kadim Carrasco before falling in a breaker. Montoya faced off against former IRT tour veteran Charlie Pratt and advanced. Jaime Martell faced former tour regular @Tony Carson and advanced in two closer games 12,10.
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In the Quarters, again all top 4 seeds advanced but a couple of the matches were closer than expected. Alan Natera pushed #3 Andree Parrilla in the first game before Parrilla advanced in two. Martell took a game off of #2 Conrrado Moscoso before the Bolivian took control.
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In the Semis, two upsets.
– #1 @Jake Bredenbeck , who was trying to win this satellite to put as much additional pressure on Daniel De la Rosa heading into Pleasanton, was upset in two 15-14 games against Parrilla. Jake’s going to be kicking himself for having game point in both games but failing to convert.
– #2 Moscoso, who is still technically capable of winning the year end event, lost easily to a familiar nemesis Montoya. Rodrigo has a number of career wins over Conrrado and handled him easily here 7,11.
In the Finals, Montoya took out Parrilla in a tie-breaker that was cut short by an injury that forced Parrilla to retire.
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Points Implications of results
– Jake adds some points to his total, but not really enough to trouble DLR for the year end title. When the 2022 Portland points expire, Jake will trail De la Rosa by roughly 211 points, which means that Jake will have to “make up” 211 points on Daniel in Pleasanton to earn the title. Jake will need a shocking early round upset from DLR and will need to win in Pleasanton to really have a shot at the title. If Daniel gets to the semis … he’ll have the title sewn up.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– There was a nice little LPRT exhibition that included Montse Mejia, Carla Munoz, Michelle Key, and Erika Manilla.
– Men’s Open Singles was andres gomez taking out Oregon local player @Sunji Spencer in a tiebreaker.
– Men’s Open Doubles featured two solid teams in the final: Martel/Natera versus Pratt & Tony Carson. The mexicans took out the Americans in a great 11-8 tiebreaker match.
– Mixed Open was taken by @Will Reynolds and Shane Diaz, who got a walkover against Key & Rhys Anderson.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew .
Thanks to the Tourney Directors Dave Azuma and Jeff Clark for putting this event on!
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Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar …
Next weekend is the big finale of the 2023 IRT season in Pleasanton. @Adam Manilla
and Bobby Horn have the portable court up and running, and the tournament should be amazing. Then, the weekend following the Ladies are back in action in my hometown DC area Xmas classic, a tournament I used to help run 25 years ago.
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tags
International Racquetball Tour
LPRT