The 15th annual 2024 KWM Gutterman 3Wall Ball Outdoor Championships are in the books. It was a fun, long weekend in Las Vegas on the grounds of The STRAT Las Vegas . This year featured the introduction of World Team Racquetball and a ton of new champions in the desert.
Congrats to your Pro Racquetball division winners on the weekend:
– Men’s Pro 3-wall Doubles: Alvaro Beltran /Eduardo Portillo Rendon
– Women’s Pro 3-wall Doubles: Michelle Key / Paola Longoria
– Mixed Pro 3-wall Doubles: Adam Manilla / Brenda Laime Jalil
– Men’s Pro 1-wall Doubles: Javier Mar / Rodrigo Montoya
– Women’s Pro 1-wall Doubles: Carla Munoz / Brenda Laime
– Mixed Pro 1-wall Doubles: Alexandra Herrera / Eduardo Portillo
Beltran wins his 11th Vegas 3-wall Men’s pro doubles title, with his 4th different partner. He continues to be one of the absolute best outdoor players in the game, even after the end of his indoor touring pro career. He won the first Vegas event with Gies, won a slew of titles with DLR, won four with Rocky, and now with Lalo. Speaking of Lalo, he takes two major titles in Vegas, as does Brenda Laime, who won her second major pro doubles title of the season with Carla.
This week also wrapped up the Outdoor Cup Series; we’ll cover that later in the week.
Also Congrats to the winners of the other major Racquetball divisions held this weekend:
– CPRT Pro Doubles: Kane Waselenchuk / Chris McDonald
– Combined 75+ Men’s Doubles: Patrick Allin / Lou Orosco
– Centurion/Combined 100+ Men’s Doubles; Rocky Carson / Jerry Hall
– Men’s Open Doubles: @Alejandro Barcelo / @Yasmani Perez
– Women’s Open Doubles: Susie Boulanger / Sarah Houghtailing
– Mixed Open Doubles: Kelly Gremley / Jack McDonald
And Here’s the winners of the non-racquetball Pro/Open disciplines competed this weekend
– Paddleball Men’s 3-Wall Pro Doubles: Emmett Coe / Danny Lavely
– Paddleball Mixed 3-Wall Pro Doubles: Emmett Coe / Hollie Scott
– Paddleball Male/combined 1-wall pro doubles: Kathy Guinan / William Rolon:
– Handball 3-wall Big Ball Men’s Doubles: Carlos Marin / Eddie Rocha Jr
– Handball 1-wall Big Ball Men’s Doubles: Anthony Hernandez / John Garcia
– Handball 3-wall Big Ball Men’s Singles: Anthony Hernandez vs Samzon Hernandez
– Handball 1-Wall Big Ball Men’s Singles: Eddie Rocha Jr
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=41864
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Match Reports for the 2024 event in the database by division (racquetball divisions only): if you click on these links, you’ll get the full list of matches in each division for the 2024 event with seeding and home country. This core data feeds to all the other Pro Racquetball Stats reports.
– Men’s Pro 3-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/ivq
– Women’s Pro 3-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/0pa
– Mixed Pro 3-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/3lq
– Men’s Pro 1-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/ck2
– Women’s Pro 1-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/hxv
– Mixed Pro 1-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/69u
Here’s the Triple Crown reports in the database, showing all the winners of all divisions over the years.
– Men’s Doubles Triple Crown Report: https://rball.pro/pdb
– Women’s Doubles Triple Crown Report: https://rball.pro/5pw
– Mixed Doubles Triple Crown Report: https://rball.pro/bhn
(we didn’t have singles events this year, but here’s those Triple Crown reports):
– Men’s Singles Triple Crown Report: https://rball.pro/49e
– Women’s Singles Triple Crown Report: https://rball.pro/hl6
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Here’s a recap of the draws. Because of the number of divisions to cover, we’ll run through in narrative format instead of round-by-round.
– Men’s 3-wall Pro Doubles: Beltran and Portillo were stretched to a breaker in all four of their matches, but it was their semi that was most interesting to discuss. Manilla and Riffel may have been the two-time defending finalists, but many thought the power-house pair of Waselenchuk and McDonald would be the favorites here. Their semi versus eventual champs Aliv & Lalo was fascinating in terms of its strategy; after getting shellacked in game one 15-4, the Mexican duo focused a ton of its serving towards the aggressive McDonald in his advanced receiving position, and tried to force their opponents into taking offensive shots from defensive positions. It worked, and they clawed their way back into the match by playing smart and opportunistic ball. The end of the match was marred by a couple of disputed calls, but the final point was one of the better rallies you’ll see in outdoor (go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE8IkVyKxcU and hour/minute 1:10). The final was a slower, tactical game between four players who were certainly trying to “play outdoor” on the outdoor courts, a slog eventually won by Beltran and Lalo.
– Women’s 3-wall Pro Doubles: Longoria wins her 4th Vegas title, nicely spread out amongst the 15 years of the event. She took the first 3-wall pro doubles title in 2010 with Keeley Franks, and won this week with the sport’s most decorated player Key. Michelle meanwhile took her 18th Women’s outdoor pro title with Longoria, though they had to survive an 11-10 thriller in the semis against Mejia/Herrera to do so.
– Mixed 3wall Pro Doubles: Laime and Manilla broke a decade-long stranglehold on the Mixed pro division from the absent DLR, cruising into the final without being seriously challenged, then taking an 11-9 thriller against Mar & Mejia.
– Men’s One wall Pro Doubles; Mar & Montoya battered their way to the One wall pro doubles title, never seriously challenged along the way. They won the final 7,5. Mar continues to establish himself as the preeminent one-wall player in the world, winning his fourth one-wall men’s pro title in the last three seasons.
– Women’s One Wall Pro Doubles: Munoz won her third straight one-wall Vegas title, and her second in a row with Laime. The duo dominated the 2023 Beach Bash champs Lawrence/Scott in the final.
– Mixed One Wall Pro Doubles: The one-wall mixed pro draw was the single most disputed of the seeding issues that we had in Vegas this year, and you can see the results of going purely by points in the results. The draw’s #2, #3, and #4 seeds failed to make the semis, the draw was won by the #10 seed, and one could make a decent argument that the #7-#10 round of 16 match could have been the final. At the end of the day, Lalo took the title with his partner Herrera, capping a fantastic week for him: he took two titles, made the final of a third, and won the WTR MVP.
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Other Rball divisions:
– CPRT Pro Doubles: McDonald and Waselenchuk may have lost in the pro semis, but they came home with a dominant win in the CPRT. The pair destroyed Beltran & Koll in the final 4,3.
– Combined 75+ Men’s Doubles: two solid players from SoCal Allin and “Sweet” Lou took the 75+ division, beating two top players from Naples Florida in the final in Barcelo and Perez.
– Centurion/Combined 100+ Men’s Doubles: Carson teamed with Hall to take out Beltran and Knox LaRue in the 100+ final.
– Men’s Open Doubles: A Florida-heavy Open draw came down to, of course, two teams of Florida players for the title. Barcelo & Perez took out Young & Hansen for the title.
– Women’s Open Doubles: Susie Boulanger & Sarah Houghtailing won their group and then won the winner take all final.
– Mixed Open Doubles: Kelly Gremley / Jack McDonald took down Hansen and Lambert in the final. Not a bid first showing outdoor major for either Timmy or Frederique.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend from the LPRT team of Jerry J Josey Jr. JT R Ball , and Tj Baumbaugh along with their many guest commentators like Mike D and Rolon.
Thanks to the Tourney Directors Mc Vegas for putting this event on, as well has his entire 3Wall Ball team. Peggine Tellez , Jen O’Meara , and @Peter McMillan worked tirelessly all weekend, along with dozens of other volunteers at the front desk and behind the scenes to make this tourney happen.
Thanks to the primary Tourney Sponsors @KWM Kwm Gutterman, PROKENNEX , @AGE Age Solutions , @LPL Financial, and others I missed here. Thanks also to the dozen other sponsors who helped either with product or finances. Without you, we do not have a pro sport, and without you we don’t have 3WallBall. Thank for all you do.
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Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMbIP9SZd0MssH_nPGU/edit?usp=sharing
Next up is the 2024 Inland Empire Pro-Am IRT event in Spokane Washington in a couple of weeks.
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tags
USA Racquetball
WOR – World Outdoor Racquetball