Congrats to your Pro Singles winner on the weekend: Kane Waselenchuk
Kane wins his 127th career Tier 1 IRT title. We’ll talk about the final and the point implications later on.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=44845
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/tbe
In the 32s: A last minute draw change jumbled the lowest 7-8 seeds from where they stood monday, and led to just a couple of compelling matchups in the opening round.
– Mexican U21 Gastelum upended USA junior Cody elkins 10,10 to earn a shot at Kane
– Alonso took out Antone 13,4; the USA national team member made him sweat in game one for sure.
– The biggest result, and biggest shock to me: Martell easily beat Garcia 4,10. That’s tough for Garcia, who I think was the only South American to make the trip.
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In the 16s:
– Alonso took out Jake in a tough 11-9 breaker. I don’t think this is an upset necessarily based on the way both have been playing, and it gives you some pause to ask, “just how good is Alonso?” If he played regularly, is he top 4? Too high?
– Trujillo took out Martel, also in a breaker. This isn’t an upset by seed, but it is a notable result b/c Trujillo has had some losses recently to his fellow countrymen. This is a solid win over a solid player and gives Trujillo’s top 10 ranking a boost.
– Montoya edged his doubles partner Mar in a breaker. No surprise they went to a 3rd game; even if one is the #2 seed and the other is in the 20s, these two are neck and neck talent wise.
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In the Quarters
– #1 Kane cruises past Natera 6,4. He’s just getting warmed up.
– Great win by Acuna, downing Alonso 2,13. I thought for certain we were going to see another Alonso-Kane matchup, but the Costa Rican had other thoughts.
– Parrilla had a typical 7,13 win over Manilla. Both control players tried to out control the other, and Andree was better at it.
– Montoya set down Trujillo 12,3. After a close first game, the powerful Rodrigo went to town and advanced with ease.
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In the Semis
– Acuna kept it close b/c he has a game plan against Kane that we’ve seen before, but just not a good enough one y et. kane advances 10,7
– In the other semi, two players who have played each other dozens of times over the years faced off again, and this time Parrilla took out Montoya 9,6 to move into the final.
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In the Finals, we got an interesting matchup. Kane and Andree have a history playing each other. One of their first meetings was a 0,0,0 embarrassment at the 2016 US Open when Andree was a budding player on the competing WRT. They met in the final of Chicago a few months later and Parrilla pushed Kane in at least one game, showing a bit of a gumption at the time. They’ve usually played close games, albeit mostly Kane wins … then Parrilla got an 11-10 finals win over Kane in January 2022 for a big win.
Kane jumped out to a massive first game lead, ahead 10-0 at one point, and he honestly looked miffed when Parrilla finally got a point and ruined his donut. Well, that wasn’t going to be where Parrilla stopped … he ran off ten unanswered points himself to tie the game and Kane had to press to win it 15-14. Game two was one-way traffic for the Mexican, who crushed Kane 15-3 to force a breaker.
Fun fact: on the IRT, when players split the first two games, the player who won the second game has the advantage, having won 51% of the time. So advantage momentum, albeit only slightly. Kane had none of that, crushing Parrilla 11-3 to win the match. Andree scored 32 total points, Kane 29 … but it was the points at the end that counted. The end of the match was a little testy, with Andree having some words for Kane on his way out of the court, which were returned in turn.
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Points Implications of results.
Kane regains 1st place on tour, for the first time in several years. The last time he was #1 on tour, the best I can tell, was at the 2021 US Open. He has about a 90 point lead on #2 Moscoso, but we know that Moscoso is now out for the rest of 2024. Parrilla now sits third and Kane has him by about 377 points. That’s huge; the next event to drop was Boston in Nov 2023, which Parrilla won, so that means he’s defending winner’s points/400 points. Montoya has dropped to 4th, just a handful behind Parrilla, and has a quarter and semi to defend the rest of the way out.
But the 377 gap is massive: if there’s just one more tier 1 (which is worth 400 for winning, 501.33 if its a tier1+), Kane basically has the year end title already sewn up. We know about Pleasanton in November; maybe we get Pelham Memorial increased to Tier 1 in December, but it was a Satellite last year. So amazingly Kane is in pole position to win the year end title
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– With no Pro doubles, the Open Doubles came down to the four best pros playing, with Mar/Garcia topping Sendrey/Gastelum in the final.
– In Men’s Open, doubles partners Sendrey and Gastelem both advanced to the final and then double forfeited.
– Arizona’s Susie Boulanger & Damian Zamorano took the Mixed Open Doubles final in a walk-over.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew
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Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar …
Next up is the Pleasanton Golden State Open in Pleasanton in a month’s time.
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