Solid weekend for Laime. Photo US Open 2019 Kevin Savory
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Maria Jose Vargas
– Doubles: Michelle Key & Brenda Laime
Vargas gets back on top with a solid win over her rival Longoria, winning her 11th career title. She’s now nearly into the top 10 all time of tourney wins. Meanwhile, Key & Laime break the strangle hold that Mejia & Herrera have had on the pro doubles circuit with a breakthrough win.
Singles Match report in PRS database: https://rball.pro/d1b
Doubles match report in PRS database: https://rball.pro/46p
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=45473
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In the 32s, nothing too surprising. Great all-USA wins by Lotts and York respectively over younger rivals.
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In the 16s:
– Amaya takes out her close rival in the rankings Munoz in two. Amaya has really rebounded as of late; she went three straight seasons without getting past the round of 16, and now has done it 3 times in the last 10 events.
– Herrera holds off Centellas in a tie-breaker that looked like it’d go the other way for a while.
– Laime is stretched but gets past Parrilla in three
– Mendez blasts Salas once again, the second time in a row she’s had a dominant win over her long time LPRT rival.
– Key takes a game off of #2 Longoria but runs out of gas in the breaker 11-3.
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In the Quarters
– Vargas has to go three to top the resurgent Amaya.
– Herrera holds serve against Lawrence to move on.
– Laime dominates Mejia and wins 6,5, a surprising result. Laime and Mejia have similar game styles, and as we’ve pointed out in teh past Laime usually comes out of nowhere for deep tourney runs.
– Longoria handled Mendez to move into the semis 4,4
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In the Semis
– Vargas cruised past Herrera 7,8 to move into the final.
– Longoria and Laime had themselves a heck of a battle, with it coming down to a 10-10 tiebreaker with all the drama one would expect. At the end of a brutal 2 hour marathon that featured dozens of side outs in each game, Laime cracked out a serve at 9-9 to earn the match point opportunity but Longoria blasted a cross court winner to save match point against. As is typical in these close do or die situations, referee calls loomed large. At 9-10 down, Longoria looked for an avoidable on a passing shot but didn’t get it, even on appeal. Then, Laime got a forehand setup and hit what this observer thought was a simple kill shot; called a skip by the ref and then one-up/one-down from the line judges (a really bad call at that juncture honestly). This led to a heated discussion, a side-out, and of course the inevitable two point swing to Longoria’s favor to win the match. Just a brutal way to lose.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao_HrRCepbQ for the match replay, and 1:53.26 for the shot in question and judge for yourself.
In the Finals, Vargas won games 1 and 3 going away, lost game 2 going away.
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Points Implications of results
– Longoria gains a little but on Vargas but remains #2.
– Despite not playing, Gaby moves up to #5 due to points expiration
– Not much else in terms of movement in the top 10
– Synhorst moves up a few spots, as does Key and Lotts for touring more regularly.
– Former top 4 pro Manilla now sits outside the top 20 and will have a long way back.
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Doubles review
Great win from Key and Laime, both excellent doubles players, for taking out both the #1 and #2 seeds in one event.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– Parrilla took the Women’s Open over Ros (who had taken out #1 Munoz in semis)
– Men’s Open was taken in an all-chicago final between winner Thomas carter and Jeremy Dixon
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., JTRball, and Tj Baumbaugh
Kelani gets a career high #5 seed; can she make a run? Photo USAR Singles 2019 via Kevin Savory
LPRT 32nd AnnualTurkey Shoot Preview
The LPRT returns to one of the most iconic courts in the land; the sunken three-glass wall centerpiece of the Glass Court Swim and Fitness club in Lombard, IL. Home of the main movers and shakers of the Chicago-area racquetball scene, this tournament is the brainchild of long-time racquetball benefactor Geoff Peters, who passed away in 2023 but who left a legacy in the sport in addition to bequeathing funds to help keep this event alive.
There’s 23 ladies pros in the singles draw this weekend, about a normal draw size for the ladies tour and typical of one so proximate to a major international event (World juniors in early December).
top20 players missing: #5 Gaby (part-time tour player), #11 Manilla (still recovering from hip surgery), #15 Barrios (school?), #17 Scott (unknown).
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Let’s preview the draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that i’m looking forward to:
In the 32s, there’s several solid matches to open the tournament;
– Lotts/Ros in the 16/17 game is a great match between two Team USA players from different generations. Ros is our reigning USA 18U junior champ while Lotts has 18 seasons with a pro result on her resume. Both are solid players and we should get an exciting match as one would expect in the 16/17 seed slot.
– Lexi York / Annie Sanchez is also another tough one between two Team USA players. Sanchez (nee Roberts) is just matriculating out of the juniors, while York has been playing the tour for some time and has been training with the Bredenbecks as of late.
– Argentine Valeria Centellas is back after a long time off; she has near top-10 potential but will have to shake off some tour rust. She makes her season debut against #13 Stephanie Synhorst , who will have her hands full keeping up.
– María Paz Riquelme vs junior team member Velpuri will be a good test for the Colorado native.
– Two frequent outdoor players Michelle Key and Chanis Leon meet indoors, with Key holding the distinct experience advantage.
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Round of 16: Here’s the notable matches to watch for:
– In the 8/9, Carla Muñoz and Cristina Amaya Cassino meet up; they met in the 16s twice earlier this year, both Munoz wins. Amaya had a deep run in an event earlier this year; can she repeat the magic?
– @Kelani Lawrence gets the #5 seed, tying a career high, and starts out her event by taking on the York/Sanchez winner in an all-USA battle.
– #5 @Brenda Laime Jalil projects into #11 @Jessica Parrilla in what could be a close match. Jessica shocked Brenda in San Antonio earlier this year. Laime is hot or cold; she could go one and done or take out the top seed on any given day.
– 7/10 @Samantha Salas Solis versus @Natalia Mendez could be interesting: Salas leads 6-3 head to head, but in their last meeting Mendez crushed Samantha 3,4 in Chesapeake in June.
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Projected Qtrs:
– #1 Maria Jose Vargas over #9 Munoz. They’ve played 15 times: Maria is 14-1
– #4 Alexander Herrera IFBB PRO over #5 Lawrence. They’ve played 11 times: Alexandra is 11-0
– #3 @Monserrat Mejia over #6 Laime; Mejia is 4-2 lifetime here.
– #2 @Paola Longoria over #7 Mendez; Paola is 10-0 lifetime against Mendez.
I see a distinct gap between the top four ladies on tour right now (top-5 including Gaby if she were here) and the rest of the top 10. The best bet for an upset in the quarters in Laime, who runs so hot and cold from event to event.
Semis:
– Vargas over Herrera. Vargas is 14-3 over Herrera lifetime. One of those wins was last June, when a distracted Vargas had just clinched the year end title and lost to Alexandra in Chesapeake. Vargas didn’t have the best opening event in Denver, but should bounce back.
– Longoria over Mejia: I know Mejia just torched Longoria at the San Luis Potosi open last month, but Longoria has a tendency to turn things up when there’s points on the line.
Finals: Longoria over Vargas. I think Longoria is kicking herself for dropping the first final of the season and will take this event.
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Doubles review
There’s 11 teams competing, and we’ve had some interesting movement in the seeds. After many years, the 30-something time champion team of Longoria/Salas is no longer a top-2 seed; they’ve been supplanted for #2 by the Argentine national team of Vargas/Mendez. I still favor them to get to the final from the bottom side.
From the top-half, Herrera & Mejia continue to be the top dogs; they’ll have to contend with the winner of Laime/Key and Parrilla/Lawrence, a fun matchup of excellent doubles players who all have a ton of outdoor experience as well.
Look for Herrera/Mejia over Vargas/Mendez in the final.
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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.
Look for Timothy Baghurst , @Sandy Rios, @Jerry J Josey Jr. , andTj 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!
Manilla makes the finals in both singles and doubles.
Photographer Kevin Savory
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: @Kane Waselenchuk
– Doubles: @Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball & Javier Mar
The comeback is complete. Waselenchuk, who ascended to the #1 spot on tour for the first time in years, secured the 2024 year end title in dominant fashion at this event in Pleasanton. He wins his 128th career pro Tier 1 title, extending his lead over his LPRT counterpart to 15 (Paola Longoria has 113 career Tier 1 titles). More importantly, Kane secures his 15th career year-end pro title, and will do so at the age of 43, which is 4 years older than the previous record-holder. We’ll do a deeper-dive into the year end standings once all of 2023’s points expire, but suffice it to say, we’re seeing something pretty amazing here for any sport.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=45389
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/l60
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In the 64s, there were no real upsets of note. We got a ton of international vs international matches for young Bolivians who made the trip.
– American junior DJ Mendoza got a nice win over an up and coming Mexican Junior Sebastian Ruelas
– @gerson Miranda took out veteran international Juan Francisco Cueva .
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In the 32s:
– #21 Mar took out #12 Robbie Collins with ease
– #19 Carson advanced over #14 Carrasco as expected.
– the biggest result of the round was #4 @Andres Acuña holding firm and taking out Argentine Diego Garcia . Acuna dropped the first game but then found another gear and blitzed to a (10),2,3 win. I thought this would go the other way for sure in my preview.
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In the 16s:
– Kane crushed @Diego Gastelum 2,2, a bit of a different vibe than the last time they met.
– Mar upset #5 @Jake Bredenbeck to finish off a pretty disappointing season for the USA top dog.
– #3 Montoya got an injury default against Rocky when he took an awkward step in a rally and tweaked something in his knee.
– Tourney host and #6 Adam Manilla got a really surprising win (to this observer) by taking out the red-hot @Jordy Alonso 10,9. Great win to overcome a guy who’s shown to be a force lately on tour.
– #7 @EErick Trujillo got a walkover against @Jaime Martell Racquetball when Jaime got some really awful news from home and had to fly back immediately. Our thoughts are with Martell and his family during this tough time.
– #2 @Andree Parrilla , who had a very distant shot at maybe possibly catching Kane for #1 … fell in the 16s to his doubles partner and drastically under-seeded #15 Eduardo Portillo Rendon
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In the Quarters
– Kane crushed @Alan Natera for the third tourney running at this juncture
– Mar got an injury walkover against Acuna, one of three WBF-INJ at this event.
– Manilla got a career best win by toppling Rodrigo Montoya in three. He secures just his second ever career pro singles semi final on his home courts.
– Portillo destroyed his younger Mexican rival Trujillo 7,1 to move into the semis.
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In the Semis
– Kane crushed Mar 6,3, showing no mercy this event. Mar once played a famous game against Kane at the US Open when practically no one knew who he was, using his touch to really flummox the champ and keep the game close … today was not one of those days.
– Manilla mounted a fantastic comeback in the breaker, saving match-points against at 7-10 and then rolling off four straight points to win 11-10 and move into his first career final. Both played well enough to win, and when Lalo missed an easy short-hop even Favio on the mike said, “that’s going to cost him.” And it did.
In the Finals, two lefties faced off for a pro title for the first time since a 2009 final in Allentown, PA between Kane and @Mitch Williams (ironically, Mitch’s sole career final). Manilla jumped ahead early, and kept game one close with some off-speed mid-lob Z serves and with great subterfuge on his drives, but as is typical of Kane, he hung in and ground out the game one win. Game two was more fo the same early before Kane just took over for the title 11,8.
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Points Implications of results
In the immediate aftermath of this event, Kane opens up a massive lead atop the standings to #2 Moscoso, one that will grow even more once the last two events expire from the tail end of last year (one of which was a Tier1 Moscoso win). In fact, Moscoco probably will fall to #3 once we get to December 31st. Manilla’s huge event will jump him to #4, just ahead of Parrilla. Jake will take a tumble in the ranks but will maintain top 10 status.
https://irttour.com/rankings/ are now updated for the event this past weekend.
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Doubles review
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/ply
Montoya and Mar maintain their dominance atop the pro doubles tour. Montoya has now made the finals of 12 of the last 14 competed pro doubles events, many of them with Mar, and won seven of them. They topped the field again, this time beating Manilla & Bredenbeck in the final.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– Two LPRT talents @Veronica Sotomayor and @Erika Manilla entered the Men’s open singles here. This is Erika’s first event back post hip surgery, while Vero had come down from Washington state with husband Sudsy Monchik to play some ball with their business partner Mark C Frank .
– Both ladies made the Open semis, but both ended falling to the same kid: Bolivian junior Sebastian Terrazas, who is playing in his age 15 season in 2024 and was the 2021 12U world champ. Watch out for this kid.
– The Argentine national Men’s doubles team of Miranda/Garcia took the Open doubles draw filled with junior national doubles teams competing next month at Junior Worlds.
– Andrea Perez-Picon took the Women’s Open RR.
– Perez-Picon also took the Mixed Open doubles draw, a fun draw where she ended up beating her sister Estefania in the finals.
– A star-studded 100+ Men’s doubles was taken by two NorCal locals Derek Chock & Greg Vezey, who got some solid wins.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Favio Soto, Steve Schulze, Pablo Fajre, Richard Eisemann and the IRTLive crew
Thanks to the Tourney Directors Manilla and @Bobby Horn for putting this event on!
The LPRT is back in action this coming weekend at the Glass Door in Lombard for the annual Turkey shoot event! We’ll be back with a preview later this week.
Kane returns to the top spot on tour, and has the 2024 title wrapped up. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory
Welcome to the 3rd Annual Golden State Open, the brainchild of NorCal residents Adam Manilla and David ” Bobby” Horn , who worked to bring pro racquetball back to the Bay Area after a near decade-long absence in 2022. This is their third year running this event in Pleasanton, and they project to have a massive draw in 2024. As of this writing 229 players are entered overall, including 44 Men’s pros. That’s the biggest pro draw since the 2023 World Singles and Doubles event. The group didn’t fund the portable court this year (it’s a significant expense) but still have the biggest event of the year, but still expect the biggest and best pro tourney of the year.
As noted, 44 players in the singles draw for this event, which (barring any changes in the IRT schedule) will be the last event of the 2024 season. So, lots at stake. @Kane Waslenchuk has regained #1 on tour, and thanks to Moscoso’s injury has a fairly significant lead at the top to the only guy who can catch him: #3 Parrilla. And that’s before considering the points expiration from the two events at the tail end of the 2023 season: Parrilla won the Boston Open last year while Kane lost in the semis, meaning an additional 180 point delta for Parrilla to make up. In other words … the title race is effectively over.
Thanks to the proximity of this event to the upcoming Junior Worlds, we have a slew of international juniors in the country to get some competitive matches. So we’ll get to see first hand a number of the up and coming Bolivians in particular.
top20 players missing: #2 Moscoso (elbow), #12 De la Rosa (pickleball), #13 Murray (stepping back?), #18 Sam Bredenbeck (stepping back?).
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Let’s preview the draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that i’m looking forward to:
In the round of 64:
– Bolivian newcomer Anuari Segundo, who impressed last week in Miami, gets an opener against the veteran Guatemalan @Edwin Galicia.
– The #44 seed (as in, “Mr Irrelevant”) honors go to @Yacouba Keita, who was a semi-regular touring pro a few years back out of the Atlanta area. He goes against @Javier Mar in the 64s.
– We get a rare North American appearance from former 18U world champ @Gerson Miranda, who starts off against fellow South American @Juan Francisco Cueva .
– The best potential match of the opening round may be 31v34, USA junior @DJ Mendoza taking on top Mexican 16U junior Sebastian Alejandro Ruelas. Mendoza should be able to overpower his younger opponent, but Ruelas has a long history of Mexican and World junior titles.
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Projecting the 32s:
– #1 Kane gets his start against the Ecuadorian veteran Ugalde, who is solid but not Kane-challenging solid.
– #16/#17 is an interesting match between two Mexican juniors in Erick Cuevas and @Diego Gastelum . Cuevas has been around for a while but only this year graduated from 21U competitions, while Gastelum has been been getting significant wins lately, including a defeat of current #7 Trujillo at Mexican Junior Nationals earlier this year.
– #12 Robert Collins is the unlucky top seed to draw the under-seeded Mar, who has been hampered on the singles court for a while with injury but remains a dangerous opponent. Upset watch here.
– Best match of the round: #4 @Andres Acuna comes in seeded 4th, his career best seeding … and for his troubles draws #29 @Diego Garcia , who just cruised to a title in the Xelani open and who beat Acuna at Worlds in San Antonio in August. I’ve always been a Garcia fan and, now that he’s been in-country to acclimate (instead of flying from South America the night before a match like the last time he entered an IRT event) he’ll be favored here.
– #3 @Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball projects to face the dangerous Bolivian junior Miranda, who can score points on him for su re. I don’t see an upset, but Montoya can’t just go through the motions here.
– We get a rare appearance on tour from @Rocky Carson , seeded 19th and who is favored over #14 @Kadim Carrasco to move on here.
– @Jordy Alonso is seeded 11th here. 11th! Alonso didn’t even play an IRT event in 2023 and has just 13 career pro events in a decade of high-level play … and now sits on the cusp of the top 10. Amazing. His best career year end finish was #27 in 2022 … and now he could be a top 10 finisher with a solid tournament.
– Tough draw for US junior Cole Sendry at #15; he gets former top 10 touring pro Eduardo Portillo Rendon , who’s missed a ton of time on tour as he gets his professional pilot’s license.
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round of 16:
– #1 Kane over #16 Gastelum: they met in the 16s in Spokane, a 2,5 win for the King. Lets see if Diego can improve upon that result.
– #8 Natera over #9 Carter, again. They’ve met in the 8/9 match now three events running, each time a relative blow out for the Mexican. No reason not to think it’ll happen again.
– #5 @Jake Bredenbeck vs #21 Mar: they have not played in 2 years, dating back to the infamous DC event where Kane got hurt and Mar lost in the final to Lalo. It hasn’t been a great year for Jake, who made four finals last season but has made just one semi-final this season. Does he have one last hurrah in him? Upset watch. Like Garcia above, Mar has always been a fan favorite of mine and I always seem to pick him for an upset.
– Whoever wins between Acuna/Garcia should advance with ease here over Carlos Ramirez.
– #3 Montoya vs Carson: how much magic does Rocky have? Montoya should send Carson back to the retirement home in SoCal.
– I think a motivated #11 Alonso takes out the distracted tourney host #6 Manilla to earn a quarter final.
– #7 Trujillo and #10 @Jaime Martell Racquetball met at this juncture in Spokane last month, a tie-breaker win for the younger Erick. He’s hot coming off the win in San Luis Potosi last week and he’ll be looking for more here.
– #2 Parrilla vs #15 Portillo; well this is kind of a ridiculous round of 16 match, players who finished last year ranked 5th and 7th respectively (and who are doubles partners). But here we are. Parrilla is motivated to have a big result here to put pressure on Kane, but I could see him fall here to the always-challenging Lalo.
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Projected Qtrs:
– #1 Kane over #8 Natera, a rematch of Spokane’s quarter final.
– Garcia over Mar: if all my predicted upsets come to pass, we could see a 20-something seed in the semis here. Garcia is more dynamic than Mar right now, but this matchup could also easily be Acuna vs Jake or some combination of a top-5 guy and a 20-something seed.
– #3 Montoya vs #11 Alonso: Jordy shocked Rodrigo 11-10 in Canoga Park during his amazing run to the final; I don’t see that repeating here. Rodrigo won’t take him lightly.
– #2 Parrilla vs #7 Trujillo: they just played last weekend, a four-game win for Trujillo where each game was 11-9 one way or the other. I think Trujillo can do it again.
Semis:
– Kane over Garcia; they’ve never met, which means Diego could be star struck and get donuted in the first game, or it could mean he surprises the king and makes it close by playing out of his mind. One thing to keep in mind: both the qtrs and semis are on Saturday, so from a wear-and-tear perspective two games in a day on the newly-turned 43yr old could be a factor (Kane turned 43 just four days ago as of this writing: Happy Birthday!)
– Montoya over Trujillo; they’ve met 6 times since Feb 2023, all six Montoya wins and usually not close. They met in the Spokane quarters a month ago and it was 12,3. Rodrigo wins again.
Finals: Kane over Rodrigo in a breaker. We’ve seen this before; Montoya has the game to pressure Kane and to roll off points fast. If his drive serve is working, he’ll be in the match, and his athleticism extends points and leads to opportunities. The last time these two played was in Minnesota, where Rodrigo actually scored more points in the match than Kane but lost his composure/focus in the tie-breaker to lose 14,(7),2 after dominating game 2. This is where an onsite coach is useful; Montoya needs to maintain his focus and hope for an off-day from the nearly always “on” Kane for a win. But, that’s a tall order against a guy in Kane who can still bring it and who puts away nearly 100% of the balls he can set his feet on, even if he’s 43.
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Doubles Preview:
18 teams are poured into the Doubles competition, including some that aren’t entered into the singles competition. There’s a couple of great round of 16 matchups in store: Portillo/Parrilla vs Garcia/Miranda will be a barn burner. Gastelum/Sendrey versus the Ecuadorian national team of Cueva/Ugalde is tough; they’ve gotten some major international results in the past. Tournament host Horn is teaming with Mendoza to face Alonso/Carrasco.
In the end though, I expect the top four seeds to advance to the semis as expected, then for an all-Mexico final between the top seeds Montoya/Mar and Parrilla/Portillo.
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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!
Thanks again to the Tourney Directors Manilla and Horn 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.
Trujillo took out three tough IRT pros to take the SLP Open. Photo Kevin Savory/US Open 2021
There was another big-time non-sanctioned pro event last weekend, featuring a ton of top-level talent in the Mexican racquetball hotbed of San Luis Potosi; the 2024 San Luis Open. The pro draws were solid and we saw some big-time matchups last weekend. Here’s a run down of the action.
Nearly all top 10 seeds are now household names to regular followers of the Men’s Pro game, and included a couple of players who have made huge impacts this season. The seeds held to the quarters, then we saw some fireworks.
– #1 @Andree Parrilla downed @Oscar Elias Nieto in the first QF with ease.
– In the second QF, #5 Erick Trujillo shocked #4 Jordy Alonso in four close games (they were playing international scoring rules). Alonso of course had made deep runs in both IRT events he’s entered, while Trujillo has been grinding his way into the top 8 and this is a solid win for the youngster.
– #6 Andres Acuña , probably underseeded, topped #3 Sebastian Hernandez in a five game thriller. Hernandez is no slouch: he was the 2022 18U world c hamp and is the reigning 21U Mexican champion, but has never played an IRT event.
– #2 Eduardo Portillo Rendon downed SLP local @Emir Martinez in three.
In the semis:
– Trujillo took out #1 Parrilla in four tight games, all of which went 11-9 one way or the other. A great win for Trujillo to build on.
– In the other semi, Portillo eased past Acuna as one might expect based on their h2h history.
In the final, Trujillo finished the job and took out Lalo for the title. Quite an event for Trujillo, beating Alonso, Parrilla, and Portillo in succession.
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Women’s Open
Just a ho-hum local open draw: four top-10 LPRT pros plus the 2024 U21 and 2023 u18 Mexican champs. How did it play out?
In the quarters, the two junior champs fell to the touring pros, leaving us with an all-LPRT semis. In the first semi, #1 Paola Longoria cruised past #4 Jessica Parrilla in three straight games, while from the lower side #2 Montse Mejia took out her doubles partner #3 @Alexandra Herrera in four.
In the final, Mejia reversed a recent losing trend to Paola and won a 5-game thriller for the title.
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Men’s Doubles:
Portillo & Parrilla teamed up to take the doubles title, beating Alonso & Acuna in the final.
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Next up, Golden State Open! we’ll preview the draw ahead of the thursday kickoff.
Diego with the double in Miami. Photo by Kevin Savory, 2018 US Open
2nd Annual Xelani Open Recap
We may not have had any sanctioned/official pro racquetball last weekend but we did have an excellent draw at the @Alex Zamudio hosted Xelani Open, held on the campus of the University of Miami. Here’s a recap.
r2 sports home page: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=45108
24 players representing seven different countries and including a massive contingent from Bolivia traveled to south Florida to compete. The top two seeds were last year’s finalists Ecuadorian Jose Daniel Ugalde Albornoz and Mexican @Diego Gastelum , who went on a fantastic run to make the final in Feb 2023.
Here’s a recap of the action.
In Men’s Singles:
– The only upset by seed in the early rounds of note was Bolvian Anduari Segundo, a complete unknown to the PRS researchers, who took out #11 Colombian Andres Gomez in the 32s then top east coast amateur @Dylan Pruitt (recently relocated from Maryland to Florida) in the 16s.
– In the quarters, Ugalde went breaker to set down Bolivian youngster Miguel Arteaga before moving on. @Mario Mercado, former IRT touring pro and former IRT Tier 1 Champion, set down top Bolivian Junior @Jhonatan Flores in three (Flores is the reigning 18U world champ and took out Jake Bredenbeck at the IRT stop in Chicago earlier this year). Bolivian turned Argentine @Diego Garcia Quispe set down the upset-minded Segundo in two,
– The big upset at this juncture was #2 seed Gastelum being dominated by recently crowned Virginia state champ @Ezequiel Subieta in two 7,9. Subieta has a solid pedigree; he represented Bolivia in the 2019 World Juniors as a 14 yr old, getting upset as a top seed in the knockouts. We havn’t heard from him since, but he’s in line to be playing in his age 19 season in 2024.
– In the semis, last year’s champion went down in defeat, an upset by seed but not by talent. Mercado cruised past Ugalde 7,6. Meanwhile, the always dangerous Garcia handled the upstart Subieta 8,9 to setup a great final between two under-rated players.
– In the singles final, Garcia really took it to the veteran Mercado, winning the first game 15-2 before finishing things off 15-9.
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Open Doubles recap:
As it turned out, the top four singles seeds all teamed up to form the top 2-seeds in Doubles, and they ended up playing for the title. In the final. #2 Gastelum & Garcia split the first two games 15-14, 14-15 with the #1 seeds Mercado & Ugalde before pulling away late to win the breaker 11-7 and to give Garcia the double.
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that’s a wrap from Miami. We’ll recap the excellent SLP local event next. Next up on the rball calendar is the IRT Golden State Open, held this coming weekend in Pleasanton. For now, its the last opportunity for pros to earn points towards the 2024 year end title race, so its gonna be a big one.
