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
—————-
In the 32s, nothing too surprising. Great all-USA wins by Lotts and York respectively over younger rivals.
—————-
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.
—————-
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
—————
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.
—————-
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.
—————-
Doubles review
Great win from Key and Laime, both excellent doubles players, for taking out both the #1 and #2 seeds in one event.
—————-
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
—————–
Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., JTRball, and Tj Baumbaugh
——————
Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar …
World Juniors kicks off in Guatemala next weekend, then the LPRT is back in action in the DC area before the year ends.
——————-
tags