One of the biggest tournaments of the year just wrapped up; Junior Worlds 2024, held at the fabulous facility in Guatemala City for the fourth time in out of the last five years. More than 200 Juniors from 14 countries competed there for the last week.
Champions were crowned in Singles, Doubles, and Mixed Doubles in six age groups: 21U, 18U, 16U, 14U, 12U, and 10U, as well as a team competition, meaning that in essence this tournament actually held 30 separate competitions. All 30 competitions are now in the database; If you see any typos, or name corrections, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Reminder: as a practice, Pro Racquetball Stats does not capture full draws for any groups younger than 14yr olds; for the 12s, 10s, and younger we just capture the champions for historical reporting. Junior Doubles only has the gold medal match, not the full draws. If you’d like to see more data than this for juniors in the database, reach out and I’ll guide you on doing data entry.
Congratulations to your champions:
Boys Singles:
– Boys 21U: Jhoel Acha Portugal, Bolivia
– Boys 18U: Jhonathan Flores, Bolivia
– Boys 16U: Sebastian Terrazas, Bolivia
– Boys 14U: Santiago Borja, Bolivia
– Boys 12U: Alejandro Robles Picon, Mexico
– Boys 10U: Vincent Riveros, Bolivia
Bolivia takes 5 of the 6 Boys titles. Not only that, but every single final was lost by either a player from Team Mexico or a fellow Bolivian for a clean sweep of both Gold and Silver across the board.
Girls Singles:
– Girls 21U: Camila Rivero, Bolivia
– Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar, Mexico
– Girls 16U: Miranda Barraza, Mexico
– Girls 14U: Larissa Faeth, Costa Rica
– Girls 12U: Mary Hinojosa Garcia, Mexico
– Girls 10U: Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico
Mexico takes 4 of the 6 Girls Singles titles. Mexico was also the finalist in 4 of the six draws, showing a real dominance this year.
Team USA had a few of its singles entrants advance to the quarters, but USA did not have a single finalist at this event. The best result in singles for any American was @Annie Sanchez making the semis of U21 and @Naomi Ros making the semis of 18U.
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Boys Doubles:
– Boys 21U: Erick Trujillo/Sebastian Hernandez, Mexico
– Boys 18U: Eder Renteria/Jorge Gutierrez, Mexico
– Boys 16U: Sebastian Ruelas/Nicolas Galindo, Mexico
– Boys 14U: Santiago Castillo/Brian Axel Sanchez, Mexico
– Boys 12U: Alejandro Robles Picon/Max Soto, Mexico
– Boys 10U: Leonardo Zuna Campero/Benjamin Lino Daza, Bolivia
Mexico wins 5 of the 6 doubles titles, losing on the Boys 10U doubles title, where they made the finals. The losing finalists were mostly Bolivians and Team USA, the best result for USA for the event (Sendry/Mendoza losing finalists in 18U and Mangalampalli/Williams making the 14U doubles final).
Girls Doubles:
– Girls 21U: Camila Rivero/Natalia Mendez, Bolivia
– Girls 18U: Adriana Noelia Blacutt/Natalia Mendez, Bolivia
– Girls 16U: Andrea Perez Picon/Miranda Barraza, Mexico
– Girls 14U: Julia Rebello/Angelica Villaroel Garzon, Bolivia
– Girls 12U: Sofia Rocabado/Adriana Bazan, Bolivia
– Girls 10U: Lia Medrano/Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico
Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Girls doubles titles, including a doubles double for Natalia Carolina Mendez. Team USA Victoria Rodriguez & Montserrat Tores made the 16U final for our best result.
Mixed Doubles:
– Mixed 21U: Erick Trujillo/Ivanna Balderrama, Mexico
– Mixed 18U: Nicolas Ramiro Iglesias/Florencia Villazon Chalco, Bolivia
– Mixed 16U: Sebastian Ruelas/Andrea Perez Picon, Mexico
– Mixed 14U: Santiago Borja, Valentina Villarroel Garzon, Bolivia
– Mixed 12U: Hermann Racial Gracia/Michelle Gomez, Mexico
– Mixed 10U: Kerman Damian Gracia/Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico
Mexico takes 4 of the 6 Mixed doubles titles.
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Grand total of Titles won by Country:
– Mexico: 16 of 30
– Bolivia: 13 of 30
– Costa Rica: 1 of 30
There was just one Triple Crown winner on the weekend:
– Girls 10U: Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico
These players earned two titles:
– 21U Boys: Erick Trujillo, Mexico (2 doubles titles)
– 16U Boys: Sebastian Ruelas, Mexico (2 doubles titles)
– 14U Boys: Santiago Borja, Bolivia (singles and gender doubles)
– 12U Boys: Alejandro Robles Picon, Mexico (singles and gender doubles)
– 21U Girls: Camila Rivero , Bolivia (singles and gender doubles)
– 21U Girls: Natalia Mendez, Bolivia (who won both 21U and 18U doubles)
– 16U Girls: Miranda Barraza, Mexico (singles and gender doubles)
– 16U Girls: Andrea Perez Picon, Mexico (2 doubles)
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Team Winners:
– Boys Team: 1. Mexico, 2 Bolivia, 3 USA, 4 Costa Rica
– Girls Team: 1. Mexico, 2 Bolivia, 3. USA, 4 Guatemala
– Combined Team: 1. Mexico, 2. Bolivia, 3. USA, 4.
– Boys Esprit cup: 1. Bolivia, 2. Mexico, 3 Costa Rica, 4. USA
– Girls Espirit Cup: 1. Bolivia, 2. Mexico, 3. USA, 4. Ecuador
– Combined Espirit Cup: 1. Bolivia, 2. Mexico, 3. USA, 4. Ecuador
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Every singles and doubles draw has a match report in the database that you can run: instead of repeating dozens of links we’ll give some examples here. Surf to www.proracquetballstats.com, click on either Juniors or “Junior Doubles” database, then at the very top you can pull down a match report. You can also run a number of different reports for singles and doubles.
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Singles Draw commentary
Now some quick commentary division by singles division, mostly to recognize winners who have earned multiple Junior World titles over the years, and to provide some commentary on the older divisions with players who have already competed on the pro tours…
I use these “Matrix Reports” constantly; they show all the Junior winners across every age group for all of time. These links are for the Junior Worlds and date to 1989, the first ever Junior Worlds event, but are also available for USA, Canada, and Mexico.
Boys Singles Matrix Report: http://rb.gy/acygod
Girls Singles Matrix Report: http://rb.gy/yfsvqq
Boys 21U: #1 seed Bolivian Jhoel Alexis Acha took the U21 world title, topping current IRT top-10 ranked Erick Trujillo in the semis and Sebastian Hernandez in the final. This immediately makes Acha one of the top 20 players in the world in my personal pecking order, by virtue of the company he’s keeping. One thing Junior Worlds provides is a pathway into the top players in Bolivia, who we never get to hear about other wise.
Boys 18U: Jhonathan Flores repeated as 18U World Junior champ. The only player to get a game off of him the entire tourney was in the semis, when Mexico’s #1 Eder Renteria took him to five games. Flores, for those who forgot, took out Jake, Collins, Ulliman, and Alonso in Chicago’s IRT event in March. He’s legit, and as an 18yr old is probably better than any of the U21 players still juniors-eligible.
Boys 16U: Bolivian Sebastian Terrazas wins his 2nd career junior world title; he took 12U title in 2021 previously. Terrazas did not win his own National title this year, losing to Bismark Pereria (who was upset early here), but took out both of Mexico’s top 16U players in the semis and finals to win.
Boys 14U: Bolivian Santiago Borja repeats as 14U champ, but the story of this draw was the sole South Korean entrant at Junior Worlds: Taein Woo came in and upset Mexico’s Santiago Castillo 12-10 in the fifth to open the event, then made a run to the semis before falling to the eventual champ Borja.
Boys 12U: Alejandro Robles Picon, who made the rare switch from USA to Mexico for the start of 2024, captured his first ever Junior worlds title. He and his sister had huge weekends.
Boys 10U: Bolivian Vincent Riveros starts out his junior career with a win.
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Girls 21U: Camila Rivero, who briefly switched to play for Colombia but who now is back in the Bolivian fold, repeated as U21 champ. Last year she also won the 18U title, meaning she has another two years in the U21s. She’s got a few LPRT results on her resume from a few years back, but her most notable result may be a quarter finals finish at Worlds in San Antonio earlier this year when she played Longoria tough in a loss.
Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar topped America’s best chance for a medal in Naomi Ros in the semis, then beat her country-man Cynthia Gutierrez for her first World title.
Girls 16U: First time singles winner Miranda Barraza topped Andrea Perez Picon in the final to win the all-Mexico gold medal match.
Girls 14U: Costa Rican Larissa Faeth won the sole medal at these competitions not won by someone from either Mexico or Brazil, She moved up to 14U after winning 12U last year and claimed the title in her age 13 season.
Girls 12U: Mary Hinojosa Garcia moved up from 10U to win back to back titles.
Girls 10U: Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, the sole triple crown winner, got started with a singles title.
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Thanks to the International Racquetball Federation for hosting the event, thanks to the great hosts in Guatemala, thanks to all our the coaches and parents who sacrificed to get your kids down there, especially this close to the holiday season, thanks to @Gary Mazaroff for the streaming and broadcasting with partners all tournament.
That’s it for the 2024 Racquetball year. I still owe an IRT season summary article (waiting for the final season rankings to publish), plus I’ll throw together a recap of the calendar year of events before the year is out.
International Racquetball Federation – IRF