Here’s a collection of the notable/seminal moments in the sport this year, primarily focusing on those events that impacted the pro game. As I could think of them, I threw in other events of note, though I’m sure one could argue I’m missing items.
– 1/14/24: @Maria Jose Vargas wins her third straight LPRT tournament in a row, taking a commanding lead in the season to date points rankings for the 2023-24 LPRT season.
– 1/28/24: On the IRT at the season’s first event, 3-time defending champ Daniel De La Rosa is soundly defeated by Kane Waselenchuk in the round of 16 as the #1 seed,
which immediately puts a huge dagger into DLR’s fleeting chances at retaining #1 on tour for 2024. He had already announced he will not be playing a full slate of 2024 events, but losing in the 16s makes it even that much tougher. As it turned out, this was the sole IRT event DLR played on the year, with his pro pickleball commitments turning into a full time job.
– 2/1/24: Conrrado Moscoso ascends officially to #1 on the IRT for the first time, a seminal moment for the sport. This is the first time a non-north American
has held the #1 spot on tour.
– 2/11/24: LPRT #4 and USA #1Erika Manilla is forced to retire the US National singles final due to what was thought to be a back injury at the time. Subsequent tests and MRIs show that Erika suffered a hip labrum tear. She goes in for surgery to correct the issue mid March. She doesn’t return for fully 10 months, costing her huge portions of both the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons as well as multiple international tournaments representing Team USA.
– 3/1/24: During the Minnesota Pro/Am, Mark Gibbs of the IRT ownership group discloses publicly that the the IRT ownership group has opened discussions
related to attempting to resurrect the US Open. This information leaks on KRG, as someone publishes the zoom link that preliminary discussions were held on without the knowledge or permission of the people on the call. Eventual discussions with the USAR board go nowhere due to the planned proximity of the US Open to 3WallBall, and the project is dropped.
– 3/3/24: Kane tops Moscoso to take the IRT Minnesota Hall of Fame event, and in doing so wins his first Tier 1 event in nearly two years. His last win was March of 2022, and he clearly showed emotions on the court after finishing off his final’s win over new IRT #1 Moscoso. With the win, he becomes the oldest player to win a Tier 1
at 42yrs, 114 days, breaking a 30-year old record held by Ruben Gonzalez.
– 3/3/24: Despite losing in the semis of the weekend’s LPRT event, Vargas ascends to #1 on tour for the first time in her career. She now leads both the rolling 365 calendar and the season to date points rank and is the odds-on favorite to take the 2023-24 title.
– 3/3/24:Paola Longoria announces her candidacy for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies (the US Equivalent of the House of Representatives) from District 5/Nuevo Leon. Elections are in June. @Samantha Salas Solis, who has family connections to Mexican politics, also runs.
– 3/24/24: Erika Manilla is featured in a full-page story in the Denver Post.
– 3/30/24: Team USA wins its first Combined Team championship in several years at the 2024 Pan Am Racquetball Championships in Guatemala.
– 4/2/24: IRT #1 Bolivian Conrrado Moscoso is chosen to light
the flame at the semi-annual Bolivarian Youth Games.
– 4/28/24: Maria Jose Vargas wins her 5th event of the season at the Sweet Caroline grand slam, essentially wrapping up the 2023-24 title. It’s her first pro title, and
she dominated the tour this year. She topped Paola in the final 11-10, and Longoria’s husband posted ugly rants on social media in the aftermath, claiming biased
refereeing (one of the line judges was Argentine for the final) as the main reason that Paola lost and has been losing all season.
– 5/25/24: Kane Waselenchuk is upset in the first round (round of 32) at the 2024 SoCal Open by Jordy Alonso . It’s the earliest defeat of his career. He had one
round of 64 forfeit from mid 2023, but otherwise he had never been defeated in any qualifying round before the 16s, even during his tour debut. As it turned out, this blip on Kane’s comeback meant little, but it propelled Alonso to make a deep run at this event and others throughout the rest of the season.
– 5/29/24: Racquetball Warehouse announces in an email to its customers that it will be closing its doors, selling itself to RacquetWorld. This is a very long-running, well known name in the industry.
– 6/5/24: Neither Longoria nor Salas, both of whom were running for the Mexican chamber of Deputies, were directly elected in the National elections. They
can still be selected/appointed by the party.
– 6/9/24: Vargas officially wins her first ever pro title by entering the season’s final event in Chesapeake and advancing past the opening rounds. She had a large enough lead on Longoria to essentially have the title wrapped up after Greenville, so this was a formality to complete her dominant season. She becomes the third
different pro to win the last three LPRT seasons.
– 8/3/24: after missing basically the entire 2023-24 season, Valeria Centellas is back and committed for the new season.
– 8/31/24: IRF Worlds are completed in San Antonio; its the first time the US has hosted a PARC or Worlds in nearly 30 years. De La Rosa wins two titles (Singles and Mixed) for team USA to power them to a #2 overall team standing behind Mexico, but then USA wins the team knockout competition to give Daniela 3-gold weekend.
– 9/1/24: Word comes out that Longoria has been selected by her party (Movimiento Ciudadano, or Citizens’ Movement, abbreviated MC) to serve in the 66th Legislature
of the Mexican Congress. This has the likelihood of restricting her travel flexibility and could impact the 2024-25 title race.
– 9/25/24: the first ever World Team Racquetball event is competed on the Las Vegas 3Wall courts. The event features four teams of players competing in doubles for a price purse. Team Dovetail wins.
– 10/4/24: Cliff Swain and Jeff Collins announce preliminary plans to bring the US open to SW Missouri State University in June 2026. They apparently
do this and publish a video before talking to the USAR board. As i can attest, being on the board for the March 2024 discussions with the IRT group, there’s a lot of steps involved with this property before it can just be handed over. I’ll certainly be curious to see how this project evolves over the next 1.5 years.
– 10/10/24: IRT #1 Conrrado Moscoso withdraws from the Inland Empire Pro/Am with an arm injury. Two days later he has surgery to treat what is described
as “periostitis” in his right arm. Then, days later the IRT issues a press release that says that the injury was “more serious than expected” and that Moscoso is now out for the rest of 2024. Moscoso’s missing the remaining events almost certainly locks up the 2024 #1 spot for Kane Waselenchuk.
– >10/13/24: Kane wins the Inland Empire event over Parrilla in a final that was marred by cross-talk between the players that spilled over into social media in the days following. More importantly, Kane regains the #1 ranking on tour for the first time since the 2021 US Open and is now the clear favorite to win the year end title at the age of 43.
– 10/20/24: In a one week period, three former IRT touring pros were all inducted into local Hall of Fames. Mike Ceresia was inducted into the Ontario Sports hall of fame, Scott Oliver was inducted into the Stockton Athletic
Hall of Fame, and Andy Roberts was inducted into the Memphis Sports Hall of Fame. Congrats to all.
– 10/31/24: young up and coming Bolivian Micaela Meneses Cuellar announces her intentions to leave the sport due to a lack of financial support from the Bolivian ministry of Health and sports and a lack of recognition to the Bicentennial Dream program. This seems to be a common refrain from Bolivian athletes, more than a dozen of whom have switched away from their home country to compete internationally for other South American countries (usually Colombia or Argentina).
– 11/5/24: Erika Manilla does a FB live session giving updates on her playing status, hip rehab, etc. She’s going to play her first tournament back at the IRT Golden State Open to test out fitness, hip, recovery, etc.
– 11/18/24: Kane Waselenchuk wins the final event of the IRT 2024 season, the Golden State Open, and with it secures his 15th career pro title. He wins in dominant
fashion, never seriously challenged, and will end up winning the year end title by more than 800 points. It is an amazing accomplishment for the 43-yr old.
After the final, he gave a heart-felt, emotional, and classy speech thanking his sponsors the tournament hosts, and his life partner for all their support in his journey back to the top from injury.
– 12/6/24: Manilla makes her return to the tour, seeded 16th at the Xmas classic. She won her opener but fell to #1 Vargas 4,8 in the round of 16. The injury ends
up costing her 10 months of the tour and she’ll have her work cut out for her to get back to the top 10 by season’s end.
– 12/9/24: Longoria re-takes #1 on tour for the first time since Dec 2023 with a win at the Xmas Classic. She’s now halfway to another pro title after two seasons of losing out to her rivals Vargas and M ejia.
– 12/15/24: IRF’s World Juniors finishes in Guatemala, with players from Mexico and Bolivia winning 29 of the 30 junior titles. Team USA had just a handful of players even making event finals and finished a distant third in the team rankings.
– Dec 2024: sources noted that Head/Penn will not renew its ball contracts that remain with any organization (they already lost the IRT contract some time ago after putting in a non-competitive bid) and sources say that Head is leaving the racquetball R&D space altogether. This would remove one of the major racquet manufacturers from the industry.
– 12/31/24: as has been known for some time, USAR’s Mike Grisz steps down from his volunteer stewardship of the role of Executive Director. Grisz’s legacy as ED will be the saving of the sport financially in the wake of the 2022 US Open financial debacle, and his championing the return of Worlds to the US in 2024.
– Dec 2024: Sudsy’s Florida based Treasure Coast series finishes for the season, having held14 events this year. It’s the only such series in the country and proof that tournament racquetball can still be successful. Monchick, who has relocated to the Pacific Northwest for work, is planning to continue the series in his new home area.
– 12/20/24: Major News in the pro sport: the IRT has reorganized and installed Keith Minor as the new majority shareholder. Minor has brought in a new leadership team and shaken up the existing organizational structure. Former IRT owner/commissioner (he was the commissioner from 2001-2009) Dave Negrete returns as the President of the tour and returns as its new Commissioner. Former Commissioner Pablo Fajre drops to be the Deputy Commissioner but retains the title of Head of Media. Pro player Adam Manilla is installed as the VP and Secretary of the tour. Immediately, there’s action taken on the months-dormant IRT website, with four new events announced for the first quarter of 2024.
– 12/21/24: USAR announces the “Office of the Executive Director” as the replacement for Mike Grisz. A three-woman team of Karen Grisz, Cheryl Kirk, and Kristin Wattz will share the executive duties of the sport on a volunteer basis going forward.
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