Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Kane Waselenchuk
– Doubles: Conrrado Moscoso & @Kadim Carrasco
Kane wins his 3rd tourney on the trot, 15-matches in a row since a shock loss to Alonso last May. He extends his own record of being the oldest player to win a Tier 1 on tour. Lastly, he drastically increases his lead atop the tour rankings, and now owns nearly double the points to just the #2 player on tour. Kane continues to be unstoppable.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=46712
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/b5e74e
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In the 64s:
– Ortega survived a solid match from Floridian Alejandro Herrera Azcarate , who may have just flamed out after crushing the young Mexican in game one.
– Tour veterans Horn and Franco both had winning results in their return to the tour after so long away.
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Notable matches from the 32s:
– #17 @Diego Gastelum cruised past #16 Robby Collins in the 16/17 match; If Trujillo is in the top 10, then Gastelum should eventually be as well.
– #9 Jake Bredenbeck had probably the hardest round of 32, having to stare down Argentine @Diego Garcia to move on. I thought this would be closer, but Jake handled Garcia 9,9.
– Sam Bredenbeck , back on tour after months away, cruised past #13 CARLOS RAMÍREZ 3,5 in an upset by seed but probably not by talent.
– #3 @Adam Manilla was the unlucky recipient of seeing @Sebastian Franco for his round of 32, but worked his way past the long-time top 10 Colombian to move on.
– #15 @Eduardo Portillo Rendon took out #18 @Kadim Carrasco in a far-too-early match for the former top 6 player, who has seen his ranking dip as he spent much of 2024 missing events to work on his career.
– #2 Rodrigo Montoya defeated his old WRT rival David ” Bobby” Horn in two to end Horn’s comeback early.
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In the 16s, we got seed carnage. Five of the top Eight seeds fell in this round, as the latter part of the draw was littered with opportunistic double digit seeds.
– In the 8/9 match, which @Alan Natera has dominated lately, #9 Jake Bredenbeck crushed the Chilean 7,1 to move into the quarters.
– Jordy Alonso got a wbf-ns walkover against @Andree Parrilla , robbing neutrals of a very anticipated match.
– @Javier Mar is back, and took out #3 Manilla in a breaker.
– #10 Jaime Martell Neri got a well-played win over #7 @Erick Trujillo to move into the quarters.
– In the biggest upset of the night, #15 Portillo destroyed #2 Montoya 6,4 to move into the quarters. Nobody likes to see a top-6 player in the 16s, but all credit to Lalo here controlling Montoya’s power game. He wasn’t done yet either…
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In the Quarters
– #1 Kane dominated Jake, who is one of the few players on tour with a h2h win over the king, 3,8 to move on.
– #4 Moscoso survived the first real test of his comeback from arm injury, and he did so in solid fashion. After falling down early in the first against Alonso, he ran the table to close out game one and then jump to a big lead in game two. Jordy clawed his way back to 10, but the Bolivian advances to setup the dream matchup in the semis 7,10.
– After his big 16s win, Mar couldn’t continue his run and fell to the rising Costa Rican @Andres Acuna in three. Acuna makes his way into another semi and has solidified his spot in deep in the top 8.
– Portillo cruised past Martell 2,10 with his sights on the final.
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In the Semis
– Kane and Moscoso played an interesting, back and forth match that highlighted a salient fact often repeated in this space. The top players on tour can beat Kane … but they have to play three perfect games to do so. Moscoso played one perfect game, game 2, wining 15-10, but it wasn’t enough. After splitting the first two games, Kane stayed consistent while Moscoso floundered and Kane wins 11-6 in the breaker.
– In the other semi, Lalo and Acuna played a tactical close match, with Lalo advancing 11,14 to setup a final few would have predicted.
In the Final, Kane put his USAR Ranking on the line (Kane’s #1 there, but Lalo has a h2h win over him, and a defeat would immediately put Portillo top), but the result was anticlimactic. Kane wins 5,8 and Lalo wasn’t ever really in danger of an upset.
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Points Implications of results
Assuming this is a Tier1+ points event …
Kane drastically extends his lead at top, replacing last year’s semis loss with the Tier1+ points of this year’s win. Moscoso should go to #2, jumping both Montoya and Manilla. Acuna should rise one stop to #5, a career best. Natera should finally get out of the #8 spot and give himself a chance to avoid Kane in the quarters. Alonso’s results should put him in the top 10 for the first time. Portillo should jump from 15 to 12, while Gastelum jumps a bit deeper into the top 16.
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Doubles review
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/0212c1
Moscoso wins just his third career Pro doubles title, his first with Carrasco, with a well played 11-9 tiebreaker win over the top seeds Montoya/Mar.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– Gastelum topped local open favorite Jordan Barth in the Men’s Open final.
– Miranda & Garcia took a very talented Open Doubles draw over Bear & Portillo in the final.
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Fantasy Racquetball Competition Wrap-up
Here were the top 5 rankings from Fantasy Racquetball for the event:
1. JT R Ball / @Daily Racquetball who predicted Lalo to the final.
2. @Mitch Brayley
3. Yours Truly Todd Boss
4. Shawn Watts
5. @Joe Linnell
6. Kurtis Cullen
I guess the Canadians are pretty good at this 🙂
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters @Richard Eisemann and Carrie Wegener Reitmeier
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.
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Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar …
Canada has its second nationals qualifier this coming weekend, then we have Mexican Nationals the last week of February. The next pro stop will be in early march.
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