Welcome back to the International Racquetball Tour and the return of Men’s Pro racquetball. The first event of the new year under the new regime was well received, and now the tour is back. They’re in Minnesota, at the University of Minnesota on the same courts that held the last US Open a couple year’s back for the 2025 Minnesota Hall of Fame event. It’s the third straight year for this event, which is great news for the sport to have some continuity.
Ahead of the event, we got some news items:
– the Glass Court club in Lombard is set to close. We’ll talk more about it in our Shamrock preview in a week, but wanted to mention it here.
– The Bredenbeck brothers are coordinating a GoFundMe to finance the Team USA PARC delegation to Guatemala this year. For those who just aren’t familiar with the financial state of the sport now, USA Racquetball is to the point where they can only finance one IRF event per year, and generally speaking its going to be the major events going forward (Worlds, World Games, Pan Am Games). If you’d like to help, here’s the link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-team-usa-represent-in-guatemala
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This tournament is made possible this year by TD @Vallana Perrault , long time fundraising lead Karen Masberg Bredenbeck , and by headlining sponsor @KWM Gutterman and new tour majority owner @Keith Minor. Thanks for everything you do for this event and for the sport in general.
R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=47719
The singles draw has a solid 39 players. There’s a couple of notable absences in the draw: #4 Adam Manilla is missing and will be out for a while with a shoulder injury he suffered/aggravated in Sioux Falls, a bummer for the lefty who had just reached a career peak. His absence gives both Trujillo and Natera career high seedings in an event. It also guarantees a little bit of a jumbling of the expected matchups we usually see in the 16s and quarters, which is always good. Last event’s finalist Lalo is missing, but the rest of the top 20 is here. Even the Bolivian regulars are present, right on the tail end of their Carnival, so hopefully they got some rest on the plane.
This singles draw features a TON of South Americans coming up, including both top Argentine males, eight players from Bolivia, Colombia’s veteran Cubillos, all the top Guatemalans, plus the rest of the expected international top touring vets. Altogether 9 countries represented.
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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, you don’t usually have compelling matchups, but we do here.
– US junior national member Benjamin Horner takes on Guatemalan national team member @Jose Caceres in what should be a good test.
– Reigning U21 world champ Bolivian Jhoel Alexis Acha makes his IRT pro debut, and takes on USA junior National 18U team member @DJ Mendoza. Solid match between two up and coming players.
– @Gerson Miranda faces off against Mexican 14U player Santiago Castillo in his pro tour debut.
– David ” Bobby” Horn , fresh off his APP Sacramento Open pickleball tournament last week, faces off against the tough midwest amateur Lee Meinerz . Could go either way: Meinerz is a tough out if Bobby hasn’t been training.
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In the 32s:
– In the 16/17 match a great meeting between home-town @Sam Bredenbeck
and Bolivian veteran Kadim Carrasco . Should be a good one. I like Sam here.
– @Jordy Alonso has to contend with @Diego Garcia in the opener, and should advance but this is a tough one against a tough international. I’m usually in favor of predicting upsets for the likes of Garcia in these events, but he’s struggled to make an impact outside of international events lately.
– Andree Parrilla , who has been struggling with some health issues, draws the U21 Bolivian champ Acha, and if he doesn’t watch out could take a loss here.
– #12 @Javier Mar gets the tough Bolivian Jhonathan Flores … upset watch here. In case you forgot what Flores can do, last year in Chicago he put losses on Jake, Collins, Ulliman, and Alonso, and then took a game off of Kane in the quarters. He’s the reigning 18U World champ and is set to run the 3-year U21 table.
– Top Midwest amateur @John Goth gets a winnable matchup against #14 Carlos Rodríguez
– For getting his best ever tourney seed, #6 @Erick Trujillo draws Miranda, a guy who can absolutely beat him if he’s not careful.
– the 15/18 is interesting, an all USA matchup between junior national Cole Sendrey, and his Junior National team coach Robby Collins . Can Sendrey get a win here against his coach?
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Round of 16:
– In the 8/9, Alonso vs Jake; great matchup. Jake playing for the home crowd, but Alonso on the hot streak. Tough to predict.
– Parrilla/Mar in the 5/12: brutal start to his tourney for Parrilla, who might not get here and probably falls to Mar, who he’s played dozens of times in his life and wh o matches up well against him, and who is coming off a Mexican Nationals final.
– Trujillo if he gets past Miranda projects to Thomas Carter , a good status check of the current pecking order on tour.
– Natera vs Martell: great matchup that we don’t normally get to see. I like Natera here, but Martell had a solid tourney in South Dakota.
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Projected Qtrs:
– @Kane Waselenchuk over Alonso: Jordy shocked him when they met in Canoga Park last May; there will not be another shocking.
– Mar over @Andres Acuna: seems like Mar is healthy and could go deep here.
– Montoya over Trujillo; the young player from Monterrey isn’t ready to challenge Mexico’s top dog yet,.
– Moscoso over Natera: by late Friday Moscoso should be over his jet lag, recovered from his street dancing gig, and will be rocking.
This is my dream semis by the way: Kane, the two guys who I think have the best shot of beating Kane right now in Moscoso & Montoya, and the classy Mar who has a great game to matchup against the King. We’ll see if it comes to pass. Probably not 🙂
Semis:
– Kane over Mar: we’re years past the US Open where Mar hung with Kane; last time they met it was a beat down in Pleasanton.
– Montoya over Moscoso: Rodrigo won’t be afraid of Conrrado.
Finals: Kane d Montoya in three. I think Montoya can keep it together to take a game, but not a match, off of the King.
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Doubles review
There’s some great round of 16 matches here: Martell/Carter vs Sendrey/Gastelum is one, and Alonso/Trujillo vs Garcia/Miranda (team Argentina) is another. Guatemala’s PARC presumed team is here in Salvatierra/Galicia; they take on IRT tour vets Ramirez & Collins in a solid lefty/righty matchup.
In the end though, I think the two top teams (Mar/Montoya and Carrasco/Moscoso) will be too tough to beat and will meet in the final. I like the Mexicans over team Bolivia once again.
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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.
Coincidentally, if you’re interested in playing Fantasy Racquetball for this event, the links to the brackets are advertised on IRT’s main page. The winner each week gets free swag!
Associations
International Racquetball Tour