Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: @Kane Waselenchuk
– Doubles: Erick Trujillo and Jordy Alonso
Well, it was a weird one, but Kane won his record-extending 130th career title while Alonso & Trujillo won their first career doubles titles without taking the court in the semis or the finals. Lets recap the injury and upset-filled weekend in Minneapolis.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=47719
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/c2d644
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In 64s:
– I actually thought DJ Mendoza’s win over Acha was notable. Mendoza struggled at the 18U worlds last December, losing in the RRs twice, but took out the reigning U21 world junior champ in Acha (who had to beat both Trujillo and Hernandez to do so). Great win.
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In the 32s:
– Solid win for Sam Bredenbeck beating Carrasco 11-10.
– @Diego Garcia destroyed Alonso 10,2. I keep predicting a deep run for Garcia and he gets upset early … then when i hedge in the preview, he blasts a top 10 players with ease.
– Bolivian Jhonatan Flores with a match-point saving win over Mar, great win for the reigning 18U world champ. Lets hope he continues to get to travel to the US.
– Another Bolivian international in Miranda gets a top010 win, this time over Trujillo. Probably not entirely an upset even given the seeds, but given their junior histories.
– Sendry gets a nice win over the tour veteran Collins.
– Biggest result of the round: Moscoso tweaks his knee mid-first game against Horn, then stubbornly hobbles around to “complete” the match instead of just forfeiting, giving Horn a 13,0 win and a quarter final appearance for the first time since the 2018-19 season
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In the 16s:
– Garcia with another upset, this time over Jake in his home town event.
– I thought in my prediction that Flores may have a shot against Parrilla in the 16s … and he did, losing 11-10 after not being able to convert match point.
– Miranda continues his run, topping Carter to get to the quarters. Honestly, if Garcia and Miranda lived domestically they’d be top 8 already, and would be mainstays in the quarters.
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In the Quarters
– Kane continues to cruise, setting down the Argentine Garcia 7,4.
– Solid win by Acuna over Parrilla to get back to the semis. We’re going to talk about Acuna later; you’re going to be shocked where he’s ranked after this event is done.
– Montoya pulled a rabbit out of his hat, somehow coming back from 4-10 down in the breaker despite injuring his shoulder and basically hitting patty-cake with the racquetball and keeping it in play. Miranda was in control and had no business losing, but saw the injury and couldn’t capitalize. Amazingly Rodrigo wins 11-10 and then promptly forfeits both singles and doubles.
– Natera gets a career best semis appearance with his win over Horn.
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In the Semis
– Kane was pushed by the tactical Acuna, who took a game from him but couldn’t continue in the breaker with the upset. Sometimes it’s hard to look at Acuna’s game and realize that his steadiness may make him the most likely to put a loss on Kane right now, but time and again he hangs against the King.
– Natera gets his first career final with an injury walkover against Montoya.
In the Finals, with Kane going half-speed, he lost game two but won his 130th career title.
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Points Implications of results
Well, if I have my XLS right (see link below), and this event gives out points like an IRT plus event, then the consistency and steadiness of both Acuna and Natera are going to pay off; i have Andres rising to #2 on tour, leap frogging Moscoso and Montoya, while I have Natera jumping up to #4. Moscoso’s injury here and his missing most of the end of 2024 will continue to conspire against him
Here’s a link to my IRT Rolling 2year Calendar XLS, which I use to approximate the points after each event. It is not exact but it’s usually close enough to the actual rankings, which @Ryan Rodgers does with @R2 Sports App on behalf of the tour after each event, to allow some quick post-event analysis before the rankings post.
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Doubles review
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/b3f213
The injuries to Montoya and Moscoso took out the two top doubles teams in this draw. The last team standing ended up being Trujillo & Alonso, who got walkovers in the semis and finals to claim their first title. They did get a very solid win over No 3. seeds Acuna/Natera.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– Hector Barrios, who curiously didn’t play Pro singles, took Open singles in a walkover against Gastelum in the final, which would have been a great match.
– Open Doubles: Garcia & Miranda unsurprisingly cruised to a title.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Richard Eisemann and his band of guest speakers.
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 …
We’ll cover the LPRT Boston event soon, then the IRT is back in action next week in Chicago, which we’ll preview in a couple of days.
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tags
@iInternational Racquetball Tour