Hello Racquetball fans. It’s been a while since we saw either pro tour in action, and suddenly we’re in Mid June and we have two pro events on the same weekend! We’ll preview the Costa Rica Open today and the LPRT ‘s Northern Virginia Invitational tomorrow.
The Costa Rica Open has been an IRT satellite event for years now, which means we have been “covering” it but it doesn’t end up in the database. That’s because historically satellite events have limits on the number of top 8 pros who can enter, so It never seemed “fair” to equate a win in a tier 2 or Tier 3 event with that from a full-strength tour event. However, the landscape of pro racquetball is shifting dramatically, as is the landscape for the rest of our sport, and this weekend’s event is a great example. Four of the top 8 players are in CRC this weekend, and then a huge chunk of the players ranked 9-20 are also there, making this a very solid draw. There’s also a huge number of internationals here, as this is one of the few remaining top level events prior to players playing the World Games later this year.
Missing out of the top 8 are Kane, Lalo, Jake, and Natera, leaving the top four seeds as (in order) Acuna, Parrilla, Montoya, and Mar.
R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=49239
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here’s a quick preview. Singles play runs from Wednesday 6/11 to Saturday 6/14.
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round of 32s: lots of decent matches to follow
– top Mexican Junior @Sebastian Hernandez battles Ecuadorian vet Jose Daniel Ugalde Albornoz
– Bolivian wunderkid Jhonatan Flores Vega takes on long-time IRT touring pro Costa Rican Felipe Camacho
– CRC’s current #2 @Gabriel Garcia battles top Guatemalan @Juan Jose Salvatierra
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Projecting the Round of 16:
– Hernandez plays into top seed @andres Acuna. I don’t think its an upset right off the bat, but Hernandez may make for some trouble.
– 8/9 is Giranda vs Gastelum, two players who both have some major scalps on their resumes. Great match.
– Flores plays into #5 Trujillo; ouch, very tough matchup for the IRT regular.
– #6 @Jordy Alonso projects to play Argentine @Diego Garcia. Another upset watch here, as Garcia has a ton of top-level wins recently.
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My Projected Qtrs:
– Acuna over Miranda, barely.
– Flores over Mar. I think Flores is already a top 8 players globally and will only improve, and he topped Mar in Minnesota earlier this year.
– Montoya over Garcia: Rodrigo overpowers him.
– Parrilla over Carter in a regular IRT quarter final matchup.
Semis and Finals; I think Flores takes out Acuna, who’s had a brutal draw just to get to the semis, while Montoya tops Parrilla in the latest of dozens of career top-level meetings for these two members of the same Mexican Cohort. In the final, Montoya finally tames Flores … though don’t be surprised if Flores makes this an 11-9 thriller.
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Doubles review
There’s some great doubles teams here: including multiple National team representative teams from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala, Argentina, and Costa Rica. It’ll be hard to beat the top Mexican teams, including Montoya/Mar at #1
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Streaming? We’ll have to see what we get … perhaps Pablo Fajre flew to CR to broadcast, or maybe we have to depend on cell phones of players.
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.
Coincidentally, if you’re interested in playing Fantasy Racquetball for this event, the links to the brackets are advertised on LPRT’s main page. The winner each week gets free swag!
Associations
@International Racquetball Tour
International Racquetball Tou r