Month: August 2025

Congrats to your winners from the 2025 World Games:

– Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso , Bolivia

– Women’s Singles: Maria Jose Vargas , Argentina

– Mixed Doubles: Jake Bredenbeck / Naomi Ros, USA

Pro Racquetball Stats Results links for the three draws:

– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/58944b

– Women’s Singles:: https://rball.pro/28cfd0

– Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/b3914c

R2sports link for the event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=50215

Recaps of the draws:

Men’s Singles:

The first round was relatively straight-forward, since the structure of this event basically guarantees that the top 8-9 racquetball playing countries would play entrants from less-well known countries in the first knockout rounds. There were a couple of stretched matches: Canada’s @coby Iwaasa was pushed to 5 games by the DR’s @Ramon De Leon. The one “upset” was Guatemala’s @Edwin Galicia upsetting Uruguy veteran @jose daniel ugalde in four games.

The big surprise of the tournament came in the next round, as Galicia took out #1 seed @jaJake Bredenbeck in four shocking games. 2025 PARC champ @Diego Garcia upset the defending World Games winner @Andres Acuna, while title-favorites Moscoso and @Eduardo Portillo won relatively easily to setup a tough Mexico-Bolivia semi.

Garcia continued his run, topping Galicia to get back to the final, while Moscoso went 5 games with Portillo before advancing to setup a rematch of the 2025 PARC men’s semifinal against Garcia. The two played an amazing final, which went to 5 games and which was finally won by Conrrado 14-12 in the fifth game. It’s Moscoso’s 6th career IRF title and he now owns the complete suite of international titles: Worlds, PARC, Pan Am Games, World Games, and South American games.

See this link for every IRF Men’s final in history: https://rball.pro/b2x

——————

Women’s Singles:

Like with the Men, the first round of the Women’s draw featured mostly blow outs between top racquetball playing countries and lesser-known competitors. There was one big upset though: Costa Rican @Larissa Faeth took out long-time LPRT touring veteran @Christina Amaya (playing for Italy) in four games.

In the quarters, Bolivian #1 @Angelica Barrios beat USA’s reigning national champion Ros in an upset by seeds but probably not really an upset based on capabilities and accomplishment to setup a semi-final round between the top four ladies in the competition.

In the top semi, Barrios played one of the matches of her life, and had top seed and GOAT @Paola Longoria on the ropes, but suffered a catastrophic knee injury that unfortunately forced her out of the event and will sideline her for months. Longoria, winner of the 2009, 2013, and 2022 World Games’ titles, advanced to the final. There she met current LPRT #2 Vargas, who handled the #2 seed and always-dangerous @AnaAna Gabriela Martínez in four games.

The final saw a changing of the guard in some respects internationally, as Vargas held firm against Longoria, and came back after dropping game one to grind out three close games for the title. It’s Vargas’ fourth international title.

See here for a list of all IRF women’s Open finals: https://rball.pro/6fd827

———–

Mixed Open

Mixed Open was a first at the World Games, and the 2025 Mixed title in China was just the 9th ever Mixed Doubles competition held by an IRF-sanctioned tournament (see https://rball.pro/d26121 for a list of all prior finals). The defending champions of Mixed from earlier this year (Team Chile Natera/Munoz) were not even qualified for the World Games, which meant a new titlist was to be crowned.

The structure of the China event meant that the Mixed teams were not necessarily the “best” teams a country could put forward, since they had to be comprised of the two qualifying singles players, but we still saw some pretty good teams put together and some great results.

Seven of the Eight seeds held in the opening round; the sole upset was team Japan over team South Korea (fitting that these two countries played, since they generally hate each other). The quarters gave us some really surprising results: Team Canada ousted Team Guatemala in four games, team japan got a walkover against Bolivia when Barrios had to retire, and then in a far-too-early pairing, team Argentina (Vargas & Garcia) beat the #2 seeds Team Mexico (Longoria & Portillo) in three straight. I had Mexico-Argentina penciled in as the non-final match of the event… but a 3-game beating of a team with Longoria was surprising.

In the semis, Team USA was stretched to the limit before beating Canada in the 5th, while the Argentines cruised past team japan to setup a solid final. There, in an even bigger surprise, Team USA bowled over Team Argentina 7,9,6 to claim the title. It’s the fourth Mixed IRF title for a USA-based team in the last five events held, giving USA a great history of winning these international competitions.

————

Congrats to all winners, and congrats to the World Games for continuing to support racquetball.

@International Racquetball Federation – IRF

The World Games

@USA Racquetball

Welcome to the 12th World Games competition, being held for 2025 in Chengdu, China, which is in the Sichuan province well inland. If you’re reading this in North America, you might never have heard of Chengdu before … which is understandable, because China probably has half a dozen cities you’ve never heard of who have populations that dwarf the largest cities in the US. You’d probably be amazed to hear that Chengdu has more than 20 million people and in terms of pure city-based population is one of the largest 4-5 cities in the world.

(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Games for more about the history of the World Games).

This is the 12th iteration of the World Games. The competition debuted in 1981 and was designed to be an Olympic Games-style competition for any and all sports that were not in the Olympics at that point. Racquetball was part of the very first World Games competition, held in Santa Clara in 1981, which was also used by the newly formed International Racquetball Federation to serve as the first ever Racquetball World Championships. The first World Games tournament was very USA-heavy, with American’s comprising 3 of the 4 singles semifinalists for both Men and Women’s singles. Ed Andrews beat Mike Martino for the first WG men’s title, while Cindy Baxter beat Barbara Faulkenberry for the first WG Women’s title.

(see https://rball.pro/583948 for the first World Games Men’s competition and https://rball.pro/57fd2f for the first World Games Women’s Competition results.

Since the 1981 event, racquetball’s inclusion has been sporadic, as the Games have moved all over the world and been hosted in many countries that had no racquetball presence. Racquetball was included in the 2nd and 4th iterations, but then went a dozen years and three events without being competed, as the games were held in cities in Finland, Japan, and Germany which had no courts. Thankfully, we regained some momentum and the sport was re-included in 2013 in Colombia, and of course was in the most recent iteration of the competition, held in 2022 in Birmingham Alabama.

The organizers in Birmingham requested of USAR to install the Portable court to host the competition, and the broadcasts from that event were amazing. I use this event and these broadcasts often to counter internet claims that the sport of racquetball “is too fast for TV” or “can’t be broadcast … when in reality it just needs an all-glass court, high-end cameras, and a professional broadcasting crew to make it look amazing. It is just night and day watching this 2022 World Games broadcast versus our typical streaming solution cameras.

(see

https://dailyracquetball.com/irf-2022-the-world-games…/ for links to the 2022 broadcast and finals)

We did get a peek of the courts to be used in Chengdu thanks to Germany’s Marcel Lünsmann , who posted a shot of the courts upon his arrival in China. See https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02yBthxmj4YyBuA2Q2SjeE2dezRpke38EcStjXuikem7vcnTgBELjTuDjuqzmNQEYol&id=100016504326087 for that image (apologies if this link has permission issues). The organizers have built two side-by-side all-glass court constructs with surrounding seating, which should prove to be excellent for broadcasting and viewing.

Speaking of broadcasts and viewing … unfortunately for racquetball fans used to “free” Facebook-based streaming of all top-level events, the World Games is a major event which sells its broadcasting like any other sporting event, and thus the availability of racquetball online will be limited. Keep an eye out on the regular places/groups where interested parties will post links as they become available.

————–

Event structure and Qualifying Overview

Initially the field was defined to be 4 countries from Asia, 4 countries from Europe, and then 8 countries from the Americas. The 2024 Worlds competition served as the qualifier for the countries, and at the time a lack of European representation led to a 5th team from Asia initially qualifying in. However, when the field was revealed this week, we see that the host country China technically does not have a team here, which then opened up an extra spot for Ecuador (who didn’t initially qualify).

The 2025 WG added a Mixed Doubles component but cut back on the competitors to just one Man/Woman per country, a change from 2022 where two men/women from the leading countries qualified in. So, the 2025 WG field is comprised of just one Man and one Woman from each country. There’s some fun country representations here: long-time Colombian Cristina Amaya Cassino represents Italy here, and long-time Chilean @Angela Grisar representing Germany.

———————–

Previews

We have not seen the brackets yet, so it’s impossible to do a pure prediction, but here’s the favorites by competition:

Men’s Singles: The Men’s side likely will come down to the top touring pros who are present, namely @Conrrado Moscoso from Bolivia, @Eduardo Portillo Rendon from Mexico, defending champion @Andres Acuna from Costa Rica, and Argentina’s @Diego Garcia, who won the most recent international competition the 2025 PARC event with h2h wins over both Jake and Conrrado in the knockouts. Keep an eye out for @Jake Bredenbeck from USA and Canada’s @Coby Iwaasa , both of whom can pop into any top-level event and get upsets.

I think Moscoso and Garcia are the favorites, but Portillo is a tough out Jake didn’t fly to China to lose in the quarters. Should be fun.

————-

Women’s Singles:

Despite limitations of one player per country, the WG still have 3 of the current top 4 players in the world in defending champ @Paola Longoria of Mexico, Maria Jose Vargas from Argentina, and @Ana Gabriela Martínez from Guatemala. They’re joined by top competitors Bolivian #1 @Angela Barrios , USA reigning national champ @Naomi Ros, and Canada’s long-time #1 @Frederique Lambert as likely top competitors.

I like Longoria and Vargas in the final, but it kind of depends where Gaby and Barrios line up in the knockout stage, as they can get upsets and surprise.

————-

Mixed Doubles

There’s four teams i’m looking at primarily in the mixed who will be tough to beat, led by team Mexico (Longoria & Lalo); both of these players are excellent in doubles and Paola swinging on the right side will make them the favorites. Bolivia’s Moscoso & Barrios will be interesting, since Angelica can hold her own on one side while Moscoso’s athleticism will have him flying all over the court. Meanwhile, Vargas/Garcia from Argentina won’t be afraid of anyone, and Jake/Naomi will out hit most of the competition.

Mexico vs Argentina seems to be the favorites before seeing a draw.

————-

Looking forward to the competition! Stay tuned for more.

International Racquetball Federation – IRF

@iInternational Racquetball Tour

LPRT

@worldgames2025