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
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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 MartÃnez 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
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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.
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Congrats to all winners, and congrats to the World Games for continuing to support racquetball.
@International Racquetball Federation – IRF
The World Games
@USA Racquetball