Tourney Host Sebastian Franco. Photo Kevin Savory 2018 US Open
Hot on the heels of World Singles & Doubles was a quick Satellite event held in the old DMV, my stomping grounds. The DMV Invitational was held last weekend in Severna Park and played host to a slew of international players who stuck around state-side to play another event before heading back home.
This led to a solid 24-man IRT draw and some great action. here’s a quick recap:
Top seed Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball , who had to forfeit out of Denver’s event with an ugly-looking ankle sprain, ground out a couple solid wins to get to the final. He topped two of the best local players in Maryland in order in John Behm and then Ezequiel Subieta, who once made the Bolivian Junior national team before settling in the DC area and dominating DC/MD/VA events. Subieta topped the tourney host and former IRT Tier1 winner @sebastian Franco 7,2 to earn the shot at Montoya. In the semis, Montoya beat Sam Bredenbeck but certainly had to work for it, with Sam pushing Rodrigo 12,11 before falling.
From the bottom half, the player we keep talking about Bolivian 18U champ @Jhonatan Flores had himself a solid event, beating local favorite Zelada in the 16s and then No. 2 seed @javier mar in the quarters. He then fell to former #1 and fellow Bolivian @Conrrado Moscoso in the semis, but it was no blowout (11-7 in the third).
The final we well contested until Montoya had to retire again, losing 15-9 and retiring at 6-6 in the second. Moscoso takes the title in a Bolivia heavy field befitting a DC area event and its large Bolivian population.
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Doubles:
the two top pairs of IRT tour vets and regular partners were the two top seeds, and made their way to the final without much incident. There, the No 1 Montoya/Mar pair had to forfeit out with Rodrigo’s injury, giving hte title to No. 2 Moscoso/Carrasco. This gives Moscoso the double for his troubles.
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Any points are good points to earn for Moscoso right now, and these Satellite points should be enough to move Moscoso up a couple slots on the ranking, perhaps enough to get him out of a 1-16 matchup with Kane next time.
Next up on the calendar: The IRT Tracktown Open in Oregon at the end of the month.
Andres Acuna wins his first tier 1 IRT title. Photo US Open 2019 Kevin Savory
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Men’s Pro Singles: @Andres Acuna
– Women’s Pro Singles: Maria Jose Vargas
– Mixed Pro Doubles: Conrrado Moscoso & Paola Longoria
Acuna becomes the 46th man in the history of the pro tours (dating to Sept 1973) to win a Tier 1 title. Vargas wins her 13th career title and is now in the top 10 all time on the ladies tour. Lastly, Moscoso/Longoria repeat as winners of this event, topping the #15 seeds Carson & Key in an amazing run to the final.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=42889
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Men’s Singles draw.
Men’s Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/7a1248
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In the 64s:
– US Junior national team member @DJ Mendoza took a barn burner over DC-area Open player turned Florida Man @Dylan Pruitt, surviving 11-10 to move on. Tough matchup for both, and predictably it went the distance.
– European #1 German @Marcel Leunsmann made his IRT pro debut and pushed the solid @MIguel Angel Arteaga in game one 15-14 before running out of gas 14,4.
– We had a weird situation where a score in R2 was entered then changed; initially Camacho was listed as a winner over Carrasco by the very odd scoreline (0),0,0, indicating a triple donut. Turns out the real scoreline was a 6,(13),10 edge of your seat win for the Bolivian.
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In the 32s:
– Moscoso got a walkover/withdrawal from Carlos Ramirez to setup the anticipated round of 16 against Moscoso
– @Sam Bredenbeck got a really solid win over #12 @Jaime Martell Racquetball , 12,7. This is probably his career best win, certainly by seed of the opponent, but also by talent of the opponent.
– Bolivian 18U champ Flores crushed his fellow rising Junior Gastelum 6,9 to put himself into the 16s.
– Bolivian Vet Carrasco upset @Thomas Carter 13,6. This is a step back for Carter, the kind of matches he’s generally been winning lately has he’s climbed up the rankings.
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In the 16s, we get some big surprises and of course a heavyweight matchup
– In the 1/16, we get basically the two best players in the sport playing thanks to Moscoso’s injuries costing him a ton of ranking points. The two played their typical match; lots of power, great shot making, and a series of streaks that defined each game. Kane jumped out well ahead in game 1, Moscoso fought back briefly, then Kane powered into Game 2. There it was the reverse; Moscoso jumped ahead, Kane fought back, and then it was Kane fighting off game points at the end and taking the gam 15-14 to save a tie-breaker. It was good to see Moscoso not capitulate in game two after a heavy game 1 loss; he’s just 10-26 lifetime on tour when he loses the first game. Hopefully we don’t see another 1-16 like this at the next event.
– @Adam Manilla returned from injury and ground out a great 11-10 win over #8 @alan Natera to move on. Solid win by Adam, who is looking to get back into his lofty 4-5 range.
– @Jake Bredenbeck tamed the young Bolivian phenom @Jhonathan Flores 7,9 against this prognosticator’s predictions both here and on the IRT club podcast. Jake played well and just controlled the youngster.
– Miranda got a walkover against #3 Parrilla, whose back tightened up on him suddenly and wouldn’t release in time to play.
– Montoya was pressed to a breaker by Bolivian Carrasco before advancing, but the effort caused him to roll an ankle, which knocked him out of the next round.
– Mar destroyed Alonso 8,0 in a big time reversal of latest trends.
– In another top round matchup, #2 Acuna stepped up and took out the tough Argentine @dieDiego Garcia 5,6. A two-time international finalist this year, Garcia was thought to be a dark-horse for the semis, but Acuna had other plans.
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In the Quarters
– Kane destroyed Adam 0,2 in a lefty on lefty crime.
– Portillo outlasted Jake in a breaker to get back to the semis once again.
– Miranda gets his second straight walkover, this time over Montoya, to get to the semis without playing for two days.
– Acuna played amazingly well to outclass Mar 9,5. All props here; these were two straight great wins for the costa Rican.
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In the Semis
– Kane took out Lalo 7,12 to get to anther final.
– Acuna looked like he might get upset, as Miranda controlled game one, but he flipped the script to get to the final (7),13,3.
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In the Finals, what looked like a mismatch quickly turned into a battle. Kane from the onset didn’t look as if he was moving at 100%, but still made shots. Acuna’s drive serves were working to the left and to the right and kept in points. The two were neck and neck to 14-14, which is where Kane usually finds some magic to pull wins out of losses … but the pair went back and forth at game point several times before Acuna pulled it out.
This effort seemed to deflate Kane, who got down early fast in game two and started mailing it in. I didn’t see a postgame comment about what might have been the issue, but by match point against Kane wasn’t even trying. I did not see any post match intel on what may have been ailing him, but i’ll make two main points here.
1. Kane is 43. He’s not going to be 100% physically for every match anymore. So a big part of his title pursuit will be mitigating injury and staying healthy long enough on these tough weekends to get to the semis and finals regularly. Now, as we saw in this match, even at 43 he’s still the best player out there, he’s still in a position to crush drive serves on muscle memory and get a lot of free points on 3-shot rallies where his serve is flailed back for a setup. However, on those days where he has to play both a 16 and a quarter, he’s vulnerable. By Sunday, having played hard for three straight days, sometimes you’ll see him stiffen up, tweak something, etc. That’s just part of the story now.
2. I’m not taking anything away from Acuna here. You can talk all you want about how Kane wasn’t 100%, but that ignores how well Acuna has played Kane lately, and it ignores how good Acuna has been playing lately. He didn’t get to #2 in the world by luck, and the last few times he’s played Kane its been closer and closer. Kane beat him 12,14 earlier this year in Minnesota. The time before that it was 10,7 in Spokane. Andres took a game off Kane last year in Sioux Falls. Back in March 2022 Kane was crushing him 3,3 … no longer; now its a battle every time. So all props to Acuna here. I thought he would lose in the 16s and he won the event.
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With this win, Acuna becomes the 46th ever player to win a Tier 1 title. He joins an interesting looking group of 1-title holders on tour that includes a few current players (Portillo, Montoya) a few recently retired players (Mercado, Franco, Pratt), some 90s pros (Guidry, Sweeney, Croft), and some historical guys (Hawkes, Wagner).
see https://rball.pro/q60 for a list of all title holders historically.
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Men’s Points Implication of the results
Kane maintains a massive lead atop the rankings, but with a pivot to fall-to-spring scoring there’s a lot of time to catch up. Portillo moves to #3 with the result, probably a fitting ranking given his performance this season so far. Mar moves up to #7, which is a career high. Miranda will move up to #13 on tour, amazing given that he had barely played any events prior to 2025. Moscoso remains at #17, which runs the risk of another Kane-Conrrado round of 16 unless we have a couple guys miss the next event (which is of course possible, since many are facing long flights from South America). Flores up to #18.
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Women’s Singles draw.
Women’s Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/86790d
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In the 32s:
– A meeting between two top Americans turned into a disappointing injury fft, as @michelle key had to withdraw from her first round singles match against reigning US national champ Naomi Ros with injury. Key had just advanced two rounds in Mixed, so hopefully she’s sacrificing one draw for another.
– The legend @Rhonda Rajsich, who had played just two pro events since retiring in June 2022, got a come from behind win over tour regular @Stephanie Synhorst.
– Canadian #2 @Juliette Parent got a nice win over LPRT tour veteran @Maria Renee Rodriguez in three.
– In a showdown between the top U21 players in the world and one of her leading rivals who just matriculated out of Juniors, Bolivian @Camila Rivero topped @Annie Sanchez in two.
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In the 16s:
– Props to Naomi Ros for pushing Longoria to a tie-breaker. Every time Ros takes the court against a top player, she learns valuable take-aways that make her a better player.
– Salas advanced by 11-10 over Centellas, a battle of generational talents.
– @Carla Munoz got one of the better wins of her career with a TB win over #4 Herrera. She missed two events at the end of last season, which sent her ranking plummeting, but wins like this will get her back in no time.
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In the Quarters
– It was mostly chalk, as 1,2,3 top seeds advanced. With Herrera out, #5 Mendez took advantage and Munoz couldn’t beat them both in a row.
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In the Semis
– Mendez shocked Longoria in game 2, winning 15-2 but fell to give Paola another final.
– Vargas and Mejia renewed their rivalry, playing a very close 13,12 match to send Vargas to the final and setup 1v2.
In the Finals, Longoria and Vargas had their typical back and forth battle in the first two games, splitting them to go to yet another tiebreaker in their recent head to head rivalry. There, something happened that has literally never happened to Paola before: she took a donut in a pro match. Vargas topped her 11-0 in the breaker to take the title, giving Paola her first career donut. Not only that, but Longoria had only ever even been held to 1 point in a game four times , all of them before 2010. It’s just a crazy stat.
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Points Implications of results for the Ladies
Vargas makes a big jump up in the standings but still remains #2. She had a bad Denver 2024 event expire (she lost in the qtrs last year) but won, so she is now within 100 points of Paola for the lead. Gaby’s absence once again crushes her in the rankings; she’s now 600 points behind 3rd place. Herrera will drop to #6 with the upset loss. Parrilla will drop to #11 with the absence. Munoz remains #15, while Ros moves into the top 20 for the first time.
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Here’s a link to my Rolling 2year Calendar XLS for both tours, 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.
Note: with the new IRT ownership, the points have changed for IRT events for previous 2025 results and going forward. Here’s a quick overview of the points changes:
– 1st place: 420 (was 400)
– finalist: 280 (was 300): this clearly gives more credit for winning an event now
– semis; 210 (was 220); down a little
– qtrs: 140 (was 150): down a little
– 16s: 70 (was 90): so just making the 16s isn’t as big as it once was
As predicted in my preview, both in print and on the IRT Fantasy podcast, you could throw the seedings out of the window in the Mixed draw, as the first round gave us a slew of “upsets.”
By the time the round of 16 was over, we’d seen the #2, #5, and #8 seeds vanquished. The most impressive early run was by #15 Carson & Key, who won their opener against Texas juniors Mendoza & Ros, then ousted the defending Mixed Pro finalists Natera & Munoz rather easily to move on. The Manilla siblings, both of whom who have struggled with injury over the last year, shook off some early rust to blast the #5 seeds Parrilla & Mendez to move into the quarters.
In the Mixed qtrs, the top 3 seeds advanced, while Carson & Key kept their I-formation show going and took out 2018 Mixed pro champs Montoya & Salas in a breaker.
In the semis: Longoria/Moscoso advanced over Mar/Mejia in an amazing match, one point shy of the perfect match 14,(14),9. Carson & Key kept the show going with a similarly brutal tiebreaker win over the Herrera/Portillo pair to setup a #1 vs #15 unlikely final.
In the final: Key & Carson took game one, but the top seeds pulled the match out in a 3rd successive tiebreaker to win the title and defend their 2023 win.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– Arteaga beat Cole Sendrey in the Open final.
– The all Junior team of Mendez & Flores won the Open Doubles over Team Guatemala (Caceres & Salvatierra)
– Annie Sanchez beat Guatemalan Reyes in the Women’s Open final.
– Sheryl Lotts & Lexi York took the “Pro/Open” doubles title, which had a slew of solid teams.
– Jaime Martell & Chanis Leon took the Mixed Open Doubles draw.
There were a slew of really solid Age group competitions too, with lots of Nationally recognized names present. Bravo to all the people who traveled to this event to play and support it. We may never get another one like it.
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Fantasy Racquetball Competition Wrap-up
The first round of the IRT club Fantasy brackets kicked off, and there’s a 10-way tie for first at the moment. I’m in 12th place, 1 point behind the main crew.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend from both pro teams.
Next up is National Racquetball day and a slew of shootouts and events around the country. This includes an IRT satellite event in the DMV hosted by Sebastian Franco in Severna Park that’s catching a lot of the South Americans on their way out of town. The next big pro event is the Tracktown Open in Eugene Oregon at the end of the month.
Can Jhonathan Flores make another run? Photo via IRT IG
Welcome to the fourth edition of Tournament Director Jim Hiser’s World Singles and Doubles tournament in Denver, the biggest pro event we currently have on the Racquetball calendar. Hiser, the former pro tour commissioner and long-time Executive Director of USA Racquetball , devised this event back in 2018 as a doubles-only showcase featuring (for what was believed to be the first time) a Pro Mixed Doubles draw.
Starting in 2021 (after skipping the Covid year), Hiser added in full pro singles draws for both the International Racquetball Tour and the LPRT but keeping the prize money for the Pro Mixed, making this a unique showcase of Mixed doubles talent. Nowhere outside of @International Racquetball Federation – IRF are there really top-level pro mixed draws, and IRF events don’t have nearly the depth that we get on tour thanks to one mixed team per country.
The Pro mixed winners in the past have been:
– 2018: Daniel De La Rosa/Michelle De La Rosa (now Key)
– 2021: Rodrigo Montoya/Samantha Salas
– 2023: Conrrado Moscoso/Paola Longoria
These are perfectly expected winners; what’s been fun has been some of the crazy teams that made the finals. In 2018, the all-Colombian team of Mario Mercado and Adriana Riveros made the final, two pros who don’t even tour anymore. In 2021, it was Sebastian Fernandez and Alexandra Herrera, who topped the DLRs in the quarters before falling in the final. In 2023, the (now) Husband and Wife team of Natera and Munoz shocked King Kane and Michelle Key in the round of 16, then raced to the final before falling. These surprise results are what make Mixed Pro so much fun; the matchups on paper just don’t seem to follow what happens on the court.
We’ll give abbreviated previews to all three draws (IRT, LPRT, and Mixed) here.
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IRT:
There’s 43 players here, with most of the top 20 on hand. Thanks to injuries last year, @Conrrado Moscoso is seeded 17th and unfortunately plays into #1 @Kane Waselenchuk in the round of 16. A tough pill to swallow; this should have been a semi or final. One good player will be going home super early.
There’s a couple of intriguing round of 64 matches between mostly local players, but the projected 32s could have some shocks. Look for former touring pro and @Formulaflow CEO @Mauricio Zelada to give #9 @Adam Manilla fits if the lefty veteran not fully healthy. Martell-Bredenbeck is a fun one. However the two biggest matches of the round will be Miranda-Sendrey and Flores-Gastelum, matchups of U21 types who are vying to be the future of the Men’s pro sport.
I see some possible big upsets in the 16s: Argentina’s @Diego Garcia has made the finals of the last two international major events and could easily beat #2 @Andres Acuna. The Flores/Gastelum winner may catch #4 @Jake Bredenbeck by surprise if he’s not careful. Lastly Mar-Alonso is a bruiser of a 7-10 matchup that could go either way.
My upset-heavy semis: Kane, Flores, Montoya, and Garcia, with a high-powered Kane-Montoya final.
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LPRT
The Ladies draw is missing its #4 player Gaby, and a couple other regulars in the top 16 or so, which may give us some new matchups. 4-time pro tour champ @Rhonda Rajsich is in Denver and may go a round or two, depending on how much she’s been playing.
In the 16s, look for a fun 8/9 matchup between @valeria Centellas and @Samantha Salas Solis , Amaya-Lotts could be a barn-burner, but the big mis-match is the underseeded @Carla Munoz, who missed a couple of events and is now seeded way down in the mid-teens, having to play @Alexandra Herrera way too early.
My semis are the 4 favorites: Longoria, Herrera, Mejia, and Vargas. My final is a rematch of the World Games final between Longoria and Vargas, with the #1 seed taking it.
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Mixed Doubles Preview
The two top seeds are last year’s finalists, but I’m not sure who is confident that either team will return to the final. This is an absolutely stacked draw. The former USA and reigning 2023 Pan Am Games champions (Adam & Erika Manilla) are the #12 seed. Montoya and Solis, who won this event in 2021, are the #7 seeds. The #2 ladies pro, who just made the World Games Mixed final, is the #9 seed. Two of the greatest doubles players in the history of the sport (Carson and Key) are the #15 seeds. So, suffice it to say, anything can happen here.
I favor Moscoso and Longoria to repeat, if only because they’re the top skilled players in the draw playing together. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them upset in the quarters. Meanwhile, Mar & Mejia are both basically the best doubles players by gender in the world and they’re together, and have a relatively straight forward path into at least the semis. Portillo & Herrera as the #3 seed are both top notch doubles players in their own rights, and as we’ve seen with Natera & Munoz, sometimes a couple off the court can really shine together on the court.
Should be a fun draw!
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Look for Streaming in the normal places you’d expect, on the IRT and LPRT feeds.
Coincidentally if you’re an IRT fan, consider joining the IRT Club; we’re kicking off a new season-long Fantasy Racquetball concept, and to go with it Brian Pineda and i are doing pre- and post-tournament podcasts. We’ll debut this week with our preview of the IRT draw and the Mixed draws here. Here’s our first episode:
