Racquetball Canada athlete Juliette Parent poses for their headshot on May 24, 2023. Photo by Mike Sudoma/COC *MANDATORY CREDIT*
Racquetball Canada kicked off its 2025-26 National team qualification process this past weekend with the first of three events that will shape the national team composition for 2026-27 season. This event was in Brossard, in the Montreal suburbs.
Click here for the tourney site and draws: https://secure.racquetballcanada.ca/event/fall-national-team-selection-event/1017224/
Congrats to the singles champs this past weekend:
– Men’s Open Singles: Samuel Murray
– Women’s Open Singles: Juliette Parent
Links to the draws in Proracquetballstats.com database:
– Men’s: https://rball.pro/73294e
– Women’s: https://rball.pro/674df8
Here’s a quick recap of the draws.
Men’s: the final came down to the two top players in Canada once again, as Murray took out @Coby Iwaasa in four. Murray gets some revenge from his May 2025 Nationals loss to Iwaasa, and improved to 18-7 over Coby in his National career. The win gives Murray his 21st career Canadian National event win, and extends his reign at #1.
Women’s: in a possible “Changing of the Guard” moment, #2 Parent upended #1 @Frederique Lambert in the final in 5 games. Lambert had not been beaten in a Canadian National event since 2014, and had won the last 18 straight events that she had entered. Bravo to Parent, who wins her first national event title.
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The next Racquetball Canada event will be the Feb 8th 2026 weekend in Burlington, the same weekend as USA Racquetball’s national indoors. Then, the 2025-26 season wraps up with Nationals in late May to crown the 2026-27 national team.
As always, I keep a master major event calendar where this and other upcoming events can be found: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMbIP9SZd0MssH_nPGU/edit?usp=sharing
Mejia with the double in Denver.
Photo Kevin Savory US Open 2019
I had a bit of fixture congestion personally this week and couldn’t get a preview out for this one. My apologies there. But, here’s the recap. The Ladies pros were back in action for their third singles event of the new season (but, ironically, their first doubles event) in Denver, with hostess and fellow touring pro @erika Manilla in action and running the show.
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Montse Mejia
– Doubles: Montse Mejia & Alexandra Herrera
The event was missing #1 Longoria, who may have had legislative duties back home, and the absence will do a bit of harm to her chances for finishing #1 on the season based on the results. But Mejia’s win (instead of Vargas) may have helped her keep the pace.
Mejia’s singles win gives her 9 career tier 1 titles now, in 12th place all time. Meanwhile, the Mejia/Herrera doubles win is their 14th professionally, though both remain well behind the Longoria/Salas duo in terms of career LPRT pro doubles wins.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=49237
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/f5eb2b
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In the 32s:
– A great matchup between the legend @Rhonda Rajsich and a player on the comeback trail in Manilla went Erika’s way
– @Susy Acosta, appearing in her 27th season, took out @Maria Renee Rodriguez
in a breaker.
– @Annie Sanchez got a really nice win against the rarely seen but former top 10 Mexican @Nancy Enriquez.
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In the 16s, just one upset by seed:
– #10 @Sheryl Lotts was well ahead of #7 @Cristina Amaya when the Colombian turned Italian had to retire due to injury.
– The only other real close round of 16 match was in the 8/9 spot, as Argentine @Valeria Centellas picked up a solid win over @Jessica Parrilla to move into the quarters.
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In the Quarters
– #1 @maria Jose Vargas had to dig deep to beat her doubles partner Centellas 12,8
– #5 @brenda Laime held serve and beat #4 @Natalia Mendez in a breaker.
– #3 @Gaby Martinez beat #6 Alexandra Herrera in the round’s best matchup of former Tier 1 winners
– #2 @Montse Mejia cruised last Lotts to earn another semis.
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In the Semis
– In a very topsy turvy match, Vargas destroyed Laime in games 1 and 3 to win 1,(7),2 and move into the final. As they say, it only takes 26 to win.
– In a great semi final, Mejia rebounded after a first game loss to beat Gaby (7),7,7 to setup a 1v2 final.
In the Finals, Montse turned the tide and took out Vargas, reversing the trend of her latest match winning streak.
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Points Implications of results
With no Longoria, Vargas, who had already taken back over #1 on tour, extends her lead atop the standings to a more comfortable level. Mejia closes the gap on Longoria for #2 but stays in third. There’s still a huge gap between the top 3 players and the rest of the field, big enough that there’s just no way anyone can catch them at this moment. Elsewhere, Centellas’ result puts her back in the top 10 for the first time in years, Lotts moves up to #11 on tour, while Salas’ absence drops her to #13.
Here’s a link to my 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.
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/2a7b95
Mejia got the double on the weekend, grinding her way to a title with long-time partner Herrera without dropping a game. They certainly worked for it, topping the very-good Guatemalan national team in the quarters, Laime/Mendez in the semis, and the Argentine national team in the finals.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– Lotts beat Synhorst in the Women’s Open singles final
– Yelverton & Amaya took the Mixed Open doubles draw.
– Adam Manilla beat Erik Garcia in the IRT singles exhibition draw
– Yelverton & Garcia beat the legend Woody Clouse and top Texan Craig Clement in the Men’s Open Doubles final.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., JTRball, and Tj Baumbaugh
Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Stuart Solomon, Richard Eisemann, etc.
Thanks to the Tourney Directors the Manillas for putting this event on!
There’s two different IRT-350s next weekend, one in Boston and one in Tucson. The LPRT will be back the first weekend of December for its long running Christmas Classc in the DC area.
