Month: February 2026

Congrats to your Open winners and new US National Team representatives: weekend:

– Men’s Singles: Jake Bredenbeck d Daniel De La Rosa

– Women’s Singles: Michelle (Key) Anderson d Erika Manilla

– Men’s Doubles: Daniel De La Rosa & DJ Mendoza

– Women’s Doubles: Erika Manilla & Michelle (Key) Anderson

– Mixed Doubles: Adam Manilla and Erika Manilla

Executive Summary: Erika Manilla wins 2 golds and triple-qualifies, while DJ Mendoza makes the adult national team for the first time. DLR also double qualifies in a Worlds year and will have a chance to defend his 2024 world singles title. Adam Manilla returns to the national team after a year’s absence due to injury. Michelle (Key) Anderson wins her first ever National singles title. Lastly, Jake Bredenbeck continues his long run on the National team by winning his first National singles title since 2019.

Congrats to all.

They join a distinguished list of direct US National team qualifiers, which I keep a roster of at this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hfxiw8chi8Dpl8U0E4LjShVKaqY2OLqbhqBDpgYX7zU/edit?usp=sharing

The Winners and Finalists of the Singles competition, plus the Doubles winners in each discipline will have first right of refusal to represent the USA at two upcoming 2026-27 events: the 2026 IRF Worlds in August at a site TBD, and then the 2027 annual Pan American Racquetball Championships in late March 2027.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=50421

Here’s links to historical US National Team finals for the various disciplines. These go back all the way to 1968 for the Men, 1970 for the women, and 2022 for Mixed as a relatively new category.

– US Men’s Singles finals; https://rball.pro/85i

– US Women’s Singles finals: https://rball.pro/24a5f1

– US Men’s Doubles finals: https://rball.pro/adf3cd

– US Women’s Doubles finals: https://rball.pro/9c5514

– US Mixed Doubles finals: https://rball.pro/ffd5bf

Lastly, here’s the links for the 5 match reports for the 2026 event in one spot:

– US Men’s Singles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/95a133

– US Women’s Singles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/f9a662

– US Men’s Doubles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/d03fe6

– US Women’s Doubles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/0a6212

– US Mixed Doubles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/c58778

——————

Let’s review the notable matches in the National team qualifying draws.

Men’s Singles:

There weren’t any major surprises in this draw early; #5 Sam Bredenbeck upset #4 Thomas Carter in the quarters to make the US semis for the first time in his career; for his troubles he had to match up against his brother Jake. The two had only played competitively once in their entire careers, amateur or professional, prior to this meeting. Jake took out younger brother Sam in the semis to make the finals and guarantee his 6th singles qualification to the US team. Meanwhile, a rusty Daniel De La Rosa had to fend off an in-form Adam Manilla in the bottom semi, eventually pulling away in the 5th to win, advance to the finals, and setup a third successive match against Jake for the US National singles title. More importantly, he guarantees his 4th US National singles spot. DLR didn’t play for the US in any of the 2025 competitions thanks to his pickleball commitments, but in a Worlds year he’ll be highly likely to look for a shot at defending his 2024 World singles title.

In the final, Jake dominated play, with solid defensive ball and excellent court coverage. He wins going away 11,8,3 to claim his first National singles title since 2019.

————————

Women’s Singles:

The Women’s singles draw was upset-city from the start. Defending US Champ Naomi Ros was ousted in the 1st round by veteran American player Lexi York, immediately ending any thoughts of a back-to-back title for the Texan. York ended up pushing #1 Manilla to five games before falling, but achieved her best singles result here in more than a decade (she finished 3rd in 2014).

Meanwhile, it was a tournament to remember for Michelle (Key) Anderson, who upset #2 Lotts and #3 Sanchez to reach the singles final and directly qualify for the US Team in singles for the first time in her career. This won’t be the first time she’s played singles internationally, but it’ll be the first time she’s in a US final.

In the final against her doubles partner, Anderson overcame Manilla’s power and played a better end game at every step to win a 4-game close match and claim her first ever National Singles title.

——————

Men’s Doubles:

Daniel De La Rosa won his third US National title, this time with a player with whom he had little to no prior playing experience with, dragging along Texas junior DJ Mendoza to the title. DLR and Mendoza, seeded 4th, had to dig deep just to upset the top seeds Carson & Manilla in the semis, then played a very close tactical game against the Bredenbeck brothers in the final, outlasting them 11-7 in the fifth. It’s the 5th time in the last 6 years that the brothers have made the national final but come up short, ending an agonizing day for the Minnesotians.

——————

Women’s Doubles:

Three teams of ladies battled it out for the US National title. The two 20-somethings Naomi Ros & Annie Sanchez fell in quick succession to the two veteran teams, leaving the defending champs Manilla/Anderson to face off against two long-time Team USA combatants Lexi York & Sheryl Lotts for the title. After two games of shot making split the teams, Manilla & Anderson pulled away and claimed their 2nd title in a row. It’s Manilla’s 4th Women’s doubles national title, Key’s second.

——————

Mixed Doubles:

The Mixed Doubles competition was the first to finish, with the finals played late Thursday before many had even arrived at the event. The first National champions crowned were the brother/sister duo of Adam and Erika Manilla, who earned the title with a hard-fought 5-game thriller over Jake Bredenbeck and Michelle (Key) Anderson.

With the win, Manilla earns his 3rd career National Team appointment and his second career Mixed Doubles title with his sister. Meanwhile, Erika earns her 3rd career Mixed US National title and ensures her 7th straight US National team appointment.

——————

Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

There’s an IRT satellite in Portland honoring the late John Pelham, a long-running IRT-affiliated event. Mexico has their National championships next weekend as well, always one of my favorite tourneys to cover. Then we get into a very busy March on the calendar, with a slew of major events across pro, international, and outdoor disciplines.

This weekend, the top players from around the country descend on Arizona State University in Tempe for the National Indoor Championships. This is the 58th year of National Singles in this country; every year save for 2020 since 1968, the absolute longest running single event in the sport. We combined National Singles and Doubles a few years back into the “National Indoors” event, so in addition to all the amateur events this tournament will name the participants to the US National Team for the 2026-27 season (2026 Worlds and 2027 PARC).

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=50421

——————————

Here’s quick previews of the five US National team draws

Men’s Singles: defending champion Daniel De La Rosa is here, and faces an interesting career decision. The 3-time IRT pro tour champ left professional racquetball for professional pickleball, but is currently out of contract with the pro pickleball tour. He has not appeared in a pro pickleball event since his contract termination last October, but has been seen on the racquetball courts, so he should be somewhat in-form to defend his title. He’s the #3 seed here; US National team qualifying draws goes straight from the current USAR rankings, and does not “protect” last year’s finalists like we used to do. Jake is #1, Adam Manilla is now #2 ahead of DLR.

DLR has to fend off Charlie Pratt to face Manilla in the semis, while Jake looks set to face the winner of his brother and Thomas Carter in the top semi. I’d guess we’re going to see a rematch of 2025’s final between DLR and Jake, with Jake taking the title over DLR. But I honestly have no idea how rusty or in-form DLR is; Manilla has been playing great lately and absolutely could take him out in the semis. We’ll see.

Women’s Open Singles: In a cryptic message, long-time US National team member Hollie Scott announced on the eve of the event that she was switching countries and would play for Guatemala going forward. This robbed the Women’s Singles draw of its top seed (Scott is currently the #1 ranked American) and elevated 3-time National champ Erika Manilla to the #1 seed. Long-time top US player Kelani Lawrence has stepped back from playing events as well, which thins the field significantly. Manilla projects into the defending US champ Naomi Ros in the semis, meaning someone’s going home off the National team between the two most recent Singles champs. From the bottom half, I could make an argument for any of the four to make a run: Annie Sanchez has been playing great lately, Hall of Famer Rajsich can still get wins, Michelle (Key) Anderson is a threat, and #2 seed Lotts has been getting career wins lately.

I’ll go with Ros over Sanchez in the final, a big youth movement statement for the two current/recently matriculated juniors.

———————————

Men’s Doubles:

Defending doubles champ Rocky Carson is back, this time with lefty Adam Manilla, to form the formidable #1 seed. They’ll have to fend off 2-time champ De La Rosa, playing this year with fellow Texan DJ Mendoza, but should be the favorites in the final against the Bredenbeck brothers.

———————————

Women’s Doubles:

There’s just three teams competing; the top seeds Manilla & Key are probably favorites, but if I just predicted a Sanchez-Ros singles final there’s no reason not to think that Sanchez/Ros as a team couldn’t win this.

———————————

Mixed Doubles:

Last year Erika won the mixed with Erik Garcia (her brother was on the mend); they’re back together this year with a strong chance of repeating their 2024 title together as brother & sister. They’ll likely have to go through the very strong looking Bredenbeck/Key team to do so.

———————————

Look for Carrie Reitmeier, Richard Eisemann, Sandy Rios, and Karen Grisz on the mike streaming off of the USAR’s facebook page all weekend.

Thanks to the Tourney Director Jonathan Greenberg of the USAR staff.

@USA Racquetball