Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Conrrado Moscoso
– Doubles: @Eduardo Portillo & @Andree Parrilla
TL/DR Executive Summary: Moscoso wins his 12th career title in dominant fashion, while Portillo and Parrilla get a solid win in the lead-up to Mexican Nationals in a few weeks.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=51976
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/16c211
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In the 32s:
– Garcia took out Sam Bredenbeck, but needed a breaker to do so.
– Trujillo’s return proved fruitful, taking out Gastelum in the 32s and (as we’ll see later on) winning the Men’s Open title.
– Parrilla was pressed by the Canadian Connell but moved on.
– Carrasco gave Sendrey a setback 11,9.
– Former touring pro Pratt gave Portillo a lot more than he wanted in a round of 32 match but fell in two.
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In the 16s:
– My two favorite players to choose for upset wins early (Garcia and Flores) ended up playing the tourney’s two top seeds, and neither came much close to an upset. Kane beat Garcia 5,9, while Moscoso beat Flores 13,8 to move on. As it turned out, this was the closest match Moscoso would have in South Dakota.
– Natera made a statement against Alonso in the 8/9 game, cruising to a win.
– Trujillo pressed Parrilla but fell 12,13.
– Manilla got a great win, topping Portillo 9,7 to move on.
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In the Quarters
– Kane blew past Natera 5,2
– Parrilla dominated his long-time Rival Montoya 9,6
– Bredenbeck did not seem troubled by Mar 8,7
– Moscoso cruised past Manilla 5,2.
This setup a pure chalk semis.
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In the Semis
– Kane utterly destroyed Parrilla 2,0
– Moscoso wasn’t too troubled by Jake and won 6,9
In the Finals, we got the match most were looking for; 1v2, Kane v Conrrado. Legacy champ versus the up and coming possible replacement. The pair met in the semis of the SoCal Open in December, with Moscoso putting together a comprehensive game one and holding on for dear live to win in two .
On this day, Moscoso looked unstoppable. Game one was close for a while, but instead of Kane pulling away after a long mid-game period of closeness, it was his opponent, who turned a close game into a 15-9 win. In game two, it was one way traffic. Conrrado could do no wrong; he blitzed service returns, he hit his lines, he put away pinch shots, he played great defense, and Kane had no answers. Conrrado won game two 15-3 to take the title. Its Conrrado’s 3rd straight title, 14 match wins in a row, and his 12th in his career, tying him with DLR for 12th all time.
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Points Implications of results
With the win and with Acuna’s missing the event, Moscoso edges a bit closer to Kane and now sits in 2nd place. I’ve got them about 400 points apart, which seems like a lot, but the way the tour is going to determine the 2025-26 champion makes this race a ton closer.
At the end of June, presuming the US Open happens, the tour will have had somewhere in the range of 13-14 Tier 1s in that time along with a bunch of satellites. But, only the best 10 results will contribute to your final ranking. So, Right now Conrrado trails Kane by a ton of points, but their Tier 1 results since Jan 2025 look like this:
– Kane: 3 wins, 2 finals, 1 semi, 1 missed event
– Conrrado: 3 wins, 0 finals, 2 semis, 1 round of 16, 1 round of 32, 1 missed
So, if Conrrado has the opportunity to turn those last three results into a bunch of semis and finals, even if he doesn’t win out between now and June he’s got a ton of opportunity to catch up. This title race may very well come down to the last event.
Elsewhere in the top 10: Jake also jumps Acuna for 3rd, meaning that if i’ve got my spreadsheet estimate right, Acuna plays into Kane in the semis at the next event. Also, Natera now moves into 8th ahead of Lalo, Carrasco is up to 14th, and Gastelum drops down to 16.
Here’s a link to my IRT 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, 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.
men
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Doubles review
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/6d76e5
This was a super fun draw. Two legends flew up to SD to play in Alvaro Beltran and Rocky Carson and they put on a show. Beltran teamed with the young phenom Flores and nearly took out the Montoya/Mar top pair, losing 11-10 in the quarters. Eventual winners Parrilla/Portillo barely got out of the first round, advancing over the Bredenbeck brothers by 14,14. Meanwhile, the legendary Carson teamed with lefty Adam Manilla and went on a huge run, upsetting the #2 seeds and making the finals before falling 14,7.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– My two favorite youngsters Trujillo and Flores made it to the Open final, where they played a barn burner won by Trujillo 11-7 in the third, a pretty significant win for a player who’s taken some time off, and over a guy who a lot are looking at as the best of the next generation of players.
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Fantasy Racquetball Competition Wrap-up: Sam Murray is back on top after pipping me in the results this weekend.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Favio Soto, Steve Schulze, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew
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Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar …
We’ve got one big event each weekend this month: Canadian Selection event next weekend, then USAR Nationals, plus Mexican Nationals is sometime in Feb, and then we get another IRT Satellite at the end of the month.
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International Racquetball Tour