Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Men’s Singles: Eduardo Portillo (Rodrigo Montoya was the 2nd qualifier)
– Women’s Singles: Alexandra Herrera (with Montse Mejia as 2nd qualifier)
– Men’s Doubles: Eduardo Portillo & Andree Parrilla
– Women’s Doubles Alexandra Herrera & Montse Mejia
TL/DR Executive Summary: Huge weekends for Portillo and Herrera, who both win their first ever Mexican National adult singles titles. Portillo & Parrilla win their second National doubles title in the last 3 years, while Herrera/Mejia win their 3rd out of the last 4 years.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=52435
Mexican Nationals runs as the rare double elimination event, at least for its singles draws. Qualification works like this: the winner of the winner’s bracket in Singles is qualifier #1, then the winner of the Loser’s bracket becomes qualifier #2. This may not necessarily be the other winner’s bracket finalist, and often is not. We only load the winner’s bracket matches into the PRS database.
Furthermore, unlike USA, Mexico does not run Mixed Doubles draws, instead choosing from their qualifiers to put together a mixed team at each Int’l event.
Here’s the Match report links to the four main draws this past weekend:
– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/363a40
– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/a7ff86
– Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/fc5f23
– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/0f9c1a
And, here’s some historical links showing all the past Mexican champions in one spot. This data only goes back to around 2014 or so, which is when the current FMR regime “took over” and basically wiped out all the history. I’ve tried to create some placeholders to give past champions due credit, but if you’re reading this and you’re from FMR or from Mexico and you’d like to help build older Mexican nationals history so we can recognize accomplishments of Mexican Legends like Aliv, DLR, Gilberto Mejia, etc reach out please.
– Mexican National Champions history: Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/1ae500
– Mexican National Champions history: Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/1ae500
– Mexican National Champions history: Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/298f76
– Mexican National Champions history: Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/298f76
Let’s recap the four draws.
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Men’s Singles
The big early upset was Sebastian Hernandez, who just aged out of Juniors by reaching the semis of World U21s last December, taking out Andree Parrilla in the qtrs. Hernandez has NEVER played on the IRT but has represented Mexico internationally at the adult level twice. Mar took him out in the semis but he continues to get results. Portillo upset Montoya in the winner’s bracket semi with relative ease, then topped Mar for the title and #1 qualifying spot. Montoya dropped into the loser’s bracket and beat both Trujillo and Parrilla to get to the consolation final, where his doubles partner Mar gave him a walkover for the #2 spot on the team.
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Women’s Singles
I generally don’t like to talk about who wasn’t there … but in this case it needs discussing. Paola Longoria, who has won every single Women’s Mexican national title save for one since the 2007-08 timeframe, was not here. It was inevitable that she’d eventually have to miss an event like this due to injury, work, or life, but here we are. It will be the first time in a generation that she’s not leading the charge for her country internationally. In her absence, the two top seeds Mejia and Herrera cruised into the final, with the lefty Alexandra topping her doubles partner to claim her first national title. Mejia took out Jessica Parilla in the consolation bracket to claim the #2 spot on the team.
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Men’s Doubles
Portillo and Parrilla may only have a couple pro titles under their belt, but they’re becoming a force in world doubles. They cruised past both Hernandez/Trujillo in the semis and Montoya/Mar in the final to regain their title first won two years ago.
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Women’s Doubles
The Mexican National doubles title has historically been a battle between Longoria/Salas and Herrera/Mejia … the two pairs have met 7 times out of the last 8 years for the title. But, with no Longoria or Salas here, Mejia & Herrera faced little resistance rolling to their 3rd title together. They beat Jessica Parrilla and Anna Rivera in the final.
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Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar …
There was an IRT satellite last weekend in Portland which we’ll recap soon, then next weekend is the IRT Minnesota Hall of Fame event as well as USA Racquetball High School Nationals.