Hello Racquetball fans. The first Outdoor “Major” of the 2026 season just finished up on the sunny courts of Garfield Street in Hollywood, Florida, and here’s a recap.
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Men’s Pro Doubles: @Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball & @Javier Mar
– Women’s Pro Doubles: Michelle Anderson & Anita Maldonado
– Mixed Pro Doubles: Javier Mar & Aimee Roehler
– Men’s Pro Singles: Jhonatan Flores
– Women’s Pro Singles: (no event)
Executive Summary: Mar gets the double gold while Flores wins in his WOR debut.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=48742
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Reports on ProRacquetballStats.com:
Match reports for 2026 Beach Bash:
– Men’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/a56f52
– Women’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/ead368
– Mixed Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/ead368
– Men’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/1a9bf2
– Women’s Pro Singles: (no event)
Triple Crown Reports for all past WOR major champions (which dynamically update every time there’s a new WOR major):
– Men’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/3lj
– Women’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/zoa
– Mixed Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/obz
– Men’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/9ey
– Women’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/h27
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Lets run through the draws, recapping the action.
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Men’s Pro Doubles:
A stacked draw saw a reshuffling of seeds last minute, which happens from time to time when there’s a last minute withdrawal/replacement and/or someone onsite pitches a fit. I don’t know which situation it was this time, but the early round shuffle still ended up giving the tourney some awesome early matches.
Freddy Ramirez and David Blatt as a #14 seed was pretty crazy, but they topped the #3 seeds with ease to face off against the 14-time pro champ Waselenchuk and Montanez in the quarters. Kane and Tito advanced, but ran into the Hall of Famer Sostre in the Semis, who put on a one-wall clinic as he & Benny advanced to the final from the bottom half. Meanwhile, the top seeds Montoya & Mar, who have more than proven their one-wall bonafides over the years, had to face a gauntlet of top players to get to the final: they beat Miller & Deida (3-time Beach Bash champs) in the 16s , then Rocky & Ramos in the quarters (Rocky owns 12 outdoor doubles titles), then Rolon & Pruitt in the semis (Rolon owns four one-wall major doubles titles). So, they certainly earned their spot.
In the final, Montoya/Mar outlasted Sostre/Goldenberg for the win. It’s Mar’s 4th major one-wall title and Montoya’s first.
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Women’s Pro Doubles:
In a 4-team draw, outdoor legend @Michelle Anderson teamed with NYC legend @Anita Maldonado to win the title. They beat Neils and Roehler in a rematch of last year’s Beach Bash final.
This is Anderson’s 38th career major outdoor doubles title, and Maldonado’s 8th.
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Mixed Pro Doubles:
Eventual Champs Javier Mar and hall of famer @Aimee Roehler upset the top seeds in the semis and cruised to the title. In the final they topped Sostre & Neils, never an easy task. It’s Roehler’s 11th career major outdoor title.
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Men’s Pro Singles:
Bolivian phenom Jhonatan Flores played his first outdoor event in the USA and ended up taking the singles title. He beat a very tough lefty in Ramos to start, then blitzed the one-wall king from NYC Sostre, then took out the #1 seeded Portillo in the final. A great showing for his first event. I’m not sure just how much one-wall or even three wall experience Flores has; Bolivian players often have Fronton experience in their home country, which isn’t exactly the same as one-wall but is an outdoor variation of the sport.
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Women’s Pro Singles:
There was no Women’s singles event this year, thanks to a historically low female turnout which we’ll talk about more later.
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Other Notable draws. This year, the age-based “pro” draws were absolutely stacked, often having bigger draws than their corresponding draws. Plus, a slew of legends of the game were in Florida just to compete in these age-based draws. So, we’ll cover them a big more comprehensively
– CPRT 40+ Doubles: HOFamer Robert “Iceman” Sostre and partner Benny Goldenberg brought the CPRT title back home to NYC, cruising to the title as the #1 seeds. In the final they topped the criminally under-seeded @Cliff Swain and @David Blatt, giving the final a very Northeastern flavor.
– Men’s 75+: Texas was in the house in this draw, as the final featured three players from the great one-wall community in San Antonio. Abel Perez, one of the major sponsors of outdoor, teamed with Javier Mar to face off against the king himself @Kane Waselenchuk and his partner @Matthew Barron. After Kane/Barron dispatched another legend of the sport in @Marty Hogan (playing with multiple-Beach Bash champion Ignacio “Iggy” Espinal) in the semis, they topped Perez/Mar in the final 21-15.
– Men’s 100+: Hogan wasn’t done after his 75+ loss; he and the outdoor legend Richie Miller took the 100+ event, beating the best that the Virginia-based Stratton Woods outdoor crew has to offer in Allen Small & Suresh Vemulapalli in the final.
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Some Additional commentary:
This year’s Beach Bash was stacked on the Men’s side, with great draws and a host of legendary names down in Florida competing. This is in no small part thanks to a reshuffling of the events that normally butt heads in March from the WTR crew in Louisiana, so bravo there. But where were the women? This year, the event was missing nearly all its Beach Bash LPRT regulars and the event couldn’t even field a women’s singles draw.
I know part of this is the loss of funding for the competitors, a big reason they came to Vegas for so many years. And part of it is just the pivoting we’re seeing in the field: Longoria is pregnant, Scott has essentially left pro racquetball along with her boyfriend DLR, Munoz is stepping back, Lawrence has completely stopped competing, Laime doesn’t travel as much, Rajsich stopped playing outdoor years ago, Sotomayor now lives 3000 miles away, and of course the continued presence of the AF event two weeks prior cuts into the travel availability of many top NYC-based paddleball experts who otherwise may have played… No good answer here. But, it’s a shame because the ladies were a huge draw and helped make Mixed Pro Doubles such a fun event to watch. Hopefully we see a renaissance soon.
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Thanks to the Tourney Directors Peggine Tellez , Jen O’Meara , @Mike Coulter, @Vic Leibofsky, Soda Man, and the entire 3Wall Ball crew for putting this event on and ensuring the legacy of outdoor majors.
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Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMbIP9SZd0MssH_nPGU/edit?usp=sharing
Next weekend there’s three major events at the same time: PARC in Guatemala, Intercollegiates in Minneapolis, and the WTR event in Louisiana.
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tags
USA Racquetball
@WOR – World Outdoor Racquetball
@3Wall Ball