2026 USA Racquetball Junior Nationals Recap

DJ Mendoza has both outdoor and indoor chops, and won the Triple Crown at USA Junior Nationals this past weekend. Photo via Rick Bernstein

USA Racquetball held its 53rd annual Junior Nationals event last week in Des Moines, Iowa, getting some really huge draws for some of the mid-teen brackets in a promising sign for the future of tournament racquetball in the states.

With this post, is official notification that the Junior Nationals results have been entered into the ProRacquetballStats.com database. For Juniors, we upload full bracket results for 21s, 18s, 16s, and 14s, but just load up winners and finalists for all age groups younger than 14U. For doubles, we load up just the finalists.

The best way to see Junior Singles winners is with the cross-year/cross-age group Matrix reports built into the site. They show all the winners for all age divisions going back to 1974. Here’s direct links for each Matrix report:

– Boys USA Junior National Singles Champion Matrix: https://rball.pro/mey

– Girls USA Junior National Singles Champion Matrix: https://rball.pro/cpf

Each full division draw can be accessed from the “event” pulldown after you enter either the Juniors or the Junior Doubles section. One Junior Nationals results in 18-20 singles draws plus another 15 doubles draws being entered into the database, so there’s a lot of new data here this week.

R2sports home page for the 2026 event, with all the full brackets:

https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=50993

For 2026, congrats to your Boys Singles winners:

– Boys 21U: DJ Mendoza

– Boys 18U: London Townsend

– Boys 16U: Grant Williams

– Boys 14U: Scott Haacke

– Boys 12U: Ryan Joeckel

– Boys 10U: Damian Gil

– Boys 10Udb: Finn McGrath

– Boys 8U: Saharsh Gorthy

– Boys 8Umb: David Lopez

– Boys 6Umb: Vaihbhav Gorthy

Congrats to your Girls singles winners:

– Girls 21U: Naomi Ros

– Girls 18U: Alexis Boyko

– Girls 16U: Rebecca Christopher

– Girls 14U; Yana Alegria

– Girls 12U: Yana Alegria

– Girls 10U: Sameera Rai

– Girls 10Udb: Alyana Machado

– Girls 8U: Sasha Rai

– Girls 8Umb: Almira Pridatko

– Girls 6Umb: Nainika Singi

Congrats to your Boys Doubles winners:

– Boys 21U: Cole Sendrey & DJ Mendoza

– Boys 18U: Grant Williams & Evan Whitley

– Boys 16U: Grant Williams & Evan Whitley

– Boys 14U: Scott Haacke & Nicolas Suarez

– Boys 12U: Reyansh Chandel & Ryan Joeckel

– Boys 10U:Damian Gil & Luca Fernandez

Congrats to your Girls Doubles winners:

– Girls 21U: Naomi Ros & Ava Kaiser

– Girls 18U: Meyer, Elaina & Ortwerth, Stella

– Girls 16U: Boyko, Alexis & Christopher, Rebecca

– Girls 14U: Strobach, Addie & Whitley, Morgan

– Girls 12U: Singh, Riva & Marivada, Sloka

– Girls 10U: Rai, Sameera & Lu, Meiqi

And Congrats to your Mixed Doubles winners:

– Mixed 21U: Mendoza, DJ & Garcia Fatima Sanchez

– Mixed 18U: Reyes, Brandon & Torres, Montserrat

– Mixed 16U: Mangalampalli, Vaishant & Bawa, Sarah

– Mixed 14U: Haacke, Scott & Strobach, Addie

– Mixed 12U: Chandel, Reyansh & Marivada, Sloka

– Mixed 10U: Gil, Damian & Rai, Sameera

(Apologies for any typos: these were hand typed into this post, but should get typo-corrected in the database).

Here’s some quick commentary on the Singles champions by grouping.

Boys Singles quick recaps

Boys 21U came down to Mendoza and Sendrey once again, and once again DJ came out on top. These two have also met on the IRT recently, and after early career h2h dominance Mendoza has now taken over in their rivalry. In 18U, London Townsend (finalist last year) was able to take it one step further and claim his first Junior National title. Grant Williams, who was the losing finalist in four straight Junior National events prior to this year, finally got the gold, taking the 16U title with a dominant performance end to end.

In 14U, Scott Haacke took his second title (he won 12U two years ago). In 12U, Ryan Joeckel won his second straight title. Damien Gil took his first junior title in 10U while Finn McGrath took his first 10Udb title. Saharsh Gorthy took his 2nd straight 8U age group title, this year moving up from Multi-bounce. David Lopez took this year 8Umb title, and Saharsh’s younger brother Vaibhav Gorthy won the 6Umb division.

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Girls Singles quick recaps

LPRT touring pro and 2025 US National champ Naomi Ros won her 6th straight junior national title since converting over from Mexico; she has one remaining year in U21. Alexis Boyko, who has had a couple of silver medals in the past, broke through in 18U for her first Junior National title. Yana Alegria, who two years ago won 10U, took both the 12U and 14U title, something we havn’t seen in Junior Nationals for some time. Sameera Rai took the 10U title for her 2nd career win. Alyana Machado won her first title in 10Udb, beating the 8U gold medalist Sasha Rai in the final. The two multi-bounce champions were both first time winners: Almira Pridako in 8Umb and then Nainika Singi in 6Umb.

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Multi-title winners

The following players took home the coveted “Triple Crown,” winning singles, gender doubles, and mixed doubles this year:

– 21U DJ Mendoza: singles, doubles with Sendry, Mixed with Sanchez

– 14U: Scott Haacke: singles, doubles with Suarez, Mixed with Strobach

– 10U: Damian Gill: singles, doubles with Fernandez, Mixed with Rai.

Also, special mention to Grant Williams, who won three golds this weekend: 16U singles, 18U doubles with Whitley, and 16U doubles with Whitley.

The following players took home the “double,” winning both Singles and a Doubles title in their age groups:

– Boys 12U: Ryan Joeckel

– Girls 21U: Naomi Ros

– Girls 18U: Alexis Boyko

– Girls 10U: Sameera Rai

Special mention to Yana Alegria for winning gold in both 14U and 12U.

These players took the “Double Double,” winning both Gender and Mixed doubles titles.

– 14U Girls and Mixed: Addie Strobach

– 12U Girls and Mixed: Sloka Marivada

Phew. that’s it for USA 2026 Junior Nationals. Congrats to all the 2026 winners. The National team includes the two singles finalists and the doubles winners in each division; those players have first right of refusal to represent Team USA at Junior Worlds later this year at a date/site yet to be announced.

Next up on the racquetball calendar? 2026 Outdoor Nationals, teaming with 3WallBall this year in Huntington Beach! We’ll preview and recap that event as we always do. We also will announce the 2026 WOR Hall of Fame Class at 2026 Outdoor Nats.

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