Month: September 2026

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2026 South American Games Recap

Vargas wins twice and powers Argentina to the team win. Photo via usaracquetballevents.com

The @iInternational Racquetball Federation – IRF hosted the racquetball component of the 2026 South American games this week, just the 4th time that this regional competition has hosted the sport.

The South American games were created way back in 1978 and serve as a regional Olympic-style sports competition for just the countries of that continent. Thi

Racquetball first made its way into the competition in 1998, the 6th iteration of the event, but the results of that tournament are lost to history. It did not return until 2007, when the IRF held an out of cycle event in Ecuador. Then the sport was omitted for the next couple of events, returning in 2018 when the event was held in racquetball-crazed Cochabamba, Bolivia.

This past weekend technically is thus the 4th time the sport has bee included in the 13 iterations of the event, and once again the host city/country seems to play a part, since Argentina is hosting this year’s competition.

Five countries participated: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. Despite efforts to relaunch Colombia’s NGB, there were no Colombians here, nor players from other SA countries that have sent representatives internationally in the past like Venezuela and elsewhere.

In the end, as one might expect, the competitions all ended up being Bolivia vs Argentina in the latter stages, technically being Bolivia versus “players who were all born in Bolivia but who now play for Argentina.”

here’s a quick recap:

Congrats to the champions:

Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso
Women’s Singles: @Maria Jose Vargas
Men’s Doubles: Conrrado Moscoso & @Kadim Carrasco
Women’s Doubles: Maria Jose Vargas & @Valeria Centellas
Mixed Doubles: @Diego Garcia & Natalia Mendez V.

Argentina takes 3 of the five draws against its rival Bolivia to “win” the event.

PRS links to draws in the database:
Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/6b326d
Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/ed5c01
Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/cef63f
Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/cef63f
Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/3f1835

R2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54366

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Quick narratives about the draws:

Men’s Singles: The group stage was chalk, and the best match of the competition was probably the semifinal between Flores and Garcia. Flores took it 11-9 in the fifth, but it was yet another reminder that we need to see Garcia on the pro tour more regularly. I have a hard time not believing he’d be pushing for a top 5 spot if he made 100% of the events. In the final, Moscoso remained undefeated against his countryman across Amateur, IRF, and IRT events with a 3-game win.

Women’s Singles: Bolivia has seen a bit of a gap in its top women’s competitors thanks to Barrios’ knee injury; their representatives here were Camila Rivero and Valeria Miranda Martinez, who both fell to LPRT regulars in the knockouts. Rivero is the 3-time defending World Junior 21U champ but who has only a handful of pro tourneys under he belt; she lost in the semis to top-8 pro Mendez in five. Vargas cruised past her country-woman and now former doubles partner Mendez in the final.

Men’s Doubles: Ecuador’s Ugalde & Cueva was the top seed here thanks to their making the semis at PARC earlier this year (the highest finish of any South American country), and they finished 2nd in the group stage to the powerhouse Bolivian team of Moscoso/Carrasco. Argentina was missing Gerson Miranda, leaving the veteran Kurzbard playing along side Diego Garcia. The Argentines avenged a group stage loss to Ecuador in the semis of the knockouts, but then took a heavy loss to the Bolivians in the title game.

Women’s Doubles: It was Argentina and Bolivia 1-2 in the group stage, and then 1-2 in the final. Rivero teamed with long-time Bolivian veteran @Jenny Daza to press the Argentines in the final to 5 games, but they ultimately fell.

Mixed Doubles: The power of Flores could not push team Bolivia over Argentina, as Mendez outhit Dava one the right-hand side to make the difference in both their group stage and in the gold medal match.

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For the rest of the weekend’s competition, the players are all playing “team” competitions.

Congrats to all participants.

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Mexico Worlds Selection Event 2026 Recap

Portillo is taking over Mexican Racquetball. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

For just the second time that I can recall, the @federacion Mexicana de Raquetbol (FMR) held a stand alone qualification event to determine its team for an upcoming International event. In this case, Mexico’s best descended upon Tijuana last weekend for the 2026 Worlds Selection event, playing the whole slate of events (singles, doubles, and Mixed) to determine the team that will be heading to Worlds in Chile this coming October.

This was a special event for the history of Mexican Racquetball; the legendary multi-champion @Alvaro Beltran played in all three divisions, reportedly to be the final time he competes for Mexican Nationals after a decades long career at the top.

Here’s a recap of the play. As with their Jr. Nationals events, the singles draws play double elimination, with the winner’s bracket champion and the consolation bracket champs earning the right to represent.

Congrats to your Winners and team representatives:

– Men’s Singles: Eduardo Portillo and Andree Parrilla

– Women’s Singles: Alexandra Herrera and Jessica Parrilla

For the doubles: the winners will represent Mexico:

– Men’s Doubles: Eduardo Portillo & Andree Parrilla

– Women’s Doubles: Alexandra Herrera & Samantha Salas

– Mixed Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya & Samantha Salas

Here’s links to the draws/data in ProRacquetballStats.com:

– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/b841e9

– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/c9dba7

– Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/fb49e0

– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/b5eb15

– Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/e141e1

R2sports link for the event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54255

And here’s recaps of the five pro draws.

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– Men’s Singles:

Some of the up-and-coming players in both Mexico and the Pro scene fought well, but couldn’t overtake the veterans in the FMR. Trujillo, Hernandez, and Gastelum all pushed but eventually fell to Parrilla, Mar, and Montoya respectively in the early rounds. The Trujillo-Parrilla 4/5 seed quarter had to be amazing to watch, going to a 5th game and ending 17-15 in favor of Andree.

In the semis, reigning Mexican national champ Eduardo Portillo held serve against Parrilla to advance from the top seed, while #2 seed Rodrigo Montoya continued his recent dominance over his doubles partner Mar to also reach the final and setup a rematch from earlier this year between the two top players. In the final, Lalo once again came out on top, claiming the automatic berth to Worlds and the title. In the consolation final, Parrilla once again got the better of his long-time rival Montoya in a brutal 5 game match that included several “overtime” games.

– Women’s Singles:

This draw looked quite odd, in that it was missing the very-pregnant Paola Longoria and arguably Mexico’s top player Montse Mejia. In their absence, Alexandra Herrera cruised to the title, beating Jessica Parrilla in three. Parrilla came back around to claim the 2nd Worlds spot with relative ease, beating Rivera in the consolation final.

– Men’s Doubles:

Men’s Doubles saw a possible “changing of the guard” match happen, when the long-time dominant doubles team in the country Montoya & Mar were upset in the semis by the young team of Trujillo and Gastelum in five. They earned the right to take on defending Mexican doubles champs Portillo & Parrilla in the final. There, for the second time this year, Lalo & Andree won a Mexican major title to earn the right to represent Mexico; they both will now be the singles and doubles representatives in worlds.

– Women’s Doubles

With her long-time doubles partner Mejia missing, Herrera picked up the legendary veteran Samantha Salas for this event. Only three teams entered, so Herrera/Salas won their semi to take on Parrilla/Rivera in the final. There, Herrera and Salas took the title to send Samantha back to an International event for the 13th time in her career.

– Mixed Doubles.

In the somewhat recent history of top-level Mixed Pro Doubles action, Rodrigo Montoya and Samantha Salas have proven to be perhaps the best Mixed doubles team we’ve ever seen, regularly winning or making the finals of major Mixed competitions. They teamed up again this weekend as the top seeds and took out Mar/Herrera in the final to claim their spots for Chile. Salas double-qualifies for Worlds with the win.

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Congrats to the Mexican team heading to Worlds; they’ll certainly be tough to beat. They’ll enter as favorites alongside Bolivia, who shouldn’t have any travel issues with an event in South America and should be sending a full strength squad.

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Quick recap of the 2026 DMV Invitational

Diego Gastelum with the double in DC. Photo via Ken Fife

The second satellite event of the new 2026-27 @International Racquetball Tour season was last weekend; here’s a quick recap of the pro draws.

Severna Park used to host a full tier stop in the fall, but for the last couple of years has downsized to a Satellite event (this event was an IRT-400, which prevents any of the top 4 players from even entering), but it still draws from the big Bolivian community in the DC area as well as from the general mid-Atlantic region. In fact, it is at this very club where Waselenchuk tore his Achilles in Sept 2022, which sent the player and the tour on a several-year whirlwind of results and champions, now ended with the return of Kane to the top for the last couple of seasons.

Here’s a quick recap of the play this past weekend.

Men’s Pro Singles

The draw featured two touring regulars; #1 Thomas Carter and #2 @Diego Gastelum. They’re currently ranked 12th and 14th on tour, but Gastelum has been getting a bit of attention lately for his solid results on tour at the end of last season, especially a win over Montoya at Pro Nationals that earned him his first quarterfinal. Also lurking in the draw was @Sebastian Franco, a long-time top-10 pro who lives in the area after retiring from touring. Franco made fast work of solid NY-based open player Aaron Dardani, then took out Carter in the quarters 10,10. He ground out a tie-breaker win from Ohio-based Victor Migliore to make the final from the top side.

From the bottom half, another solid international living in the area Ezequiel Subieta advanced to the semis before falling to Gastelum in two. In the final, Diego cruised past Franco 4,6 to take the singles title.

Men’s Doubles

Gastelum teamed with Subieta to take the Pro Doubles title, beating Juan Pablo Rodriguez / Thomas Carter in the final to give the Mexican the double for the weekend.

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Next up for the tour? Another Satellite in Garden City, Kansas later this month, then the first Tier 1 is in October in Fullerton. We’ll be back on the Fantasy Fastbreak Podcast before then.