Author: Todd Boss

Welcome back to the International Racquetball Tour and the return of Men’s Pro racquetball. The first event of the new year under the new regime was well received, and now the tour is back. They’re in Minnesota, at the University of Minnesota on the same courts that held the last US Open a couple year’s back for the 2025 Minnesota Hall of Fame event. It’s the third straight year for this event, which is great news for the sport to have some continuity.

Ahead of the event, we got some news items:

– the Glass Court club in Lombard is set to close. We’ll talk more about it in our Shamrock preview in a week, but wanted to mention it here.

– The Bredenbeck brothers are coordinating a GoFundMe to finance the Team USA PARC delegation to Guatemala this year. For those who just aren’t familiar with the financial state of the sport now, USA Racquetball is to the point where they can only finance one IRF event per year, and generally speaking its going to be the major events going forward (Worlds, World Games, Pan Am Games). If you’d like to help, here’s the link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-team-usa-represent-in-guatemala

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This tournament is made possible this year by TD @Vallana Perrault , long time fundraising lead Karen Masberg Bredenbeck , and by headlining sponsor @KWM Gutterman and new tour majority owner @Keith Minor. Thanks for everything you do for this event and for the sport in general.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=47719

The singles draw has a solid 39 players. There’s a couple of notable absences in the draw: #4 Adam Manilla is missing and will be out for a while with a shoulder injury he suffered/aggravated in Sioux Falls, a bummer for the lefty who had just reached a career peak. His absence gives both Trujillo and Natera career high seedings in an event. It also guarantees a little bit of a jumbling of the expected matchups we usually see in the 16s and quarters, which is always good. Last event’s finalist Lalo is missing, but the rest of the top 20 is here. Even the Bolivian regulars are present, right on the tail end of their Carnival, so hopefully they got some rest on the plane.

This singles draw features a TON of South Americans coming up, including both top Argentine males, eight players from Bolivia, Colombia’s veteran Cubillos, all the top Guatemalans, plus the rest of the expected international top touring vets. Altogether 9 countries represented.

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Let’s preview the draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that i’m looking forward to:

In the round of 64, you don’t usually have compelling matchups, but we do here.

– US junior national member Benjamin Horner takes on Guatemalan national team member @Jose Caceres in what should be a good test.

– Reigning U21 world champ Bolivian Jhoel Alexis Acha makes his IRT pro debut, and takes on USA junior National 18U team member @DJ Mendoza. Solid match between two up and coming players.

– @Gerson Miranda faces off against Mexican 14U player Santiago Castillo in his pro tour debut.

– David ” Bobby” Horn , fresh off his APP Sacramento Open pickleball tournament last week, faces off against the tough midwest amateur Lee Meinerz . Could go either way: Meinerz is a tough out if Bobby hasn’t been training.

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In the 32s:

– In the 16/17 match a great meeting between home-town @Sam Bredenbeck

and Bolivian veteran Kadim Carrasco . Should be a good one. I like Sam here.

– @Jordy Alonso has to contend with @Diego Garcia in the opener, and should advance but this is a tough one against a tough international. I’m usually in favor of predicting upsets for the likes of Garcia in these events, but he’s struggled to make an impact outside of international events lately.

– Andree Parrilla , who has been struggling with some health issues, draws the U21 Bolivian champ Acha, and if he doesn’t watch out could take a loss here.

– #12 @Javier Mar gets the tough Bolivian Jhonathan Flores … upset watch here. In case you forgot what Flores can do, last year in Chicago he put losses on Jake, Collins, Ulliman, and Alonso, and then took a game off of Kane in the quarters. He’s the reigning 18U World champ and is set to run the 3-year U21 table.

– Top Midwest amateur @John Goth gets a winnable matchup against #14 Carlos Rodríguez

– For getting his best ever tourney seed, #6 @Erick Trujillo draws Miranda, a guy who can absolutely beat him if he’s not careful.

– the 15/18 is interesting, an all USA matchup between junior national Cole Sendrey, and his Junior National team coach Robby Collins . Can Sendrey get a win here against his coach?

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Round of 16:

– In the 8/9, Alonso vs Jake; great matchup. Jake playing for the home crowd, but Alonso on the hot streak. Tough to predict.

– Parrilla/Mar in the 5/12: brutal start to his tourney for Parrilla, who might not get here and probably falls to Mar, who he’s played dozens of times in his life and wh o matches up well against him, and who is coming off a Mexican Nationals final.

– Trujillo if he gets past Miranda projects to Thomas Carter , a good status check of the current pecking order on tour.

– Natera vs Martell: great matchup that we don’t normally get to see. I like Natera here, but Martell had a solid tourney in South Dakota.

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Projected Qtrs:

– @Kane Waselenchuk over Alonso: Jordy shocked him when they met in Canoga Park last May; there will not be another shocking.

– Mar over @Andres Acuna: seems like Mar is healthy and could go deep here.

– Montoya over Trujillo; the young player from Monterrey isn’t ready to challenge Mexico’s top dog yet,.

– Moscoso over Natera: by late Friday Moscoso should be over his jet lag, recovered from his street dancing gig, and will be rocking.

This is my dream semis by the way: Kane, the two guys who I think have the best shot of beating Kane right now in Moscoso & Montoya, and the classy Mar who has a great game to matchup against the King. We’ll see if it comes to pass. Probably not 🙂

Semis:

– Kane over Mar: we’re years past the US Open where Mar hung with Kane; last time they met it was a beat down in Pleasanton.

– Montoya over Moscoso: Rodrigo won’t be afraid of Conrrado.

Finals: Kane d Montoya in three. I think Montoya can keep it together to take a game, but not a match, off of the King.

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Doubles review

There’s some great round of 16 matches here: Martell/Carter vs Sendrey/Gastelum is one, and Alonso/Trujillo vs Garcia/Miranda (team Argentina) is another. Guatemala’s PARC presumed team is here in Salvatierra/Galicia; they take on IRT tour vets Ramirez & Collins in a solid lefty/righty matchup.

In the end though, I think the two top teams (Mar/Montoya and Carrasco/Moscoso) will be too tough to beat and will meet in the final. I like the Mexicans over team Bolivia once again.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the IRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live.

Coincidentally, if you’re interested in playing Fantasy Racquetball for this event, the links to the brackets are advertised on IRT’s main page. The winner each week gets free swag!

Associations

International Racquetball Tour

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Kane Waselenchuk

– Doubles: Conrrado Moscoso & @Kadim Carrasco

Kane wins his 3rd tourney on the trot, 15-matches in a row since a shock loss to Alonso last May. He extends his own record of being the oldest player to win a Tier 1 on tour. Lastly, he drastically increases his lead atop the tour rankings, and now owns nearly double the points to just the #2 player on tour. Kane continues to be unstoppable.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=46712

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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/b5e74e

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In the 64s:

– Ortega survived a solid match from Floridian Alejandro Herrera Azcarate , who may have just flamed out after crushing the young Mexican in game one.

– Tour veterans Horn and Franco both had winning results in their return to the tour after so long away.

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Notable matches from the 32s:

– #17 @Diego Gastelum cruised past #16 Robby Collins in the 16/17 match; If Trujillo is in the top 10, then Gastelum should eventually be as well.

– #9 Jake Bredenbeck had probably the hardest round of 32, having to stare down Argentine @Diego Garcia to move on. I thought this would be closer, but Jake handled Garcia 9,9.

– Sam Bredenbeck , back on tour after months away, cruised past #13 CARLOS RAMÍREZ 3,5 in an upset by seed but probably not by talent.

– #3 @Adam Manilla was the unlucky recipient of seeing @Sebastian Franco for his round of 32, but worked his way past the long-time top 10 Colombian to move on.

– #15 @Eduardo Portillo Rendon took out #18 @Kadim Carrasco in a far-too-early match for the former top 6 player, who has seen his ranking dip as he spent much of 2024 missing events to work on his career.

– #2 Rodrigo Montoya defeated his old WRT rival David ” Bobby” Horn in two to end Horn’s comeback early.

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In the 16s, we got seed carnage. Five of the top Eight seeds fell in this round, as the latter part of the draw was littered with opportunistic double digit seeds.

– In the 8/9 match, which @Alan Natera has dominated lately, #9 Jake Bredenbeck crushed the Chilean 7,1 to move into the quarters.

– Jordy Alonso got a wbf-ns walkover against @Andree Parrilla , robbing neutrals of a very anticipated match.

– @Javier Mar is back, and took out #3 Manilla in a breaker.

– #10 Jaime Martell Neri got a well-played win over #7 @Erick Trujillo to move into the quarters.

– In the biggest upset of the night, #15 Portillo destroyed #2 Montoya 6,4 to move into the quarters. Nobody likes to see a top-6 player in the 16s, but all credit to Lalo here controlling Montoya’s power game. He wasn’t done yet either…

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In the Quarters

– #1 Kane dominated Jake, who is one of the few players on tour with a h2h win over the king, 3,8 to move on.

– #4 Moscoso survived the first real test of his comeback from arm injury, and he did so in solid fashion. After falling down early in the first against Alonso, he ran the table to close out game one and then jump to a big lead in game two. Jordy clawed his way back to 10, but the Bolivian advances to setup the dream matchup in the semis 7,10.

– After his big 16s win, Mar couldn’t continue his run and fell to the rising Costa Rican @Andres Acuna in three. Acuna makes his way into another semi and has solidified his spot in deep in the top 8.

– Portillo cruised past Martell 2,10 with his sights on the final.

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In the Semis

– Kane and Moscoso played an interesting, back and forth match that highlighted a salient fact often repeated in this space. The top players on tour can beat Kane … but they have to play three perfect games to do so. Moscoso played one perfect game, game 2, wining 15-10, but it wasn’t enough. After splitting the first two games, Kane stayed consistent while Moscoso floundered and Kane wins 11-6 in the breaker.

– In the other semi, Lalo and Acuna played a tactical close match, with Lalo advancing 11,14 to setup a final few would have predicted.

In the Final, Kane put his USAR Ranking on the line (Kane’s #1 there, but Lalo has a h2h win over him, and a defeat would immediately put Portillo top), but the result was anticlimactic. Kane wins 5,8 and Lalo wasn’t ever really in danger of an upset.

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Points Implications of results

Assuming this is a Tier1+ points event …

Kane drastically extends his lead at top, replacing last year’s semis loss with the Tier1+ points of this year’s win. Moscoso should go to #2, jumping both Montoya and Manilla. Acuna should rise one stop to #5, a career best. Natera should finally get out of the #8 spot and give himself a chance to avoid Kane in the quarters. Alonso’s results should put him in the top 10 for the first time. Portillo should jump from 15 to 12, while Gastelum jumps a bit deeper into the top 16.

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/0212c1

Moscoso wins just his third career Pro doubles title, his first with Carrasco, with a well played 11-9 tiebreaker win over the top seeds Montoya/Mar.

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Open Singles, other notable draws

– Gastelum topped local open favorite Jordan Barth in the Men’s Open final.

– Miranda & Garcia took a very talented Open Doubles draw over Bear & Portillo in the final.

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Fantasy Racquetball Competition Wrap-up

Here were the top 5 rankings from Fantasy Racquetball for the event:

1. JT R Ball / @Daily Racquetball who predicted Lalo to the final.

2. @Mitch Brayley

3. Yours Truly Todd Boss

4. Shawn Watts

5. @Joe Linnell

6. Kurtis Cullen

I guess the Canadians are pretty good at this 🙂

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters @Richard Eisemann and Carrie Wegener Reitmeier

Reminder to Players! Please like and follow this page so that when I tag you, you see it. Facebook will only retain tags of people that like/follow a page, which means lots of you are not getting the notoriety of getting tagged and noticed on Facebook. If your name is here and it isn’t tagged … it probably means I attempted to tag you but Facebook stripped it.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMbIP9SZd0MssH_nPGU/edit?usp=sharing

Canada has its second nationals qualifier this coming weekend, then we have Mexican Nationals the last week of February. The next pro stop will be in early march.

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tags

One of the longest running privately run tournaments in the sport is set for its 45th hear. Mark Gibbs is running back the Lewis Drug Pro-Am in Sioux Falls once again, one of the most popular events on tour.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=46712

This is the first Tier 1 of the 2025 season/year, and the first under new tour ownership and involvement. We’ve already seen Adam Manilla ‘s impact, with great social media profiles of players on the IRT’s Facebook page leading up to the event. We may see some interesting change to the tour, its structure, its draws, and whatnot with the new ownership and new commissioner Dave Negrete , but for now its business as usual.

There’s 36 players in South Dakota this weekend, including the top 17 ranked players and 18 of the top 20. There’s some returning names, some well-traveled players from South Africa, and the draw looks like it will give us some great early round matches. This event is the return of Bolivian Conrrado Moscoso, who was #1 on tour most of last year but who suffered an arm injury that cost him the points race and a couple of events late in the season. Is he at 100% we’ll soon see.

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Early round matches to watch for:

There’s just two round of 64s, both of which are interesting:

– top Florida amateur and former touring pro @Alejandro Herrera Azcarate takes on up-and-coming Mexican talent @Guillermo Jesus Ortega in a fun one to fight for the right to play Kane.

– Long-time pro David ” Bobby” Horn returns to the tour; he faces US junior national team member @Benjamin Horner.

– Former top10 regular @Sebastian Franco, who hasn’t played on tour since Feb 2023, is back. He recently took the Kelley brother’s invitational, so we know he’s got some top-level playing as of late, so he should be ready to compete.

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round of 32 matches to watch for:

– #9 @Jake Bredenbeck cannot be happy to see Bolivian turned Argentine Diego Garcia as his opening round opponent. The two met last August at worlds and Jake was stretched to an 11-9 fifth game before advancing. Garcia is an upset-favorite, with multiple prior wins over top 10 players on tour like Acuna, Lalo, Trujillo, Carson, etc. this is a quarter-final’s quality match in the 32s, though the advantage goes to Jake, who only had to drive a few hours to get here.

– #5 Andree Parrilla will have his hands full with U21 star @Gerson Miranda, making a rare state-side appearance.

– #12 @Jordy Alonso , who suddenly has legit aspirations to the semis of every event he plays, has a tough opener against one of the best amateur players in the mid-west in John Goth .

– For his troubles rising to a career best ranking, #3 Adam Manilla has to face off against Franco in the 32s. They’ve met twice in the 2018-19 range and split on tour. Manilla should advance, but Franco is not exactly rusty and could pose some problems.

– In the 15/18, pilot-to-be Eduardo Portillo Rendon takes on Bolivian @Kadim Carrasco . Lalo should advance and cause some trouble in this draw.

– #2 @Rodrigo Montoya projects to face Horn, two long-time rivals who have a playing history going back more than a decade. They were WRT rivals, playing a handful of times there, once internationally, but never on IRT. I’d say that Montoya is the favorite here, but Horn won’t go down without a fight.

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Round of 16:

– #1 Kane Waselenchuk should face Gastelum in a repeat of the 16s from Pleasanton. Kane beat him 2,2 then, probably expects to be a similar score-line this weekend.

– The 8/9 match this weekend projects to be @Alan Natera and the winner of the Jake/Garcia match. Unlike the last few 8/9 matchups, Natera won’t be favored here, and I’d expect either Jake or Diego in the quarters.

– #5 Parrilla vs #12 Alonso. It’s safe to say these guys go back a ways, being a year apart, both hailing from the hotbed of San Luis Potosi in Mexico, and frequently playing in both local events and at Mexican Junior national tournaments growing up. Parrilla has a year’s edge on Jordy, which helped him out in juniors. Now? The two are pretty evenly matched, play a pretty similar game style, and this is a true coin flip for me. I always like rooting for the underdog, so give me Alonso and the points.

– Manilla vs Mar: I’ve always had a soft spot for Mar, who has split his two matchups with Adam (though both were played a while ago). Manilla has been on a roll, Mar has not really been getting the marquee wins he needs lately to keep up his dark-horse fame. I’ll go with Manilla here.

– Trujillo-Martell in the 7/10 is a fun one: I think Erick has the advantage here.

– Montoya-Portillo in the 16s. Again, not the round of 16 that Rodrigo would want, a player who has more than a couple h2h wins against him and who has demonstrated he can handle the pace. Upset watch here.

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Projected Qtrs:

– Kane over Jake: Bredenbeck famously has a career win over a healthy Kane, but the two seem to be going in different directions right now.

– Alonso over Moscoso: We’ll know pretty quickly if Moscoso’s arm is 100% because he’s going to need to hit his lines against Jordy to win. However, if Moscoso is back, this is a tough one for Alonso to win b/c Conrrado has the advantage in power, athleticism, and shot-making. Alonso plays smarter but has to play lights out to win. This is my favorite quarter final if it comes to pass.

– Manilla over Acuna: Adam rides the hot hand and takes out a possibly-still dinged Acuna (who forfeited out of the last event with injury)

– Montoya over Trujillo; they’ve played at this juncture a couple times, and Rodrigo has little difficulty getting past his younger countrymate.

Semis:

– Kane takes out Alonso/Moscoso winner. I think many would like to see Moscoso’s power against Kane’s power … but i have a sneaky suspicion it’ll be the more cerebral Alonso playing here. If they do, Kane will be looking for major revenge after last year’s exit in Canoga Park, where Jordy beat him 11-1 in the breaker. Kane’s more focused, in better shape, and will be in revenge mode here.

– Montoya faces Manilla in a rematch of the surprise upset win by Adam last December at his home tourney in Pleasanton. I was surprised Adam won then, and I’d be surprised if he won here after years of watching him rarely get to the semis. But something has clicked for Adam, and this is danger territory for Rodrigo. I still like Montoya here, but wouldn’t be surprised with an upset.

Finals; I’m projecting another meeting between Kane and the player on tour I think has the best chance of beating Kane; Rodrigo Montoya. Their last meeting was instructive to me: Kane squeaked out a 15-14 game one win, then Montoya rolled him in game 2 15-7. In the breaker, Montoya lost focus on a bad call, let a few points go by in a row, and that was that. Kane is so good at keeping his foot on your throat, he’s so focused on the court, that you cannot give up a mental edge like that. I’m not sure if Montoya can keep it together for three games, but he’s got the current best package of power (to keep Kane from just rolling out service returns), athleticism ( to extend rallies and make Kane hit that one extra shot), and maturity (to be patient on the court, to make adjustments, and to go for the right shots) to beat Kane.

All that said, Kane is the favorite to win.

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Doubles review

There’s 14 teams in pro doubles, with some great matches up and down the draw. I love the Garcia/Miranda team, basically the future of Argentina racquetball, who faces Manilla/Horn in the round of 16. Herrera/Franco is a fun all-Colombian team that will give #3 Parrilla/Portillo some fun.

#1 seeds Montoya & Mar won’t be pushed until the semis, where they project to take out Natera & Acuna (who I think will outlast the rusty Horn & Manilla in the quarters). Meanwhile in the bottom half, I think #3 Portillo/Parrilla can play “keep away” from Moscoso, focusing on Carrasco in their semi against the Bolivians to move into the final.

Final’s prediction: Mar/Montoya outlast Parrilla & Portillo but its a battle.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the IRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. This weekend both @Richard Eisemann

and Carrie Wegener Reitmeier are on the mike, and I’ll be helping out with data throughout the weekend.

Coincidentally, if you’re interested in playing Fantasy Racquetball for this event, The IRT is using the same site that LPRT uses to do fantasy racquetball. To join the IRT’s “league” and pick a bracket; here’s the instructions:

Can you predict the results of the event, match by match? Give it a try to win some bragging rights!

Go to https://officepoolstop.com/ (or if already logged in: https://officepoolstop.com/Brackets/79031)

Login or create an account

Scroll to the bottom and click on Join

Enter League code: 79031

Enter League password: IRT2025

Click on Join

Click on the player you expect to win each matchup including the finals. 8 ) Scroll back up to the top to enter the combined score of the final game, so if you expect 11-10, enter 21.

Click on Submit Bracket

Associations

International Racquetball Tour