Men’s Open: Samuel Murray Women’s Open: Jen Saunders
They take big steps towards putting themselves onto the plane to represent Canada at this August’s 2019 International Racquetball Federation – IRF Pan American Games, the biggest event in our sport. Based on the 2019 PARC qualifying Team Canada will get two players each in Men’s and Women’s, and based on the qualifying as of late it definitely seems like the two singles finalists in each draw will form the teams for Peru later this year, but we’ll wait to hear official word of attendance.
No Surprises in the round of 16, with all seeds advancing in 2 games. Closest match was #13 Ian Frattinger pushing #4 Pedro Castro to 13,10 in their match.
In the quarters: – One upset by seed: #5 Trevor Webb took out #4 Castro in two. – Both #2 and #3 seeds were taken to tiebreakers but advanced. – Coby Iwaasa came from a game down to advance past #7 Lee Connell.
In the semis: – #1 Samuel Murray made quick work of Webb 3,2. – #2 Iwaasa played a close game 1 then took off to win game 2 going away over #3 Tim Landeryou 13,2.
The Final was a rematch of the 2015 and 2018 Canadian finals, as well as a rematch of the last three running qualifier events. Murray and Iwaasa split the last two finals rematches, but this one was a Murray win going away 3,6. Murray captures his 2nd Canadian National title.
In the play-in round of 16, Cassie Prentice won in a slight upset by seeding, taking out the #8 Murielle Boivin 9,4. Meanwhile, the younger Parent sister Juliette beat her older sister Marjolaine 4,10 to advance.
In the Semis: – #1 Jen Saunders won a solid match over #4 Danielle Drury 13,8 – #2 Christine Richardson advanced over #3 Morissette in two close games.
In the Final, a rematch of last year’s Canadian National championship, Saunders won going away 4,1 to claim her 11th National Title. Saunders has now made at least the Canadian National singles final in NINTEEN consecutive years; every year since 2001. You have to go back to the 2000 national tournament to find a Women’s Canadian singles final that didn’t include Saunders (that year, Jackchristie Huczek beat Lori-Jane Powell for the title). Its a pretty amazing run for Saunders, who shows no sign of slowing down.
Men’s Open: Jake Bredenbeck Women’s Open: Kelani Lawrence
They take big steps towards putting themselves onto the plane to represent the USA at this August’s 2019 International Racquetball Federation – IRFPan American Games, the biggest event in our sport. See this link: https://www.teamusa.org/…/2018-19-US-National-Team-Qualific… for the current Men’s and Women’s team standings. USA Racquetball plans on making an announcement soon on the official team delegation to Peru.
In the 16s: – In the 8/9 game, Robert Collins got a solid win over Luis R Avila in a tie-breaker. – #5Adam Manilla took out hometown veteran favorite Woody Clouse and has a streamlined shot at the National Semis thanks to … – #4 seed Jose Diaz, who I thought could win this event, was a no-show, giving Utahian Anthony Martin a walk-over into the quarters. – Two IRT regulars met in Thomas Carter and Nicholas Nick Riffel, with Carter coming out on top in a tie-breaker.
In the Qtrs: – #1 Jake Bredenbeck cruised past fellow IRT top 20 player Collins 4,2 – #5 Manilla similarly cruised past Utahian Anthony Martin 3,2 – #3 David Horn was stretched by #6 Carter, going 11-7 in the breaker. Another solid result for Carter, but a good step towards keeping his National team spot for Horn. – #2 Charlie Pratt took out his local playing rival Dylan Reid 14,5.
In the Semis: – #5 Manilla played lights out for stretches, but not enough of them to take out #1 Bredenbeck, falling in an 11-5 tiebreaker. – #3 Horn got a great win over #2 Pratt, 11-7 in the breaker, to advance to the final and attempt to repeat as US Champion. Pratt has made the finals of the last two international events in which he’s represented the US … but a national title continues to elude him.
In the Final … Jake could do no wrong, and Bobby couldn’t do much to stop him. In an amazingly compete performance, Bredenbeck beat Horn 1,1 to take the US title. Its his third overall and he returns to the podium after a 3 year absence. Horn finishes runner-up for the 4th time.
There was just one play-in/round of 16 match: – Annie Roberts, the current 16U National champ and who still has 3 years remaining in the junior ranks, took on regular LPRT touring pro Cassie Leein the 8/9 match and came out on top in a tie-breaker.
In the qtrs: – #1 Rhonda Rajsich took out the precocious Roberts 6,2 – #5 Kelani Lawrence, drastically underseeded in this event, made a statement with an 11,1 win over #4 Sheryl Lotts – #3 Hollie Rae Scott took out LPRT touring vet Adrienne Fisher Haynes 7,10 – #2 Seed Erika Manilla was a no-show, depriving the draw of one of its top players and making the lopsidedness of the seeding errors involving Lawrence even more severe.
In the Semis: – #5 Lawrence got a career win, beating the 8-time defending US national champ Rajsich in an a tiebreaker. These two had met in the singles finals of the last three major US national team qualifying events, and Lawrence got this breakthrough win on the same weekend that her mother Malia Kamahoahoa Bailey was inducted into the US Racquetball hall of Fame. – #3 Scott downed the legendary LPRT pro Cheryl Gudinas in two. Scott is going for a rather rare double: Intercollegiates and National titles in the same year. It’s only happened once before … in 1976, when Memphis State University’s Sarah Green won both events in the same year.
(side note: the 3rd place game, which we often don’t mention, thus is Rajsich vs Gudinas. Holy cow. That’s a combined 19 (!) US National titles between them to go along with 8 pro titles. In case you’re wondering … they’ve played no less than 50 times across pro, US nationals and IRF events now, with Rajsich leading 32-18. See http://rball.pro/A7470B).
In the Finals, Lawrence came from a game down and saved match point against to take the title 11-10 over Scott by running off two points at the end of the tie-breaker.
—————- Congrats to all who played. Later this week we’ll review the Canadian singles and Mexican Junior events form last week.
Next up on the rball schedule? There’s some lower tier IRT events in early June, one last LPRT Grand Slam in mid-june in Kansas, then the US Junior Olympics in late June in Portland.
This is the 4th Canadian national doubles title for Samuel Murray, and a first for his brother … who was the losing finalist each of the last four years running. Meanwhile, this is Saunder’s 13th title, and she inches closer to the record for most National doubles titles with her former partner and fellow Canadian Josee Grand’Maitre, who has 15 titles. Drury wins her 2nd title.
So it was two brother teams in the final; there the Murrays staged a great comeback to take game one 17-15 (remember, in Canada its win-by-2 in all games). The Landeryous took game two, but then fell apart in the tiebreaker.
There were four teams, so they played round robin. The #1 seeded team of Christine Richardson and Michele Morissette was upset by the #3 seeded team of Jen Saunders and Danielle Drury in the RRs en route to their 3-0 finish and the 2019 National title.
————— The doubles champions for Canada qualify to represent the country in the Pan Am Games later this year, and will go towards qualification for 2020’s PARC and Worlds. We can’t say however that these exact teams will be in Lima later this year though, because Canada only qualified two men and two women to the Pan Am games (see http://www.internationalracquetball.com/xviii-pan-american…/ for the roster qualification spots). So likely the two singles qualifiers will team up to play doubles for Canada in Peru.
For Canada … now starts the singles competition. We’ll post that preview and recap separately (the pre-view likely before you see this).
Sam Murray goes for another Men’s singles title. (photo via Rball Canada)
Just like their southern neighbors, Racquetball Canada uses the last weekend in May to host their National Singles events. They also host their National doubles (which ended yesterday and which we’ll wrap-up later this week)
This is the 45th iteration of Canada National Singles, as far as I can tell. First held in Winnipeg in 1975, the first Men’s champ was Wayne Bowes. Mike Green (who recently announced his retirement officially from competition) is tied with Canadian legend Sherman Greenfeld for the most singles titles in Canada with 10 each. Samuel Murray is your defending champ and is the #1 seed this weekend.
On the Women’s side, they also have records dating to 1975, with Monique Parent being the first ever Women’s singles champ. Jennifer Jen Saunders hholds the record for most ever Canadian singles titles with 10, and as the defending champ and #1 seed has a chance to take the outright lead and tie American Rhonda Rajsich for the most ever country national titles (with the caveat that we don’t have full records for Mexico and other countries).
click here for a full list of all Canada National Men’s Singles finals: http://rball.pro/DEA1C6
click here for a full list of all Canada National Women’s singles finals; http://rball.pro/D48335
————————– Here’s a preview of the singles events.
Men’s Singles:There’s 15 in the draw. Here’s some round of 16 matches to look for: – in the 8/9 game, Tommy Murray takes on Tanner Prentice for a shot at #1. If Murray wins, he gets to go against his brother. If Prentice wins, it would be his first ever win at Adult nationals. – In the 7/10 game, Lee Connell (who’s been playing in National events for more than 15 years) gets a match against current Canadian 18U champ Sean Sauve in his adult debut.
Projecting the quarters: – #1 Murray vs #8 Prentice; Sam moves on. – #4 Pedro Castro vs #5 Trevor Webb; they met in 2017, a Castro win, and Pedro will be looking to return to the semis for the 2nd year running. – #3 Tim Landeryou vs #6 Nicolas Bousquet; they met at this juncture in Nationals last year, a tie-breaker win for Tim. – #2 Coby Iwaasa vs #7 Connell: also a rematch of 2018 National quarters, an easy 5,5 win. Can Connell push it closer?
Semis: Murray over Castro, Iwaasa over Landeryou. These are the exact same semis from 2018, and i’m predicting the same chalk results.
Final: Murray over Iwaasa in a tie-breaker. These two met in the 2018 National finals, and in the finals of both Canadian qualifiers leading up to this event, and have clearly separated themselves from the rest of the Canadian field.
————————- Women’s Singles: there’s 10 ladies in the draw, and no Frederique Lambert, which opens up the field significantly. Lets preview the draw.
In the 16s: – Reigning Canadian 18U Junior champ Cassie Prentice takes on #8 seeded Murielle Boivin for a shot at the #1 seed. – Sisters Juliette and Marjolaine Parent have to face off in the 7/10 match. Juliette is the reigning 16U Canadian champ, while Marjolaine just graduated 18Us and represented Canada at Junior Worlds last year. Tough matchup for the parents; who do you root for? 🙂
Projecting the Quarters: – #1 Saunders over #9 Prentice, marching towards a record-setting title. – #4 Danielle Drury vs #5 Erin Geeraert: Geeraert is fresh off of representing Canada at the 2019 PARCs and will look to get back on the team for the Pan Am Games later this year. – #3 Michèle Morissette takes on the legend Linda Marie Ellerington, whose first entry in the database is the 1987 Canadian National singles competition. Linda hasn’t competed in this event since 2015 …when she was eliminated by Morissette. – #2 Christine Richardson faces a Parent … i’m not sure which one, but think Richardson will be favored to advance either way.
Possible Semis: Saunders over Geeraert, Richardson over Morissette.
Final: Saunders over Richardson, a rematch of the 2018 final and the 2017 semis.
———————- Look for streaming notifications over the weekend. Follow Racquetball Canada for sure to get notifications. I know that Timothy Baghurst is in Canada leading the announcing, so tune in and follow along
This year’s version of event is the 52nd iteration of the event, and is as far as I know the longest running racquetball tournament in existence. It was first held in 1968 in Milwaukee, where two legends competed in the final (Bill Schultz defeated Hall of Famer Bill Schmidtke in the final).
Record holders for Most National Titles? –Rocky Carson holds 7 National titles, winning his first in 2000 and his most recent in 2017. Interestingly, despite still being ranked #2 on the pro tour, Rocky did not compete in the 2018 version, nor is he in this weekend’s draw.
– Rhonda Rajsich holds 11 National titles, winning her first in 2004. She’s also the defending champ, the #1 seed this weekend and has won the last eight National events.
Your defending champs are David Horn and Rajsich. I’m not entirely sure how Horn drops to the #3 seed behind Jake in particular (who he has bested round for round in the last few national qualifying events)., but would have had to play Pratt in the semis regardless so its a minor seeding nit.
————– Men’s Singles:
Lets preview some of the match-ups i’ll be looking for: In the 16s: – #8 Luis R Avila vs #9 Robert Collins; 8/9 match-ups are always tough, and this should be no different. Lefty touring pro Collins versus the defending outdoor 3-wall champ Avila, who periodically comes indoors and has some good wins on his resume. This is a good test for both. – #5 Adam Manilla vs #12 Woody Clouse; Woody Clouse back in action competing for the National team … for the first time since 2006. Clouse qualified for the team in 2005 and represented the US in the Pan American Games in April 2006, losing in the final to Canadian Kris Odegard 11-9. He also had several top 10 pro tour finishes during the deep mid 90s tour days. Now he’s back at age 53, playing in his home town. He faces off against fellow lefty Manilla, fresh off of a second top 20 season on tour with some good results. I think Manilla moves on but it’ll be a fun L vs L match. – #6 Thomas Carter vs #11 Nicholas Nick Riffel; two IRT regulars meet up; they faced each other 3 times in 3 months in early 2018, with Carter taking 2 of 3. Riffel had a tough end to his 2018-19 tour, forfeiting out of Syosset with an injury. Meanwhile Carter had a nice run at the end of the season, getting a couple of solid wins and making the main draw in both Florida and NY. Advantage Carter here. – #7 Dylan Reid vs #10 Jeff Stark; two West Coasters who have played more than a few times meet up in the first round. I think the podcasting Reid is favored here but they know each other’s game.
Man, lots of Lefties in action. At least four, maybe more. Something in the water in Denver maybe.
Projecting the Qtrs: – #1 Jake Bredenbeck vs Avila: Jake struggled with upsets all season … then blew it out in NY, taking out Pratt, Daniel De La Rosa and nearly beating Andree Parrilla. So which Jake shows up? – #4 Jose Diaz vs #5 Manilla: they’ve only played a couple times, but both matches were 3- or 5-game tiebreakers. I like Diaz here … in a tiebreaker. – #3 Horn vs #6 Carter: I don’t think they’ve ever played in a top-level event … so a first for everyone. Horn should win this one in two closer games. – #2 Charlie Pratt vs #7 Dylan Reid: another match-up of two upper northwestern guys, both hailing from Portland. Fly all the way to Denver … have a repeat of your tuesday night game. Pratt’s solid and advances here.
So i’m predicting Chalk to the semis … and then for some upsets to happen.
Semis: – #4 Diaz over #1 Jake: they’re pretty even career-wise h2h, but havn’t played in a year and a half. I like Diaz here. Diaz had the better season, nearly slipping into the top 10 and jumping Jake in the rankings. – #2 Pratt over Horn: They played in December in Portland, a close 2-game win for Pratt, and I like the year Pratt is having so far.
Final: – #2 Pratt over Diaz. head to head, Diaz has never lost to Pratt. But something tells me Pratt is on a mission this year.
—————- Women’s Singles: just 9 in this draw, but some good match-ups towards the back and one incredibly poor seeding job:
In the Quarters: – #1 Rajsich over #8 Cassandra Cassi Lee – #5 Kelani Lawrence over #4 Sheryl Lotts; here’s a seeding question. Lawrence made the Women’s singles final of the 2018 qualifier at Nat’l doubles, made the finals at 2018 Nationals, and made the finals at the 2019 Qualifier at Nat’l Doubles. So that’s basically the last three major National events…. how exactly is she seeded 5th in this event?? What more does she have to do to demonstrate that she’s basically the 2nd best American woman player right now? – #3 Hollie Rae Scott over #6 Adrienne Fisher Haynes – #2 Erika Manilla holds off retired LPRT legend Cheryl Gudinas
In the semis: – #1 Rajsich takes out Lawrence in a rematch of the last three major US national team final, instead of in the final like it should be – #3 Scott takes out #2 Manilla in a rematch of this year’s Intercollegiates semis.
In the final: Rajsich takes her 9th straight US title over Scott.
———————- Lastly, a note on attendance. There’s some separate conversations about the # of participants this weekend going on. Here’s a list of the participation numbers for the last 14 National Singles events (these are the “# of participants” from the r2sports page and should indicate unique players, not # of draw entrants):
The event held steady in the low 500s its last five years in H ouston, then spiked during its Fullerton years thanks to simultaneous IRT and LPRT events (some of the pro draws from those years were amazing; 70+ mens pros competing). But we’ve seen a precipitous drop in attendance over the last few years, including a 100+ attendee drop from 2015 to 2016, now not even able to clear 200 players this year. 191 players isn’t even close to what National Doubles got this year (306) and that number is basically halved from the beginning of the century.
I know there’s some fundamental industry issues that are driving down these numbers. But this is the NGB’s marquee event. You can’t turn back time and make it the mid 2000s again (to say nothing of the mid 1990s), but you can strategize other aspects of the event to make it more appealing to a larger audience, and I hope to see some turn around in the coming years.
It was a busy rball weekend: IRT, LPRT and Canadian Juniors. Here’s a quick wrap of the Canadian Jrs event.
Congrats to winners: – Boys 18U: Sean Sauve – Boys 16U: Nathan Jauvin – Boys 14U: Christian Pocsai – Boys 12U: Asher Pocsai – Boys 10U: Marc-Oliver Charron – Boys 10Udb: Marc-Oliver Charron – Boys 8Umb: Elie Guillemette
I believe I got the results right: some of the divisions were combined (for example: Girls 18U and 16U) so i ignored the cross-division matches and just transcribed those that determined the champion. If there’s believed to be an error let me know. As far as I could tell … there was no Girls 10U entrants, nor any 6U players either.
Here’s two quick reports that show a “matrix” of winners for all Canadian Juniors data entered into the database:
In addition, you can pull down any 18U or 16U event from the front page and get the full results. For now, only 18U and 16U events in the Juniors have full results; the other age groups have just winners or just the finals. Furthermore, I’ve only gone back to 2013 so far for Canadian Juniors data entry; its on the todo list to dig past into Canada history data to get this data entered.
———————– Team Results: we are waiting for the full team results top to bottom, but we do know the top 4 in each draw: – Team Men: Bolivia, Mexico, USA, Costa Rica – Team Women: Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia – Team Combined: Mexico, Bolivia, USA, Argentina.
Here’s some quick fun Team facts: – This is Bolivia’s first ever Team competition win. – this is Mexico’s 10th straight PARC Combined title – This was also Mexico’s 10th straight Women’s team PARC title.
round of 32: – Ecuador’s long-time veteran Fernando Rios eliminated Costa Rican IRT touring vet Felipe Camacho in two close games 14,12. – Guatemala’s Juan Salvatierra took out Colombia’s Andres Gomez by the closest of margins; 14,14.
round of 16: – Rios couldn’t eliminate both Costa Ricans, falling to CRC’s number one and #8 seed Andres Acuna 14,2 – #5 seed Bolivian number one Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo took out Canadian number one Samuel Murray by the dominant scores of 6,6. Murray, who sits ranked 7th on the International Racquetball Tour, previously topped Moscoso when they met at the 2018 US Open, and I expected a tough match here. I did not expect Murray to fall 6 and 6. An early statement win here for Moscoso. – #3 seed Mexican Alvaro Beltran came from a game down to top #14 seed Colombian Mario Mercado in this battle of IRT top-10 touring pros. – #6 Dominican Republic number one Luis Perez took a hard-fought match against Ecuadorian veteran Jose Daniel Ugalde Albornoz to advance. – #7 Carlos Keller Vargas played a tough match against Canadian Coby Iwaasa and advanced in two straight 10,9.
These results ensured a perfect chalk round of 16, with all top 8 seeds advancing. Two each from Mexico, Bolivia, USA, then the #1s from Costa Rica and Dominican Republic comprise your quarters.
in the Quarters though … huge upsets. – #1 Mexican Alejandro Alex Landacan’t convert on match point and loses in the tiebreaker to #8 Acuna (6),14,7. A great win for the solid Acuna, who avenges a loss to Landa in the Semis of the 2017 PARC. – #4 American Charlie Pratt came back from 1-8 down in the tiebreaker to shock the Bolivian Open champ #5 seed Conrrado Moscoso 11-10. I had predicted Moscoso would win this event, but Pratt found a way (as he usually does) to peck away at Moscoso’s game, kept his focus, used some excellent serving and kept forcing Moscoso to make that one additional shot and came out on top. – #3 Beltran eased past #6 Perez 9,6 in a match that probably wasn’t as close as it seemed; the match was tied 8-8 early, then Beltran ran away with the first and continued dominating the second to advance. – #7 Keller took a solid 12,10 win over #2 seed American David Bobby David Horn. The defending champ scores the “upset” by seeding but beats Horn in a rematch of last year’s PARC final.
Semis: – Pratt won a back and forth close match against Acuna to advance to the final. Both players play a very similar game, more tactical than explosive, more cerebral than showy, and Pratt outlasted Acuna to return to his third major international Men’s singles final in his 3rd IRF appearance. – Keller advanced past Beltran in two
In the Final, Keller avenged a loss to Pratt in the 2017 PARC to win the final and defend his title. Pratt loses in the final for the third time in three international appearances.
The round of 32 contained no surprises. In the round of 16, we got some upsets, both by seed and by talent:
– After struggling in the RR phase (apparently due to illness), Argentinian #24 seed Natalia Mendez Erlwein dominated #8 Bolivian Angelica Barrios 3,11 to advance. Mendez really pushed the game and took Barrios out of her game early on. – #12 seed Maria Jose Vargas Parada obliterated #5 seed Guatemalan Maria Renee Rodríguez 2,0. – #13 seed Rhonda Rajsich got a solid win over #4 seed Chilean Carla Muñoz Montesinos 10,14 to keep her 3-peat dreams alive. – #6 Bolivian Valeria Centellas got a solid win over American Kelani Lawrence7,8. Its hard to emphasize this enough … but Centellas is only 17. She’s got two years remaining in juniors and is making the back end of Adult major international championships (and, it should be noted, was the #1 Bolivian here, ahead of Barrios and presumably ahead of Sabja unless she didn’t compete in the singles qualification ahead of this event). – #15 Ecuadorian Maria Paz Munoz pulled off the biggest upset of the event though, topping #2 Colombian and home-town favorite Amaya Cris 11-8 in a tie-breaker. Great win for Munoz.
So that’s Two from Mexico, two from Argentina, and one each from USA, Bolivia, Dominican Republic and Ecuador into the quarters.
In the Quarters, more upsets – Mendez continued her great run, downing the #1 seeded Mexican Monste Montse Mejia 13,13. This may be the best win of Mendez’ career and it comes after an 0-3 showing in the group stage. – Vargas trounced the hobbled Rajsich 4,8. – #3 seeded Paola Longoria dropped a game to the Bolivian 17yr old Centellas before rebounding and advancing. – Maria Paz Munoz ran away in the tiebreaker after two close games against Dominican #7 seed Merrynanyelly Delgado to advance to the semis.
So that’s the #24, #12, #3 and #15 seeds into the PARC19 semis.
In the semis, no real surprises as Vargas outlasted her countryman Mendez for the second time this year, while Longoria dominated the Ecuadorian Maria Paz Munoz in two.
In the final, Longoria downed Vargas for the 32nd time in 33 career meetings to secure her 8th PARC title.
———————- Men’s Doubles: After vanquishing the #1 Mexican team, the Bolivian team of Moscoso and Roland Keller got their second big title in as many months and their first international major title together by coming back from a first game embarrassment to top the Canadian pair of Murray & Iwaasa in a tiebreaker.
———————- Women’s Doubles: Longoria and Samantha Salas proved again why they’re the best doubles team in the world, never giving up more than 9 points in any single game en route to a dominant finals win over the host country team of Amaya & Riveros. With the win, the pair secured their 13th international doubles title together.
We’re through the round robin/group stages of the 32nd annual Pan American Racquetball Championships; lets review the interesting and upset results from the singles RRs and then preview the knockouts. A reminder; the results are re-seeded after the group stages for the knockouts.
Men’s singles RR matches of note: – #4 seed Charlie Pratt took out #13 Mario Mercado in his home country in an 11-7 tiebreaker. – #3 seedAlvaro Beltran saved match point against versus Chilean journeyman Francisco Troncoso before finishing off a tie-breaker win. – #8 seed Canadian Coby Iwaasa was upset in the RR stage by Costa Rican #1 Andres Andres Acuña 8,7. Acuna took out Horn in the 2018 US Open and has made the quarters or better of the last three PARCs, so this is no fluke. – Dominican #1 Luiz Perez lost 11-10 to unknown Venezuelan Roberto Leyes … but then took out two IRT veterans in Felipe Camacho and top-8 player Samuel Murray to win his group. This is not the first time Perez has made noise in IRF events: he’s got wins over Acuna and Montoya in 2018 and now gets a seed in the knockouts.
Women’s Singles RR matches of note: – #1 Montse Mejia was stretched to a tie-breaker by long-time IRF Ecuadorian vet Maria Paz Munoz. – #13 Amaya Cris scored the biggest RR upset, taking out #2 Rhonda Rajsich in a close tie-breaker 14,(14),8. Amaya is the home-court favorite here and has now put herself in a great position to advance deep. – #3 Paola Longoria outlasted Maria Jose Vargas Parada 12,13. Vargas’ sole career win over Longoria was at this event in 2018 but could not repeat the feat. – #5 Maria Renee Rodríguez played a solid game to beat Natalia Mendez Erlweinand remain the favorite to advance as the seeded player out of the group. Mendez then lost to long-time Venezuelan player Mariana Tobon before defaulting the last match of the group.
————————— Singles Knockout Predictions:
In the Men’s singles draw, just two of the top 8 seeds were upset in RRs: Murray and Iwaasa. So here’s some projections of the Men’s singles draw here on out:
Matches to watch for in the 32s: – The 16/17 match between Cuban #1 Maikel Mollet and Chilean #1 Francisco Troncoso should be close. – Ecuadorian #1 and #9 seed Fernando Rios gets a tough test against Costa Rican veteran Felipe Camacho. Could go either way. – #10 Coby Iwaasa gets an interesting match against long time Argentinian veteran Diana-Shai Manzuri, who has been representing Argentina in international events for more than 20 years now.
Matches to look for in the 16s: – If Camacho can take out Rios, he likely faces his country-man Andres Acuna, who beat Camacho on the IRT twice in 2018. – #5 Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo vs #12 Samuel Murray: a brutal round of 16 here; these two met at the 2018 US Open and Murray topped Moscoso in a tie-breaker. So Murray can beat the newly crowned Bolivian champ. What to make of Murray’s upset in the RRs? This is a hard one to predict but the winner could go pretty far. I think i’ll go with the hot-hand Moscoso here. – #14 Mario Mercado vs #3 Alvaro Beltran; another tough draw for a seeded player; Beltran has to face Mercado on his home soil. Beltran beat Mercado handily in Chicago in March … but Mercado played lights out at the Bolivian Open in making the semis. I think this is close and Beltran ekes it out. – #7 Carlos Keller Vargas, your defending champ, faces a tough out in Canadian Coby Iwaasa in the 16s. I think Keller advances, but Iwaasa makes it hard on him.
Projecting the Quarters: – #1 Alejandro Landa over #8 Acuna: this is a rematch of the 2017 PARC semis, a 2 game close win for Landa. They also met at the 2018 Florida IRT championship. Landa prevails. – #5 Moscoso over #4 Pratt: Moscoso’s firepower overcomes Pratt’s tactical game. – #3 Beltran takes out the upstart Dominican #6 Perez. – #7 Keller over #2 David Horn; this is a rematch of the final of last year’s event, a tie-breaker win for Keller. I’m going to predict it happens again.
Semis: – #5 Moscoso over #1 Landa; they met in Bolivia, in the semis of that Grand Slam … and Moscoso won in an epic donut tie-breaker. I think we see a similarly close game this time around with the same result. – #7 Keller over #3 Beltran: they met in the quarters of the 2015 PARC and Keller got him then. I think Keller can do it again.
Final: an all-Bolivian final, with #1 over #2 as Moscoso downs his countryman for the title. If it happens this way, Moscoso will have more than earned t his win.
————————— In the women’s singles draw … 3 of the 7 group top seeds were upset, leading to some interesting looking seedings in the knockout and some tough matches out of the get go:
Matches to look for in the 32s: – #9 Cuban Maria Regla Viera gets to play the 24th seeded Natalia Mendez; is Mendez hurt? Why did she default her final RR match? Either way, the LPRT top 10 player has a tough one against a tough Cuban. – #12 Vargas gets the precocious Costa Rican Maricruz Ortiz. Ortiz was the losing finalist to Centellas at world 16U juniors in 2018 but is already representing her country at the Adult level. – #15 Maria Paz Munoz gets a tough match against the other Cuban in the draw, Yurisleidis Alluie. Munoz should advance but as we’ve seen, the unknown Cuban competitors can make waves.
Matches in the 16s to look for: – #8 Angelica Barrios faces off against the Mendez/Regla Viera winner, in what could be a pretty good match. Either way, I like the Bolivian junior to advance. – Vargas vs #5 Maria Renee Rodriguez; a tough draw for Rodriguez, who wins her group and earns the bye but gets current top 4 LPRT player Vargas for her troubles. – #4 Carla Carla Muñoz Montesinos vs Rajsich; tough break for Munoz, who wins her group and then gets the two-time defending PARC champion. – #6 Valeria Centellas vs #11 Kelani Lawrence; this could be a good match-up. I think Lawrence could pull the upset-by-seed here over the reigning 16U world junior champ.
Projecting the Quarters: – #1 Montse Mejia vs #8 Barrios: they met in the 18U world juniors semis in both 2017 and 2018; both Mejia wins. I think Mejia continues her run. – #12 Vargas vs #13 Rajsich: they’ve met 29 times across all competitions and are just about dead even; Rajsich currently leads h2h 15-14, and has won their last two meetings. But Rajsich was struggling in Bolivia with a knee issue; is she recovered? I’m going with Vargas here to ensure a new PARC champion. – #3 Longoria over #11 Lawrence: Longoria has something to prove here, having lost to Mejia at Mexican Nats and having been the losing finalist the last two tournaments. She outclasses Lawrence here, looking for more. – #2 Amaya takes out #7 Delgado on home soil.
Possible Semis: – Vargas over Mejia: they’ve only met once; in April 2018 on the LPRT, a 3 game dominant Vargas win, and even thought Mejia has really stepped up on the world stage lately, Vargas has been on fire. – Longoria over Amaya: they’ve met 12 times across LPRT and IRF and Amaya has never won. I don’t think she breaks that duck here.
Final: Longoria over Vargas. Longoria has owned Vargas in their careers (30-1 in 31 matches in LPRT and IRF). If Mejia takes out Vargas… then this is a whole new ball game. Mejia’s solid win over Longoria on home soil was a big step up in the world and a Longoria/Mejia final would be pretty compelling to watch. Longoria is basically unbeatable in the pro format, but has taken losses here and there over the past few years in the amateur format; can it happen again here?
——————————- Men’s doubles thoughts: no real surprises in the RR sections, as the pre-tourney 1,2,4 and 6 seeds won their group. I think the knockout draw is top-heavy, with the semis featuring the two best teams (that being the Mexican team of Rodrigo Montoya Solís & Javier Mar and the Bolivian team of Moscoso and Roland Keller). The Bolivians fell to the Mexican teams at both the 2018 PARCs and Worlds, albeit with different players. I think the same happens here, despite Moscoso & Keller coming off of the Bolivian slam win.
I think the Canadians (Murray & Iwaasa) take out the American team of Jake Bredenbeck and Mauro Mauro Daniel Rojas in the quarters, on the bottom half, then get past the Costa Rican team of Acuna/Camacho before losing to the Mexican pair in the final.
——————————- Women’s doubles thoughts: As with the Men’s side … the top half of this draw is packed, and the projected semis is the best match of the event, featuring the dominant Mexican pair of Longoria & Samantha Salas Solis vs the current World champion Bolivian side of Yazmine Sabja Aliss and Centellas. But to get there, the Mexicans have to take out the talented Argentian team of Vargas & Mendez (they who just took the Bolivian Grand slam title) while the Bolivians have to take out the American team of Lawrence & Sheryl Lotts
I think the Mexicans down the Bolivians in one semi, then take out the home-town Colombian pair of Riveros and Amaya for the title.
——————————- Follow @IRF on Facebook to get Tim Timothy Baghurst calling all the streaming matches.
visit www.internationalracquetball.com to follow along Mens and Womens, Singles and Doubles draws. Follow the IRF on facebook for live streaming as Tim Baghurst has flown down to the tourney to provide streaming commentary all week.
The time has come for the first big International Racquetball Federationevent of 2019; the 32nd annual Pan American Racquetball Championships (PARC). This event was first held in 1986 in San Jose, Costa Rica and was initially known as the “Tournament of the Americas.” The initial tournament results have been lost to the wind as we can find no records for it. But, nearly every year since the tourney has moved around North and South America.
The tournament skipped a couple of years when Racquetball was included into the Pan Am Games (but, not this year), and skipped one year in 2000 when civil unrest in the host country rose up, but otherwise has been an annual event that has done a great job of introducing top players to the scene who don’t normally travel to the states to play domestic IRT events.
Women’s #1 Paola Longoria has 7 career PARC titles … but has lost to long-time rival Rhonda Rajsich a few times in this event (including the last two finals). The Men’s singles draw has been an interesting competition over the years, with 9 different players winning the last 10 titles. There’s plenty of opportunity this year, with 3 past champions in the men’s draw plus both the losing American finalists in the last two iterations.
The competition features days of round robins that are seeded, then the competition is re-seeded for the knockouts. Players are seeded not by individual accomplishment but by past country performance.
————————— Singles draw previews
The top 8 seeds on the Men’s side are: 1. Alejandro Alex Landa; the reigning Mexican champ and 2017 PARC winner. 2. David Horn, the 2018 USA National Champion 3. Alvaro Beltran, the 2019 Mexican National finalist and a 3-time PARC winner 4. Charlie Pratt, who made the semis of 2018 USA Nationals and the finals of the qualifier held at national doubles earlier this year to earn his spot. Pratt’s seeding has been done no favors as he has current IRT top 10 pro Mario Mercado in his round robin grouping, seeded 13th here. 5. Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo is seeded 5th as Bolivia’s #1 player; Moscoso just won the Bolivian Open Grand Slam and beat a couple of the players seeded above him here and is clearly a threat to win his first major international title. 6. Samuel Murray is seeded 6th as the clear #1 Canadian male, having swept Canadian qualifiers leading up to this event. 7. Carlos Keller is seeded 7th; he’s Bolivia’s #2 but is also the reigning champion of this event, having beaten Horn in the 2018 final. 8. Canadian Coby Iwaasa is the 8th seed; he was the losing finalist to Murray in the last three major Canadian singles events.
We won’t do predictions until the knockout draw is announced … but if these seeds hold we stand to have some really good quarter final matches throughout.
———— On the Women’s side, the top 8 seeds are:
1. Montse Mejia, who upset Paola Longoria to take the Mexican Nationals in February and is thus the #1 overall seed. She’s also the reigning 18U junior world champ and could make a statement in this event. Mejia gets LPRT touring vet Adriana Riveros in the group stage. 2. Rhonda Rajsich, still reigning as the USA #1 having won the qualifier and the 2018 US nationals events. Rajsich has Colombian #1 Amaya Cris to deal with in her RR group. 3. Paola Longoria, a 7-time winner here but entering as the Mexican #2 due to her loss to Mejia at Mexican Nats earlier this year. Paola heads up against Maria Jose Vargas (an under-seeded #12 here despite being top 4 on the LPRT and having just won the Bolivian grand slam) right out of the gate. 4. Kelani Lawrence, my fellow Virginian and now unquestioned USA #2 having been a losing finalist to Rajsich in three straight USA qualifying events. She faces a tough RR draw, with Chilean #1 and LPRT top pro Carla Carla Muñoz Montesinos in her draw. 5. Maria Renee Rodríguez slips into the #5 seed thanks to the recent and sudden retirement of former Guatemalan #1 and reigning World Champ Gaby Martinez. For her troubles, she gets LPRT top 10 player Natalia Mendez right out of the gate. 6. Bolivian Junior Valeria Centellas is the 6th seed. She’s the reigning 16U junior champ and was an 11-9 5th game tiebreaker loser at the Bolivian grand slam to eventual titlist Vargas. She has a manageable group though, with her toughest match coming against Canadian #1 Michele Morrissette. 7. Marie Gomar slides into the #7 seed as the Guatemalan #2, and gets #8 seeded Bolivian junior phenom Angelica Barrios right out of the gate. Barrios made the semis of the Bolivian Grand Slam, knocking out two top-10 LPRT players, and can make a deep run here.
Thanks to a really international feel on the LPRT, nearly all the RR groups feature LPRT regulars going at it, and we should see some upsets by seeds before the knockout brackets are set.
—————— In doubles…there’s 15 Men’s teams competing and there’s probably 5-6 Men’s teams who think they can win this thing, including the reigning Mexican champs Rodrigo Montoya Solís and Javier Mar, plus the just-crowned Bolivian grand slam champs of Moscoso and Roland Keller.
On the women’s side, the dominant Mexican team of Longoria & Samantha Salas Solis are the favorites. we’ll talk more about doubles once the knock out draws are set.
A reminder: we don’t load this data into the database at current, but we do keep track of past champions for informational purposes. At the bottom i’ve got some school-based factoids including the 2019 champs.
———————- On the Men’s Singles #1 side, a couple of upsets in the 16s but the top 6 seeds all advanced. In the quarters, only one upset with #5 Jacob Matthews of ECU taking out 4th seeded Nick Buring of Oregon State.
In the semis…both top seeds advanced with ease, with #1 Erik Garcia of CSU-Pueblo topping #5 Matthews 3,7 and #2 Alejandro Almada from Texas topping #3 seed Jeremy Dixon from Baldwin-Wallace 2,5 to setup the anticipated final.
In the final, #1 Garcia downed #2 Almada in a tiebreaker to win the title. Garcia repeats as champion, becoming just the 10th male to hold more than one intercollegiate title.
———————– On the Women’s side, the top 8 seeds all advanced to the quarters. There, similarly to the Men’s side just one upset in the #5/#4 match with Costa Rican international Melania Mela Sauma Masis (playing at her home courts at ASU) topping 4th seeded Lexi York from Oregon State in a tiebreaker.
In the semis, #1 seed Carla Muñoz Montesinos of CSU-Pueblo knocked out Sauma in two games, while #3 seeded Hollie Scott (playing out U of Washington), continued her solid form lately and topped 2nd seeded (and my pre-tourney pick) Erika Manilla from N. Arizona in dominant fashion 9,4.
In the final…Scott dominated Munoz for the win 2,8 to deny Munoz a chance at 4 straight intercollegiate titles.
———————— On the doubles side: – Mens doubles went to Garcia/Le from CSU-Pueblo, who downed the Texas pair of Almada and his partner Jerry Yang.
– Women’s doubles went to the CSU-Pueblo team of Riveros/Laime, who downed OSU’s York & Natalie Lorati in the final.
———————— Some quick facts coming out of this event: – Garcia’s Men’s #1 win represents the 8th Men’s #1 title for players from CSU-Pueblo (formerly known as the University of Southern Colorado). They still trail University of Memphis (formerly Memphis State University) which had 12 Men’s #1 winners in their history.
– Half of the now 47 Men’s #1 intercollegiate title winners have come from just three schools: Memphis, CSU-Pueblo and Southwest Missouri state.
– Tim Sweeney remains the sole player in history to win four consecutive intercollegiate titles, a feat Munoz was attempting to match.
– Scott’s victory for University of Washington represents the 25th distinct college to provide a #1 women’s winner. Memphis remains the #1 school for Women as well, providing 7 titlists.
CSU-Pueblo wins its 2nd ever overall title. Oregon State has been the dominant overall team leader here, having won 11 of the 16 overall team titles awarded since 2004.
Oregon State wins its 3rd ever Men’s Title. They have a long way to go to catch CSU-Pueblo & Memphis here, as those two schools combined have won 31 of the 47 ever Men’s team awards given out.
CSU-Pueblo wins its 1st ever Women’s title. Memphis, BYU and Oregon State have dominated here historically, winning 31 of the 45 ever women’s team titles given out.
———————— A side note: I know this tourney runs similarly to a tennis tournament, where schools provide teams seeded 1-6 … but the state of collegiate racquetball right now is such that the top rball colleges (specifically, CSU-Pueblo) are contributing such more dominant talent than other schools that I wonder if there wouldn’t be value in changing the format so that more players from the top schools could compete in the #1 division.
To wit, the #2 female player from CSU-Pueblo was current LPRT #10 ranked player Adriana Riveros and their #3 female player was Brenda Laime Jalil, currently ranked 16th on tour. Both obliterated their respective draws, barely being scored upon (Riveros won the #2 draw giving up a total of 9 points in four matches, and Laime won the #3 final 0,0). It was the same to a lesser extent on the Men’s side, with Lukas Le representing CSU-Pueblo in the Men’s #2 and likely being the 2nd or 3rd best men’s player in Tempe. Perhaps he was the sole example of a player who may very well have made the semis or higher in the Men’s #1, but my point remains. International competitions feature two players from each country; maybe intercollegiates should as well.
