Category: Amateur

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Juniors Historical Data Entry Updates and new Reports available

Huczek continues to hold the record for most world Junior titles.  Photo Src: © Mike Boatman 2009

When the International Racquetball Federation – IRF World Juniors event finished up in November, I took the opportunity to tackle some Juniors-focused data entry.

Historically I have only pursued full match results for 16U and 18U juniors events only. 16U has been my “dividing line” for tracking match results, thinking that tracking younger kids match results was slighly unsavory. However, the winners of these tourneys become part of permanent racquetball history no matter what their age, and there’s value in having it all in one easy to consume report.

So now the PRS database has every junior tourney winner from every USA and IRF juniors championships for all of time loaded up into the database. Furthermore, I’ve created a new “Junior Champ Matrix” report that shows all the junior winners in one place. Here’s the IRF Boys Junior’s champion matrix for all IRF Junior Worlds dating to 1989:

http://www.proracquetballstats.com/cg…/print_results_new.pl…

And here’s the Girls version:

http://www.proracquetballstats.com/cg…/print_results_new.pl…

We also have this same data completed for all of USA juniors history, dating to 1974.

Canada is a work in progress; I’ve got limited data from 2013 on-wards online and need to do r2sports and archive.org work to build history. Mexico is in even worse shape, with online records in r2sports only to 2013 and the former Mexican federation website that would have held such data having been left to pasture at some point in the 2013 time-frame. As always with Amateur FMR data … any help is appreciated.

To run these reports yourself, go to the www.proracquetballstats.com home page, click on the “Juniors” icon and scroll down to the section titled “Select category for All Results Matrix.”

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One great side-effect of having this matrix is this: we can now get great trivia questions answered quickly!

Here’s some IRF Juniors trivia:
– Who holds the most Junior Worlds Boys titles? A tie between Jack Huczek and David Ortega, each of whom won 11 World Juniors titles. b is next, with 8.
– Who won the most Junior Worlds Girls titles? Adrienne Fisher Haynes holds the record with 10 international titles; she missed out on an 11th by getting upset in her final 18U event by Samantha Salas in the 2004 world championships. Paola Longoria is 2nd with 8 junior world titles.
– Both Sudsy Monchik and Rocky Carson won three successive 18U world junior titles. The only other player to hold 3 successive titles in any age bracket was Sudsy’s now wife Veronica Vero Sotomayor, who held the 12U title from 2003 to 2005.
– American Erika Manilla had an interesting Junior Worlds career; she won 6U-multi bounce in 2005 … then didn’t win another World Junior title until her last eligible tourney, taking 18U in 2016.

Enjoy!

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2018 Alamo City Open Wrap-Up

Natera with a solid win over several compatriots in San Antonio.

A competing event to the IRT Portland event was the 2018 Alamo City Open in San Antonio, TX. Originally set to be an WRT event, this tourney and the WRT parted ways but it still featured a healthy purse. As such, it drew a few quality players to cross the border and compete.

R2sports link for the pro singles draw is here.

Here’s a quick review of the draws, singles and doubles.

No surprises really in the round of 16s: all travelling Mexican players advanced, including the criminally under-seeded Alan Natera Chavez , who took out the #3 seeded Arturo Arturo-Cinthia Burruel 4,9. If you had asked me to seed this tourney looking at who was there, i would have gone Ochoa, Estrada, Martell, Natera, Fernandez, Mendoza, then the rest of the local players starting with Burruel and Smith. Its just tough on everyone to make two guys play in the 16s who should be meeting in the quarters. Anyway.

In the quarters, the travelling contingent of Mexican talent vanquished all comers, with Martel, Estrada, Natera and Ochoa all advancing with ease. That’s when the matches of interest started.

In the first semi…Jaime Jaime Martell Neri reversed a trend of late and beat Javier Estrada 14,6. In the bottom half, Natera also showed why form doesn’t always dictate results, beating the red-hot Ernesto Ochoa in a tiebreaker 13,(6),4.

In the final, Natera held on a late rush to take game 1 15-11, then dominated the rest of the way, winning the title 11.4, Martel just had no answer for Natera’s excellent drive serve. Great local tourney, good talent for the locals. The top four Mexicans all combined to make for a great doubles final as well, with Natera/Martel combining to beat Ochoa/Estrada 11-10.

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San Luis Potosi Open Wrap-Up

Montoya

Another Thanksgiving weekend event happened south of the border; the San Luis Potosi Open in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. An excellent draw of the top Mexican players were there and battled it out. Thanks to Pro Kennex’ Mike Michael Martinez for getting me the draw and keeping me up to date on this event, which was one of the few non-R2sports.com driven tourneys we see these days.

Picking it up at the round of 16, here’s how the event went:

-#1 seed Rodrigo Montoya Solis over a qualifier (I can’t quite read his name on the draw sheet) 11,10.
– Current 18U Junior World champion and #8 seed Eduardo Portillo Rendon over #9 Seed Eduardo Garay Rodriguez 14,13 (this one is available on Facebook if you follow Portillo: he live streamed it).
– #5 seed Javier Estrada over #12 seeded IRT semi-regular Jordy Alonso 3,4
– #4 Seed Christian Longoria (brother of Paola Longoria) over #13 Alan Palomino 1,2
– #3 Javier Mar, who we last saw giving Kane Waselenchuk a heck of a game in the round of 16 at the US Open, downed #14 Rodrigo Nino Loma 1,3
– #6 Edson Martinez beat #11 Carlos Bacmeister 4,11
– #7 Ernesto Ochoa, who has had a great year and has really shot up my personal rankings, beat semi regular IRT touring vet Erick Cuevas Fernandez.
– #2 Andree Parrilla downed qualifier Elias Nieto 9,11.

In the Quarters, some upsets by seeds:
– Montoya easily beat Portillo 2,2; the 2015 Junior World 18U Champ showed the 2018 Junior World 18U champ where he needs to be.
– Estrada upset Longoria 4,11. Estrada has had a number of excellent wins so far this year and continues his rise up the Mexican ranks.
– Mar downed Martinez 6,12.
– Ochoa beat Parrilla for the second time this year 10,14. A pretty big upset by seeds and by world ranking, but Ochoa has more than proven he’s on-fire in 2018. Parrilla made the semis of the US Open, the quarters of the IRT season opener, and pretty much is a threat to make the quarters or better now at every pro event he enters, but Ochoa was better this day.

In the Semis:
– Montoya went tiebreaker to beat Estrada (13),2,6.
– Mar ended Ochoa’s run 9,3. These two met in the quarters of the Sonora Open earlier this year, with Ochoa winning en route to the title.

A Great final; a re-match of the Gran Torneo Del San Isidro tourney from earlier this fall. There, Montoya got a walk-over win. Today thought Montoya won in two 9,11.

Next up in Mexico should be the Abierto Mexicano de Raquetbol 2018 the second weekend of December. It was set to be an IRT-affiliated event but the two organizing bodies broke off the agreement a few weeks ago. The poster in the r2sports site shows Montoya, Waselenchuk and Longoria so i’m curious to see who shows up.

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Canadian National Selection Event #1 Wrap-up

Sam Murray takes the selection Men’s event (photo via Rball Canada)
… and Lambert takes the Women’s draw.

Racquetball Canada

During the Thanksgiving weekend in the US, there was good racquetball being played both north and south of the border. First tourney Review: the Canadian National Singles Selection event #1.

R2sports draw link: http://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=29942

I have been capturing these Canadian National selection events, as well as Mexican Selection events into my staging data but have not loaded them to the Amateur database. Instead the Amateur database just shows the champions of the annual “National” tournaments. Especially with the Mexican selection events (which determine who has been going to international events instead of the National champs as of late), i’m debating whether to enter the data into the database since they’re top-level competitions. I’m open to suggestions.

In the meantime, congrats to Samuel Murray and Frederique Lambert on their wins on the weekend. both entered as #1 seeds and pretty much the current unquestioned #1 players in Canada. There were few surprises in the draws, which mostly went according to chalk. Notable results to me:
– Pedro Castro just barely squeaked by Nicolas Bousquet 15,14 in the 4/5 seed quarter; very close matches. (Note: Canada plays win-by-2, so that score isn’t a typo; final score was 17-15, 16-14).
– Tim Landeryou committed Canadian racquetball fratricide, ousting his younger brother James Landeryou in the quarters.
– #2 seed Coby Iwaasa took the first game off of Murray in the final before falling in a rematch of the 2018 Canadian Nationals final. Iwaasa played great at Worlds and made the final of the WRT event in Calgary last month and looks to be nearly fully returned to the scene after a 3 year layoff.

On the Women’s side:
– Danielle Drury took out #4 seed Alexis Iwaasa in the quarters; the sole deviation from chalk seeding in the event.
– #3 seed Christine Richardson was not able to follow-up on her career amateur best result and fell in the semis.
– The Ageless Jennifer Jen Saunders made the final, losing in two to Lambert. Saunders has made the final of Canada Women’s Nationals an astounding EIGHTEEN straight years, winning 10 of those 18 finals.

These two results are big first steps for Murray, Lambert, Iwaasa and Saunders qualifying for the big 2019 international events. The annual Pan American Racquetball Championships of course, but the big event of 2019 is the quadrennial Pan American Games, which are including Racquetball for the 6th time in event history.

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Sonora Open wrap-up

Ochoa completely earned this win, with victories over several good players.

Another weekend, another strong Mexican draw for a non-Tier 1 IRT event. Lets review the Sonora Open.

R2link for the event.

The Sonora open draw was a bit deeper than last week’s Torreon draw, with a number of up-and-coming players falling in the round of 16. Among them; Rogelio Castillo, Daniel Maldonado, and Juan Loreto.

From the Quarters on-wards:

– #1 Rodrigo Montoya Solís, looking for two wins in two weekends, downed the youngster Eduardo Lalo Portillo with ease 3,7. Portillo couldn’t do much with the World Champ on this day.

– #4 seeded Javier Estrada took out #5 seeded two-time World Racquetball Tour year end champ Alex Cardona in two tight games 12,14. An excellent win for Estrada, who has now put himself in a position to make waves every time he plays.

– #3 Alan Natera Chavez could not continue his good run of form, losing to #6 Jaime Martell in a tiebreaker.

– #7 Ernesto Ochoa got revenge for last week’s quarter-finals loss by thoroughly dominating #2 seed Javier Mar 6,7. Ochoa did not miss on opportunities, made his shots and completely earned this win.

In the Semis:
– #1 Montoya earned a tough close win over #4 Estrada 10,14.
– #7 Ochoa continued his great run, beating #6 Martell in a tiebreaker.

In the final:
– Ochoa took game one over Montoya, thoroughly earning the win with incredible court coverage and crisp shot making. Mid-way through Game 2 ahead 10-6, Montoya hit the side wall awkwardly on his ankle and had to retire. So Ochoa gets the win, but wasn’t able to quite put the exclamation point on the event like he seemed he was capable of.

For me, the events of the last two weekends have now escalated the status of both Estrada and Ochoa into near top-20 realm world-wide. Great playing, great ball.
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Also a fun doubles draw, with all the top players teaming up for a solid doubles draw. In the final, the top team of Montoya/Mar had to forfeit after Rodrigo’s injury, defaulting to #3 seeded Natera/Martell. Natera and Martell had easily downed the two aforementioned players on great form (Estrada and Ochoa) in the semis while Montoya/Mar had taken out the excellent doubles players teaming up in Cardona/Martell 11-8.

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Gran Torneo Del San Isidro Wrap-Up

World Champ Montoya takes the tier-4 event in a walk-over final.

Gran Torneo Del San Isidro Wrap-Up

Hello Fans. We have a break in the schedule this week, but there was an interesting non-Tier 1 IRT event last weekend in Mexico, and another this weekend in Sonora. We don’t normally cover non-Tier 1 IRT events (and we do not load them to the databases), but this draw featured strong local draws of top players that I wanted to cover. So here’s a wrap up of the Tier 4 International Racquetball Tour​ event called Gran Torneo Del San Isidro, held in Torreon, Mexico.  We’ll wrap the Sonora Open early next week.

The Men’s Pro draw from Torreon is here at r2sports.com.

Here’s a quick wrap of the event from the quarters on:

In the Quarters
– #1 seed Javier Mar topped Ernesto Ochoa in a tiebreaker. Ochoa made a great run to the 2017 Alamo City open, topping both Gerardo Franco Gonzalez​ and Andree Parrilla​ along the way.

– #4 seed Jaime Martell Neri​ was upset by #5 seed Javier Estrada. Martell won the 2018 WRT Georgia Open, downing both David Horn​ and Jake Bredenbeck​ along the way.

– #3 seed Alan Natera Chavez​ squeaked by #6 Eduardo Lalo Portillo​ 11-10 in the breaker. Portiollo is still playing in 18U, lost in the 18U World Juniors last year but has a 16U World Juniors title under his belt. He’s part of a crew of players in the 18-22 range in Mexico right now who are all world class.

– #2 seed Rodrigo Montoya Solís​ defeated #10 seed Rogilio Ramirez in two.

In the Semis:
– #1 Mar was stretched to a tiebreaker by #4 Estrada but advanced. Estrada and Mar met in the semis of the 2017 Mexican Nationals, but his career win may be his round of 16 win over world #2 Alejandro Alex Landa ​in the Mexican Worlds selection event in June, knocking Landa out of contention for a spot on the Mexican world’s team.
– #2 Montoya cruised by #5 Natera 6,5. Natera has had a fantastic year, making the semis of the 2018 Mexican Nationals as the #32 seed, beating #1 seeded Mar, Gerardo Franco and Christian Longoria​ before falling to world #4 Daniel De La Rosa in the semis.

The final unfortunately was a walk-over win by Montoya over Mar, robbing the fans of a potentially fantastic match. Montoya is of course the defending world champ, and Mar beat two top 10 IRT players in Mario Mercado​ and Samuel Murray​ en route to the US Open quarters last October. Mar also topped Montoya in the final of the WRT 2017 La Loma event. Meanwhile Montoya’s capabilities are well known, winning a stacked 2018 World’s event by topping the likes of Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo​, Horn and Charlie Pratt​ in the final.