18U national team member Cole Sendrey topped the solid Average Joe’s singles bracket. Photo via Cole and his gofundme page.
20+ ballers braved 12 inches of snow in Jersey and some electrical issues to finish off the 4th annual Average Joe’s event late last night on 1/7/24, and they were treated to a “passing of the baton” moment of sorts.
Congrats to USA Junior national team 18U member Cole Sendrey (Kim Shipp Sendrey ) for upsetting several veteran players to take the singles title. Also, congrats to the #1 seeded doubles team of Dylan Pruitt and Austin Cunningham for taking the doubles title.
Here’s a recap of both draws.
In singles, seeds mostly held into the quarters; the sole exception being Cunningham taking out Jersey-based David Austin in the 5/12 match. In the quarters, Sendrey shocked Ohio’s #3 seed Victor Migliore to move into the semis, while the other three top seeds held on to advance.
In one semi, defending champ Kyle Ulliman took out #1 seed Pruitt, while Sendrey continued his upset run by outlasting #2 seed and event hose @Sam Kelley. In the final, Sendrey finished off an excellent run by topping Ulliman. Cole as the #6 seed beat the #2, #3 and #4 seeds en route to a well-deserved win.
In doubles, team Ohio (Ulliman and Migliore) took out the Kelley brothers in the semi, but fell in two straight to the #1 seeds Pruitt/Cunningham for the title.
Congrats to all the Average Joes for competing, and hope you all made it home without too much trouble.
Ulliman is in Jersey looking to become a 2x champ of the Average Joe’s. Photo via r2sports
With the turn of the new year, we get the 4th annual Average Joe’s money tournament, held at the famous “Court 4” on the Kelley brother’s property in Montague, NJ.
More than 20 top amateurs have traveled to Jersey for this year’s event, which is part tourney and part weekend racquetball camp on the Kelley’s property.
Past champions:
– 1st Annual in 2021: Joe Kelley over Austin Cunningham
– 2nd Annual 2022: Kyle Ulliman over Victor Migliore
– 3rd Annual 2023: Sam Kelley over Victor Migliore
This year’s event features perhaps the widest geographic draw yet, with the regular Northeast crew present, plus players from up and down the east coast, top guys in from Ohio like last year, and even top USA junior @Cole Sendrey in from Texas.
Here’s a preview of the singles and (back for the 2nd year in a row) doubles draws:
In the singles draw, your top seeds are:
#1 @Dylan Pruit from Maryland
#2 your host and defending champ Sam Kelley
#3 two-time finalist and Ohio native Victor Migliore
#4 2022 champion Kyle Ulliman.
However, there’s talent up and down the draw; the inugural champ Joe Kelley is the #8 seed, the finalist in 2021 Cunningham is the #12 seed, and superstar Junior Sendrey is the #6 seed. How will this play out
In the quarters, look for Joe Kelley to give #1 Pruitt a run for his money but fall just short. I like Cunningham to upset lefty David Austin early but fall to Ulliman in the quarters. From the bottom half, Sendrey will struggle with Migliore’s power and quickness but may get a shocker upset, while its hard to see Sam Kelley falling before the semis.
Look for Sam over Migliore in one semi, and Ulliman over Pruitt in the other semi, then Ulliman in the final to be a 2-time champ.
In Doubles, look for the top seeded team of Pruitt & Cunningham to cruise into the finals, while the bottom half semi between team Ohio (Migliore and Ulliman) and team Kelley (brothers Sam and Joe) will be a battle royale. I like the Ohioans to take out the hosts, then top #1 seeds for the title.
Watch for streaming all weekend as the guys hang out on the Kelley residence. We’ll recap on Sunday or Monday.
The Men’s draw came down to the same final that we’ve seen in the last 12 events prior to it; Murray vs Coby Iwaasa . This time around, the IRT touring pro left little doubt, cruising to a title. (see https://rball.pro/we5 for all Canada National event Men’s finals)
The Women’s draw saw Dr. Lambert win for the 6th time in the last 7 national events. See https://rball.pro/bni for all Canada National event Women’s finals)
The end of the IRT season is a-coming: the men are heading to Portland for a Satellite event this weekend, then to Pleasanton for the final event of the season. The #1 ranking is up for grabs.
After that, the LPRT heads to DC for its annual Xmas classic, to wrap up the year.
This event has been an IRT satellite event in the past, but this year was just a solid “local” Mexico tournament where at ton of the top players from that country traveled and competed in honor of @Alex Landa , who recently announced his retirement from active touring.
Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
All the regular touring pros who appeared advanced into the quarters as expected. The toughest round of 16 match was former WRT #1 Alejandro Cardona pushing 4th seed Alan Natera but ultimately falling.
Champion Parrilla topped Natera in one semi, while the namesake Landa topped his long-time pro and international nemesis Andres Acuña in the other. In the final, Andree took a close two-game victory 13,10 to claim the title.
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Doubles review
Long-time rivals and teammates Parrilla & Montoya took out the top seeds and veteran Mexican players Landa and @Alvaro Beltran in the final 12,9.
Its 3WallBall time@ @3Wall Ball starts this coming Thursday, the biggest outdoor event of the year. Players are already starting to arrive in Vegas, and I’ll be getting there Wednesday night. I’ll be commentating on the IRT feed, primarily broadcasting the 3wall Men’s Pro matches.
There were no real surprises to the Semis from the 10-man draw; we were robbed of the best quarter final match when 2-time defending USA national champ Rocky Carson announced he was skipping the event. I don’t blame him; flying halfway across the country on Memorial day weekend for a likely one-and-done against a top IRT player for someone who has played basically two tournaments all year wasn’t a strong strategy. Carson is off the national team for the first time since (I believe) 2002, an amazing stat.
In the semis, a shock upset by Adam Manilla , taking out the #1 seeded Jake Bredenbeck with relative ease in four games. A real surprise loss that has major US team ramifications for the Pan Am games (which we’ll summarize below). From the bottom, #2 Daniel De La Rosa cruised past his doubles partner Alejandro Landa to guarantee his singles qualification to the team and solidify his claim.
In the final, Manilla made a match of it, stretching the 2-time defending IRT champ to five games, but DLR persevered to claim his first ever USA singles title. Jake rebounded to take the 3rd place match over Landa, which I was initially shocked was even played given the circumstances (but read on for the likely real reason).
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US Men’s National Team/Pan Am games roster ramifications.
Your 2023-24 team qualifiers are now:
– Men’s Doubles: De La Rosa & Landa
– Mixed Doubles: Manilla
– Men’s Singles: De La Rosa & Manilla
Three players for three Pan Am Games Slots. So, absent any externalities that impact the availability/eligibility of these three players, this is your Pan Am Games Men’s team. I’d imagine that we’d line up these players exactly like this in Chile in the fall.
Now, why did they play the 3rd place match? Probably for positioning in case one of these three players cannot go to Chile. And the “order” of finishing matters when selecting the next players to go. If the USA men need a 3rd player, here’s the next in line:
– Men’s Doubles finalists from Feb: Manilla & Antone
– Mixed Doubles finalist from Feb: De La Rosa
– Men’s Singles semi finalists from May: Bredenbeck & Landa
So, next in line to be asked probably would be Jake and then Wayne, then the team would start to dig deeper. Given the import of the Pan Am Games, its not likely we’d have to; this is the crown jewel event of the sport.
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USA Women’s competition;
There were no real surprises in the 5-person Ladies draw. Lexi York did her best to upset @Rhonda Rajsich in the quarters but fell in five games. Kelani Lawrence broke her duck against Rhonda in the semis, winning in three to ensure her national team consideration. Erika Manilla had a battle against Hollie Scott that went 5 games, with Scott knowing only a win would put her into contention after early losses in doubles draws in February. In the final, Manilla took the title in an upset by seed but certainly not by LPRT current rankings. Manilla repeats as National singles champion.
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US Women’s National Team/Pan Am games roster ramifications.
Your team qualifiers are now:
– Women’s Doubles: Manilla & Michelle Key , who did not travel to Chicago this weekend to compete
– Mixed Doubles: Manilla
– Women’s Singles: Manilla & Lawrence.
So, as we thought might happen, three ladies for two spots in Chile. Someone is going to be disappointed. We can speculate now as to what the US Team committee/future US coach may decide w/r/t putting the best team forward, but that wouldn’t be fair to any of these women, who have earned their US team titles on the court.
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Canada Men’s Singles
For the 14th straight time. the final of a national Canadian tournament came down to its top two players, #1 @Samuel Murray and #2 Coby Iwaasa . There were a couple of notable down-bracket upsets, a rarity in Canadian racquetball; congrats to Kurtis Cullen for taking out #4 @Connell Lee and for #6 @Tanner Prentice to get the upset win over #3 @Trevor Webb to advance to the semis and eventually compete for 3rd place. Cullen took 3rd and capped a banner weekend for him (he also won the Doubles title; see below).
In the men’s final, Murray controlled Iwaasa to win in three 4,10,3 and claim his 4th straight National title.
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Canada Women’s Singles:
#1 Frederique Lambert won her 3rd straight Women’s singles title, and 5th overall, by downing @Juliette Parent in the final. Lambert did not cruise through this draw though, she was stretched to five games in the semis by last year’s finalist @Michele Morissette and then taken to four by the upstart Parent. Bravo to Parent for breaking through with a marquee win over Christine Keay , who had more or less solidified herself as the #2 Canadian woman over the past few years with three straight singles finals appearances at Nationals.
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Canadian Men’s Doubles:
A huge upset in the doubles final, as the Murray brothers were taken out by Iwaasa and Cullen in three. This was a rematch of last year’s final, and breaks the string of three straight Canadian doubles titles by the Murray brothers.
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Canadian Women’s Doubles:
#1 seeds Lambert & Morissette defended their Canadian national doubles title by taking the 5-team round robin group without losing a match. A 3-way tie for second resulted in Keay and Prentice being the 2nd place finishers.
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Canadian Mixed Doubles:
In a small round robin competition, @Christian Pocsai and @Ofelia Wilscam took the National mixed doubles draw title, a first for both. Unfortunately, this draw was purged of most of the top players by virtue of the workload it would have caused, something for the US to consider if/when we combine both singles and doubles qualifying into one event.
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Canadian Pan Am Games team selection discussion;
So, the Canadian team selection process may now be a bit complicated by the above results, and thanks to their poor showing at the 2023 PARC. Canada finished 6th in Men’s and 10th in Women’s in Guatemala, meaning they were no where close to the threshold for getting three players in either gender. So just two men and two women will be selected to represent Canada in Chile. But who? Here’s your player pool:
– Men’s Singles: Murray, Iwaasa
– Men’s Doubles: Iwaasa, Cullen
– Mixed Doubles: Pocsai
Technically four players for 2 spots, though there’s a clear gap between Murray & Iwaasa and the others, so one would have to think that will be the team. It normally is Murray & Iwaasa at the major IRF events and i’d have to think it’d be the same in Chile.
Canadian Women’s team selection consideration.
Here’s the qualified female players under consideration:
– Women’s Singles: Lambert, Parent
– Women’s Doubles: Lambert, Morissette
– Mixed Doubles: Wilscam
A tough decision here; both Parent and Morissette have represented Canada internationally in each of the last three years, but Lambert is the double qualifier. However, as we know Lambert is a practicing medical doctor and may very well not be able to get away for a trip as long as the Pan Am games requires. I could see a repeat of the 2023 PARC team of Parent & Morissette in Chile, but we hope to see Lambert (the former #2 LPRT player) show up at the sport’s biggest stage.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend. Pablo Fajre and his IRT crew in Chicago, and @JJT R Ball and Timothy Baghurst in Winnipeg.
We have a couple weeks off until the final LPRT stop of the season in Chesapeake, where the title is up for grabs for the first time since the late 2000s.
Can Erika make it a triple of US titles in Chicago? She already holds Doubles and Mixed from February.
Photo 2021 US Open via Kevin Savory
It has been a minute since we last published in this space. But we’re to the end of May, which every year means Nationals time.
This year, the USA Racquetball did something a little different with its qualification, having doubles in February on its normal course then having just a National team qualifier at the Glass court club in Chicago land. The reasons behind this were partly financial in nature: National singles has struggled in attendance and in revenue for the last few years, so a combined event going forward seems inevitable. This weekend in Chicago there’s a small shootout in conjunction with the 15 top US nationals competing in a win-or-go-home singles competition for the National team slots.
The Seedings for singles, in a change to some years’ past, is done by the USA Rankings as of the time of seeding. As a result, you may be somewhat surprised by the seeding. Jake Bredenbeck gets the #1 seed over two-time defending IRT pro champ @Daniel De La Rosa . The other slight surprise is probably Thomas Carter pipping Adam Manilla for the 4th seed despite their current IRT rankings being reversed. Otherwise the draw is probably as you’d expect. 2022’s champion Rocky Carson has fallen all the way to 6th as he’s essentially retired from IRT competition.
In the quarters:
– Jake advances past Indiana amateur James Black.
– Manilla should advance past Carter in a battle of lefties.
– In a rematch of the 2022 final, Carson takes on Alejandro Landa . It may look curious that the two finalists from last year are seeded 3rd and 6th, but that’s where the rankings fall and they’re probably a fair representation of the talent level right now. It is tough to know where Landa’s game is week in and week out, while Carson no longer tours and may be rusty against top competition. I’ll predict Carson in an upset.
– De la Rosa likely takes out @Sam Bredenbeck , who should advance past Texan amateur Limonciello in the play-in.
Semis:
– Jake over Adam: amazingly these two have managed to avoid each other in all top competitions since 2017. Jake has never lost to Adam, and is playing better than ever, and should advance.
– DLR over Rocky; Rocky did get a h2h win over DLR back in march 2022 on these exact courts, but otherwise DLR has owned Rocky since mid 2019. DLR is qualified already for the team by virtue of his doubles win earlier in the year, but doesn’t want to leave anything to chance.
Finals: Playing for pride, as the two finalists are on the team, but I suspect Jake is more interested in owning a US national title than DLR. I think jake wins.
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National team impact if these results hold. Right now the team is:
– Men’s Doubles: DLR and Landa
– Mixed Doubles: Manilla
– Men’s Singles projection: Jake and DLR.
(Note: post publishing i deleted in accurate claim that there’s Worlds in august. There’s World SENIORS in august, not regular worlds).
This would make for 4 players for 3 Pan Am Games slots, and would make for a difficult selection between Landa and Manilla for the third slot. Unless there’s other circumstances that arise, someone with a national title will be disappointed for the Pan Am games roster.
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USA Women:
Just 5 players in Chicago, and like with Rocky above, we see the impact of the non-protected seeds on the essentially retired @Rhonda Rajsich , a finalist in 2022. Thanks to her inactivity playing, she’s dropped behind all the top USA women competitors and is seeded 4th here.
Kelani Lawrence gets the #1 seed despite being well behind Erika Manilla in the LPRT points standings right now, seemingly by virtue of a couple of h2h wins over Brenda Laime recently, who has now shot up to #2 overall.
Predictions.
in the quarters, Lexi York has a shot at topping Rajsich, but we’ll go with the legend to advance. She always comes to play in Nationals.
In the semis:
– Lawrence should advance past the winner of York/Rajsich, though Rhonda has had a lot of success beating Kelani in USA national events. They’ve met in this event every year since 2016 save one, and Rajsich has beaten Kelani in every year save one. So, Kelani has her work cut out for her; the winner here gets on the team, the loser is out.
– In the 2/3 seed semi, @Erika Manila faces a familiar foe in Hollie Scott , who she keeps running into on the pro side as well. Manilla has handled Hollie multiple times in the past year and has only lost to the Washington native once in 7 known meetings. Manilla moves on.
In the final, i’d expect Manilla to win over Lawrence if seeds hold; these two have very little history playing each other, kind of surprising given that the top of the US women’s pool has been the same four players for years.
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National team impact if these results hold. Right now the team is:
– Women’s Doubles: Erika and Michelle Key
– Mixed: Erika
– Singles projection: Erika and Kelani
So, if these results hold, it’d be three women qualified for the team for the Pan Am Games … but we only get 2 spots thanks to our team’s poor finish at the 2023 PARC. See https://www.santiago2023.org/descargas/en/Racquetball.pdf for the team qualifications to Pan Am games: host nation plus top 3 countries at PARC get 3 players, the rest two.
Erika triple-qualifying would make one decision pretty easy, but how would you decide between Key and Kelani for the 2nd spot? And, what if we get a surprise singles finalist (Scott or Rhonda?) That’d throw a huge monkey wrench into the team selection procedures.
I don’t envy the US National team committee, who will have to make some tough decisiosn on who to send to the sport’s marquee event later this year.
Why does Canada use Trackie instead of R2sports? Because of new regulations in Canada that require personal information of Canadian citizens to be kept in Canada.
Canada is having their Nationals this week and weekend as well, but they’re stretching this into an all week affair and holding Singles, Doubles and Mixed all at once. Lots of playing for the top guns, with round robins all week feeding into single elimination draws this weekend.
On the Men’s singles side, 11 straight Canada national selection events/nationals tournaments have come down to the same two guys in the final: Samuel Murray and @Coby Iwaasa . With all due respect to the rest of the Canadian men right now, its hard not to think this weekend will be anything other than the 12th. Mostly its Murray taking the titles, but their last meeting went 12-10 in the fifth, and Iwaasa can play. I’m predicting Murray over Iwaasa in another barn burner.
Women’s Singles:
Frederique Lambert is in the draw, which usually means everyone else is playing for 2nd place. Lambert has just ONE loss in Canadian nationals in the last decade, a finals loss to Jen Saunders (now the sporting director for Racquetball Canada) in May of 2014.
So, we’ll go out on a limb and say that Frederique will take this championship. The next four seeds in Christine Keay , Michele Morissette , and Parent Julienne will jocky for 2nd place.
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Canadian Doubles:
Men’s Doubles: They’re already to the semis by the time you’re reading this, and the #1 seeded Murray brothers are still the favorites. With Canada only getting two Pan Am games spots, likely we’ll see Murray play with Iwaasa at the Pan Ams like he normally does internationally.
Women’s Doubles: Lambert is teamed up with Morissette to be the formidable #1 seed, and only Keay/Prentice seem like they have a shot to unseat them.
Mixed Doubles: none of the singles favorites are playing in Mixed, so the draw is wide open. Four teams are playing, which means we’re going to likely have a brand new international rep for Canada at the next PARC event in the spring of 2024.
Congrats to John Dowell of the University of Missouri and to Annie Roberts of the University of the Pacific for taking Gold #1 Intercollegiate titles this past weekend at the 2023 USA Racquetball Intercollegiates championships.
This was the 49th edition of this event, dating back to 1973. Jerry Hilecher won the very first intercollegiate title, playing out of the same University of Missouri that Dowell does.
In the team competition, Oregon State was able to reclaim their overall title from Missouri, and thus tied Memphis State (now the University of Memphis) with 12 overall team titles in the competition’s history. Oregon State also took the Men’s title, while Missouri took the Women’s title.
Congrats to the 231 HS entrants who traveled to Portland to compete in this year’s USA Racquetball High School championships. This was the 35th iteration of the tournament, held every year (save for Covid) since 1988.
Here’s a quick run-through of your Gold division winners:
– Boys Singles Gold #1: Benjamin Horner from Iowa takes the crown; its the first time a player from Iowa has won a HS national. He defeat’s Texas’ DJ Mendoza in the final.
– Girls Singles Gold #1: @Naomi Ros repeats as Prep champion out of Douglas MacArthur HS in San Antonio. @George Bustos ‘s program continues to churn out top junior talent.
– Boys #1 Doubles: Luke Dannegger & Nicholas Heinlein out of St. Louis University HS in Missouri take the crown, going wire to wire as the #1 seeds.
– Girls #1 Doubles: Avery Oppermann & Gabbie Roseman out of Kirkwood High in Missouri also take the crown as the #1 seed, continuing St. Louis’ dominance.
– Mixed #1 Doubles was taken by Ros & Mendoza, giving Ros the weekend double.
In the team competition:
– Overall Team: Kirkwood HS in St. Louis, who repeat as overall Team Champions and win their 5th ever Combined National title.
– Boys Team: St. Louis University HS from St. Louis: this boys-only school wins for the 12th consecutive time and 16th overall. SLUH has now won 16 of the 30 Boys titles competed since High School Nationals started in 1988.
– Girls Team: Kirkwood also took the Girls title here, which powered them to the overall title. This is their first ever Girls title.
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The Missouri High School Association maintains the best historical site for results i’ve seen of basically any racquetball organization: see this page for a full list of team winners: https://www.mohsrball.com/national-champion-teams
Natera wins in Montana. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory
No Tier 1s or major events on the calendar last week, but we did have a couple of interesting pro-level competitions going on. Here’s a quick recap of two events that had some pros and internationals competing.
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First up; the Montana Winter Classic, an IRT-500 (which means basically players get $500 per round won from the quarters onward). This tournament drew a handful of regular touring pros and some top Canadian players.
the brainchild of top Florida amateur Alex Zamudio , this tournament featured an old-school open only draw; big money to enter, winner takes all style competition.
25 Pros from around the country and around the world entered the singles (34 together for 17 teams in the doubles), and here’s how the action went down.
Pro singles:
The story of the tourney had to be Mexico 21U player Diego Gastelum , who upset Ecuador international Juan Francisco Cueva in the 16s, then Guatemala’s Edwin Galicia in the quarters, then the #1 seed and easy tournament favorite @aAlejandro Herrera in the semis to make the finals as an #12 seed.
From the bottom side, Ecuador’s longtime veteran @Jose Daniel Ugalde worked his way th rough the draw, upset #2 @Nolsen Jimenez
in the semis, then took out Gastelum in the final to claim the big prize.
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The Doubles draw was wide open, with top seeds falling early on both sides. The #1 seeded team of Zamudio & Morales was taken out by Gastelum & Gomez in the quarters, while the #2 seeds (Team Ecuador Ugalde/Cueva) was upset by the legendary Sudsy Monchik playing with Charles George . Neither of these upset-minded pairings could go much further though.
In the end, the Floridians rose to the top, with Herrera (paired with Bolivian Fronton veteran @Marcelo Vargas Aguilar ) taking on Jimenez and Mike Harmon from the bottom half. Jimenez and Harmon blew it up in the final, winning 6,6 to take the title.
USAR had National doubles team qualifying (along with amateur singles), Mexico hosted National Singles and Doubles (though they didn’t play Mixed), and Canada had their Winter 2022-23 season Singles only qualifier.
Congrats to the Open/National team winners on the weekend:
– Women’s Doubles: Alexandra Herrera & Montse Mejia
Canada:
– Men’s Singles: Samuel Murray
– Women’s Singles: Michele Morrissette
Bolivia
– Men’s Doubles: Moscoso/Carrasco
– Women’s Doubles: Barrios/Daza
For USA, Mexico and Bolivia, these winners (and singles finalists) now qualify to represent their country in the 2023 IRF events.
– PARC in April in Guatemala City
– Central American & Caribbean Games in July in the DR (Mexico Only)
– The big one: The 2023 Pan American Games in Chile in October (though qualifying for Pan Am games depends on performances in PARC, and not all national team members from each country are automatically qualified).
Note: different countries use different rules: the PARC representatives for the USA will be the existing 2022 team and these winners “terms” start July 1. I’m not sure what Mexico will do for its 2023 PARC team at this point, and Canada’s actual Nationals are in May to determine the Worlds/Pan Am games team.
Newly switched De La Rosa paired with another former Mexican national in Landa to capture the Men’s Doubles title. They were pushed to a 5th by the Bredenbeck brothers, but blew them away 11-2 in the breaker. From the top side, defending national champs Rocky Carson and @Charlie Pratt were taken out by the surprise pairing of Adam Manilla and amateur Wayne Antone . Manilla and Antone couldn’t do much against two top-5 IRT pros in the final, losing in three straight.
– USA Women’s Doubles:
@Erika Manilla and Michelle De La Rosa dethroned the defending champs Scott & Lawrence in four games to take the title. mDLR makes her 3rd National team while Erika makes her 4th straight.
– USA Mixed Doubles:
The Manilla siblings took down two-time IRT champ De La Rosa and Scott to claim the MIxed title. This is the first time Adam has qualified to represent the USA in an international competition.
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Mexico:
– Men’s Singles:
In a massive draw, #1 seed Montoya held serve and ran a gauntlet of tough players to take the title. It is his 3rd National singles title since 2018 and his 4th time qualifying for Singles.
He certainly earned it: by virtue of FMR’s weird seeding, a slew of better-than-their-ranking players were drastically under-seeded and played into top players early. Montoya defeated, in order, Eduardo Garay in the 32s, 7-time Junior national champ Jose Carlos Ramos in the 16s, then rising star Trujillo in the quarters, his doubles partner Mar in the semis, and then current top-4 IRT player Portillo in the winner’s bracket final. Phew.
Portillo dropped to the loser’s bracket and topped Parrilla for the second time in two days to finish in 2nd place and secure his first ever Mexican National team spot.
– Women’s Singles
Even though she’s faltered a bit lately, Longoria crushed the competition this weekend, beating Parrilla 4,2,6 in the semis and Mejia 2,3,8 to win yet another Mexican National title. Our records only go back to 2014, but it is believed that Paola has won every singles title save for one since 2007.
– Men’s Doubles
Mar/Montoya won their 4th National title in 5 years by taking an 11-9 5th game thriller over Portillo/Parrilla. Fun fact: Montoya has been in every single Mexican National doubles final since 2016.
– Women’s Doubles
It finally happened: Longoria & Salas were beaten in a Mexican Nationals event. The 15-time defending champions (that’s every single tournament since 2007) were toppled by Mejia/Herrera in a 5-game showdown. It didn’t look like it would be close, with the two long-time veterans taking the first two games. however, the lefty/righty pair stormed back to take the next three games and cruise in the 5th 11-6 for their first Mexican National title.
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Canada:
– Men’s Singles
Samuel Murray shook off an injury that has vexed him for months and outlasted #2 Coby Iwaasa in five tight games. It couldn’t be any closer, with Sam winning in the 5th 12-10 to take yet another Canadian National event. The two players split the selection events and will remain the top 2 seeds at Canadian Nationals in May.
– Women’s Singles
Michele Morrisette took her 2nd career Canadian National event title, defeating the #4 seed Danielle Ramsay in the final. Ramsay had topped #1 seed Christine Keay in a big upset and was the first time she had advanced to a National level final.
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Bolivian National Doubles:
From what we can glean from Facebook posts, Barrios & Daza took Bolivian Doubles over Sabja and an unknown partner.
For the men, it was four familiar names in the final, but they were teamed up in an unexpected manner. Moscoso teamed with Carrasco, while Moscoso’s regular partner @Roland Keller teamed with his brother @Carlos Keller Vargas. In a hard hitting final, Moscoso and Carrasco came out on top.
