Category: Amateur

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2020 Wintergreen Wrap-up

Zelada captures a strong Wintergreen pro field. Photo via youtube screenshot capture of Formula flow promotional video

While the International Racquetball Tour was in Austin this past weekend for the Longhorn Open, one of the longer continuously running events in the land was happening back in my neck of the woods, with an IRT Tier 5 draw plus a solid Women’s open draw that saw some great matches and contributed to some great Mixed Open play.

Here’s a wrap-up of the 2020 Wintergreen Classic from Laurel, Md this past weekend.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=30705

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In the Men’s Pro:

Seeds when chalk to the semis, where the top four seeds advanced in #1 Maurice Miller, #2 MoMo Zelada, #3 Troy Warigon and #4 David Austin. We saw all these players in action in Laurel when the IRT visited in September, and they were all back here for this event.

Other notables in the draw: LPRT touring pro and Momo’s wife Masiel Rivera Oporto competed in the draw, upset the 5th seed and fell in the quarters. Top east coast junior Dylan Pruitt, who represented the USA playing doubles in the World Juniors last November, was the 6th seed and fell to home-town player Warigon in the qtrs.

In the semis:
– #1 Miller defeated New Jersey’s #4 seed Austin 5,7
– #2 Zelada went tie-breaker with #3 Warigon as they often do, with Zelada coming out on top again 11-4.

In the final, Zelada outlasted Miller for the third time in the last year in east coast events, blanking him in the breaker to take the title.

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Women’s Open:

Virginia’s Kelani Lawrence was the 3rd seed of three LPRT pros in this round robin, but beat both Valeria Centellas and Masiel Rivera in dominant fashion to take the title. It was definitely a statement by Kelani, who has now broken into the LPRT top 20.

Interesting side note: Centellas’ home town in r2sports was listed as Buenos Aires, Argentina. I had heard rumors that she was considering a country switch from Bolivia to Argentina and I wonder if it is now official. This is an interesting development for the international game; Argentina has long been represented by two top LPRT pros in the international game (Maria Jose Vargas and Natalia Mendez, ironically themselves both Bolivian-born and naturalized as well). We’ll see if this gets officially announced at some point.

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In Men’s Open Doubles; the 2nd and 3rd seeded singles players Miller and Warigon teamed up to dominate long-time Virginia-based tourney players Ross Weinberg and Raul Berrios in the final. Good showing by the veteran team to oust the #2 seeded youngsters of Pruitt/Austin to advance.

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In Mixed Open Doubles: the presence of a number of top women’s players made the Mixed Open draw fabulous.

In one semi, #1 seeds Warigon & Lawrence took out top dc-area doubles players Weinberg and Kristen Junkin Jones, and in the other semi #2 seeds Miller and Centellas defeated Rivera and Pruitt.

In the final, the reigning world doubles champion Centellas helped spur her team to victory, with Miller/Centellas winning a tight two-game match against Warigon/Lawrence.

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Great play all around

International Racquetball Tour
LPRT
International Racquetball Federation – IRF
USA Racquetball
Federación Boliviana De Raquetbol – Febora
Federación Boliviana de Racquetball
Asociación Argentina de RacquetballRacquetball Tournament in Laurel, MD USA at SportFit Total Fitness Racquet Club. 1/17/2020 – 1/19/2020 2020 Wintergreen Classic.R2SPORTS.COM

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Davey Bledsoe 3/7/51 – 12/29/19

Hall of Famer Bledsoe was 68. Photo via USRA Hall of Fame

The Racquetball world got sad news over the holiday weekend; former Men’s pro champ and Hall of Famer Davey Bledsoe has passed away.

Bledsoe was born in 1951 in Kingsport, TN. He was one of the earliest racquetball pros in the sport, playing half the events in the first pro season on record (1974-5), then was a full time touring pro until the 1980-1 season.

Here’s a link to Bledsoe’s Player Profile at ProracquetballStats.com, summarizing his pro singles career:
http://rball.pro/7E09C5

Bledsoe’s best pro season was the 1976-77 season, where he made the semis or better in 6 of the season’s 12 sanctioned events and finished the season ranked #2 on tour. More importantly, he won the 1977 DP/Leach National Championships over #1 Marty Hogan​, giving Hogan his sole loss on the season in a 21-20, 21-19 match. Pundits from the era called the match either the greatest match in history, the biggest upset in history … or both. See https://www.proracquetballstats.com/irt/greatest_upsets.html for a fun list of some of the biggest upsets in pro tour history. This win gave Bledsoe the year-end Pro title and he is in a rather exclusive club; only 15 men have ever won a pro title in the sport’s history and he’s one of them.

The PRS match report for this 1977 Nationals tourney is here http://rball.pro/9EC830 . And, If you want to see a fun recap of that 1977 Nationals event … surf to this youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaI-NgBK5Q4&t=4s . Feel free to mute the 70s disco music :-).

As you can see from the video, Bledsoe was tall and lanky, lots of court coverage and lots of emotion in his play. He survived a furious comeback in game two to take the National title over Hogan, who went on to win the next four National titles.

In his prime, Bledsoe also competed in the Outdoor Championships in California, taking the singles title in 1978 (also over Hogan in the final) and making the semis or finals in several other years in the 70s and early 80s.

Bledsoe was part of an interesting group in racquetball lore: the “Memphis Mafia,” a group of top players in the Memphis area who played with Elvis Presley at his Graceland home. In case you didn’t know … Presley was an avid racquetball enthusiast and had two courts constructed on the grounds of his home, where he played along with some of the top players in the game at the time. Bo Keeley wrote about the group well here: http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=8674 . Its a fun side-note in American history.

Bledsoe retired from the pro tour after the 1980-81 season. He continued to play Amateur tournaments for years and claims 13 National amateur titles. He was inducted into the USAR Hall of Fame in 2010.

After his playing career ended, he began a career in Network Operations, working for major Telecom firms and for some Defense contractors in the DC area before retiring in Atlanta.

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Xmas Classic IRT Tier 5 Singles wrap-up

Maurice Miller the triple-winner on the weekend. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

There was a 14-man IRT Tier 5 event at the LPRT Xmas classic; here’s a recap of that and some of the other amateur events that went on.

A ton of the LPRT pros played Mixed Open, there was a solid Women’s Open draw, and a few Men’s Open teams as well.

In the IRT Singles draw:
– #1 Maurice Miller took out top VA amateur #4 Thomas Gerhardt in one semi, and then #3 Troy Warigon defeated #2 Mauricio Zelada in the other. The 2/3 match was pretty special; the two home-court players played the perfect match: 14,(14),10.
– In the final, MIller overcame a game-1 loss to defeat Warigon for the title.

In Men’s Open, the two singles finalists teamed up to take the Open Doubles title over #3 seeds Dylan Pruitt and Jersey native David Austin.

In Women’s Open: Carla Muñoz Montesinos made up for her quarters loss in pros to take the singles Open title over Lexi York.

In Mixed Open, the two Mens singles finalists advanced again to the finals, and there Miller teamed up with Natalia Mendez Erlwein to take the title over #2 Warigon, who played with Virginia native Kelani Lawrence.

This made Miller the rare triple-winner on the weekend.

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Deportivo Xtreme 1st annual Racquetball Tournament results

Estrada with a nice win in Juarez. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

There was a small RKT sponsored event in Juarez over the weekend with an 18-man pro singles draw. No r2sports link, and it was a bit tough to get the results, but here’s a quick wrap.

If you follow Xtreme deportivo on Facebook you can find some video for the matches from the quarters onward.

In the qtrs:
– #1 Javier Estrada advanced to the semis.
, #4 Javier Mar advanced to the semis.
– #3 Ernesto Ochoa defeated #6 Rogelio Ramírez Castillo,
– #7 Rodolfo Esparza upset #2 Alan Natera Chavez 11-9 in the breaker for a surprise win.

In the semis:
– #1 Estrada d #4 Mar, a second successive win over Mar for Estrada in a local Mexican event and a good statement on his ability to consistently play with top players like Mar.

– #3 Ochoa d #7 Esparza to move on to the final.

Final: #1 Estrada d #3 Ochoa.

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there’s one more RKT event on the schedule for December; it’s two weeks from now again in Juarez and is a lower-tier IRT sanctioned event, so it should have a solid showing.

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San Luis Open 2019 Wrap-up

Portillo gets a win on home soil. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

RKT hosted a solid event in San Luis Potosi over the weekend. The 2019 San Luis Potosi open. The draws weren’t online: thanks to Lalo Portillo for emailing me a picture of the draw so that I can do this recap.

Lets recap the Men’s singles event:

In the 16s, just two upsets by seeds both in the typical spots (8/9 and 7/10 matches):

– #1 Andree Parrilla took out #16 Rodrigo Nino
– #9 Jordy Alonso got a nice win over #8 Christian Longoria.
– #5 Javier Estrada took out #12 Andres Trejo
– #4 Javier Mar beat #13 Emir Mtz, fresh of an appearance at the junior worlds.
– #3 Rodrigo Montoya Solís took out Cristhian Sanchez Rico in two.
– #6 Alan Natera Chavez defeated Saul Rivera in two.
– #10 Alejandro Romo took out the youngster Elias NIeeto Zedalav in two closer games.
– #2 Lalo Portillo99 defeated Diego Gastelum in two.

These results setup some really solid quarter finals.
– #1 Parrilla took out #9 Alonso 9,6
– #4 Mar handled #5 Estrada in two games 5,6 to avenge a loss in an RKT event earlier this fall in Mexico City.
– #6 Natera got a solid win over Montoya 10,9. These two have split matches evenly against each other all year.
– #2 Portillo crushed the upset minded Romo in two.

In the semis, we got the 1-2 final we sought.
– #1 Parrilla took out #4 Mar (13),10,9. Despite the seeding (which was done with IRT points b/c this was an IRT sanctioned event), this is an upset in my book.
– #2 Portillo advanced with a solid two game win over Natera 12,12 (this may have been 2,12; the handwriting on the draw is pretty scratchy). Either way, this is not the first time in 2019 that Portillo has beaten Natera in SLP on home soil.

In the final:
– #2 Portillo got one of the best wins of his career, topping #1 Parrilla (13),12,5 to take the event.

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This event was purportedly an IRT Tier 5 event, so the players will get a bit of a ratings bump ahead of next weekend’s IRT event in Oregon. It won’t be enough for Portillo to eclipse Samuel Murray for 8th place on the tour, but he’s well on his way to that goal.

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Next up! IRT Tier 1 action in Oregon, with one of the better events of the year.

International Racquetball Tour
RKT
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol

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Racquetball Canada National Selection Event #1 Wrap-up

Murray continues his recent dominance in Canadian racquetball, taking the first National selection event of the new season. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer: Kevin Savory

While the US was recovering from a long holiday weekend, the Canadians were holding the first of their three national-level events used to select teams for next year’s international events. This past weekend’s event was held in Edmonton, AB, CAN.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=31345

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In the Men’s Open, IRT top 10 player Samuel Murray continued his dominance over Canadian men’s racquetball, running to the title without giving up more than 8 points in a game, defeating #2 seed Coby Iwaasa in the final 5,8.

Murray has not lost in a top-level Canadian event since the final of the 2017 nationals and remains in pole position to continue to represent Canada at next year’s slate of IRF events (which will include PARCs and Worlds).

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In Women’s Open, former LPRT top player Frederique Lambert took time off from her new Medical career to take the Women’s Open over #2 seed Christine Rchrdsn. Lambert has not lost a top-level Canadian event herself since 2014, though she’s had to take an understandable step back from competition with the commencement of her new career.

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PRS doesn’t load these National team qualifying events into the database, but we do have them captured and staged for possible future use.

Congrats to your winners on the weekend.

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Racquetball Canada
International Racquetball Tour
LPRT
International Racquetball Federation – IRF

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World Juniors 2019 Doubles Wrap-Up

Congrats to all your Doubles team winners from the past week’s 2019 Junior Worlds competition in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Boys 18U: Tomas Sanchez / Pablo Freer, Costa Rica
Boys 16U: Adrian Jaldin / Hector Barrios , Bolivia
Boys 14U: Luis Renteria/Jorge Gutierrez, Mexico
Boys 12U: Eder Renteria/Sebastian Ruelas, Mexico
Boys 10U: Luis Medrano/Sebastian Ruiz, Bolivia

Girls 18U: Valeria Centellas/ Angelica Barrios, Bolivia
Girls 16U: Micaela Meneses/Camila Rivero, Bolivia
Girls 14U: Valeria Miranda/Krystin Salinas, Bolivia
Girls 12U: Yanna Salazar/Fernanda Trujillo, Mexico
Girls 10U: Nicol Mancilla/Suszel Pairo, Bolivia

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Total Doubles medals by country:
– Bolivia: 6
– Mexico: 3
– Costa Rica 1.

I think there was just one USA team that even made the final, and it was in one of the younger groups. Combined with the singles results, really another step towards Bolivian dominance.

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Quick narratives about each of the older age group draws:

In Boys 18U:
– The #1, #2 and #3 seeds all fell in the first round of the knockouts: the CRC team was the 9th seed and defeated the #8, #1, #4, and #6 teams to win the title on home soil. Great showing.

In the Boys 16U:
– Barrios is the double winner on the weekend, taking 16U singles and doubles. They defeat the American team of Prasad/Hansen in the final.

In Boys 14U:
– The story of the event was the Irish team of OGorman and Hanrahan, who topped the #1 seeded American team en route to the final. There though, the Mexicans won with ease to take the title.

In Girls 18U:
– the two dominant Bolivians Centellas and Barrios teamed up to dominate the doubles draw, making Barrios the double winner on the weekend in 18U. They defeat Mexico in the final.

In Girls 16U:
– As with the Girls 16U draw, the Bolivian top-seeded team met the Mexican team in the final and won in two.

in girls 14U:
– Once again it was Bolivia vs Mexico in the final, and another Bolivian two-game win.

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I think I may invest some time to at least capture the Junior Doubles winners. It seems like it comes up enough that I’d like to at least have a mechanism to highlight titles for various players. I’ll start with Junior Worlds and will post at a later date when the data is available.

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Next up on the schedule? LPRT in Chicago this coming weekend (also an IRT tier 5 so we’ll have some Men’s pros there too), and there’s an RKT event in Mexico that looks to have a solid draw worth watching.

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International Racquetball Federation
International Racquetball Federation
International Racquetball Federation – IRF
USA Racquetball
Racquetball Canada
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
Federación Boliviana De Raquetbol – Febora
Federación Costarricense de Racquetball

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Junior Worlds 2019 Singles Wrap-Up

Congrats to all your Junior World singles winners from this past week’s competition in San Jose, Costa Rica:

Boys 18U: Gerson Miranda, Bolivia
Boys 16U: Hector Barrios, Bolivia
Boys 14U: Jhonatan Flores, Bolivia
Boys 12U: Eder Renteria, Mexico
Boys 10U: Alvaro Guillen, Costa Rica

Matrix of all Junior world Boys Winners through 2019: http://rball.pro/043BA8

Girls 18U: Angela Barrios, Bolivia
Girls 16U: Maricruz Ortiz, Costa Rica
Girls 14U: Heather Mahoney, USA
Girls 12U: Sonia Shetty, USA
Girls 10U: Nicol Mancilla, Bolivia

Matrix of all Junior World Girls Winners through 2019: http://rball.pro/BCE571

We’ll run through the Doubles winners in a post tomorrow.

All the match data for 14U, 16U and 18U competitions are loaded into the database, along with just the finals of the younger competitions. Listed below are Match Reports for each division as we review them.

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Summary of Singles results: 5 of the 10 junior world singles titles to Bolivia.

– Bolivian wins in Boys 18U,16U,14U, Girls 18U, 10U
– Costa Rica wins Girls 16U, Boys 10U
– America wins Girls 14U, 12U
– Mexico wins Boys 12U

In 2018 by way of comparison, Bolivia won 5 of the 10 junior singles titles, Mexico took 4 and USA took one.

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Lets run through the results from the 14s, 16s and 18s divisions, citing notable results and upsets.

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In the Boys 18U:

PRS Match Report: http://rball.pro/539FFE

– Just one top-8 seed failed to advance to the quarters: #3 Chilean Johan Igor was taken out in two close games by home-country favorite Pablo Freer 14,10. Freer was the unlucky recipient of a group stage that included drastically under-seeded Garcia and is clearly better than a 14th knockout seed. He faces his countryman Tomas Sanchez in the quarters, ensuring a home-country representative into the semis.
– Mexican Jose Carlos Ramos was stretched to a breaker by Guatemalan Nathan Martinez and faces his Mexican teammate in the quarters.

In the Qtrs:
– #1 Bolivian Gerson Miranda Martinez cruised over American #8 Ben Baron winning in two.
– #4 Argentinian Diego Garcia topped Ecuadorian Juan Flores, setting up the highly anticipated match with Miranda (which most observers think are the two top players in this draw).
– #6 Costa Rican Tomas Sanchez topped his team-mate Freer to advance.
– #7 Ramos topped his teammate easily, beating #2 Emir Mtz 6,7 to move into the semis and put himself in a great spot to advance to the finals.

In the semis:
– #1 vs #4 turned out to be kind of a dud, as #1 Miranda really outclassed his younger former countryman Garcia 6,8.
– #6 Sanchez won over #7 Ramos by the curious scores of 10,(0),10. It took him three shots at match point, but he eventually took the win and proved that “it only takes 26 to win.”

In the final, Miranda dominated the home favorite Sanchez to take the 18U world title 6,7. He improves on his semis finish last year and graduates from the junior ranks as the top dog.

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In the Girls 18U:

PRS Match Report: http://rball.pro/F53055

– No surprises or upsets-by-seed to the quarters.

In the quarters, chalk; all four top seeds advance in two games.
– #1 Centellas and #3 Barrios each eliminate a Mexican player early; there will be no Mexican girls even to the semis of 18U after having a Mexican win both of the last two 18U titles.
– Surprising Argentinian #4 Katz dominated USA’s Wargo in a battle of lefties to move on.
– #2 Ecuadorian Sarmiento downed USA’s Chauhan to move on.

Its a changing of the guard; no Americans or Mexicans in the 18U girls semis.

In the semis:
– Both Bolivians advanced to the final in dominant fashion as #1 Centellas and #3 Barrios vanquished Katz and Sarmiento by the cores of 5,3 and 4,0 respectively.

Fun fact; to this point in the event, here’s the total number of points allowed by the two Bolivian 18U players:
– Centellas: 27 points in 4 matches; that’s an average of less than 4 points a game.
– Barrios: 20 points in 5 matches. That’s an average of 2 (two!) points per game.

In the final, Barrios turned the tide on her country-woman from their nationals event, taking the title over the #1 seeded Centellas 10,13. Barrios improves on her semis finish from last year and graduates the junior ranks as the champion.

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In the Boys 16U:

PRS Match Report: http://rball.pro/19F6CC

– Two upsets in the round of 16: Chilean #12 Jaime Mansilla took out #5 Ecuadorian Josue Bermeo Solano in a tie-breaker. He moves on to face the Bolivian #4 seed Adrian Jaldin, who himself was stretched to a breaker in the 16s.
– Home-town favorite #10 Costa Rican Felipe Guillen took out #7 Canadian Nathan Jauvin in the 16s to move on.
– the 16s were robbed of potentially its best match when American Andrew Gleason had to retire due to injury ahead of his rematch versus #3 seed Mexican Aldo Caraveo Carrasco. You hate to see any player head out of a major event like this with injury.

In the quarters:
– Three of the top 4 seeds advanced in two games: #1 Sebastian Longoria, #2 Hector Barrios and #4 Adrian Jaldin. #6 American Timmy Hansen was the sole upset winner, taking out the #3 seed Mexican Aldo Caraveo in two games. Hansen is on fire in Costa Rica, having won all five matches and having given up no more than 10 points in any game.

In the Semis:
– #1 Longoria came from a game down to squeak by the Bolivian #2 Jaldin 11-8 in the breaker.
– #2 Barrios came from a game down to top American Hansen in 11-5 in the breaker to setup 1 v 2 in the final, the top Mexican vs the top Bolivian.

In the Final, the Bolivian #2 dropped the middle game but won the tiebreaker over the Mexican #1 to give the Bolivians another world junior title.

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In the Girls 16U:

PRS Match Report: http://rball.pro/47CC7A

Two “upsets” in the 16s, though they’re both probably not really upsets in that they’re in the 8/9 and 7/10 matches where its rather hard to separate players.
– American #9 Annie Roberts blasted #8 Cuban Sunlaris Rodriguez 1,0; she moves on to face the top seed in the quarters.
– American #10 Erin Slutsky took out #7 seeded Costa Rican Sofia Freer in a tie-breaker to move on to face the #2 seed in the quarters.

In the Quarters, we got one big upset.
– #1 Mexican Lupita Griffin, who was a semi-finalist in World 16U last year, was taken out by American #9 Annie Roberts
– #5 @ [100003954106579:2048:Maricruz Ortiz] took out #4 Katz 12,4. Interestingly, Katz has now made it further in the 18U draw than she will in the 16U draw, and Ortiz looks like the next big thing in Women’s racquetball.
– #2 Meneses and #3 Martinez each advanced to setup the expected semi-final.

In the semis:
– #5 Ortiz crushed the upset-minded Roberts 1,2 to advance to the final. Despite her seed, I’ve felt Ortiz was the favorite in this field and it will be interesting to see how she fares in the final.
– #2 Meneses cruised past the Mexican #3 Martinez 0,9 to advance to the final and setup a great show-down with Ortiz.

In the final, Ortiz mounted a furious comeback in the tie-breaker after dropping the first and blitzing Meneses in the second to take a thriller 11-10 and give the home country a gold medal to cheer for.

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In the Boys 14U:

PRS Match Report: http://rball.pro/11D127

The #3 and #4 seeds were both upset in the 16s of the knockouts, but the top two seeds both advanced to the final without breaking a sweat.

In the final, Bolivian #1 Jhonathan Flores came from a game down to top American #2 @ [507188469660347:274:Nikhil Prasad] in a tiebreaker to take the 14U crown.

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In the Girls 14U

PRS match Report: http://rball.pro/7A77EC

– The #1 seed was toppled in the quarters 11-10 by #8 seed Mexican Angela Ortega, who advanced to the final. #2 American Heather Mahoney won a tight semi then took the final to win her 3rd World Junior title.

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Another major IRF event in the books. Great job by Gary Mazaroff and his staff for their work on the broadcasts, and to Pablo Fajre for his streaming efforts.

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Org links

International Racquetball Tour
International Racquetball Federation
International Racquetball Federation – IRF
USA Racquetball
Racquetball Canada
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
Federación Boliviana de Racquetball
Federación Costarricense de Racquetball

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3rd Bi-National Racquetball Tourney

Jaime Martell gets the double win on the weekend. Photo from US Open 2019. Photographer: Kevin Savory.

Here’s a quick recap of the Bi-National event that was held during last weekend’s busy slate of events. It was held in El Paso, TX and (as a lower IRT tier event) managed to draw some top talent into its pro divisions.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=31122

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Here’s a quick recap of the Event:

– The expected final of #1 Eduardo Garay Rodriguez versus #2 Jaime Martell Neri came to pass; neither player was really challenged en route to the final.

Garay topped Jorge Trevino in one semi, while Martel took out Luis Renteria in the other. The lefty Renteria is the current reigning Mexican 14U champ and has a slew of junior national and world titles to his credit; he took out two adult Open players to make the semis. He’s one to watch for.

In the final:Martel outlasted the hard-hitting Colombian representative (though of Mexican descent) Garay, winning the singles title (14),13,7.

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LPRT pro Carla Muñoz Montesinos entered the Men’s pro draw here; she advanced a round but lost a close tie-breaker in the round of 16 (the tournament played all games win by two; Munoz lost the tiebreaker 14-12 to solid Mexican Mario Zamora

In the Women’s Open singles, Munoz ended up taking the small Women’s Pro/Open draw by winning both RR matches on Saturday over Lucia Gonzalez and El Paso’s hometown player Cristal Hernández

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In the Men’s Doubles: Munoz and partner Gonzalez upset two men’s teams to make the final. They had to default the final to the top Men’s team (comprised of the singles finalists Garay and Martell), making Jaime the double winner on the weekend.

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Abierto Nacional 2019 (Mexico City) Wrap-up

Estrada tops a solid field with a couple of good wins to take the title. Photo via US Open 2019, Photographer: Kevin Savory

Here’s a quick wrap up of the excellent RKT event held this past weekend in Mexico City, Mexico, which featured a solid set of top seeds of Mexican Nationals, a full 32-man Open draw, and a solid 15-team doubles draw.

R2 Sports App link:https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=31579

Even experienced fans may have had a tough time recognizing the bulk of the draw in this event; past the top 8 seeds there are not too many players who have appeared in pro events in the past, but the top seeds in this event made for a great saturday/sunday of action. Lets recap the action:

There were no real surprises in the round of 32.

In the 16s, just two close matches:
– #12 Jordy Alonso stretched #5 Ernesto Ochoa to a breaker before falling.
– #7 Oscar Nieto was taken to the limit by #10 Alejandro Romo Gonzalez advancing 11-10 to the quarters.

The quarters featured top-level racquetball by number of Mexico’s finest:
– #1 @Gerardo Gerardo Franco Gonzalez took out youngster Erick Cuevas 12,3. Franco had benefited from the rare double forfeit to basically get a bye into the quarters here.
– #5 Ochoa got a very solid win over #4 Alan Natera Chavez 11,4. Ochoa lost to Natera in a local Juarez event earlier this year, but turned the tides to take this solid win.
– #3 Javier Estrada had the most impressive win in the round, avenging a loss in the Juarez event earlier this year and topping the dangerous former WRT champ Alex Cardona 11,13 to move on. Since his Black Gold win, Estrada has struggled to maintain consistency in his results and could use a solid run of wins.
– #2 Javier Mar, the tourney favorite despite being seeded behind Franco, eased past NIeto 5,10 to setup an excellent semi against Estrada.

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In the semis, a couple of upsets and surprising results.

– #5 Ochoa continued his run of upsets, taking out #1 Franco in two solid games. Great tourney for Ochoa.

– #3 Estrada outlasted #2 Mar in an 11-8 tie-breaker. This is the best win Estrada has had since he took the Black Gold Cup.

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In the final, Estrada held off Ochoa’s attempts in game 2 to push the match to a tiebreaker and took the title 9,14.

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In the solid Doubles draw:

– Mar/Ochoa, as the 1 seeds, advanced to the final with a walkover win over Ruben Martinez/Romo in the semis.
– Franco/Cardona upset the #2 seeded team of Estrada/Natera 11-8 to make the final.

In the final, Cardona continued to show why he’s one of the best doubles players out there by helping his team to victory, winning 10,13.

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Great event, I hope they continue it and coordinate with the IRT next year so there’s not a scheduling conflict.

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RKT
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol