Category: Doubles

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: @Kane Waselenchuk

– Doubles: @Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball & Javier Mar

The comeback is complete. Waselenchuk, who ascended to the #1 spot on tour for the first time in years, secured the 2024 year end title in dominant fashion at this event in Pleasanton. He wins his 128th career pro Tier 1 title, extending his lead over his LPRT counterpart to 15 (Paola Longoria has 113 career Tier 1 titles). More importantly, Kane secures his 15th career year-end pro title, and will do so at the age of 43, which is 4 years older than the previous record-holder. We’ll do a deeper-dive into the year end standings once all of 2023’s points expire, but suffice it to say, we’re seeing something pretty amazing here for any sport.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=45389

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

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/l60

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In the 64s, there were no real upsets of note. We got a ton of international vs international matches for young Bolivians who made the trip.

– American junior DJ Mendoza got a nice win over an up and coming Mexican Junior Sebastian Ruelas

– @gerson Miranda took out veteran international Juan Francisco Cueva .

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In the 32s:

– #21 Mar took out #12 Robbie Collins with ease

– #19 Carson advanced over #14 Carrasco as expected.

– the biggest result of the round was #4 @Andres Acuña holding firm and taking out Argentine Diego Garcia . Acuna dropped the first game but then found another gear and blitzed to a (10),2,3 win. I thought this would go the other way for sure in my preview.

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In the 16s:

– Kane crushed @Diego Gastelum 2,2, a bit of a different vibe than the last time they met.

– Mar upset #5 @Jake Bredenbeck to finish off a pretty disappointing season for the USA top dog.

– #3 Montoya got an injury default against Rocky when he took an awkward step in a rally and tweaked something in his knee.

– Tourney host and #6 Adam Manilla got a really surprising win (to this observer) by taking out the red-hot @Jordy Alonso 10,9. Great win to overcome a guy who’s shown to be a force lately on tour.

– #7 @EErick Trujillo got a walkover against @Jaime Martell Racquetball when Jaime got some really awful news from home and had to fly back immediately. Our thoughts are with Martell and his family during this tough time.

– #2 @Andree Parrilla , who had a very distant shot at maybe possibly catching Kane for #1 … fell in the 16s to his doubles partner and drastically under-seeded #15 Eduardo Portillo Rendon

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In the Quarters

– Kane crushed @Alan Natera for the third tourney running at this juncture

– Mar got an injury walkover against Acuna, one of three WBF-INJ at this event.

– Manilla got a career best win by toppling Rodrigo Montoya in three. He secures just his second ever career pro singles semi final on his home courts.

– Portillo destroyed his younger Mexican rival Trujillo 7,1 to move into the semis.

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In the Semis

– Kane crushed Mar 6,3, showing no mercy this event. Mar once played a famous game against Kane at the US Open when practically no one knew who he was, using his touch to really flummox the champ and keep the game close … today was not one of those days.

– Manilla mounted a fantastic comeback in the breaker, saving match-points against at 7-10 and then rolling off four straight points to win 11-10 and move into his first career final. Both played well enough to win, and when Lalo missed an easy short-hop even Favio on the mike said, “that’s going to cost him.” And it did.

In the Finals, two lefties faced off for a pro title for the first time since a 2009 final in Allentown, PA between Kane and @Mitch Williams (ironically, Mitch’s sole career final). Manilla jumped ahead early, and kept game one close with some off-speed mid-lob Z serves and with great subterfuge on his drives, but as is typical of Kane, he hung in and ground out the game one win. Game two was more fo the same early before Kane just took over for the title 11,8.

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Points Implications of results

In the immediate aftermath of this event, Kane opens up a massive lead atop the standings to #2 Moscoso, one that will grow even more once the last two events expire from the tail end of last year (one of which was a Tier1 Moscoso win). In fact, Moscoco probably will fall to #3 once we get to December 31st. Manilla’s huge event will jump him to #4, just ahead of Parrilla. Jake will take a tumble in the ranks but will maintain top 10 status.

https://irttour.com/rankings/ are now updated for the event this past weekend.

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Doubles review

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

Montoya and Mar maintain their dominance atop the pro doubles tour. Montoya has now made the finals of 12 of the last 14 competed pro doubles events, many of them with Mar, and won seven of them. They topped the field again, this time beating Manilla & Bredenbeck in the final.

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Open Singles, other notable draws

– Two LPRT talents @Veronica Sotomayor and @Erika Manilla entered the Men’s open singles here. This is Erika’s first event back post hip surgery, while Vero had come down from Washington state with husband Sudsy Monchik to play some ball with their business partner Mark C Frank .

– Both ladies made the Open semis, but both ended falling to the same kid: Bolivian junior Sebastian Terrazas, who is playing in his age 15 season in 2024 and was the 2021 12U world champ. Watch out for this kid.

– The Argentine national Men’s doubles team of Miranda/Garcia took the Open doubles draw filled with junior national doubles teams competing next month at Junior Worlds.

– Andrea Perez-Picon took the Women’s Open RR.

– Perez-Picon also took the Mixed Open doubles draw, a fun draw where she ended up beating her sister Estefania in the finals.

– A star-studded 100+ Men’s doubles was taken by two NorCal locals Derek Chock & Greg Vezey, who got some solid wins.

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Favio Soto, Steve Schulze, Pablo Fajre, Richard Eisemann and the IRTLive crew

Thanks to the Tourney Directors Manilla and @Bobby Horn for putting this event on!

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

The LPRT is back in action this coming weekend at the Glass Door in Lombard for the annual Turkey shoot event! We’ll be back with a preview later this week.

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tags

International Racquetball Tour

Welcome to the 3rd Annual Golden State Open, the brainchild of NorCal residents Adam Manilla and David ” Bobby” Horn , who worked to bring pro racquetball back to the Bay Area after a near decade-long absence in 2022. This is their third year running this event in Pleasanton, and they project to have a massive draw in 2024. As of this writing 229 players are entered overall, including 44 Men’s pros. That’s the biggest pro draw since the 2023 World Singles and Doubles event. The group didn’t fund the portable court this year (it’s a significant expense) but still have the biggest event of the year, but still expect the biggest and best pro tourney of the year.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=45389

As noted, 44 players in the singles draw for this event, which (barring any changes in the IRT schedule) will be the last event of the 2024 season. So, lots at stake. @Kane Waslenchuk has regained #1 on tour, and thanks to Moscoso’s injury has a fairly significant lead at the top to the only guy who can catch him: #3 Parrilla. And that’s before considering the points expiration from the two events at the tail end of the 2023 season: Parrilla won the Boston Open last year while Kane lost in the semis, meaning an additional 180 point delta for Parrilla to make up. In other words … the title race is effectively over.

Thanks to the proximity of this event to the upcoming Junior Worlds, we have a slew of international juniors in the country to get some competitive matches. So we’ll get to see first hand a number of the up and coming Bolivians in particular.

top20 players missing: #2 Moscoso (elbow), #12 De la Rosa (pickleball), #13 Murray (stepping back?), #18 Sam Bredenbeck (stepping back?).

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

In the round of 64:

– Bolivian newcomer Anuari Segundo, who impressed last week in Miami, gets an opener against the veteran Guatemalan @Edwin Galicia.

– The #44 seed (as in, “Mr Irrelevant”) honors go to @Yacouba Keita, who was a semi-regular touring pro a few years back out of the Atlanta area. He goes against @Javier Mar in the 64s.

– We get a rare North American appearance from former 18U world champ @Gerson Miranda, who starts off against fellow South American @Juan Francisco Cueva .

– The best potential match of the opening round may be 31v34, USA junior @DJ Mendoza taking on top Mexican 16U junior Sebastian Alejandro Ruelas. Mendoza should be able to overpower his younger opponent, but Ruelas has a long history of Mexican and World junior titles.

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Projecting the 32s:

– #1 Kane gets his start against the Ecuadorian veteran Ugalde, who is solid but not Kane-challenging solid.

– #16/#17 is an interesting match between two Mexican juniors in Erick Cuevas and @Diego Gastelum . Cuevas has been around for a while but only this year graduated from 21U competitions, while Gastelum has been been getting significant wins lately, including a defeat of current #7 Trujillo at Mexican Junior Nationals earlier this year.

– #12 Robert Collins is the unlucky top seed to draw the under-seeded Mar, who has been hampered on the singles court for a while with injury but remains a dangerous opponent. Upset watch here.

– Best match of the round: #4 @Andres Acuna comes in seeded 4th, his career best seeding … and for his troubles draws #29 @Diego Garcia , who just cruised to a title in the Xelani open and who beat Acuna at Worlds in San Antonio in August. I’ve always been a Garcia fan and, now that he’s been in-country to acclimate (instead of flying from South America the night before a match like the last time he entered an IRT event) he’ll be favored here.

– #3 @Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball projects to face the dangerous Bolivian junior Miranda, who can score points on him for su re. I don’t see an upset, but Montoya can’t just go through the motions here.

– We get a rare appearance on tour from @Rocky Carson , seeded 19th and who is favored over #14 @Kadim Carrasco to move on here.

– @Jordy Alonso is seeded 11th here. 11th! Alonso didn’t even play an IRT event in 2023 and has just 13 career pro events in a decade of high-level play … and now sits on the cusp of the top 10. Amazing. His best career year end finish was #27 in 2022 … and now he could be a top 10 finisher with a solid tournament.

– Tough draw for US junior Cole Sendry at #15; he gets former top 10 touring pro Eduardo Portillo Rendon , who’s missed a ton of time on tour as he gets his professional pilot’s license.

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round of 16:

– #1 Kane over #16 Gastelum: they met in the 16s in Spokane, a 2,5 win for the King. Lets see if Diego can improve upon that result.

– #8 Natera over #9 Carter, again. They’ve met in the 8/9 match now three events running, each time a relative blow out for the Mexican. No reason not to think it’ll happen again.

– #5 @Jake Bredenbeck vs #21 Mar: they have not played in 2 years, dating back to the infamous DC event where Kane got hurt and Mar lost in the final to Lalo. It hasn’t been a great year for Jake, who made four finals last season but has made just one semi-final this season. Does he have one last hurrah in him? Upset watch. Like Garcia above, Mar has always been a fan favorite of mine and I always seem to pick him for an upset.

– Whoever wins between Acuna/Garcia should advance with ease here over Carlos Ramirez.

– #3 Montoya vs Carson: how much magic does Rocky have? Montoya should send Carson back to the retirement home in SoCal.

– I think a motivated #11 Alonso takes out the distracted tourney host #6 Manilla to earn a quarter final.

– #7 Trujillo and #10 @Jaime Martell Racquetball met at this juncture in Spokane last month, a tie-breaker win for the younger Erick. He’s hot coming off the win in San Luis Potosi last week and he’ll be looking for more here.

– #2 Parrilla vs #15 Portillo; well this is kind of a ridiculous round of 16 match, players who finished last year ranked 5th and 7th respectively (and who are doubles partners). But here we are. Parrilla is motivated to have a big result here to put pressure on Kane, but I could see him fall here to the always-challenging Lalo.

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Projected Qtrs:

– #1 Kane over #8 Natera, a rematch of Spokane’s quarter final.

– Garcia over Mar: if all my predicted upsets come to pass, we could see a 20-something seed in the semis here. Garcia is more dynamic than Mar right now, but this matchup could also easily be Acuna vs Jake or some combination of a top-5 guy and a 20-something seed.

– #3 Montoya vs #11 Alonso: Jordy shocked Rodrigo 11-10 in Canoga Park during his amazing run to the final; I don’t see that repeating here. Rodrigo won’t take him lightly.

– #2 Parrilla vs #7 Trujillo: they just played last weekend, a four-game win for Trujillo where each game was 11-9 one way or the other. I think Trujillo can do it again.

Semis:

– Kane over Garcia; they’ve never met, which means Diego could be star struck and get donuted in the first game, or it could mean he surprises the king and makes it close by playing out of his mind. One thing to keep in mind: both the qtrs and semis are on Saturday, so from a wear-and-tear perspective two games in a day on the newly-turned 43yr old could be a factor (Kane turned 43 just four days ago as of this writing: Happy Birthday!)

– Montoya over Trujillo; they’ve met 6 times since Feb 2023, all six Montoya wins and usually not close. They met in the Spokane quarters a month ago and it was 12,3. Rodrigo wins again.

Finals: Kane over Rodrigo in a breaker. We’ve seen this before; Montoya has the game to pressure Kane and to roll off points fast. If his drive serve is working, he’ll be in the match, and his athleticism extends points and leads to opportunities. The last time these two played was in Minnesota, where Rodrigo actually scored more points in the match than Kane but lost his composure/focus in the tie-breaker to lose 14,(7),2 after dominating game 2. This is where an onsite coach is useful; Montoya needs to maintain his focus and hope for an off-day from the nearly always “on” Kane for a win. But, that’s a tall order against a guy in Kane who can still bring it and who puts away nearly 100% of the balls he can set his feet on, even if he’s 43.

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Doubles Preview:

18 teams are poured into the Doubles competition, including some that aren’t entered into the singles competition. There’s a couple of great round of 16 matchups in store: Portillo/Parrilla vs Garcia/Miranda will be a barn burner. Gastelum/Sendrey versus the Ecuadorian national team of Cueva/Ugalde is tough; they’ve gotten some major international results in the past. Tournament host Horn is teaming with Mendoza to face Alonso/Carrasco.

In the end though, I expect the top four seeds to advance to the semis as expected, then for an all-Mexico final between the top seeds Montoya/Mar and Parrilla/Portillo.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the IRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Look for Favio Soto, Samuel Schulze, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew all weekend on the mike, calling the shots!

Thanks again to the Tourney Directors Manilla and Horn or putting this event on!

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

Associations

International Racquetball Tour

There were no officially sanctioned events this past weekend, but there was an event that used to be an IRT stop that still drew a slew of top males that’s worth recapping. It was the 2024 Capital Classic, held at the Severna Park Club just outside of Baltimore.

I’ve played at this club many times and have good memories of it. I once made a 30+ age group final there and took one the better players in the area to an 11-9 breaker before losing. It was at this club that my good friend Ben Hale taught our young racquetball playing friend Travis Woodbury how to drive a stick shift …. in my car … because I was inside drinking beer and he had drawn the short stick to drive us back to Arlington that night.

This club, and this event, used to be an IRT stop, taking over for the long-serving Laurel Sportfit club when it became a Covid casualty. It continues to be the regular stop in December for the LPRT but it seems like funding for the men has gone away. This club will always hold an important point of IRT history: it was on these courts that Kane Waselenchuk tore his Achilles heel in September 2022, drastically changing the course of the tour for the next two years.

That being said, the club and the area serve as home for a few former touring pros (@Mario Mercado, Sebastian Franco, and @Mauricio Zelada) and when players of that calibre play, others make the drive. Or, as was the case this weekend, extend their visa stay a week after last week’s Spokane event and pick up another event. This included IRT #2 @Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball and his doubles partner @Javier Mar, who formed the two top seeds in singles and the favorite team in doubles for the weekend.

Lets recap the action.

r2sports page: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=42218

In Men’s Open Singles, the Kelley brothers drove down from Jersey and each got an international round of 16 opponent. #9 Joe fell to Bolivian #8 Subieta, but #7 Sam got past Colombian #10 @set Ceballos. Excellent Ohio player Victor Migliore blanked New York’s Aaron Dardani in the opening round, while top Maryland amateur #5 John Behm silenced NC’s Sanz.

In the quarters, the two traveling tour pros Montoya and Mar, plus the two local former top-10 touring pros Mercado & Franco all advanced. Mercado labored over Migliore 14,14, while Montoya dropped a game to Subieta, but all advanced.

In the semis, Montoya outlasted home town favorite Franco in a hard-hitting display of power racquetball, while Mar outclassed the always-tough Mercado to setup a 1-v-2 final, ironically a rematch of the round of 16 match in Spokane. In that final, Montoya didn’t let his partner get started and won 8,8

Men’s Doubles Review:

There were eight teams that ended up playing in two RR groups, giving the players and the fans a ton of action. In group 1, top seeds Montoya & Mar swept the group, but were certainly pressed by Sam Kelley & Set Cuballos in the group final. Meanwhile, local boys Franco & Mercado took their group … but nearly were upset in the group final by joe Kelley & Migliore.

In the winner-take-all final, Montoya & Mar won going away 6,11 for the Montoya double.