Category: Doubles

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2026 Golden State Open Preview

Can Diego Garcia make another dark-horse run? Photo Kevin Savory US Open 2018

Welcome to one of (if not) the biggest pro racquetball event of the season. Brainchild of @Adam Manilla and David ” Bobby” Horn two years ago, this event has quickly grown into a must-attend stop on the tour. In their first season, the crew got the portable court out of storage, then in their second year put that money towards a dual IRT-LPRT event to include Mixed Pro Doubles, a situation that continues this year.

This year’s event features a huge Men’s pro draw and the debut event for the Ladies pro 2026-27 season. We’ll do a preview of both here.

R2 Sports App link: see comments to get around new FB limitations.
https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54262

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IRT Singles Draw Preview

There’s a solid draw of 37 Male pros here, representing 8 countries. We’re missing two top players (#3 Flores, who continues to have Visa issues and #5 Montoya, who may not have been able to swing Worlds and the GSO while holding a real job).

Here’s some of the early round matchups to watch for, and some projections for the rest of the draw.

In the round of 64:

– Galicia vs Kurzbard in a fun international quality match between members of the Guatemalan and Argentinian teams. We haven’t seen Kurzbard in a minute; last time he played an IRT event was in 2023 in Denver, and before that the US Open in 2017. But he just represented his country at Worlds and made the trip.

– Anthony Martin vs David Horn: Horn is pulling double duty doing tournament production and playing, and is still nursing a shoulder/arm issue from earlier this year. Martin has been playing tour events for years now and is a tough out.

– Erik Garcia vs Alejandro Robles Picon: Garcia is a 2-time Intercollegiates champ back in 2018-19, while Robles Picon is one of the better juniors out there, the reigning Mexican 14U National champ but still playing out of the Pleasanton/Stockton area.

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In the round of 32, here’s some fun ones to look for:

– #9 Trujillo vs Mangalampalli: Trujillo has the hot hand, and he starts this event with the local top US Junior Vaishant, who gets another crack at what it takes to be a top IRT pro.

– #12 Diego Gastelum vs #21 Diego Garcia: the best match of the round by far, and one that should be happening in the quarters instead of the 32s. Garcia curiously didn’t attend Worlds two weeks ago for his country, but makes the trip up here. Meanwhile, Gastelum has been grinding his way closer to the top 10. This may look like a blowout by seed, but Garcia is the favorite here.

– Carrasco-Salvatierra looks like a group stage IRF match. Carrasco is the higher seed but Salvatierra should challenge here.

– Martell- Collins features two veterans who know their way around the court.

– Natera-Castillo: see below.

Lastly, we have a slew of Mexican juniors in town, and a little birdie tells us to keep an eye out for the likes of Javier Gonzalez (18U player from Chihuahua), Salim Gonzalez (also an 18U player from Chihuahua), Santiago Galina (Mexican 21U player from San Luis Potosi), but especially Santiago Castillo, who was the World 16U runner-up last year in his age 15 season and is the two-time defending Mexican 16U champ. Castillo plays into #10 Alan Natera in the opener, and could get a quick shock upset to the draw.

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Round of 16 projected matches to watch for:

– In the 8/9 seed match we project to get Trujillo-Portillo, a great match of the Mexican players who have (or are poised) to take over the mantle of Mexico’s best now that the previous generation (DLR, Landa, Beltran) has moved on and the current generation (Montoya, Mar, etc) is aging.

– Garcia-Bredenbeck could be a barn burner. Diego has beaten Jake the last three times they’ve played, but two of those meetings were on the IRF using rally scoring and with full coaching staffs on site. Will it be different on tour?

– Manilla vs the Salvatierra/Carrasco winner: a great opportunity for Adam to make a deep run starts here.

– Acuna- Alonso should be interesting, in that Acuna missed Worlds and has been nursing an injury.

– Natera-Mar in the 7/10 would be great, if both players get there. both will have stiffer challenges in the 32s than they’d probably like.

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Projected Qtrs:

– #1 Moscoso over #8 Portillo: same matchup as in Fullerton.

– #21 Garcia over #4 Manilla: I see a big run for the dark horse Argentine

– #6 Parrilla over #3 Acuna: Andree has the h2h advantage here.

– #2 Waselenchuk over whoever comes out of the Natera/Mar quarter.

Semis:

– Moscoso stops Garcia … but this is no gimmie. Garcia beat Moscoso in the 2025 PARC semis and Moscoso needed a fifth game 12-10 to beat him in the World Games last year.

– Waselenchuk over Parrilla, rekindling an old rivalry that’s included a triple donut and an 11-10 tiebreaker win for Andree.

Finals; Yes, it’s boring but i’ve got 1v2, Kane v Conrrado for the 6th time in the last 9 finals on tour. Golden State 2024 featured a Kane win in a field w/o Conrrado (he had an arm injury), while Golden State 2025 featured a Conrrado win from a field without Kane (he had to miss last year’s even due to a wedding). This year, in year three, we hopefully get the two of them meeting on Sunday. I took Conrrado in Fantasy Fastbreak, but it’s a coin flip. The conditions (sea level, California heavy air, slower FormulaFlow ball, and panel courts) would seem to favor Kane, but Conrrado is entering a stretch between now and next March where he has to win to stay Number 1. This could be his year to finally finish #1, but he has to win here to keep pace.

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LPRT Draw Preview

The Ladies singles draw has 17 players as the LPRT kicks off its 2026-27 season, a pivotal one that will feature a changing of the guard both on and off the court. Long-time LPRT commissioner TJ Baumbaugh has indicated she’s stepping down, and there also seems to be a changing of the guard amongst the players as well. Long-time tour stalwart Paola Longoria just had a kid and may be off the tour for a while, and this event is missing a big chunk of the current top 10. This results in the two Argentines Vargas & Centellas being the two top seeds in the singles draw.

Here’s a preview of the Singles draw:

Round of 32: there’s just one match in the 32s, and it’s a good one. #16 Camila Rivero, the 3-time defending world 21U champ who is fresh off of a Worlds appearance representing Brazil takes on Andrea Perez-Picon, who was a finalist at World Juniors 16U last year. It has been a while since we’ve had a Bolivian junior champion matriculate to the pro tour and stick; perhaps we’ll see a run from Rivero.

In the 16s, here’s some to watch:

– #1 Vargas vs Rivero/Perez-Picon winner: the recently crowned world champ has a massive lead atop the rolling 365 day standings to start the season, and kicks it off against a young rival.

– In the 8/9 we get Manilla vs Parrilla. Both were in Chile representing their countries at Worlds. It has been a minute since Erika has been able to compete well in Singles after a hip injury derailed her career; it should be interesting to see how she moves this weekend.

– Herrera vs Scott: speaking of players who we haven’t seen in a while, former USA #1 Hollie Scott is here and has a possibly winnable match again a player in Herrera who’s been waning a bit lately on tour.

– #2 Centellas, who has her highest career seed, gets former US National champ Naomi Ros for her troubles. This one could go either way.

Projected Qtrs:

– Vargas over Manilla; this used to be a finals quality match between the two hardest hitters on tour. Hope we can get back there.

– Herrera over Salas: amazing that last year I thought Salas was retiring; now she’s the 5th seed in the season opener.

– Mendez-Amaya: long-time international rivals rekindle their head-to-head.

– Centellas – Sanchez: A great opportunity for Annie (Roberts) Sanchez to get to a semi.

Semis and Final: It’s hard not to predict against anything but a Vargas win right now on tour; she’s lost her primary rival in Longoria, and the only other two players in the world who can press her (Mejia and Gaby) aren’t here this week.

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Doubles preview: no doubles draws available as of this writing.

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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. Also, since the LPRT is here, we’ll have dueling coverage from all your favorite voices. Look for Carrie Reitmeier, JT Rball, Rodrigo, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre, and the IRTLive crew all weekend for the men, and listen for Timothy Baghurst, Sandy Rios, Jerry J Josey Jr. for the women.

Thanks to the event sponsors: Presenting sponsor: JMB: Jacobs Malcolm & Burtt produce and Gold sponsors: Reignstorm group, Visit Tri Valley,Manilla Athletics, Camp Run Amuk

Thanks to IRT tour sponsors: KWM Gutterman, Frank Hotels, Papa Nicholas coffee

Reignstorm Group; tax and wealth management, Gearbox, Formula Flow, and

Black & White Energy drinks.

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.

IRT Club Fantasy: If you’re in the IRT Club, sign up to play Fantasy Racquetball along with myself, Brian Pineda, and other club members. Also, be sure to tune into our Fantasy Fast Break podcast, which we do before and after every IRT Tier 1 event!

Associations

International Racquetball Tour

@lprt

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2026 23rd Annual IRF World Championships individual Events recap

Vargas wins her first ever World title. Photo via usaracquetballevents.com

The 23rd International Racquetball Federation – IRF World Championships bracket events are in the books. Here’s a recap of the knockout stage action, along with links for the results as entered into the Pro Racquetball Stats database.

Congratulations to the winners:

– Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso, Bolivia

– Women’s Singles: Maria Jose Vargas, Argentina

– Men’s Doubles: Andree Parrilla & Eduardo Portillo, Mexico

– Women’s Doubles: Alexandra Herrera & Samantha Salas, Mexico

– Mixed Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya & Samantha Salas, Mexico

Executive Summary: Mexico dominates the doubles to take all three team titles, and the two top-ranked pros on the pro tours hold serve to take World titles.

r2sports home page: (redacted for FB’s new Meta One policy)

Pro Racquetball Stats DB match results. Click on these links to see the match results for this event in the DB: (redacted for FB’s new Meta One policy)

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For the rest of the event, they will play a “Team competition” Davis-cup style where countries play singles and doubles as a team to advance; we’ll cover this and its World Games qualification import in an other post. Meanwhile, for decades all the individual play has historically resulted in separate “Team Standings” for IRF events. I’m not sure, with the advent of the team play recently, if IRF even maintains the Team Points results anymore … but we do for historical purposes. So…

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Team Points Results

The “Team Standings” were determined by a standard algorithm that awarded points based on group stage and knockout performance.

(You can get these “team results” via queries available from the IRF singles page off of the Pro Racquetball Stats historical site)

Combined Team (Overall)

1st – Mexico

2nd – USA

3rd – Bolivia

4th — Argentina

Comments: Mexico dominates, wins all 3 doubles titles. Two finals powers USA to one of its best finishes in years. Despite having almost no results in Mens, Argentina somehow finishes 4th.

Men’s Team Results

1st – Mexico

2nd – Bolivia

3rd – USA

4th – Canada

Comments: Canada’s finish powered by Webb’s semis and the men’s doubles team making the final. Not sure why Sam Murray and/or Coby Iwaasa don’t also choose to play singles in these competitions; their team would be better for it, with all due respect to Webb’s accomplishments this week.

Women’s Team Results

1st – Mexico

2nd – Argentina

3rd – USA

4th – Guatemala

Comments: Pretty impressive for Guatemala to finish 4th … with just Gaby representing them. Mexico wins in a transition year; this is the first year that they did not have Paola Longoria leading the line in nearly 20 years.

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Let’s run through the individual draws and talk about notable results.

Men’s Singles:

The group stage featured some interesting results; Canadian @Trevor Webb took out USA’s Sam Bredenbeck to earn the #3 seed in the knockouts. Mario Mercado returned to represent his home country and took his group. Argentina’s missing top players robbed two groups of a pro-quality competitor, making those groups wide open and resulting in two players advancing into the knockouts who probably didn’t expect to be there.

In the knockouts, Webb beat Sam Bredenbeck for the 2nd time in 3 days as they matched up once again; how is it we can’t manage to figure out how to fix the knockouts so at least there’s a different matchup than what we saw in the group stage? Seriously. It really isn’t that hard. Players from the same group and players from the same country cannot meet in the first knockout round; it’d take ChatGPT about 5 seconds to lay the brackets out so this doesn’t happen. It seems like every single time i look at an IRF draw i’m dumbfounded. rant off.

Webb then took out IRT touring vet Alan Natera to make the semis; a fantastic result for Canada. Moscoso eased past Parrilla in the qtrs, the best match of the round. In the semis, #1 USA Jake Bredenbeck got what most consider an upset win over Portillo, while Moscoso cruised past Webb to make the final. In the final, Jake held off Conrrado for a bit and took game three, but Moscoso took the title.

It is Moscoso’s 9th IRF singles title, but more importantly his 2nd career World Championship title. He won in 2022 and now again in 2026.

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Women’s Singles:

There weren’t many surprises in the group stage of the Women’s singles competition. The closest group was Group 6, where three ladies all finished 2-1 (Faeth, York, and the Bolivian 21U Amaya Ardaya. it went down to point differential, and Ardaya was left out. This was especially cruel since Ardaya beat York head to head, the group winner, and thus was left out of the knockout stages.

In the knockouts, Carla Munoz took out the Costa Rican teen phenom Faeth but then fell to Vargas in the next round. USA’s Michelle Anderson fell to Argentina’s Mendez in the first knockout round, a tough beat. Mendez then took out the tourney’s top seed Herrera before falling in the semis to Gaby Martinez, the sole female representative from Guatemala. In the final, Vargas continued her dominance over world Racquetball by taking her 7th career international singles title, but more importantly, her first ever World Title.

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Men’s Doubles.

the group stages went chalk, setting up a solid knockout bracket. The top four seeded teams advanced into the semis as expected, though both USA and Mexico needed 5 games to do so. From there, #1 Canada took out #4 USA in three to return to the final, while #2 Parrilla/Portillo reversed a recent IRT pro trend of losing to Bolivia’s Moscoso/Carrasco, winning in 3 to get to the final. In the final, Team Mexico made fast work of Murray/Iwaasa to take the title.

With this win on Thursday, Mexico sealed both the Men’s and the overall team title for their country at this year’s worlds.

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Women’s Doubles:

In the group stage, pre-tourney favorites Argentina and Mexico advanced easily, but Canada slumped toa 1-2 group stage record with a shock loss to Costa Rica to be eliminated at the group stage and pave the way for USA to move on as the #3 seeds.

In the knockouts, USA’s Manilla & Anderson got a very solid semis win over Vargas & Centellas, but then lost in a 5th game heartbreaker to Mexico.

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Mixed Doubles

A couple of interesting upsets occurred in pool play, most notably the Chilean husband/wife team Munoz & Natera, who were upset by the Costa Rican team of Guillen & Faeth and failed to qualify for the knockouts. This is the winning Mixed team from the 2025 PARC championships and they went 0-2. The Bolivian top seeds were beaten in another group, playing with a weakened team thanks to the missing top player Flores.

In the knockouts, the top seeds and 2023 Pan Am game champs USA brother/sister duo of Erika and Adam Manilla were beaten in the semis by team Guatemala, comprised of Gaby Martinez and Edwin Galicia. Guatemala could do nothing in the final against the powerful Mexican team of Montoya and Salas, who won 2022 PARC and 2022 Worlds and have historically been one of the best mixed teams in the world.

With this win. Mexico sweeps the doubles finals and finishes off a dominating Worlds 2026.

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A quick editorial:

Despite this being the World Championships, ostensibly the biggest event on the international calendar for these players … we were missing some major names from this event. On the Men’s side, defending World champion and former #1 player Daniel De La Rosa, despite earning his spot to represent the USA earlier this year, did not attend, Costa Rican’s men’s team was weakened by the loss of Andres Acuna, who may be out injured. Bolivia’s #2 Jonathan Flores did not make the trip despite it being in the country next door to Bolivia (his spot was taken by Mercado) despite earning it earlier this year. And both of Argentina’s top men (Garcia & Miranda) were absent, leaving two unknowns to hold the flag, and both went 0-3 in the group stage to not even qualify for the knockouts. Guatemala’s stalwart representative Maria Renee Rodriguez was missing and they did not send a second female, meaning that they had no Women’s Doubles entry; weird. There’s plenty of players in Guatemala who could have played here. Colombia did send a contingent… who then apparently no showed and forfeited out of all matches.

Observationally, it was disappointing not to see the best players at the biggest, most important international event on the calendar. Perhaps another sad note in the gradual decline of funding in our sport.

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Congrats to the International Racquetball Federation for another successful event. Thanks to the IRT streaming crew, and thanks to @Gary Mazaroff and Gustavo and all his co-announcers for their hard work all week.

Next up on the Racquetball Calendar …the Golden State Open on 11/8/26 weekend, featuring the IRT and the LPRT together for the Ladies’ first stop of the season.

Posted on

IRT 2026 SoCal Open Wrap-Up

Moscoso starts off his season with a win. Photo unk from Bolivian IRIS

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: @Conrrado Moscoso

– Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball & @Javier Mar

TL/DR Executive Summary: Moscoso cruises to the singles title without dropping a game and beating Kane in the final somewhat convincingly. Mar & Montoya take the win over new pro doubles #1 Moscoso/Carrasco.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54373

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IRT Semis and Finals go to IRT Club; some thoughts.

The 2026-27 season will now live stream the semis and finals of IRT events solely on the IRT Club platform, which requires a $15/month subscription. I knew about this change months ago as we began discussing the new season internally, and the reaction this week has been pretty predictable.

I have held off weighing in on Reddit and the various Facebook comment sections, but I’ll put some thoughts here now.

Most of the complaints seem to be summarized by the following generic statement:

“Why can’t I continue to get something for free on the internet that I have gotten free for years and that I do nothing else to support?”

That’s it. That’s the salient issue. For the last 8 years, ever since Mark Gibbs bought out the paid subscriptions of the old Irt Network, the community has been blessed with something that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the Pro Sports world; absolutely free content. Yes there’s advertisements on the stream; they do not come anywhere near covering the costs of the equipment, the staff who come in early to set things up, the broadcasters who spend all weekend at the event donating their time, the hosting, the website development, the administration, the business subscription fees for Facebook and YouTube, etc. The IRT isn’t in the same boat as the NFL with a billion dollar broadcast TV package; they have a handful of well-meaning tour sponsors who stream quickie ads as part of their overall benefit for writing a check to the tour every year. Nobody’s earning back an ROI; it’s all for the love of the game.

I’ve seen the tacked on cliche complaints that seem to also accompany every discussion on racquetball these days: “This is why the sport is dying.” “How does this support Juniors?” or, “How does this help grow the game?” You know what? You’re right; It doesn’t. Because that’s not the “job” of the professional tour. The job of the IRT is to hold a pro tour that supports a small group of pro athletes competing at the highest level, somehow continuing to raise enough money to keep events going and keep these top players interested enough to make the commitment to keep coming back.

Grassroots development of the sport? Not the IRT’s job. Juniors? Not the IRT’s job. The IRT and pro racquetball has been essentially underwritten for 2 decades by a handful of wealthy benefactors and local enthusiasts who cobble together $20k or so to host a local event. The “tour” itself for years and years has been essentially run by volunteers who have forgone any semblance of pay in order to keep things running.

Let’s face it: people who seek out the semis or finals of a pro racquetball tournament at this point … they’re already fans. Racquetball already “got you.” The nominal fee the IRT club is asking isn’t a blocker to gaining new fans: its (finally) a donation to help offset the real costs of producing what you seek. In what other world does anyone just get something you want for free, all the time? You don’t walk into Starbucks and get free coffee. If you want a coffee, you plunk down a few bucks and you get it. Same thing here. It is patently amazing to me that people complain about having to pay a pittance of money to get something they want. $15 is nothing. The average median household income in this country is now nearly $90k, meaning a $15 fee is roughly 1/6th of an hour of labor across an entire month. That’s what we’re talking about here.

Do you love the sport? Do you want to see it continue? Then pay the fee, help support the tour, help keep the lights on. Because this may be the sport’s last shot. The Ladies tour is in dire straights, having held just one tournament since January, and without the current ownership group financing things on their Amex cards, the Men’s pro tour would be in the same boat. So, pay the fee, help create some revenue streams to support the tour, and maybe we’ll continue to have a tour. Because even rich guys will stop writing checks at some point, even if its a labor of love.

Now, back to the recap.

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

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/171aa4

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In the 32s, not much notable; only two matches even featured a game getting into the double digits. @Jordy Alonso took out USA junior national Vaishant Mangalampalli 10,6, while the closest match of the round was US Junior National coach @Robert Collins taking out one of his former pupils in Cody Elkins 10,10.

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In the 16s, there was just one major upset and a couple of close matches:

– @Erick Trujillo trounced #4 @Andres Acuna 7,0 to move into the quarters for the 7th time and to continue is recent spate of success.

– @Alan Natera beat @Diego Gastelum 9,12 in the 7/10 seed matchup, a good result for Diego as he continues to look for his 2nd quarterfinal.

– In the 8/9 matchup, Lalo Portillo cruised past Thomas Carter 2,8.

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In the Quarters

– #1 Moscoso made fast work of Portillo 8,6: Portillo is probably better than his current seed thanks to schedule conflicts, but this is still a more dominant win than I would have expected.

– Parrilla took out Trujillo 13,10 in a rematch of a crucial consolation bracket match from the FMR selection event a few weeks ago.

– Montoya needed three to take out his doubles partner Mar, as one would expect from two players who know each others’ games so well.

– #2 Waselenchuk let Natera get to 15-11 in game one, then turned on the jets to donut him in game 2 to move on 11,0.

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In the Semis, Moscoso held off Parrilla’s improvement in game two to win 4,11 and get to the final, while Waselenchuk was not troubled moving past Montoya 3,6 to setup the 1-v-2 match all the neutrals wanted.

In the Final, Moscoso came out very sharp, jumping out to a big lead in game 1 before Kane reigned him back in. From there, a back and forth battle ended up with Conrrado winning game 1 15-12. Game two was never that close, with Moscoso on top of his drives all day to win 15-7 and take the title.

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Points Implications of results

There won’t be much movement after this event; Moscoso will expand his lead atop the standings to nearly 500 points thanks to the 2025 Tracktown open expiring, but he’s then going to enter a months-long stretch where all he’s doing is defending winner’s points; he won 4 straight tourneys between the 2025 Golden State Open in October 2025 and the Minnesota HOF in March 2026. So Kane knows what he needs to do: just win.

Here’s a link to my IRT Rolling 2year Calendar XLS, which I use to approximate the points after each event. It is not exact but it’s usually close enough to the actual rankings, which @Ryan Rodgers does with @R2 Sports App on behalf of the tour after each event, to allow some quick post-event analysis before the rankings post.

men

https://docs.google.com/…/1z6eg6NJT6fjGMfRRyKTN…/edit…

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/901bc6

Mar & Moscoso take the win over new pro doubles #1 Moscoso/Carrasco to deny Moscoso a double for the weekend.

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Open Singles, other notable draws

– Emir Martinez beat Vaishant Mangalampalli for the Open singles title.

– Gastelum & Alonso won the Open Doubles dropdown out of Pro.

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Fantasy Racquetball Competition Wrap-up

With the redesign of IRT club, we haven’t started the Fantasy competition yet. So, we’ll revisit this after the next event.

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Carrie Reitmeier, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre, JT Rball, and the entire IRTLive crew.

Thanks to the Tourney Director Gerardo Duenas for putting this event on!

Thanks to the Tourney Gold sponsors: NMRA and Cindy Tillbury, Jamal Khawaja with Kind Home Loans and Friends of Pakistan USA community group, along with

Silver sponsors: Placentia Town Center and Jeff Gold, HMS Realty and Ken Courtney, Reyes Single Ply Roofing contractors and Francisco Reyes. Without you, we do not have a pro sport.

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.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2…/edit…

there’s an IRT satellite in two weeks’ time in Chicago land, then Worlds in Chile over the final weekend of October. The IRT returns to action the 2nd weekend of November with the big Golden State Open.

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tags

International Racquetball Tour

post publishing edits: thanks to readers Anthony Martin and Asceric21 on Reddit for pointing out two incorrect names in the post. Both have been corrected.

Posted on

2026 SoCal Open Preview

Moscoso takes back over #1 for this event. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

Hello Racquetball fans! We are back after a summer off, ready to kick of the 2026-27 @International Racquetball Tour season. This weekend, the tour is in Fullerton, California for the 2026 SoCal Open, held at the WallisBank Qube fitness center.

We’re glad to be back in Fullerton for the second year running, and glad to back in Southern California for the first time since the Players Championship last April.

R2 link for the weekend: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54373

This is the first Tier 1 of the season, but we’ve hosted three satellite events in August and September to get ready

– Costa Rica Open in August: Parrilla beat Montoya in the final.

– the DMV invitational in Sept: Gastelum beat Franco in the final.

– Garden City Carl Meyers event last week: Manilla beat Carter in the final.

Despite winning the 2025-26 title for his 16th career season ending title, Kane enters this event ranked #2. How is that possible? Well I’ll tell you. The 2025-26 season was a special one, extended to be an 18 month season so as to move back to a fall to spring schedule. Each Player’s best 10 results from all the way

back to Jan 2026 counted in their rankings.

As of the beginning of the new 26-27 season, we’re back to a 365 day rolling calendar, meaning a player’s best 10 results now start, as of this event, as of the end of September in 2025, which was the 2025 Tracktown Open. Based on that sample, Moscoso has taken over as #1 on tour.

Intersetingly, despite being the two highest ranked players, both Conrrado and Kane only have 8 results in the sample size, so their first two results in the new season will be pretty important to determine who has the upper hand in the early part of the season. When Trackdown expires (which Kane won and Moscoso lost in the semis), Conrrado will get a bit of a bump, but when the next event falls of (the Mid Oct 2025 golden state open), Kane will get a big bump b/c he missed that event altogether.

Quick look at the draw

24 players. 32s on thursday, 16s friday, then quarters and semis on Saturday before a noon sunday singles final.

Big story: missing #4 Flores thanks to some visa/immigration issues, which immediately puts him behind the 8ball this season to try to move into the top echelon of tour. We’re also missing #6 Jake Bredenbeck and #7 Adam Manilla, both of whom had personal conflicts for this one.

Projected early matches to watch out for

32s: Trujillo-Emir Martinez, bobby Horn-Diego Gastelum

16s: Moscoso-Pratt, Portillo-Carter, Acuna-Trujillo, Mar-Alonso, Natera-Gastelum

Predictions? The loss of Flores really opens up the top half of the draw for Moscoso. You never root against Kane, who will probably have to beat

both Natera and Montoya on Saturday to give us another match against the Bolivian number one, but that’s what we’re all hoping for by Sunday.

Look for Carrie Reitmeier, JT Rball, Rodrigo, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre, and the IRTLive crew all weekend on the microphone, calling the shots!

This week starts the new IRT Club exclusive broadcasting of Saturday and Sunday’s matches, so make sure you sign up for the IRT Club so you don’t miss out on the action.

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Before we leave, a quick shoutout to our sponsors, without whom professional racquetball would not be possible.

This weekend’s tournament Director is : Gerardo Duenas

Gold sponsors: NMRA and Cindy Tillbury, Jamal Khawaja with Kind Home Loans and Friends of Pakistan USA community group.

Silver sponsors: Placentia Town Center and Jeff Gold, HMS Realty and Ken Courtney, Reyes Single Ply Roofing contractors and Francisco Reyes.

Tour sponsors:

KWM Gutterman:

Frank Hotels

Papa Nicholas coffee

Reignstorm Group; tax and wealth management

Gearbox

Formula Flow

Black & White Energy drinks

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2026 South American Games Recap

Vargas wins twice and powers Argentina to the team win. Photo via usaracquetballevents.com

The @iInternational Racquetball Federation – IRF hosted the racquetball component of the 2026 South American games this week, just the 4th time that this regional competition has hosted the sport.

The South American games were created way back in 1978 and serve as a regional Olympic-style sports competition for just the countries of that continent. Thi

Racquetball first made its way into the competition in 1998, the 6th iteration of the event, but the results of that tournament are lost to history. It did not return until 2007, when the IRF held an out of cycle event in Ecuador. Then the sport was omitted for the next couple of events, returning in 2018 when the event was held in racquetball-crazed Cochabamba, Bolivia.

This past weekend technically is thus the 4th time the sport has bee included in the 13 iterations of the event, and once again the host city/country seems to play a part, since Argentina is hosting this year’s competition.

Five countries participated: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. Despite efforts to relaunch Colombia’s NGB, there were no Colombians here, nor players from other SA countries that have sent representatives internationally in the past like Venezuela and elsewhere.

In the end, as one might expect, the competitions all ended up being Bolivia vs Argentina in the latter stages, technically being Bolivia versus “players who were all born in Bolivia but who now play for Argentina.”

here’s a quick recap:

Congrats to the champions:

Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso
Women’s Singles: @Maria Jose Vargas
Men’s Doubles: Conrrado Moscoso & @Kadim Carrasco
Women’s Doubles: Maria Jose Vargas & @Valeria Centellas
Mixed Doubles: @Diego Garcia & Natalia Mendez V.

Argentina takes 3 of the five draws against its rival Bolivia to “win” the event.

PRS links to draws in the database:
Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/6b326d
Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/ed5c01
Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/cef63f
Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/cef63f
Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/3f1835

R2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54366

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Quick narratives about the draws:

Men’s Singles: The group stage was chalk, and the best match of the competition was probably the semifinal between Flores and Garcia. Flores took it 11-9 in the fifth, but it was yet another reminder that we need to see Garcia on the pro tour more regularly. I have a hard time not believing he’d be pushing for a top 5 spot if he made 100% of the events. In the final, Moscoso remained undefeated against his countryman across Amateur, IRF, and IRT events with a 3-game win.

Women’s Singles: Bolivia has seen a bit of a gap in its top women’s competitors thanks to Barrios’ knee injury; their representatives here were Camila Rivero and Valeria Miranda Martinez, who both fell to LPRT regulars in the knockouts. Rivero is the 3-time defending World Junior 21U champ but who has only a handful of pro tourneys under he belt; she lost in the semis to top-8 pro Mendez in five. Vargas cruised past her country-woman and now former doubles partner Mendez in the final.

Men’s Doubles: Ecuador’s Ugalde & Cueva was the top seed here thanks to their making the semis at PARC earlier this year (the highest finish of any South American country), and they finished 2nd in the group stage to the powerhouse Bolivian team of Moscoso/Carrasco. Argentina was missing Gerson Miranda, leaving the veteran Kurzbard playing along side Diego Garcia. The Argentines avenged a group stage loss to Ecuador in the semis of the knockouts, but then took a heavy loss to the Bolivians in the title game.

Women’s Doubles: It was Argentina and Bolivia 1-2 in the group stage, and then 1-2 in the final. Rivero teamed with long-time Bolivian veteran @Jenny Daza to press the Argentines in the final to 5 games, but they ultimately fell.

Mixed Doubles: The power of Flores could not push team Bolivia over Argentina, as Mendez outhit Dava one the right-hand side to make the difference in both their group stage and in the gold medal match.

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For the rest of the weekend’s competition, the players are all playing “team” competitions.

Congrats to all participants.

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Mexico Worlds Selection Event 2026 Recap

Portillo is taking over Mexican Racquetball. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

For just the second time that I can recall, the @federacion Mexicana de Raquetbol (FMR) held a stand alone qualification event to determine its team for an upcoming International event. In this case, Mexico’s best descended upon Tijuana last weekend for the 2026 Worlds Selection event, playing the whole slate of events (singles, doubles, and Mixed) to determine the team that will be heading to Worlds in Chile this coming October.

This was a special event for the history of Mexican Racquetball; the legendary multi-champion @Alvaro Beltran played in all three divisions, reportedly to be the final time he competes for Mexican Nationals after a decades long career at the top.

Here’s a recap of the play. As with their Jr. Nationals events, the singles draws play double elimination, with the winner’s bracket champion and the consolation bracket champs earning the right to represent.

Congrats to your Winners and team representatives:

– Men’s Singles: Eduardo Portillo and Andree Parrilla

– Women’s Singles: Alexandra Herrera and Jessica Parrilla

For the doubles: the winners will represent Mexico:

– Men’s Doubles: Eduardo Portillo & Andree Parrilla

– Women’s Doubles: Alexandra Herrera & Samantha Salas

– Mixed Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya & Samantha Salas

Here’s links to the draws/data in ProRacquetballStats.com:

– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/b841e9

– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/c9dba7

– Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/fb49e0

– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/b5eb15

– Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/e141e1

R2sports link for the event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54255

And here’s recaps of the five pro draws.

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– Men’s Singles:

Some of the up-and-coming players in both Mexico and the Pro scene fought well, but couldn’t overtake the veterans in the FMR. Trujillo, Hernandez, and Gastelum all pushed but eventually fell to Parrilla, Mar, and Montoya respectively in the early rounds. The Trujillo-Parrilla 4/5 seed quarter had to be amazing to watch, going to a 5th game and ending 17-15 in favor of Andree.

In the semis, reigning Mexican national champ Eduardo Portillo held serve against Parrilla to advance from the top seed, while #2 seed Rodrigo Montoya continued his recent dominance over his doubles partner Mar to also reach the final and setup a rematch from earlier this year between the two top players. In the final, Lalo once again came out on top, claiming the automatic berth to Worlds and the title. In the consolation final, Parrilla once again got the better of his long-time rival Montoya in a brutal 5 game match that included several “overtime” games.

– Women’s Singles:

This draw looked quite odd, in that it was missing the very-pregnant Paola Longoria and arguably Mexico’s top player Montse Mejia. In their absence, Alexandra Herrera cruised to the title, beating Jessica Parrilla in three. Parrilla came back around to claim the 2nd Worlds spot with relative ease, beating Rivera in the consolation final.

– Men’s Doubles:

Men’s Doubles saw a possible “changing of the guard” match happen, when the long-time dominant doubles team in the country Montoya & Mar were upset in the semis by the young team of Trujillo and Gastelum in five. They earned the right to take on defending Mexican doubles champs Portillo & Parrilla in the final. There, for the second time this year, Lalo & Andree won a Mexican major title to earn the right to represent Mexico; they both will now be the singles and doubles representatives in worlds.

– Women’s Doubles

With her long-time doubles partner Mejia missing, Herrera picked up the legendary veteran Samantha Salas for this event. Only three teams entered, so Herrera/Salas won their semi to take on Parrilla/Rivera in the final. There, Herrera and Salas took the title to send Samantha back to an International event for the 13th time in her career.

– Mixed Doubles.

In the somewhat recent history of top-level Mixed Pro Doubles action, Rodrigo Montoya and Samantha Salas have proven to be perhaps the best Mixed doubles team we’ve ever seen, regularly winning or making the finals of major Mixed competitions. They teamed up again this weekend as the top seeds and took out Mar/Herrera in the final to claim their spots for Chile. Salas double-qualifies for Worlds with the win.

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Congrats to the Mexican team heading to Worlds; they’ll certainly be tough to beat. They’ll enter as favorites alongside Bolivia, who shouldn’t have any travel issues with an event in South America and should be sending a full strength squad.

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Quick recap of the 2026 DMV Invitational

Diego Gastelum with the double in DC. Photo via Ken Fife

The second satellite event of the new 2026-27 @International Racquetball Tour season was last weekend; here’s a quick recap of the pro draws.

Severna Park used to host a full tier stop in the fall, but for the last couple of years has downsized to a Satellite event (this event was an IRT-400, which prevents any of the top 4 players from even entering), but it still draws from the big Bolivian community in the DC area as well as from the general mid-Atlantic region. In fact, it is at this very club where Waselenchuk tore his Achilles in Sept 2022, which sent the player and the tour on a several-year whirlwind of results and champions, now ended with the return of Kane to the top for the last couple of seasons.

Here’s a quick recap of the play this past weekend.

Men’s Pro Singles

The draw featured two touring regulars; #1 Thomas Carter and #2 @Diego Gastelum. They’re currently ranked 12th and 14th on tour, but Gastelum has been getting a bit of attention lately for his solid results on tour at the end of last season, especially a win over Montoya at Pro Nationals that earned him his first quarterfinal. Also lurking in the draw was @Sebastian Franco, a long-time top-10 pro who lives in the area after retiring from touring. Franco made fast work of solid NY-based open player Aaron Dardani, then took out Carter in the quarters 10,10. He ground out a tie-breaker win from Ohio-based Victor Migliore to make the final from the top side.

From the bottom half, another solid international living in the area Ezequiel Subieta advanced to the semis before falling to Gastelum in two. In the final, Diego cruised past Franco 4,6 to take the singles title.

Men’s Doubles

Gastelum teamed with Subieta to take the Pro Doubles title, beating Juan Pablo Rodriguez / Thomas Carter in the final to give the Mexican the double for the weekend.

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Next up for the tour? Another Satellite in Garden City, Kansas later this month, then the first Tier 1 is in October in Fullerton. We’ll be back on the Fantasy Fastbreak Podcast before then.

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IRT 2026 Costa Rica Open Satellite Recap

Parrilla takes the Costa Rica Open with three solid wins. Photo 2019 US Open via Kevin Savory

The 2026-27 @iInternational Racquetball Tour season technically kicked off this past weekend with a Satellite event in San Jose, Costa Rica at the home club of current #3 ranked pro @Andres Acuña , the 2026 Costa Rica Open.

This was rated as an IRT-600 event, so one level below a full Tier 1 IRT-700 event. However, because it’s a satellite, the rules governing entry limit the field to only four of the current top 8 players, with no limit on the number of players entering outside the top 8 at the time of the event.

The top 8 ranked players in this event were: #3 Acuna, #4 Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball , #5 @jhonatan flores, and #8 @Andree Parrilla. They formed in this order the top four seeds. But, the event drew a slew of IRT regulars as well, making this a very solid event from the 16s onward. The rest of the top 8 seeds were all IRT veterans: Mar, Carter, Trujillo, and Gastelum, and then the event featured a slew of international regulars who we normally see in IRF events.

Here’s a quick recap of the notable results.

In singles: the top 8 seeds advanced into the quarters without too much trouble: #8 Diego Gastelum was pressed to 13,12 against Guatemalan number one and #9 seed @Juan Jose Salvatierra, while #7 Trujillo dropped a game to former top Bolivian junior and current DC area native Ezequiel Subieta, but the rest of the top 8 made it through unscathed.

In the quarters, #1 Acuna was pressed in game 2 but beat Gastelum 5,14 to move on. Parrilla had to dig deep to top Mar 7,12. Flores had little trouble with Thomas Carter 1,6, and then Montoya ground out a 12,11 win over Trujillo in a matchup that seems to be closer and closer as Trujillo continues to move his way up the ranking boards on tour.

In the semis, Parrilla got an injury walkover against Acuna, leading 12-8 in the first game when Acuna couldn’t continue. Parrilla continues his career dominance over Acuna (he’s 7-3 in tier-1/international events over the Costa Rican). In the other semi, another injury issue, as Montoya won a close 1st game over Flores 15-13 then got a walkover early into the second game.

In the final, Parrilla got a in in the latest episode of their long running rivalry with Montoya, winning 12,11 for the title. Montoya leads the Tier1 h2h 13-9 over their long career, so this isn’t a completely unexpected result, but a good sign for Parrilla as he tries to work his way back up the rankings for next season.

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In doubles, the world’s best team Montoya/Mar took the title as the top seed, beating the #2 seeds Parrilla/Trujillo in two quick games for the doubles title.

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We’ll get a couple more IRT satellites in September (one in DC, one in Kansas) before our first tier 1 event in October in Fullerton.

In the meantime, i’ve updated the Running IRT points spreadsheet for this event as the points calendar switches back to a 12 month schedule.

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IRF 2026 Central American & Caribbean Championships wrap-up

Herrera wins her first ever International singles title. Photo Denver 2021 KenFife

The IRF hosted its recurring Central American & Caribbean Games, returning to the Dominican Republic for the 2026 iteration of the event.

This is the 10th iteration of these games that have had a racquetball component. The first one was in 1990, when Mexico hosted the event and its two singles components were won by Raul Torres and Hilda Rodriguez of Mexico, two very early pioneers of Mexican racquetball. In fact, Mexico has always dominated this competition, winning 12 of the previous 16 singles titles and sweeping all 5 titles in the 2023 version.

Countries participating this year: host Dominican Republic, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, and Cuba. Venezuela is an odd entry, as they are in neither Central America or the Caribbean, but hey I don’t make the rules. It is not the first time a South American country has bee included in this event. Heck, in 2018 Colombia HOSTED this event. I’m not entirely sure why Mexico is in this event year after year; they’re regularly included as a “North American” country, but I was a Math major, not Geography, so don’t listen to me.

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

– Men’s Singles: Rodrigo Montoya

– Women’s Singles: Alexandra Herrera

– Men’s Doubles: Eduardo Portillo/Andre Parrilla

– Women’s Doubles: Montse Mejia/Alexandra Herrera

– Mixed Doubles: Andres Acuna/Larissa Faeth

Exec Summary: Mexico wins 4 of the 5 titles, but 15yr old Faeth gets another win for Costa Rica’s Adult team internationally.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54300

Match Reports in the PRS database post-load:

– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/18bf6e

– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/8dc8e2

– Men’ Doubles: https://rball.pro/9544e2

– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/45b3f5

– Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/2bcd18

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Lets review the five main draws, calling out upsets and interesting results.

Men’s Singles:

The group stages were nearly 100% chalk, and with very few matches that even went beyond three games. The best match of the group stages was probably to determine 1st place in Group D, as Costa Rica’s Gabriel Garcia took out Guatemalan veteran Juan Jose Salvatierra in four close games to secure the #4 seed in the knockouts.

In the knockouts, the host Dominicans played well, with Luis Perez taking a game off of #1 seed Portillo in the quarters, and Dominican #1 Ramon De Leon upsetting Guatemala’s Garcia to reach the semis. Portillo had to go 5 games to top De Leon to make the final from the top, while two IRT top-10 players in Rodrigo Montoya and Andres Acuna battled it out from the bottom half, with Montoya advancing to return to the final. In a rematch of the 2023 final, Montoya blitzed Portillo 4,4,6 for the gold. It is first CAC singles gold, and his 4th career International gold medal.

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Women’s Singles:

The group stage was mostly without incident; the two Costa Rican women entries were probably slightly overseeded thanks to their performance in the most recent Int’l event, and both were “upset” in the group stage. This gave Venezuelan veteran Marina Tobon the 4th seed in the knockouts, where she was summarily upset by Dominican Maria Cespedes in the quarters.

The biggest upset of the tournament though was from Costa Rican 15yr old Larissa Faeth, who upset the 3rd seeded Montse Mejia in four games. Faeth, who is the two-time defending 14U world Junior champion, is now regularly representing Costa Rica in Adult competitions and advanced to the semis here before falling.

In the top semi #1 Alexandra Herrera cruised past Cespedes in three, while from the bottom half Guatemala’s Gaby Martinez ended Faeth’s run in three, setting up a top-10 LPRT final between two old rivals. In the final, Herrera got her first ever IRF win over Martinez to claim her first ever International singles title.

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Men’s Doubles:

A chalk group stage led to a 7-team knockout round with two heavy favorites … and one of them got upset in the semis. Costa Rica’s all-Acuna team of brothers Andres and Sergio got upset by the Guatemalans Salvatierra & Aldana in the semis to setup an unlikely final. In the gold medal match, team Mexico blitzed Team Guatemala to keep it an all Mexico gold affair.

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Women’s Doubles:

The entire Women’s doubles draw went chalk, in both the group stage and in the knockouts. Top seed and defending champ Team Mexico was represented by Herrera & Mejia, one of the best doubles teams in the history of the sport and winners of dozens of titles both internationally and professionally; they advanced to the final from the top half. From the bottom half, long-time Guatemalan partners Gaby Martinez and Maria Renee (Rodriguez) Josey also cruised into the final to face off. In the final, Team Mexico made it 4-for-4 with a 8,4,8 win over the Guatemalans.

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Mixed Doubles:

An upset free group round set the stage for the two top seeds (from Mexico and Costa Rica) to meet, but both were pushed before they got there. Team Costa Rica (featuring top-4 IRT player Andres Acuna and 15-yr old phenom Larissa Faeth) had to dig deep to top the Cubans in one semi, while team Mexico (featuring Rodrigo Montoya and Jessica Parrilla) got pushed to 5 games by team Guatemala before advancing. In the final, the top seeded Costa Rican team won their second straight IRF event, following up on their gold together in the PARC event in March, with a solid 4-game win over team Mexico. The 15yr old Faeth held her own along the right against veteran pro Parrilla and they got the win.

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The players will remain in the DR for a couple more days playing a Team event before heading home.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMbIP9SZd0MssH_nPGU/edit?usp=sharing

Next up on the calendar is the 2026 Mexican Junior Nationals next weekend. There’s an IRT-600 satellite event later in the month. Sometime in early August, look for Season in Review articles from yours truly recapping both the IRT and LPRT seasons.

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2026 Outdoor Nationals & World Championships Recap

The McDonald clan, headlined by eldest son Chris, took home six titles this weekend in California. Photo 2023 Outdoor Nats via Lara

This past weekend, the 52nd annual Outdoor Nationals tournament was held at Marina Park in Huntington Beach, California. Here’s a recap of the weekend’s event.

Congrats to your Pro/Open winners on the weekend:

– Men’s Pro Doubles: Kane Waselenchuk and Chris McDonald

– Women’s Open Doubles: Karen Grisz and Marie Gomar

– Mixed Open Doubles: Jack McDonald and Martha McDonald

There were no pro singles draws this year.

Exec summary: Kane wins his third straight Outdoor Nationals title, and his second straight with Chris McDonald. Martha and Jack McDonald defended their 2025 Mixed Open title, avenging a group stage loss in the final. Lastly in Women’s, Gomar, Marie and Grisz, Karen became first time winners.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=51162

ProRacquetballStats.com Match Reports by Pro division (notification that the results have been loaded to the database):

– Men’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/3194ac

– Women’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/15da8c

– Mixed Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/15da8c

Triple Crown Reports: (these show the winners of all Pro divisions at all WOR outdoor majors across time)

– Men’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/j47

– Women’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/2vv

– Mixed Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/y43

– Men’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/86z

– Women’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/x8g

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Lets do a quick recap of the Pro/Open draws.

Men’s Pro Doubles: The men’s pro doubles draw had a slew of legends playing this year, including Greg Solis and Ravi Sohoni, past winners Brandon Davis & Josh Tucker, future hall of famer Rocky Carson & recently inducted Jesus Ustarroz, and of course my podcasting partner Brian Pineda . However, the draw was no match for the power of last year’s champs Kane Waselenchuk & Chris McDonald, who blew through the draw to repeat as champs.

Rocky & Jesus outlasted the long-time outdoor legends Solis & Ravi in the quarters, but fell 11-9 in the semis to Davis & Tucker. In the final, Kane & Chris ground out a 15-12 first game win, then blew their way to a 15-3 second game and the title.

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Women’s Open Doubles:

Four teams of ladies Open/Elite outdoor players played a well-balanced round robin draw, where three of the teams wen 2-1 and the finalists had to be determined by point differential. In the final, Marie Gomar & Karen Grisz avenged a group stage loss to Sandra Ramos Mowry & Susie Boulanger to take the title.

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Mixed Open Doubles: The legendary @Martha McDonald teamed with younger son Jack to finish 2nd in the group stage to the surprise team of Adrianna Moncada & Georges Barrera, then avenged the group stage loss in the final to repeat as champions.

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Other Major Draws in California:

– CPRT: Kane & Chris got the double win this weekend, taking out Carson & Ustarroz in the final.

– Men’s 75s: Brothers Chris and Jack McDonald teamed up to take the title, beating Sweet Lou Orosco and Max Heymann in the final.

– Men’s 100/Centurion: The biggest draw of the event was 100+, with 13 teams. In the final, Miguel Arriola / Tony Hernandez rebounded from a 15-0 first game loss to beat Scott St Clair / Tony Burg in a breaker for the title.

– Men’s Open: Brandon Davis / Brian Pineda ground their way to an Open title, beating Greg Solis / Lou Orosco in the final.

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Congratulations to the 2026 Hall of Fame Class, who were inducted Saturday afternoon. Kevin Booth and Greg Freeze both had decades-long dominance in the sport and in Outdoor Nationals and are well deserving. To read their bios, go to these links:

Booth: https://www.usaracquetball.com/news/2026/june/23/kevin-booth-wor-hall-of-fame-inductee-class-of-2026

Freeze: https://www.usaracquetball.com/news/2026/june/23/greg-freeze-wor-hall-of-fame-inductee-class-of-2026

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Thanks to the Tourney Directors Peggine Tellez, Mike Coulter, and the whole 3WallBall crew, who have now taken over Outdoor Nationals. Thanks once again to all the sponsors who make this event possible.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar … https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…

NMRA Masters is next weekend in Tempe, then August has both Mexican Junior Nationals and the IRF Central American & Carribean games, always a fun regional event.

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@3Wall Ball

@WOR – World Outdoor Racquetball

Mike Coulter