Doubles; Kelani Lawrence and Hollie Rae Scott It was an interesting weekend in Chesapeake. Lets read on for some thoughts.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=32188
Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/o32
In the 16s:
#8 Brenda Laime crushed #9 Scott 3,9, a result that portended the rest of the weekend.
#4 Erika Manilla needed a breaker to get past the veteran tour player Cris Amaya .
– In the 7/10 match-up, home town fans were rewarded with a solid win by Kelani Lawrence , who got an excellent win over Argentinian Valeria Centellas
In the Quarters
#8 Laime sent shockwaves across the landscape by upsetting #1 Paola Longoria 11-10 in the breaker. Laime’s classical game has gotten her big wins in the past (she has career wins over multiple top-4 players in the past couple of seasons), but never as big of a win as this. Longoria’s quarter-final loss was the first time she’s lost that early in a pro event since February of 2008, a pretty amazing feat.
#4 Manilla outlasted #5 Jessica Parrilla in a breaker. After losing 14 in the first, she cruised to a 15-2, 11-3 win.
#6 Carla Munoz upset #3 Mendez and returned to the pro semis for the first time since April of 2017 with a solid 11,14 two game win.
– #2 Herrera squeaked out a 15-14, 15-14 two game win over Lawrence. Not much between these two players on the day.
In the Semis
Laime rebounded from a first game let-down to move past Manilla in a breaker to get to the final. This tournament represents the first time Laime has advanced to the semis in her career, and now its the first time she’s made a pro final.
Herrera cruised past Munoz 6,7 to get to the final.
In the Finals, Herrera took her 3rd career title by topping Laime 7,12.
Points Implications of results There are no 2021 points to expire, so there’s not a ton of changes with these results.
#2 Herrera closes the gap a bit on #1 Longoria, thanks to her early loss. She still leads by nearly 1,000 ranking points at the top.
Mendez and Mejia switch places at 4/5, with Mejia missing the event.
Parrilla and Barrios switch places at 7/8, again with Barrios missing the event.
Lawrence moves into the top 10 I believe for the first time.
– Laime bumps up her ranking from 13 to 11 with the finals appearance.
Doubles review Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/7gv
A small pro doubles draw was taken by USA reigning national champs Scott and Lawrence, a first pro doubles title for Scott and second for Kelani. They crushed Longoria/Centellas 1,12 in the final.
Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst , Jerry J Josey Jr. ., and Tj Baumbaugh Thanks to the Tourney Director @Malia Bailey for 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.
Next up? Per our handy master racquetball calendar … https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…/ Next weekend, the pro tour moves slightly north from Virginia Beach to Severna Park (outside of Baltimore) for the first IRT pro stop of the new season, and the first time we’ve seen the Men’s pros since May. There’s 42 pros entered into the Singles draw as of this writing, so it’ll be a big tourney.
Yours truly will be onsite, probably on the mike for some of the Saturday action.
The LPRT is back in action, this time on the East coast, returning to the Virginia Beach area for the first time since 2019. Held at the Chesapeake YMCA, this is the home club of USAR hall of Famer @Malia Bailey ,who also serves as your tourney director.
Last time the LPRT was in town, Longoria was upset in the final, giving @Maria Jose Vargas one of her 5 career titles. #3 Vargas however is not here however, taking some time off to have her third child. Also missing is #4 Mejia, #7 Barrios, and #10 Rajsich, who went decades without missing a pro stop and now misses her second in a row, perhaps an tacit admission that she’s stepping back from the tour. Also missing is Salas, who has been making a comeback lately, and Gaby, whose ranking has plummeted due to these early season absences.
All these top 10 absences in Virginia give Manilla a career high #4 seed and will make for some unexpected quarter final matchups.
Lets preview the draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that i’m looking forward to: In the round of 16:
The #8/#9 seed Hollie Scott versus @Brenda Laim matchup looks solid: I think these two are neck and neck talent wise, play different styles, and it could go either way .
#5/#12 Jessica Parrilla vs @Sheryl Lotts is a trap game for Leoni; Lotts has been playing really tough lately and could get an upset here.
#6/#11 @Carla Munoz versus the improving Maria Renee Rodriguez ; MRR can push Munoz here, but look for the Chilean #1 to move on.
– #7/#10 Kelani Lawrence versus Valeria Centellas : great matchup. On paper Centellas is slightly favored h2h, but this is Lawrence’s home club. Will that play to her advantage, or will the presence of family and friends put too much pressure on her? Last time they played in Va Beach, Kelani nearly upset Vargas, so odds are on the home town favorite to advance here.
Projected Qtrs:
#1 Paola Longoria over the Scott/Laime winner.
#4 @Erika Manilla is favored over #5 Parrilla … but has started slow this season with some unexpected losses in the first LPRT stop in Mexico and at Worlds. Upset watch here. This is the kind of match she needs to win though to establish her presence in the top 4 on a more ongoing basis.
#3Natalia Mendez projects to play #6 Munoz, which could be an interesting match. On paper this is a win for Mendez, but she’s taken some upsets lately. Look for an upset here.
#2 @Alexandra Herrea projects to play the winner of the Centellas/Lawrence match, and will be a heavy favorite. With no Mejia or Gaby in the draw, Herrera is the favorite to make the final. Semis:
Longoria over the Parrilla/Manilla winner, neither of which is likely to press the world #1.
Herrera to cruise over the Mendez/Munoz winner.
Finals: we should get a rematch of #1 vs #2, which we got several times last season and resulted in two straight titles for Alexandra. This time though, Longoria comes in on a hot streak, having blown through the competition in the season pro opener and last month at Worlds, and she’s the heavy favorite to cruise here.
Doubles review An interesting doubles event should be seen, as the top teams are all missing half of the partnerships, meaning all sorts of new/different teams are h ere. The consensus #1 doubles team in the land (Longoria/Salas) is missing Samantha, so Longoria is playing with Centellas, who normally plays with Mendez, but she’s playing with Manilla, who doesn’t have a regular partner but has been playing with Parrilla … but Parrilla is playing this weekend with Herrera, who normally plays with Mejia, but she’s missing. Meanwhile, Rodriguez usually plays with Gaby, but she’s not here, so she’s playing with Amaya, who has been playing with Riquelme but Maria isn’t here. The only “regular team” I see here is the US #1 team of Scott/Lawrence, which perhaps portends well to their chances of beating these teams who don’t regularly play with each other.
All that being said .. i like Herrera/Parrilla from the top half and Longoria/Centellas from the bottom half to advance to the final. From there, I think Herrera/Parrilla will win a close one.
Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Look for Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., and Tj Baumbaugh on the mike, calling the shots! 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. Coincidentally, if you’re interested in playing Fantasy Racquetball for this event, the links to the brackets are advertised on LPRT’s main page. The winner each week gets free swag! LPRT
Congrats to your individual winners on the weekend:
Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso
Women’s Singles: Paola Longoria
Men’s Doubles; @Alvaro Beltran and Daniel de la Rosa
Women’s Doubles: Longoria & @Samantha Salas Solis
Mixed Doubles: Salas and Rodrigo Montoya Obviously a huge week for team Mexico, which wins four of the five draws on home soil in San Luis Potosi, strongly taking back the crown of best Country in the sport. After the individual events, the countries played “team” events, which were both won by Mexico (Men’s over Canada, Women’s over Bolivia), further cementing Mexico’s reclaiming of their top-country status.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=39914
Here’s a quick recap of each draw, with some observations. Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/9s5 Bolivia’s Moscoso took out USA’s long-time representative @RRocky Carson in the final to secure his third IRF title and his first world title. Rocky loses in the final of Worlds on the same court where he made his Worlds debut back in 2000, an amazing feat considering that he’s still making the back end of tournaments 22 years later. Some of the storylines of the knockout draw for me:
Moscoso really dominated this event. He beat Landa 2,3,2 (the 2021 World Champ), then turned around the next day and beat Montoya 4,2,6 (the 2018 World Champ). These were absolutely dominant wins even by rally scoring standards, and its hard to understate just how well he was playing. His serves were as fast as I’ve ever seen in a pro or IRF event, thanks to altitude in SLP and where Conrrado is right now.
The biggest storyline besides Moscoso has to be the shock upset loss of DLR in the 16s to Guatemalan @Edwin Galicia . This is the currently ranked #1 pro in the world, who should have been in the final against Moscoso. It is really a shocking loss for the world’s top player.
– Rocky came from two games down in the semis to down @Andres Acuna , who continues to make the case that he belongs in the discussion of the top players in the world.
Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/uw5 Longoria secures her amazing 23rd international singles title, losing just one game the entire tournament. Her first title was in 2006, and now in 2022 she’s just as dominant. Other storylines for me:
I realize its the IRF and they make their own rules … but the women’s draw seeds show why you cannot seed by country. Your 1-4 seeds were Manilla, Mendez, Rajsich and Centellas, giving USA and Argentina the top four seeds based on their finishes last fall. All four players lost in the quarters. Seeding is important in tournaments, and time and again the IRF’s country-based seeding results in weird looking results (like the decade-long #1 LPRT player Longoria being the #6 seed here).
Manilla’s loss to Barrios wasn’t that big of an upset, in that they’re #6 and #7 on tour right now, but Manilla’s loss to Angelica (or is it Steffany now?) coupled with her loss to Enriquez at the pro stop last week does not portend well to her aims to challenge for the upper echelons of the tour rankings.
– The second straight week that #2 Herrera has lost to one of her top rivals. Last week it was Mejia, this week Gaby. Is she really ready to challenge Paola for the #1 title, or were her two wins last spring just a good run of form?
Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/1hb
DLR and Alvaro return to the top of the IRF doubles world, winning Worlds again. They were 2018 World champions together. This represents Beltran’s 11th career IRF doubles title, and he does it in his final appearance before retiring from play.
They certainly earned this title, taking out the very solid Ecuadorian team in the quarters, the US team in the semis, and then coming back from 2 games down to beat the excellent Bolivian team in the finals.
– Was slightly surprised the Canadian team didn’t get to the final, but its also an indicator of just how well Moscoso was playing this week. And @Roland Keller is a fantastic right-side player.
Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/8hc
First the obvious; Longoria and Salas of course are the most dominant pro doubles team, and continue to be the best team in the IRF. This title is their 16th IRF title together. to go with more than 30 pro doubles titles. Its really amazing.
– Bravo to the Argentina team, who beat the team i thought was a shoe-in to get to the finals (USA), then crushed an over-seeded team Canada to get there. And they nearly won; taking the champs to 5 games and a 12-10 5th game loss that could have gone either way. Would love to see what Mendez/Centellas can do going forward, and see if they can challenge the other top teams on tour (Mejia/Herrera specifically).
Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/g75
Montoya and Salas are clearly the best mixed team in the world right now, having won their second straight Mixed IRF major to go with their title in the 2021 Mixed pro event in Denver.
– Mixed doubles is a great addition to these tournaments and I hope we get more combined pro events so we get more full-strength mixed pro draws.
Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend; thanks to IRT crew and @Pablo Fajre for making it happen, thanks to @Gary Mazaroff and Alexis Iwaasa for your time on the mike.
Thanks to USA Racquetball for streaming the USA matches when not on the main court, as well as other orgs/players who live streamed their matches for us to benefit from afar.
Next up? Per our handy master racquetball calendar … https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…/
IRF Seniors is in Albuquerque next weekend (home of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul!), and then the pro tours kick into action with two straight weekends of Mid-Atlantic tournaments; the LPRT in Chesapeake VA on the 9/11 weekend, and then the IRT in Severna Park the 9/18 weekend. Both of these sites are drivable for yours truly (now living in Richmond), but we’ll see which ones I can get to.
Hello! I’m a few days late to this preview … but now that the knockout brackets have been set, i thought i’d set the stage for the rest of this week. The 2022 Worlds tournament is the 21st iteration of the tournament. The first one was in 1981, held at the inaugural World Games in Santa Clara, then the second held three years later in 1984 in Sacramento (it didn’t move far). From there, it has been regularly held every two years at increasingly distant spots in the world from Racquetball’s origin in the states. Places like Germany, Venezuela, Bolivia, South Korea, Colombia, Guatemala, and Ireland have held the event over the years. The USA has now hosted it four times .. but none since 1996. Canada has hosted it twice. But this year it is in San Luis Potosi, Mexico’s hotbed of racquetball, which now hosts this event for the third time. SLP was set to host in 2020 but Covid knocked the racquetball world for a loop, but here we are, back in SLP and at the amazingly beautiful La Loma Sports Center. This being racquetball … it wouldn’t be an international event without some interesting stories. In the lead-up to this event, we discovered that:
The FMR (Mexico’s federation) is badly in arrears in its payments and paperwork with CONADE (the Mexican equivalent nationals porting body to the US’s US Olympic Committee). This was discovered when the entire Mexican team went to gofundme/facebook to ask for funds to cover their travel with a week’s notice. The FMR and CONADE traded accusations in the media, each disputing the other’s story.
The Colombian Federation apparently has dissolved, meaning that the two frequent ladies representatives Cristina Amaya and @Maria Paz Riquelme not only had to fund their own trip … but they had to cover their own and their association’s fees to the IRF which together are thousands of dollars). Not surprisingly, there are no Male Colombian competitors, robbing the worlds of the typical presence of @Mario Mercado , @Sebastian Franco , @Eduardo Garay (if he still even represents Colombia) , or lately Gerson Miranda , who just switched from Bolivia last year. Not good.
The European Federation announced that they were not sending any teams this year … but that didn’t stop @Fabian Balmori from coming to represent Spain. Balmori represented Venezuela at various international events from 1993 until 2008, and has two IRF Men’s singles titles to his credit (in the 1993 and 1998 Central American & Caribbean Games events).
The IRF has come to its senses and now uses R2; here’s the link https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=39914
Quick recap of the interesting machinations of the RR groups before we get to knockout predictions. Note: the top 2 competitors from each group advance to the knockouts, while the non-qualifying players/teams move to the consolation knockout brackets. In Men’s Singles:
#2 seed and defending World champ @Andres Acuna was upset in the RRs by Ecuadorian @Jose Daniel Ugalde in five games. Big-time upset and this will shake up the bottom-side of the draw.
Argentina’s Diego Garcia was surprisingly eliminated inthe group stage.
Japan’s @Michimue Kono upset the #1 seed @Ssergio.acun in his group, and then Canadian @Kurtis Cullen had an amazing down-two-games come-back to win the group and the top seed; final score against Acuna was (7),(7),9,0,0. Sounds like a possible injury here; we’ll see what the knockouts bring.
Most of the rest of the groups went chalk, with #1 overall seed @RRocky Cars and IRT #1 ranked pro @DanielDaniel de la Rosa giving up the fewest points (36 and 37 respectively) in the group stage. In Women’s Singles, only a couple of notable results in a very chalk-y RR stage:
I was surprised @VValeria Centellas got a win over Steffany Barrios (formerly Angelica) ; big win that hopefully propels her to success in the knockouts.
A solid win byAna Gabriela Martinez in the group stage to topple current #2 LPRT player @AleAlexandra Herrera , a 5-game see-saw affair.
Both Cuban entrants played their first couple of matches , then no showed. Turns out, they used this opportunity to defect. Bravo to them, and I hope they find success. In Men’s Doubles:
Kind of surprised the Ecuadorian Men’s team didn’t fare better, after their excellent runs in past events.
The Canada-USA match was the highlight of the opening round, with both teams really powering the ball. Hope to see this matchup again. In Women’s Doubles:
Two of the groups went chalk/predictably, but Group 2 featured three teams to go 2-1, beating each other up and forcing the places to go down to points differential. In Mixed Doubles:
– Slightly surprised that the Bolivian team of Moscoso/Daza outlasted the Canadian team of Murray/Lambert.
Predictions/Knockout Preview Lets run through the knockout draws and make some predictions. Men’s Singles: The quarters look to be great.
#1 @Rocky Carson , who owns 8 IRF singles titles, likely faces Keller, a 2-time PARC champ. Carson has never lost to Keller, and should advance here.
#5 @DanieDaniel de la Rosa , who owns 3 IRF titles, likely faces defending champ Acuna,, who should advance as the #13 seed in the 16s over Canada’s @Kurtis Cullen . I don’t see DLR losing here.
#3 @Alejandro Landa faces a very stiff challenge against #6 Conrrado Moscoso in what should be the best match of the round. Landa has downed Moscoso two straight events, but neither has been in the race-to-11 rally scoring method. I think the altitude and pace of Moscoso works to his favor and he gets the upset here.
For his excellent RR finish earning him the #2 seed, Ecuador’s @Jose Daniel Ugalde is set to face 2-time IRF champ Rodrigo Montoya , who always elevates his game in IRF events. Montoya to advance. In the semis:
DLR should advance past Carson, though Rocky skipped out on Doubles specifically to focus on singles here while Daniel is still pulling double duty. On paper this is a DLR win .. but Rocky got a win over DLR back in Chicago in March. Could go either way.
Montoya has shown a propensity to control Moscoso … but Conrrado has turned the tide. These two met in the semis of PARC in April, a close 3-game win for the Bolivian, and I predict the same here.
In the final: DLR vs Moscoso is a fitting final, a contrast in styles. I think DLR’s patience and maturity on the courts will earn him a close win, similar to the way he ground out a win the last time they played, which was in Denver, at altitude, in Aug 2021.
In Women’s singles, as with the Men’s, the quarters are going to be great:
#1 Erika Manilla will have her hands full with the likely play-in winner Barrios (who has to top Chilean vet @Carla Munoz first). Manilla topped Barrios in Vero Beach … but Barrios just won the PARC event (albeit on home soil). A coin flip, but Manilla is slightly favored.
The #1 LPRT player @Paola LPaola Longoria is seeded 5th in the knockouts but should have little trouble topping #4 Centellas.
#3 Rhonda Rajsich faces a tall task in #6 Gaby Martinez; this should be an upset by seed.
Despite the seeds, #7 Herrera should make quick work of #2 Mendez. In the semis:
Longoria over Manilla; Erika has exploded onto the women’s scene, but isn’t ready to beat Paola, especially on home soil.
Martinez over Herrera: this would be an upset by seed, and by LPRT ranking … but Martinez has had consistent success over Alexandra and is an excellent international player.
Final: a rematch of the famous 2018 worlds title for Gaby, her sole career win over Longoria. Not this time: Longoria will not be stopped in her home town.
Men’s Doubles prediction: I think seeds will hold to the semis. There we get some awesome matches.
#1 Mexico should advance to the final over #4 USA. @Alvaro Beltran is seeking to go out on top in his final World tournament.
#3 Canada is looking really strong and should topple #2 Bolivia.
In the final, I like DLR/Beltran
Women’s Doubles prediction: its hard not to predict a Mexico-USA final, but these teams will have to beat some solid teams to get there. Longoria/Salas are pretty unbeatable right now, unless their opponents are Herrera/Mejia, so i’ll predict them to top Lawrence/Scott in the final.
Mixed Doubles prediction: I think Mexico is a shoe-in for the final from the top, but any of three teams (USA, Canada, or Bolivia) could win from the bottom. Whoever advances though will be hard pressed to beat Montoya and Salas.
Streaming is being done by the IRT team for this event (thanks to Pablo Favre ) and the lead broadcasters are the excellent @Gary Mazaroff and @AlIAlexis Iwaasa . Follow @internaInternational Racquetball Federation on Facebook and sign up for live notifications. 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 Federation – IRF USA Racquetball Racquetball Canada Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol Hashtags #racquetball #proracquetball #irt #lprt
This was a unique tournament featuring Paola’s “personal” portable court, which was setup on a covered court outside of the Deportivo Ferrocarrilero club in Aguascalientes, AG, Mexico. It is a spectacle of a court, but the outdoor setting features very difficult sight-lines for players, especially in the later afternoon where the sun glared into the court from all sides. This seemed to really vex some players, as we saw all kinds of upsets in this event. They had to have a thunder delay midway through the event, something I can’t quite say i’ve heard of before.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=39838
Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/k9q
In the 32s, no surprises from the 5 relative newbies to the LPRT tour.
In the 16s, we started to get some surprises.
In the 8/9 match, @Samantha Salas Solis got a solid win over top10 rival @Carla Munoz 5,13. Is this the return of Salas to the top 10?
#5 Angelica Barrios escaped by the skin of her teeth, winning 11-10 over #12 Sheryl Lotts.
The shock result of the round of 16 was former top10 player Nancy Enriquez blasting #4 Erika Manilla 10,4 to move on. Not a good start to Manilla’s pro season.
– #6 Jessica Parrilla was stretched to an 11-7 breaker win over #11 @Maria Renee Rodriguez
In the Quarters
#1 @Paola Longoria topped her doubles partner Salas 8,4 to move on. These two have met more than 70 times now on the pro tour, by far the most frequent rivalry in the tour’s history.
#5 Barrios had a comprehensive win over upset-minded Enriquez 11,5 to move into the semis.
#6 Parrilla continued her recent record over #3 Natalia Mendez , advancing to the semis.
– #7 @Montse Mejia dominated her doubles partner and #2 player @Alexandra Herrera 7,5. This is the most significant result of the round; Mejia is one of just a handful of players who have ever gotten a win over Paola, and this result spurred her into the finals.
In the Semis
Longoria flew by Barrios 3,6 to move into the finals in her namesake tourney. In 6 games she’s given up a grand total of 23 points and looks unstoppable as always.
Mejia had little trouble over her country-woman Parrilla, moving into the finals 5,6. Mejia definitely looks “on” this weekend.
In the Finals, a great back and forth match between Mejia, a young player who when “on” can beat anyone in the world, and Longoria, the veteran who has proven time and again she knows how to win. Mejia raced out to an early lead in game 1, but Paola came roaring back to win it. Instead of being deflated, Mejia returned the favor in game two to force the tiebreaker.. In the breaker, Mejia was first to match point but could not convert, then Longoria worked the last two points to win 11-10 in the final. The fans could not have asked for a better singles final.
Points Implications of results No changes in the top 3: Longoria did not play in Denver last year, so she had no points to defend and thus turned her 600 point lead over Herrera into an 1100 point lead overnight. Wow; Herrera really needed a result here to make the race this season close and missed out on a huge opportunity. There was some big-time movements though, both by players who were here and players who were not. Mejia’s result vaults her immediately to #4 on tour, jumping both Mendez and Manilla. Munoz moves into the top10 at #9. Salas continues to climb backup the rankings, now sitting at #12.
However the most impactful change is to Gaby Martinez, who plummets from #5 to #15 on tour. Martinez won the 2021 Denver event but defends none of those points and thus drops 320 points in an instant. This will make future seeding quite interesting, as she now projects to face a top 4 player in the 16s.
Doubles review Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/hu4 The 8-team doubles draw resulted with the expected 1-2 final. The two top ladies doubles teams in the world (Longoria/Salas and Mejia/Herrera) met in the final just after the singles final, and the losing singles finalist Mejia helped power her team to a comprehensive finals win, beating the #1 seeds 7,7.
Herrera is on quite a roll in doubles; she has won 4 of the last 5 pro doubles titles now and has done it with multiple different partners as Mejia does not always travel. It seems likely Paola will lose her #1 doubles ranking soon.
Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., and Maria Renee Rodriguez.
Next up? Per our handy master racquetball calendar … https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…/
It is time for 2022 Worlds! Its being held just next door to Aguascalientes in San Luis Potosi, one of the hotbeds of Mexican racquetball. There’s been all sorts of funding drama leading up to the event (well publicized elsewhere); lets hope the Mexican players do actually attend.
Welcome to the 2022-23 LPRT season! The LPRT starts off with a bang; a Grand Slam season opener and a return to tournament racquetball in Mexico. For three years running, from 2017-19, the “Paola Longoria Experience” was held in her hometown of San Luis Potosi as a kickoff tournament for the tour each season, but then Covid hit and the tournament took three years off. But we’re back, and this time the tournament is being held 100 miles west of SLP in the town of Aguascalientes. R2 Sports App link:https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=39838 Perhaps due to fixture congestion, the draw for the opener is way down, with just 21 players entered (by way of comparison, the Supermax GS in Kansas City in June had 25% more players with a 28-person draw). A huge chunk of the ladies tour is qualified for Worlds, taking place the starting next weekend in SLP proper, and its likely that many decided not to add a week to their next trip. Understandable.
As a result, this event is missing 6 of the top 20 players in the world: #3 Vargas (pregnant), #5 Gaby, #9 Rajsich (which is odd; she’s missed just 3 events in her entire career!), #12 Lawrence, #13 Laime, and #16 Scott all are out of this draw, which will give us a ton of elevated seeds and solid opportunities for lower ranked players. Most of the American national team is missing the event, which could have been a nice tune-up for Worlds.
Lets preview the singles draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that I’m looking forward to:
The round of 32 features 5 relative unknowns playing 5 regular LPRT players. We may see some upsets, but not likely as the LPRT veterans advance.
Round of 16: there are a few compelling matches:
In the usually competitive 8/9 seed game, we get two players in Carla Munoz and @Samantha Salas Solis who have had some battles in the past. Some of Munoz’s best ever wins have come at the hands of Salas, so she’ll be confident. Salas saw her ranking dip out of the top 10 last season, but she finished strong with a semis appearance in Kansas City. Great match here. I’m leaning Munoz to win here.
Long-time international rivals #3 Natalia Mendez and #14 Cris Amaya are set to meet for the 8th time in all competitions. Mendez leads h2h 5-2.
#6 @Jessica Parrilla takes on #11 Maria Renee Rodriguez. MRR is a long-time tour competitor and will seek a top10 win for her resume.
– In the 7/10 matchup, we get a very competitive match between @Montse Mejia and Valeria Centellas . Mejia is undefeated against the Argentinian in her career, and as I frequently intone has the talent to be in the top 4 on tour, but needs consistent attendance and consistent performances.
Projected Qtrs:
#1 and tournament namesake @Paola Longoria should advance over the Salas/Munoz winner.
A great match is projected between #4 Erika Manilla and newly crowned World Games champ #5 @Angelica Barrios. These two met in Vero Beach, a two game win for Erika, and I’d expect the same here, but under-rate Barrios at your peril.
Upset watch for #6 Parrilla over #3 Mendez: these two met in South Carolina and that’s exactly what Leoni did. She’s finally back into the top 10 consistently after her knee injury and will look to stay there.
#2 Alexandra Herrera projects to meet her long-time doubles partner Mejia in the quarters. They’ve met more than a few times, and Herrera has taken their last couple of meetings, but Mejia is arguably the better player, but needs to overcome the mental aspect of playing her friend and partner. Based on where these two are right now, i’m going with the lefty. Semis projection:
Longoria over Manilla: this is becoming somewhat of a famous matchup, and many see Manilla as a leading rival to take down Longoria. Can Erika take a big step here? The game plan for beating Paola has been demonstrated by Herrera recently; simply put, don’t make errors. Easier said than done.
Herrera over Parrilla: I still think there’s a huge gap from the top 2 players to the rest of the tour, and see no reason not to predict a 1v2 final.
Finals: Longoria wins her namesake tourney and starts off the season with the upper hand against her primary rival for the 2022-23 title.
Doubles review There’s 8 doubles teams here … with some new teams competing thanks to regular partners missing. However, the top 2 seeds are the regular dominant teams of Longoria/Salas and Herrera/Mejia. It is difficult not to predict another final between these two teams, who have been battling for pro and National titles regularly for years. I am intrigued by #3 seeds Manilla/Parrilla: both have regular partners at this point (Scott and Perez respectively), and it should be interesting to see how they play together. Both are great doubles players.
In the final i’ll go chalk, with Longoria/Salas raising another doubles title together.
Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live.
Look for Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., and Tj Baumbaugh on the mike, calling the shots!
Coincidentally, if you’re interested in playing Fantasy Racquetball for this event, the links to the brackets are advertised on LPRT’s main page. The winner each week gets free swag!
Here’s a recap of the excellent satellite IRT event from this past weekend in Juarez. Congrats to your winners on the weekend:
IRT Singles: Andree Parrilla
Open Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya & Javier Mar
IRT21 Singles: Erick Trujillo
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=39837
Lets review the notable matches in the Pro Singles draw. Not too many surprises before the quarters; Cuevas got a walkover against Christian Longoria, @Jordy Alonso was a no-show, giving Diego Gastellum a pass into the 16s, otherwise the top players advanced. In the 16s,
Andree Parrilla took out former WRT #1 Alex Cardona in two games.
Gastellum got a marquee win, topping Cuevas to get to the quarters.
Rodrigo Montoya handled former Mexican national champ Polo Gutierrez in two, a solid win against a very tough opponent.
Alvaro Beltran went breaker to top the under-rated Jaime Martell (who I thought would get this upset).
#2 and tournament namesake @Alex Landa had his typical slow start and dropped a game to Sebastian Hernandez before advancing.
All in all, only a couple of minor surprises into the quarters.
In the Quarters
#1 Parrilla handled the upstart Gastellum in two to advance to the semis.
#4 Montoya blitzed #5 Sebastian Fernandez , donuting him in the first to advance in two. Kind of a shocking result honestly.
“The Kid” Erick Trujillo took out the Veteran @Alvaro Beltran in a breaker. It looked like it would be a two game win, but Beltran had a huge comeback in game two to force the breaker, where Trujillo ran away with it 11-2. Another excellent result for the reigning 18U Mexican national (and World) champ.
– Landa made a statement against his long-time Mexican rival @Javier Mar, taking game one 15-1 and holding on for a two-game win.
The Semis went chalk:
#1 Parrilla, who has a losing record in tier1s against his long-time rival Montoya, flipped the script and took out Rodrigo in a breaker. After saving match points against in game two, Parrilla blew out the breaker 11-1 to win.
#2 Landa won two close games against the upstart Trujillo to move into the final.
In the Finals, it was a tale of streaks between the two top seeds. Landa cruised to a game one win, then Parrilla ran of a ton of points straight to win game two … then Landa blew it out in game three 11-1 to take the title in his home town tourney.
Open Doubles review The doubles draw was relatively chalk into the finals, where the two top seeds of IRT veterans (#1 Montoya/Mar and #2 Landa/Beltran) were set to meet.
In the final, the #1 seeds took a close game one win, then cruised to a two game victory and the title.
IRT 21 Singles results:
#1 Trujillo advanced to the final from the top half, but not before getting pressed by Luis Renteria , who is playing in his age 17 season. The bottom half featured a big run of upsets by @Jose Ramos (who holds 6 junior Mexican titles himself and just matriculated out of 18U), who topped both Orteaga and Cuevas with relative ease to make the final.
In the final, Ramos gave Trujillo everything he could handle, and it went down to the wire, with Trujillo taking a thrilling 11-10 win.
Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Dean Baer, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew
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.
Next up? Per our handy master racquetball calendar … https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…/
there’s a break in the schedule on the 8/7 weekend, then 8/15 marks the first pro tournament since May, with the LPRT returning to Mexico for a grand slam kickoff to their new season.
As you may have already seen on KRG and elsewhere in social media, there’s a very solid IRT satellite tournament scheduled for this weekend, the Torneo de Raquetbol Landa Open 2022, in honor of current IRT #4 Alex Landa . It is being held in Juarez, one of the bigger racquetball communities in Mexico, right across the river from El Paso where Landa resides. The pro singles draw has 34 pro players, almost entirely from Mexico. The Guatemalan team is here, along with Set Cubillos Ruiz from Colombia and a couple of Americans, but this is almost entirely a domestic draw. And its stacked; this is arguably a deeper draw than the last Mexican Nationals event, and it should be a ton of fun to watch from afar. r2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=39837 Here’s a quick preview of the Singles and Doubles draws. Play gets kicked off later today, Thursday 7.28.22, and the @International Racquetball Tour streaming team is in the house to get us some live action.
Reminder: Juarez is Mountain time zone, so its 2 hours earlier than EST for timing purposes.
round of 32s to look for:
#9 @Erick Cuevas Fernandez versus #24 @Christian Longoria is compelling: Longoria is better than his seeding, while Cuevas’ seeding in an IRT event is inflated due to his playing more events. This is a pretty even match.
#21 @Jose Ramos versus #12 Cubillos: Ramos won a slew of Mexican Junior national titles and lost his last 18U season to Covid. This is a nice test against a veteran international player.
#20 @Polo Gutierrez vs #13 @Christian Wer; Polo was at one point recently a force in Mexican racquetball and won a slew of WRT events before an elbow injury curtailed the back half of his career. He’s still a very solid player and is an upset watch all weekend.
Both Renteria brothers are entered (owners of 9 junior national titles between them), and both take on Guatemalan competition in the openers.
– 15-18 @Guillermo Ortega versus @Sebastian Hernandez should be a close match between two up and comers in the Mexican scene.
Projecting the 16s, which are all scheduled for Friday night. Here’s some match-ups I’m projecting and hoping to see:
#1 @Andree Parrilla projects to face #17 Alex Cardona (who I think advances past Guatemalan Mendoza in the 32s). That’s a brutal draw for the former WRT #1; this is a quarters quality matchup.
#4Rodrigo Montoya vs #20 Gutierrez. A contrast in styles, with Montoya’s power and athleticism heading up against Polo’s pin-point control and unorthodox playing style. Montoya should advance but upset watch here if Polo is rested and in form.
#3 Alvaro Beltran vs #14 Jaime Martel ; Martell is one of the better players in the world that you may not know of, with multiple recent wins over players ranked in the teens on the IRT. I hate picking against Alvaro, but he’s struggled in singles events lately and Martel can beat players. Upset watch.
Predicted Quarters:
#1 Parrilla over #8 @Jordy Alonso: Alonso probably is a top 10 player if he toured regularly, with wins over Horn, Jake and Sebastian Franco earlier this year. But Parrilla is too tough for him here.
#4 Montoya over #5 @Sebastian Fernandez : Patata has a relatively straightforward path into the quarters, but there is set to face the tough Montoya. Both of these players are athletic as all get-out, and this would be a fantastic match to see live. Rodrigo moves on.
#6 Erick Trujillo over #14 Martel: with wins over the likes of Natera, Garay, and Franco t his year, Trujillo is starting to become a feared opponent on tour. Martell is a veteran, and certainly can win this game, but i’ll go with the youngster to move on.
#2 Landa over #7 @Javier Mar: the only times I have these two meeting was in Mexican Nationals in 2017 (Mar win in the final) and 2019 (Landa win in the quarters). On paper this is a Landa win; Mar has taken time off from singles recently to rehab an injury, while Landa has also fought off injury issues in the last year, but both should be recovered. Expect a tactical shot making match here, with Landa moving on in two close games.
Semis:
Montoya over Parrilla: Montoya just has Parrilla’s number, having just beat him in the World Games and owning a 6-3 adult record h2h against him. Makes you wonder why Montoya isn’t also in the top 4 in the world, if he can continually beat the current #2 player. Anyway; i’m going with another Montoya win here.
Landa over Trujillo; experience trumps youth here; Trujillo has the talent to get into main IRT draws but not to win them just yet. Landa solves him and moves into the final of his namesake tourney.
Final: Montoya over Landa. Montoya topped Landa in Birmingham (though landa was under the weather), and they have a 3-3 head to head record dating to 2017 in top-level events. Montoya has won the last two meetings on tour/internationally and is riding the hot hand.
IRT U21 preview In the Under21 pro division, 14 players are entered, headlined by Trujillo and Cuevas. this is a great showcase for rising talent and i’m glad to see this division again.
Predictions: Trujillo over Hernandez from the top half, Ortega over Cuevas from the bottom half, and Trujillo wins the title.
—
Open Doubles Preview This 12-team draw features some fun teams. it is headlined by Montoya/Mar, perhaps the finest doubles team in the world. They should advance to the final with relative ease. The bottom half features a throwback veteran team of Landa/Beltran as the #2 seed; they should be able to outlast #3 Hernandez/Trujillo to get to the final.
The final should be chalk though, as Montoya/Mar are hard to beat.
As mentioned, streaming on the IRT this weekend. Follow the IRT and sign up for live streaming notifications.
Women’s Pro Doubles: Michelle De La Rosa and Carla Munoz
Mixed Pro Doubles: Michelle De La Rosa & Daniel de la Rosa
Men’s Singles: @Andres Acuna
Women’s Singles: Carla Munoz
CPRT: @Josh Tucker and @Greg Solis
Executive Summary: Geis/Rich hold off DLR/Beltran in the final for the 2nd year in a row, the DLRs continue to dominate in Mixed, mDLR gets another weekend outdoor double, as does Munoz, and Acuna goes back-to-back titles in indoor and outdoor, and a HoFamer takes the CPRT with a future outdoor HoFamer in Tucker.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=38652
Triple Crown Reports: These links list the “triple crowns” of Outdoor racquetball majors; its a nice way to see all the past winners in one place.
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
Lets do a quick recap of the pro draws. Men’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/i2u Thanks perhaps to the new outdoor player ranking system in place, the seedings were un-assailable at this event, and the draw was almost entirely chalk. Out of the 13 pro doubles matches played on the weekend, there was just one upset by seed (#10 @Robert Sostre and Andree Parrilla over #7 Thomas Gerhardt and Danny Lavely in the round of 16.
1 seeds and defending champions Gies/Rich destroyed the indoor-pro team and finalists at Beach Bash of Acuna/Portillo 1,3 in the quarters to set the tone for the rest of the weekend. They advanced frequent Marina Park shootout rivals @Rocky Carson and @Jesus Ustarroz in the semis to advance to the anticipated final.
From the bottom-side, #2 DLR and Alvaro Beltran (the 2019 winners here) defeated the 2018 winners in Josh Tucker and Brandon Davis in two games to advance to the title match. DLR/Beltran came out firing, winning the first game 15-3 and giving the crowd a buzz; this is the third time in two years these two teams have met in a 3-wall outdoor pro doubles final. However, Rich/Geis came back and took game two 15-12 … but not before some real drama. At game point against, a ball came across the court to Alvaro on the right-hand side, who prepared to take a backhand. However, Geis was pinned and moved off the court. Beltran took the shot and hit Geis, looking for an avoidable hinder, but the referee (and line judge) ruled the ball was struck in a way that it wouldn’t have made the front wall; point against DLR/Beltran and game two. DLR and Beltran were furious, and had to be separated from the referee. Not a great look for two veteran pros. Once everything settled down, the tiebreaker was a back and forth streaky affair, with DLR/Beltran taking the early lead but Rich/Geis running a few points at the end to take the title.
The expected Las Vegas rematch should be interesting.
Women’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/gfq Michelle De La Rosa and Carla Munoz won their 4th straight Outdoor Nationals women’s pro doubles event, and 6th outdoor pro major together, by twice holding off the reigning USA indoor national doubles champions Kelani Lawrence and Hollie Scott . The 7 ladies teams played a double elimination draw, and thus in the match report the winner’s bracket final is listed as the “semis” and thus it looks like the semis and finals were a duplication in the database. We don’t get too many double elimination draws (I can count on one hand the number I’ve seen across all federations doing data entry for 20+ years), so the code/database isn’t built to handle it perfectly right now.
Bravo to @Angela Veronica Ortega and @Victoria Rodriguez, who advanced to the loser’s bracket final and finished 3rd by defeating some seasoned outdoor and pro teams.
Mixed Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/8q6 The De La Rosa husband-wife team continues their dominance over Mixed Pro racquetball, winning this event for the 6th time in the last 7 years, and winning their 17th mixed pro outdoor major doubles title together. They remain on track to do the “triple,” winning all three outdoor major titles in one year.
They topped up-and-coming outdoor regulars Eduardo Portillo and Hollie Scott in a close final, but were given a scare in the semis by the Parrilla bro/sis combo, who beat them in game one 15-4 before the DLRs made the inevitable adjustment and blew them out 2,3 from there on.
CPRT Doubles:
@Josh Tucker and @Greg Solis, who have a combined 9 outdoor nationals pro doubles titles between them (but never one together), took the CPRT 40+ pro draw as the top seed. They beat SoCal expert 40+ players @Scott St Clair and Tony Burg in the final.
Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/3cu Andres Acuna , who won this event last year at Outdoor Nationals and was the #1 seed, took out #2 IRT player Andree Parrilla and then #2 seed veteran outdoor player Danny Lavely to repeat as singles champion here. It’s been a nice two weeks for Andree, who took the World Games in Birmingham on Tuesday, hopped on a plane, then took the title here in a completely different racquetball discipline. Oh and apparently he got married recently.
A nice month for the Costa Rican. Bravo.
Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/3it
@Carla Munoz , the #1 seed and defending champ, defended her title here by ousting the improving Ortega, then two fellow LPRT touring vets in Lawrence and Scott to take the title. After missing Beach Bash, Munoz had some catching up to do with the cup series, and she took the double this weekend. She took out Scott in the final, fitting in that Hollie won the Beach Bash singles title.
Outdoor Cup Series status: we’ll do a separate post later this week on the machinations of this weekend’s results on the Cup standings.
Wor HOF class of 2022 Induction
On Saturday afternoon, the latest WOR Hall of Fame class was inducted. 1979 champs Dave Trenton & Steve Fey were added to the Hall; these were important transitional players who helped get outdoor Racquetball from its Paddleball roots of the 1970s into the power game dominated by Southern and Hawkes in the 1990s.
Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, headlined by the LPRT team with SoCal’s JT R Ball often on the mike, bringing on outdoor legends to help commentate. It is always a treat to listen to these specialists.
Next up? Per our handy master racquetball calendar … https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…/ … we’re in the dead of summer now; no events next weekend, then in two weeks time there’s a tier 3 IRT event in Alejandro Landa ‘s name in Juarez that should get some big names.
August is shaping up to be super busy: Worlds, the return of the Paola Longoria experience in Mexico, and a big Outdoor event in Chicago.
Thanks to your tournament directors this weekend @Geoff Osberg and @Jesus Ustarroz. Thanks to @3wa3Wall Ball ‘s @PeggiPPeggine Tellez and @Mike Coulter for all your support for the event and for your weekend experience help. Thanks of course to title sponsor @RaRandy r and his company Team Root for underwriting the event, to the presenting sponsor Pro Kennex, and to all the other sponsors who make this event possible.
Welcome to the 2022 Outdoor Nationals! The 48th annual event runs from July 14th – July 17th 2022 at the Marina Park outdoor courts in Huntington Beach, California. This tournament was first held in 1974, on the grounds of Orange Coast College in nearby Costa Mesa, California. It was the brainchild of two kinesiology professors by the names of Bob Wetzel and Barry Wallace, who had converted from playing handball to outdoor 3-wall racquetball in the early 1970s and were so enamored of the sport that they began teaching it at the college.
They organized the first ever “National Championship” to be held on the July 4th weekend in 1974, and convinced all the top indoor pros of the day to compete in it as well. After much cajoling, Bob Kendler (head of the NRC, which was the main “pro tour” of the day) signed off on the event and encouraged his players to attend. The first Outdoor Nationals included a who’s who of the top “indoor” pros of the day, including historic names like Charlie Brumfield, Bill Schmidtke, Steve Keeley, Steve Serot, Craig McCoy, Dr. Bud Muehleisen, and a precocious 16-yr old named Marty Hogan, who was just about to take over the pro tour and forever transform the sport. These top NRC pros competed with the best outdoor players of the day, a list that included Wallace and Wetzel, Jim Carson (who would later become the director of this tournament for a number of years), R.O. Carson (father of Rocky Carson), Rich Carson (R.O.’s brother and Rocky’s uncle), and Mark Susson. In the end, Brumfield topped Serot to take the first ever Outdoor Nationals singles title. Brumfield also teamed with his long-time doubles parter Dr. Bud to win the first pro doubles title. After some time, the tournament moved from the Orange Coast college to nearby Golden West College, and then in 2006 moved to its current location in Marina Park. This will be the 16th iteration of this event that has been held at Marina Park, and the pink and green courts are now the de-facto home of outdoor racquetball in Southern California. The courts are big, very big: the front wall is nearly 23’ tall, the courts are 22 1/2 ‘ wide, and the back line is an inch short of 46 feet, making these courts the largest regularly-played courts in the country. The size of the court (and the height of the front wall) makes for some very specialized strategies, and you’ll see these strategies in play all weekend. The 2022 event is shaping up to be a very strong field, thanks in no part to the two Outdoor Cup Series going on. Outdoor Nationals is the second leg of the LPL Financial LPRT Outdoor Cup, and is also the second leg of the KWM Gutterman Men’s Pro Outdoor Cup. With thousands of dollars on the line going to the best finisher amongst the three Outdoor “Majors,” interest in competing is high. R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=38652 Here’s a quick preview of the Men’s and Women’s pro draws (doubles, mixed, and singles). Play starts 9am PST Friday 7/15/22.
The Brackets are not yet available as of this writing so we’ll talk about the leading teams in each draw.
Men’s Pro Doubles Last year, the talented team of Micah Rich/Jason Geis topped the presumed “best doubles team in the world” in Alvaro Beltran/Daniel De La Ros en route to taking the title. However, Alvi and Daniel got some revenge a few months later, beating Rich & Geis in the Vegas final. Both teams are back for 2022 (presumably as the #1 and #2 seeds), and they’ll be joined by a dozen other top pro teams competing for the title. Some of the teams to watch for this year include:
Andres Acuna/Lalo Portillo : Acuna has proven to be a quick study on the outdoor courts, and Lalo is recovered from a knee injury and should be in full form. These two made the final of the 2022 Beach Bash and are a formidable team.
Rocky Carson/Jesus Ustarroz are a long-time pairing and are 2-time winners here. They continue to play together in the regularly held shootouts on the court and are usually found in the back end of the draws. But they’ve been bedeviled in the latter stages of this event the last few years, losing in the final of 2018 and the semis in both 2019 and 2021. They’ll still be a top seed and will look to get an upset on Saturday of the event.
Brandon Davis/Josh Tucker won this event together in 2018, and Tucker is a constant presence in the semis of this event. He’s been a semi-finalist or better ten times since 2007, with three titles. Davis is no slouch either; he’s been in the semis or better five times since 2011. This is the team nobody wants to see in the quarters, or perhaps at all in this tournament. They’re both frequent players on the Marina Park courts and are cerebral tacticians when it comes to the outdoor genre.
Greg Solis/Scott Davis: Solis has 6 Men’s titles dating to 1995, and made the final last year with Tucker. This year he’s entered with Brandon’s brother Scott, himself also a mainstay in the quarters and semis of this event and a finalist in 2014.
Andree Parrilla/Robert Sostre: Parrilla doesn’t have much outdoor pedigree, but Sostre certainly does. He’s won no less than 11 Men’s Major outdoor titles in his career, and is now teamed up with one of the most skilled indoor pros out there.
Don’t forget about solid pairings such as Natera/Fernandez, Coe/Koll, and Lavely/Gerhardt, all of whom are solid teams.
From the round of 16 onwards, there are no easy matches at Outdoor Nationals. This will be a neutral’s paradise to watch from afar.
Women’s Pro Doubles Last year, Michelle De La Rosa/Carla Munoz cruised to the Women’s doubles title, dominating the 5-team round robin. This year the draw will be significantly deeper, with a number of LPRT players pouring into the draw. Here’s some teams to watch for:
Kelani Lawrence/Hollie Scott: the newly crowned USA National indoor champs are teaming up to give it a go in outdoor, and Scott’s one-wall pedigree should help power this team.
Jessica Parrilla/Maria Renee Rodriguez are teaming up for the first time to compete here this weekend. Parrilla has competed in outdoor before, while this is a first for MRR.
– Heather Mahoney/Jazmine Trevino bring some California presence to this draw. Mahoney is fresh off Junior Nationals, where she captured the 18U title with ease.
Mixed Doubles The mixed draw is of course headlined by the husband-wife pair of Daniel & Michelle De La Rosa; they’ve now won 14 major outdoor titles together since 2014, and they have not lost a match together since the final of the 2018 3WB event in Las Vegas. Who can challenge them? Here’s the teams shooting for an upset this weekend:
Rick “Soda Man” Koll/Maria Renee Rodriguez: Koll always competes well in Mixed and has a number of titles to his credit. MRR is newer to outdoor but may prove to be a quick study.
Micah Rich/Kelani Lawrence: this could be my pick to make some noise this weekend. Rich of course is one of the best outdoor players out there, while Kelani can hold her own against any female player on the right side.
Alan Natera/Carla Munoz: for years Munoz has played with Sostre in mixed and was a regular finalist. Now she’s trading the hall of famer for her husband in Natera (understandable), and will look to make it an all husband-wife affair in the finals against the DLRs.
Andree & Jessica Parrilla: perhaps the best brother-sister combination in the history of the sport teams up to play mixed in California; these are two top 10 touring pros who both can play.
Eduardo Portillo/Hollie Scott: Scott is quickly becoming an outdoor force, and Portillo can hang with most any player.
Robert Sostre and …. A game day decision to see who pairs with Sostre. As of this writing, the hall of famer and multi-mixed titlist was seeking a partner. Sostre can carry a player to the final; can he find a partner to break through and win it? Men’s Singles features 8 brave players battling it out on the massive Marina Park courts. And there’s some big-time names in this draw. World Games champ Acuna, IRT #2 Parrilla, Hall of Famer Sostre, and fellow Hall of Famer Greg Solis are the favorites here. Solis is searching for that elusive singles title; he’s been a runner-up several times.
Women’s Singles: Carla Munoz is back to defend her 2021 singles title, and she’s got a slew of regular touring pros challenging her for the 2022 title. Lawrence, Parrilla, Rodriguez, and Scott are in the draw, along with outdoor specialists Victoria Rodriguez and Mexican Junior Angela Ortega. Scott has won the last three Beach Bash singles titles, but 3-wall is a different beast in singles than one-wall. This should be a competitive draw.
Look for Streaming on 3Wall Ball , led by the invaluable @jt rball. Thanks to the Tourney Directors @Jesus Ustarroz and @geoff Osberg for putting this event on! They’ve been running Outdoor Nationals for 10 years now and continue to do a fantastic job. Thanks to @3WBall and Mike Coulter and Peggine Tellez for your help as well. 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 @WOR – World Outdoor RacqueWoR @USA Racquetball onewallball / Ruben Pagan 3wallball / Mike Coulter / mc vegas AGE Solutions / Andy Gomer team root / Randy Root KWM Gutterman / Keith Minor APCON/MZ Companies / Abel Perez Team Dovetail / Mike Kinkin Daily Racquetball Hashtags #racquetball #proracquetball #outdoorracquetball #irt #lprt #wor