Paola Longoria Grand Slam Wrap-up

Longoria wins her namesake event. Photo via US Open 2019, Kevin Savory

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

Singles: Paola Longoria
Doubles; Alexandra Herrera & Montse Mejia

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.

tags
LPRT

August 12, 2022

LPRT Paola Longoria Grand Slam Preview

Manilla has a career high seeding. Photo 2021 US Open via Kevin Savory

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!

LPRT
Hashtags #racquetball #proracquetball #outdoorracquetball #irt #lprt #wor

August 1, 2022

Alex Landa Open Recap

Landa wins the Landa Open. Photo from 2020 USAR National doubles by Kevin Savory

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.

tags
International Racquetball Tour

July 28, 2022

Alex Landa Open Preview

Landa headlines the draw at his namesake event. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

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.

July 19, 2022

2022 Outdoor Nationals Wrap Up

Micah Rich (pictured) and Jason Geis win their 2nd straight Outdoor Nationals men’s pro doubles title. Photo 2022 Marina Park shootout via Stephen Fitzsimons

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

Men’s Pro Doubles: Jason Newberg and @Micah Rich
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.

WOR Outdoor Nationals preview

Jason Geis (and partner Micah Rich) are the defending pro doubles champs. Photo: Steve Fitzsimons

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
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June 27, 2022

USAR Junior Nationals wrap-up

Annie Roberts captured the first ever Girls 21U singles title. Photo 2019 Jr Nats via Kevin Savory

r2sports home page for all the brackets:
https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=39341

Congrats to your @USA Racquetball Junior National winners on the weekend. Champions were crowned in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles for six age groups on the weekend, so lots of champions to recognize.

This post is official notification that we’ve added the data to the database at www.proracquetballstats.com . This is the first time we’ve had a 21U junior division, so we’ve also made a bunch of coding changes to the behavior of the site. Please let us know if you see any issues or cannot see data as expected.

A reminder on our data entry policies for juniors: we put in full brackets for 14+ and older divisions, just the finalists for younger divisions, and just the finalists for doubles.
The finalists of each Singles division and the Champions of each Doubles division qualify for the US Junior National team, and have first right of refusal to compete at Worlds in November.
Singles

Boys 21U: Micah Farmer
Boys 18U: Josh Shea
Boys 16U: Nikhil Prasad
Boys 14U: Nathan Rykus
Boys 12U: Vaishant Mangalampalli
Boys 10U: Noah Jakola
Girls 21U: Annie Roberts
Girls 18U: Heather Mahoney
Girls 16U: Naomi Ros
Girls 14U: Andrea Perez-Picon
Girls 12U: Aarya Shetty
Boys/Girls Doubles
Boys 21U: Assuan Castaneda & Micah Farmer
Boys 18U: Josh Shea & Paul Saraceno
Boys 16U: Gatlin Sutherland & Nikhil Prasad
Boys 14U: Eshan Ali & Nathan Rykhus
Boys 12U: Lucas Frost-Biskup & Vaishant Mangalampalli
Girls 21U: Graci Wargo & Shane Diaz
Girls 18U: Heather Mahoney & Julia Stein
Girls 16U: Ava Kaiser & Naomi Ros
Girls 14U: Aarya Shetty & Sarah Bawa
Mixed Doubles
Mixed 21U: Shane Diaz & Micah Farmer
Mixed 18U: Heather Mahoney & Timmy Hansen
Mixed 16U: Naomi Ros & Cole Sendrey
Mixed 14U: Montserrat Torres & Axel Lopez
Mixed 12U: Aarya Shetty & Vaishant Mangalampalli

The best ways to see all the winners in one place are via the Junior Matrix Reports at the website.
Click here: https://rball.pro/mey for the Boys Junior winner’s matrix for all USA junior titles, dating back to 1974.
Click here: https://rball.pro/cpf for the same report for the Girls.

However, for each of the singles draws you can see all the match results by pulling down the event at the main Junior home page. Go here, then hit the event pulldown: http://rb.gy/rnps1f

Here’s some commentary on the Boys singles divisions one by one.
Boys 21U: Micah Farmer held serve as the #1 seed and held off #4 Castenada in a 5-gamer in the semis and then Elkins in the final for the win.
Boys 18U came down to #1 vs #2 as predicted, and they played a barn burner. NY’s Josh Shea cruised to the first two games to make it look like it’d be laugher, but defending champ @Timmy Hansen took the next two to force the 5th. There, Shea ground out an 11-7 win for his first Junior National title.
Boys 16U came down to 1v2 in the final, and #1 Nikhil Prasad had to come back from 2-1 games down to secure the title over #2 @Gatlin Sunderland. Prasad repeats as 16U champ and secures his 7th career junior national singles title.
Boys 14U has a new titlist, as #2 Nathan Rykhus moved up from 12U and defeated the defending champion #1 Eshan Ali in a 5-game barn burner. This is Rykhus’ third junior singles title, and interestingly his 3rd in a row in new age groups.
Boys 12U was 1v2 in the final, with Fremont’s Vaishant Mangalampalli taking his first junior national title over #2 seed Alejandro Robles Pico.

Boys 10Udb’s RR group was taken by Texan Noah Jakola. Fellow Texan Fernando Miguel Carpena finished 2nd.

Here’s some thoughts on the Girls Singles draws:
Girls 21U: @Annie Roberts took the solid RR group, with wins over fellow LPRT part timers like Diaz, Wargo, and Perez-Picon. Solid win.
Girls 18U Heather Mahoney returned to the winner’s circle, topping #2 Julia Stein in the final to secure her 9th Junior National title and her first since 2019. She can’t reach the all-time record for junior titles by a US Female (@Adrienne Haynes with 11) but she can get close with one more 18U title.
Girls 16U was taken by #1 @Naomi Ros to repeat as 16U titlist. She topped #2 Ava Kaiser in the final. Ros now holds 2 US junior national titles and at least 2 Mexican Junior National titles in younger ages (our records are incomplete).
Girls 14U was taken by #1 Andrea Perez-Picon in dominant fashion, without dropping a game. She secures her 6th US Junior National title and has a chance at the all-time record if she can run the table here on out.
Girls 12U was taken by Arya Shetty, who won the 4-person RR.
Girls 10U was won by Anum Mitha, who topped Anna Sikorski h2h for the title.

Girls 14U

We also capture Junior Doubles data, but only the winners of the draws going back in time.
https://rball.pro/o0y

Click on the PRS home page for Junior Doubles results and you can pull up winners by division.

Congrats to all the new members of the Junior National team. They qualify to represent the US at World Juniors in November, which apparently will be at the new facility in Guatemala City (though the IRF has not officially announced the site).

Thanks to @Connor Shane for running the event, thanks to Leo Vazquez for streaming and broadcasting all weekend.

Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar …
https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…/
Next up on the Racquetball calendar is a break for the 4th of July weekend, then the World Games happen in Birmingham from 7/10 to 7/13, then the big Outdoor Nationals happens in Huntington Beach!

June 23, 2022

USA Racquetball Junior Nationals Preview

Timmy Hansen goes for a repeat in boys 18U. Photo unk source

We’re back on the US National tournament circuit, a month past May’s Singles and Doubles, and this time we’re in Des Moines, IA for the 48th annual @USA Racquetball Junior Nationals tournament. First held in 1974 in San Diego, the first Boys 18U winner was one Jerry Zuckerman, who went on to play in 39 pro events throughout the 1970s. The second ever junior nationals 18U division was won by none other than @Marty Hogan , who of course would go on to quickly start adding Pro titles to his resume and who changed the course of the sport. The Girls didn’t start having divisions until 1978, and the first Girls 18U champ was Lislie Lindskog.
101 participants are in Iowa this weekend, a nice improvement over last year’s junior turnout, and they’re in for a ton of racquetball.
R2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=39341

Click here for Junior matrix Reports which show every winner for every year in one place:

Boys US Junior National champs: http://rb.gy/pju5me
Girls US junior national champs: http://rb.gy/lucca0
Junior tournaments are like previewing 20 individual tournaments, since you’re talking about multiple age group draws, so here’s a few words about each of the singles draws:
Boys 21U: The relatively new 21U division has 7 players playing it, headlined by #1 seed Micah Farmer. I suspect it will be an upset if Farmer doesn’t take it.
Boys 18U features four names familiar to most pro rball fans; #1 seed Timmy Hansen (son of Hall of Famer Tim Hansen), #2 seed New Yorker Josh Shea , #3 seed lefty Iowa’n @AnAndrew Gleason , and #4 seed Texan @D.J. Mendoza. All four are periodic IRT players and the semis should be excellent. Hansen is the defending champ but I think Shea is the favorite to win this.
Boys 16U is headlined by the defending champ @Nikhil Prasad , who already has 6 Junior National titles and is an overwhelming favorite here. But there’s a huge draw with a ton of challengers here. #2 @Gatlin Sunderland was a semi finalist in 16U last year, #6 Mendoza is competing in both 16U and 18U and could be a dark horse, and #5 @Benjamin Horne made the quarters of 18U last year as a 15yr old. Lots of fun here.
Boys 14U: The #1 seed is last year’s champ Eshan Ali, but he’ll be challenged by last year’s 12U champ and fellow Northern California player #2 Nathan Ryhkus to repeat and claim his 5th junior national title.
Boys12U’s will have a new champ, with Ryhkus moving up. Last year’s 10U champ Alejandro Robles-Pincon is the #2 seed and a favorite, projected to face #1 seed Vaishant Mangalampalli if seeds hold.

Boys 10U Double Bounce returns for the first time since 2019, with four new-comers set to compete. No other younger groups (8U, 8Umb, 6U) are being competed this year.

Girls 21U will be a fun one, with a few LPRT regulars entered along with a couple of newer names that could surprise. Graci Wargo , @Annie Roberts, @Shane Diaz, and @Estefania Perez-Picon have all featured on the pro tour this season, and watching these up and coming American’s compete here will be great experience. My money is Roberts 1, Diaz 2, Perez-Picon 3.
Girls 18U features a full 16 player draw, headlined by 8-time US Junior champ @Heather Mahoney as the #1 seed. #2 is @Julia Stein, a veteran junior player who won 10U in 2013. The rest of the draw is filled with veterans of High School nationals, with 10 players hailing from the St. Louis league.
Girls 16U’s draw is headlined by its defending champ @Naomi Ros, who also happens to have played in half the LPRT events this year. She took the 16U final last year over #2 seed @Ava Kaiser … so hard not to predict a rematch there. Ros won a couple of Mexican Junior national titles before moving here in 2020, and now is set to compete for the US for the forseeable future. Watch out though for the #3 and #4 seeds: Sonya Shetty has 3 junior national titles herself, and Andrea Perez-Picon is no stranger to the pro tour herself (and the 14U finalist to Shetty last year). Tough semis and finals here.

Girls 14U: #1 Andrea Perez-Picon is in the driver’s seat here, the finalist last year and also reigning 12U champ.

There’s also both gender doubles and Mixed doubles this weekend, with many players competing in all three. The 18U doubles tournaments in particular look great, and I hope we get to see some streaming.
Leo Vazquez is back on the USAR mike this weekend; follow USAR and sign up for live stream notifications all weekend.

June 19, 2022

IRT Costa Rica Open Recap

Parrilla gets the double this weekend in San Jose. Photo 2019 US Open via Kevin Savory

Congrats to the pro winners on the weekend:

Singles; Andree Parrilla
Doubles: Parrilla & Sam Murray
r2 link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=39311
Lets recap the Pro Singles draw:
In the 16s, I had my eye on a couple of matches that might be close … but in the end, the draw went essentially chalk to the quarters. I say “essentially’ because #9 Javier Mar took out #8 Erick Trujillo 8,3, which may be an upset by seed but certainly is not by talent. The other pro-vs-pro round of 16 that looked intriguing turned into a blowout, with #7 Eduardo Garay Rodriguez handling #10 Alan Natera 12,3.
In the quarters:
#1 @AnAndree Parrilla made fast work of #9 Mar 7,6. This used to be a much closer rivalry, now Mar has his work cut out to close the gap.
#5 Andres Acuña cruised past #4 @Sebastian Franco 9,3 on his home courts.
#6 @Rodrigo Montoya got a statement win over #3 @Eduardo Portillo 9,9; tour observes often wonder what would happen if Montoya committed to the tour full time, with his full attention. Could he be a top 5 player?

– #2 @Samuel Murray cruised past #7 Garay 4,7.

Both Semis featured great comebacks from the top seeds.

#1 Parrilla dropped the first game to the home-town favorite Acuna before advancing (😎,12,2.
#2 Murray looked like he was going to lose two fast ones to the athletic Montoya, but held on to win (😎,12,7.

In the final: Parrilla and Murray played a barn burner, each going through multiple shirts and fighting both each other and the humidity before Andree pulled away at 7-7 in the breaker to take it. Solid match.

Pro Doubles review:
The pro doubles went completely chalk to the finals, where #1 Montoya/Mar took on #2 Parrilla/Murray.

In that final … Parrilla & Murray, who had just walked off the court as singles competitors in the final, teamed up to take out the #1 Montoya/Mar pairing 13,13. This is an interesting result for me: Montoya & Mar are an accomplished, veteran team who have shown the ability to beat any other pairing in the world. Meanwhile, Parrilla just spent the last season exclusively playing doubles with Portillo … who was here in Costa Rica. So why didn’t the two play together? Meanwhile, Murray normally plays with Landa and has for several years and is securely ranked #2 on the doubles circuit. Is he looking for a change?

Men’s open review:
The Men’s open draw was nearly the size of the Men’s singles draw and featured some interesting players and interesting results.
From the top half, #1 Erick Trujillo topped #4 @Set Cubillos in one semi, while #2 @Alan Natera took out #3 former IRT touring pro @Felipe Camacho in the other. Camacho advanced in part by topping LPRT #5 @Ana Gabriela Martinez along the way in a breaker.

In the Open singles final… Trujillo got a solid win against a tough veteran player in Natera to take the Open title.

Thanks to Dean Baer and Pablo Fajre for making the trek to San Jose to broadcast for us!

June 15, 2022

IRT Costa Rica Tier 3 Preview

Acuna welcomes pro players to his home club as a host this weekend in San Jose. Photo US Open 2019 Kevin Savory

The Costa Rica country club in San Jose is hosting an IRT event for the first time (I believe) since 2019, and they’ve got a nice solid draw. Lower tier events are not put into the proracquetballstats.com database because they’re not “full draws,” but they generally get a good chunk of the IRT top 10 and definitely contribute ranking points.
r2 link; https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=39311
Here’s a preview of the draw in San Jose this weekend; the tourney runs Weds-Sat so play will start on 6/15/22. There will be streaming, which is awesome, and per the IRT’s posts streaming starts thursday with the quarterfinals.
Singles preview:

25 players entered, including 3 guys from the current top 10 (Parrilla, Murray, and Portillo) and another 5 guys from the 11-20 range (Franco, Acuna, Garay, Montoya, and Trujillo) and a couple of big names from the 21-30 range who can make noise (Mar, Natera).
There’s a ton of players here from Guatemala, including their entire international team of Salvatierra, Wer, Mendoza, and Galicia. There’s also a great set of IRF vets from other countries: Cueva from Ecuador, Cubillos from Colombia, the Gaticas and Salgado from Chile, plus @Franciso Fajardo and some of Team Zurek.
In the round of 16, look for these good matches:
8/9 Trujillo vs Mar: a tough draw for the young Trujillo, getting a player in Mar who, when he’s “on” can be one of the best 8-10 players in the world. Mar has been out for a while nursing a core muscle injury, so this could be a close match.
4/13 Mexican up and comer Sebastian Hernandez takes on veteran Franco in a good test for him, assuming he can get by the veteran Cubillos in the 32s.
7/10 Garay vs Natera; this is an interesting match. Garay has been hit or miss touring lately, but should have the slight advantage over Natera.
2/15: Murray vs Camacho; Camacho is a long-time former touring pro who can still ball; Murray has no cake walk here.
Projected Quarters:
#1 Parrilla vs Trujillo/Mar winner: Parrilla has a tough quarter ahead.
#4 Franco vs #5 Acuna: Look for Acuna to hold serve at his home club
#3 Lalo vs #6 Montoya: tough matchup for Lalo here; Montoya is better than his ranking
#2 Murray vs Garay/Natera winner: this should be a win for Murray on paper, but both of these players can cause trouble.

My projected semis and Final: Parrilla over Acuna, Montoya over Murray. Final Parrilla over Montoya. However … if the semis turn into this quartet of players, its “any given sunday” because I think all four of these players are tightly bunched and can beat each other. Should make for some great Friday and Saturday action.

Doubles:
One of the best doubles teams in the world is here in Montoya/Mar; I see them topping Garay/Franco in one semi. In the other side, Portillo/Acuna versus Parrilla/Murray is an interesting doubles match. Portillo/Parrilla were a “team” for sometime recently but now are apparently splitting up. Acuna doesn’t really have a regular partner since Camacho stopped touring, but Portillo has shown he’s a solid player. I’ll go with Lalo/Acuna in an upset.

However, the final is all Montoya/Mar, irrespective of who comes out of the bottom side.

Looking forward to more live pro racquetball this week!