Category: IRF

Posted on

2024 IRF Junior Worlds Recap

One of the biggest tournaments of the year just wrapped up; Junior Worlds 2024, held at the fabulous facility in Guatemala City for the fourth time in out of the last five years. More than 200 Juniors from 14 countries competed there for the last week.

Champions were crowned in Singles, Doubles, and Mixed Doubles in six age groups: 21U, 18U, 16U, 14U, 12U, and 10U, as well as a team competition, meaning that in essence this tournament actually held 30 separate competitions. All 30 competitions are now in the database; If you see any typos, or name corrections, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Reminder: as a practice, Pro Racquetball Stats does not capture full draws for any groups younger than 14yr olds; for the 12s, 10s, and younger we just capture the champions for historical reporting. Junior Doubles only has the gold medal match, not the full draws. If you’d like to see more data than this for juniors in the database, reach out and I’ll guide you on doing data entry.

Congratulations to your champions:

Boys Singles:

– Boys 21U: Jhoel Acha Portugal, Bolivia

– Boys 18U: Jhonathan Flores, Bolivia

– Boys 16U: Sebastian Terrazas, Bolivia

– Boys 14U: Santiago Borja, Bolivia

– Boys 12U: Alejandro Robles Picon, Mexico

– Boys 10U: Vincent Riveros, Bolivia

Bolivia takes 5 of the 6 Boys titles. Not only that, but every single final was lost by either a player from Team Mexico or a fellow Bolivian for a clean sweep of both Gold and Silver across the board.

Girls Singles:

– Girls 21U: Camila Rivero, Bolivia

– Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar, Mexico

– Girls 16U: Miranda Barraza, Mexico

– Girls 14U: Larissa Faeth, Costa Rica

– Girls 12U: Mary Hinojosa Garcia, Mexico

– Girls 10U: Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico

Mexico takes 4 of the 6 Girls Singles titles. Mexico was also the finalist in 4 of the six draws, showing a real dominance this year.

Team USA had a few of its singles entrants advance to the quarters, but USA did not have a single finalist at this event. The best result in singles for any American was @Annie Sanchez making the semis of U21 and @Naomi Ros making the semis of 18U.

———————

Boys Doubles:

– Boys 21U: Erick Trujillo/Sebastian Hernandez, Mexico

– Boys 18U: Eder Renteria/Jorge Gutierrez, Mexico

– Boys 16U: Sebastian Ruelas/Nicolas Galindo, Mexico

– Boys 14U: Santiago Castillo/Brian Axel Sanchez, Mexico

– Boys 12U: Alejandro Robles Picon/Max Soto, Mexico

– Boys 10U: Leonardo Zuna Campero/Benjamin Lino Daza, Bolivia

Mexico wins 5 of the 6 doubles titles, losing on the Boys 10U doubles title, where they made the finals. The losing finalists were mostly Bolivians and Team USA, the best result for USA for the event (Sendry/Mendoza losing finalists in 18U and Mangalampalli/Williams making the 14U doubles final).

Girls Doubles:

– Girls 21U: Camila Rivero/Natalia Mendez, Bolivia

– Girls 18U: Adriana Noelia Blacutt/Natalia Mendez, Bolivia

– Girls 16U: Andrea Perez Picon/Miranda Barraza, Mexico

– Girls 14U: Julia Rebello/Angelica Villaroel Garzon, Bolivia

– Girls 12U: Sofia Rocabado/Adriana Bazan, Bolivia

– Girls 10U: Lia Medrano/Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico

Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Girls doubles titles, including a doubles double for Natalia Carolina Mendez. Team USA Victoria Rodriguez & Montserrat Tores made the 16U final for our best result.

Mixed Doubles:

– Mixed 21U: Erick Trujillo/Ivanna Balderrama, Mexico

– Mixed 18U: Nicolas Ramiro Iglesias/Florencia Villazon Chalco, Bolivia

– Mixed 16U: Sebastian Ruelas/Andrea Perez Picon, Mexico

– Mixed 14U: Santiago Borja, Valentina Villarroel Garzon, Bolivia

– Mixed 12U: Hermann Racial Gracia/Michelle Gomez, Mexico

– Mixed 10U: Kerman Damian Gracia/Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico

Mexico takes 4 of the 6 Mixed doubles titles.

—————————

Grand total of Titles won by Country:

– Mexico: 16 of 30

– Bolivia: 13 of 30

– Costa Rica: 1 of 30

There was just one Triple Crown winner on the weekend:

– Girls 10U: Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, Mexico

These players earned two titles:

– 21U Boys: Erick Trujillo, Mexico (2 doubles titles)

– 16U Boys: Sebastian Ruelas, Mexico (2 doubles titles)

– 14U Boys: Santiago Borja, Bolivia (singles and gender doubles)

– 12U Boys: Alejandro Robles Picon, Mexico (singles and gender doubles)

– 21U Girls: Camila Rivero , Bolivia (singles and gender doubles)

– 21U Girls: Natalia Mendez, Bolivia (who won both 21U and 18U doubles)

– 16U Girls: Miranda Barraza, Mexico (singles and gender doubles)

– 16U Girls: Andrea Perez Picon, Mexico (2 doubles)

——

Team Winners:

– Boys Team: 1. Mexico, 2 Bolivia, 3 USA, 4 Costa Rica

– Girls Team: 1. Mexico, 2 Bolivia, 3. USA, 4 Guatemala

– Combined Team: 1. Mexico, 2. Bolivia, 3. USA, 4.

– Boys Esprit cup: 1. Bolivia, 2. Mexico, 3 Costa Rica, 4. USA

– Girls Espirit Cup: 1. Bolivia, 2. Mexico, 3. USA, 4. Ecuador

– Combined Espirit Cup: 1. Bolivia, 2. Mexico, 3. USA, 4. Ecuador

——

Every singles and doubles draw has a match report in the database that you can run: instead of repeating dozens of links we’ll give some examples here. Surf to www.proracquetballstats.com, click on either Juniors or “Junior Doubles” database, then at the very top you can pull down a match report. You can also run a number of different reports for singles and doubles.

——

Singles Draw commentary

Now some quick commentary division by singles division, mostly to recognize winners who have earned multiple Junior World titles over the years, and to provide some commentary on the older divisions with players who have already competed on the pro tours…

I use these “Matrix Reports” constantly; they show all the Junior winners across every age group for all of time. These links are for the Junior Worlds and date to 1989, the first ever Junior Worlds event, but are also available for USA, Canada, and Mexico.

Boys Singles Matrix Report: http://rb.gy/acygod

Girls Singles Matrix Report: http://rb.gy/yfsvqq

Boys 21U: #1 seed Bolivian Jhoel Alexis Acha took the U21 world title, topping current IRT top-10 ranked Erick Trujillo in the semis and Sebastian Hernandez in the final. This immediately makes Acha one of the top 20 players in the world in my personal pecking order, by virtue of the company he’s keeping. One thing Junior Worlds provides is a pathway into the top players in Bolivia, who we never get to hear about other wise.

Boys 18U: Jhonathan Flores repeated as 18U World Junior champ. The only player to get a game off of him the entire tourney was in the semis, when Mexico’s #1 Eder Renteria took him to five games. Flores, for those who forgot, took out Jake, Collins, Ulliman, and Alonso in Chicago’s IRT event in March. He’s legit, and as an 18yr old is probably better than any of the U21 players still juniors-eligible.

Boys 16U: Bolivian Sebastian Terrazas wins his 2nd career junior world title; he took 12U title in 2021 previously. Terrazas did not win his own National title this year, losing to Bismark Pereria (who was upset early here), but took out both of Mexico’s top 16U players in the semis and finals to win.

Boys 14U: Bolivian Santiago Borja repeats as 14U champ, but the story of this draw was the sole South Korean entrant at Junior Worlds: Taein Woo came in and upset Mexico’s Santiago Castillo 12-10 in the fifth to open the event, then made a run to the semis before falling to the eventual champ Borja.

Boys 12U: Alejandro Robles Picon, who made the rare switch from USA to Mexico for the start of 2024, captured his first ever Junior worlds title. He and his sister had huge weekends.

Boys 10U: Bolivian Vincent Riveros starts out his junior career with a win.

———-

Girls 21U: Camila Rivero, who briefly switched to play for Colombia but who now is back in the Bolivian fold, repeated as U21 champ. Last year she also won the 18U title, meaning she has another two years in the U21s. She’s got a few LPRT results on her resume from a few years back, but her most notable result may be a quarter finals finish at Worlds in San Antonio earlier this year when she played Longoria tough in a loss.

Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar topped America’s best chance for a medal in Naomi Ros in the semis, then beat her country-man Cynthia Gutierrez for her first World title.

Girls 16U: First time singles winner Miranda Barraza topped Andrea Perez Picon in the final to win the all-Mexico gold medal match.

Girls 14U: Costa Rican Larissa Faeth won the sole medal at these competitions not won by someone from either Mexico or Brazil, She moved up to 14U after winning 12U last year and claimed the title in her age 13 season.

Girls 12U: Mary Hinojosa Garcia moved up from 10U to win back to back titles.

Girls 10U: Lia Montserrat Gonzalez, the sole triple crown winner, got started with a singles title.

——

Thanks to the International Racquetball Federation for hosting the event, thanks to the great hosts in Guatemala, thanks to all our the coaches and parents who sacrificed to get your kids down there, especially this close to the holiday season, thanks to @Gary Mazaroff for the streaming and broadcasting with partners all tournament.

That’s it for the 2024 Racquetball year. I still owe an IRT season summary article (waiting for the final season rankings to publish), plus I’ll throw together a recap of the calendar year of events before the year is out.

International Racquetball Federation – IRF

Posted on

IRF Worlds Team Competition Wrap-up

Final report from San Antonio; a quick word about the Team Competition (not to be confused with the Team ranks created by summing up points from the individual competitions).

All 16 countries who had enough players to field a full team (Italy, Denmark, and Eritrea had individuals competing but not enough for a team) participated in the Davis Cup style competition, which had two rounds of singles and then a doubles match to break the tie. There were both men and women’s competitions, which added together to name a Combined winner as well.

Here were the results.

Men’s Team: USA topped Canada in the final to claim the Men’s team title and finish off a 3-gold weekend for Daniel De La Rosa . Canada upset both #2 Mexico and #3 Bolivia to get to the finals in a great showing from Samuel Murray and Coby Iwaasa .

Men’s Results:

1. USA

2. Canada

3rd: Mexico and Costa Rica

Women’s Team: #1 Mexico completed the perfectly-chalk draw by topping #2 Argentina in the final. Mexico was pressed in the quarters with a shock defeat of @Paola Longoria by former LPRT touring pro-turned ER physician Frederique Lambert , but the Mexican doubles team prevailed to move on.

Women’s Results:

1. Mexico

2. Argentina

3rd: USA and Bolivia

When adding Men’s and Women’s results together to declare a combined team winner, USA and Mexico tied at the top … and Mexico won the tie-breaker to claim the Combined title.

Combined Results:

1. Mexico

2. USA

3rd: Canada and Argentina.

——————–

Impact for the 2025 World Games.

These 2024 worlds served as a qualifier for the 2025 World Games. You can read their release here: https://www.internationalracquetball.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/IRF-Qualification-TWG2025s.pdf

Per this release, the “The final results of the Overall Combined Racquetball Championships San Antonio 2025 will be the qualifying event for The World Games Chengdu 2025.” We also know from the release that the available slots are divided/reserved for groups of countries as follows:

– Asia (including the host country China): 4 teams

– Europe: 4 teams

– The Americas: 8 teams

So, based on the final Combined results, who qualified and who didn’t? Here’s the exact results of the Combined Team play:

1. Mexico: Americas #1

2. USA: Americas #2

3. Canada: Americas #3

4. Argentina: Americas #4

5. Bolivia: Americas #5

6. Costa Rica: Americas #6

7. Guatemala: Americas #7

Now, here’s where it gets tricky. Three Countries, all from the Americas, tied for 8th in Combined: Chile, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic. How will the 8th team be selected? I have no idea. Chile had better individual results in the individual play stage, but that may not be the tie-breaker used.

8t: Chile: America’s #8

8t: Ecuador: Americas 1st Alternate

8t: Dominican Republic: Americas 2nd alternate

11t: South Korea: Asia #2 (China as host is Asia #1)

11t: Japan: Asias #3

11t: Ireland: Europe #1

14t: India: Asia #4

14t: Colombia: Americas 3rd alternate

14t: Germany: Europe #2

Two other European teams competed at Worlds (Italy and Denmark) but they did NOT compete in the team event due to lack of personnel. Do they get Europe’s #3 and #4 spots? I don’t know.

So, assuming I’ve got this all right, here’s the 16 teams that have first right of refusal for the World Games in 2025:

– Asia: China, Japan, South Korea, India

– Europe: Ireland, Germany, Italy, Denmark

– Americas: Mexico, USA, Canada, Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Chile.

The eventual SEEDING once WG2025 starts will be determined (as is pointed out on the 2nd page of the above PDF link) by the finish in the individual events Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles, and Mixed. So that’ll mean (factoring in tiebreakers in the 3/4, 5/6 and 7/8 spots):

Men’s Singles: USA, Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Guatemala, India

Women’s Singles: Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, USA, Bolivia, Italy, Canada

Mixed Doubles: USA, Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, South Korea, Canada.

I could be wrong here; take this with a grain of salt. At least we have racquetball at the 2025 World Games!

Congrats again to all the winners, congrats to the IRF and USAR and all the San Antonio racquetball supporters who made this happen, including the Sudsy Monchik-led team that did a Centurion fundraiser.

Posted on

2024 22nd Worlds Bracket Event Recap

De La Rosa wins his first World singles title, gets the double with a Mixed title. Photo via IRF

The 22nd @International Racquetball Federation – IRF World Championships bracket events are in the books. Here’s a recap of the knockout stage action, along with links for the results as entered into the Pro Racquetball Stats database.

Congratulations to the winners:

– Men’s Singles: Daniel De La Rosa , USA

– Women’s Singles: Paola Longoria , Mexico

– Men’s Doubles: Samuel Murray & @Coby Iwaasa , Canada

– Women’s Doubles: @Alexandra Herrera & Montse Mejia, Mexico

– Mixed Doubles: Daniel De la Rosa & Hollie Scott , USA

Executive Summary: Great week for DLR, who goes undefeated and wins both Singles and Mixed. One has to wonder what would have happened if he had chosen to play Men’s doubles with his USA national championship winning partner Fernandez. Team Mexico does the double, winning both Women’s Singles and Doubles. Canada’s men’s doubles team continues to get results, making their 5th international final since 2019 and getting their second title. Bolivia is completely shut out after several cycles of multiple-win performances.

r2sports home page: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=42436

Pro Racquetball Stats DB match results. Click on these links to see the match results for this event in the DB:

– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/8gq

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

– Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/v19

– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/2l0

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

—–

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

Team Points Results From Knockouts

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

(You can get these “team results” via queries available from the IRF singles page off of proracquetballstats.com historical site)

Combined Team (Overall)

1st – Mexico

2nd – USA

3rd – Bolivia

4th — Argentina

Mexico had the combined win sealed up even before any of the finals were played on thursday on the strength of their Women’s results. Bolivia edged Argentina for 3rd place by just four points, which is kind of ironic considering that Argentina’s entire team (Centellas, Garcia, Mendez, Miranda, and Vargas) all were born in Bolivia and switched allegiances to their South American Neighbor.

Men’s Team

1st – USA

2nd – Mexico

3rd – Bolivia

4th – Canada

USA’s dual-singles finals and Mexico’s early knockouts seal the Men’s title for USA.

Women’s Team

1st – Mexico

2nd – Argentina

3rd – Guatemala

4th – USA

Mexico nearly took maximum possible points for women, with 3 group stage wins and the singles title.

——-

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

Men’s Singles:

The Men’s singles knockout round went about as expected until the quarters … then all hell broke loose. I missed on 3 of the 4 quarter results in my prediction piece, headlined by the shock loss of the top seed and current IRT #1 Moscoso to Mexico’s #2 Portillo. USA’s #2 @Jake Bredenbeck had to go five to topple Argentina’s Garcia, and the infrequent touring pro Bolivian Carlos Keller Vargas took out Mexico’s Andree Parrilla. In the semis, Jake took out Lalo to get to the finals of an international competition the first time since 2016. There he met De La Rosa, who cruised past Keller in the other semi.

It was the first all-american final in an IRF event since 2015, and the first all-USA final in an IRF Major since 2010. Ironically, the last time Jake made an IRF singles final, his opponent was … De la Rosa as well. In the final, DLR ground out two game wins, then Jake caught fire and nearly donuted Daniel in the third before he caught fire in the fourth and pasted Jake 11-4 to claim the title. It’s Daniel’s first ever World title.

—

Women’s Singles:

The GOAT cruised into the final, topping the young Bolivian Rivero in the, then the hobbled Vargas in the semis. Meanwhile Guatemala’s Martinez beat USA’s Key in the opener, then beat former LPRT tour champ Mejia in the quarters in a match that included the single longest game (23-21) in IRF history, then she came from a game down to topple Chile’s Carla Munoz in the semis.

Longoria and @Ana Gabriela Martínez met in the Worlds final for the fourth time in the last five World Championships, and Longoria came out on top in the final to claim her 6th IRF World title. It’s also her 26th career IRF singles title, with wins dating all the way back to 2006.

—–

Men’s Doubles.

The #1 doubles team in the world (Montoya & Mar) was upset in Mexican Nationals this year by the #1 seed here (Parrilla & Portillo): they cruised into the title game with a 4-game win over team USA (Manilla & Fernandez) that wasn’t without a bit of controversy late. Meanwhile, Team Canada (Murray & Iwaasa), who have a habit of making it to the gold medal match internationally (they now have made 6 gold medal Men’s Pro Doubles matches since 2019), ground out two tough 5 game wins, including over Bolivia in the semis to ensure a medal-less event for the racquetball-rabid country, to get to the finals again.

In the final, Team Canada won a back and forth 5 game match where the momentum switched over and again.

—-

Women’s Doubles:

They had to work for it, but the dominant #1 pro doubles team of Mejia & Herrera came from behind in the 5th to win the five-game thriller over team Argentina (Vargas & Mendez) to claim the title. Its their third IRF title in the last two years.

—-

Mixed Doubles

Team USA’s De La Rosa would not be denied in San Antonio, as he took over for stretches to take the mixed title with partner Hollie Scott.

——

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

Next up on the Racquetball Calendar: https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2…/edit…

We’ll cover the IRF team event next week in another post. Then next weekend 9/8/24 is world Racquetball day, with shootouts and tourneys all over the country. Please consider supporting your event organizers by playing in one of these events. One of the biggest will be an outdoor event at Stratton Woods park in Northern Virginia with a lot of traveling talent for the Bolivian Open.

After that, we have the 3WallBall event with the introduction of World Team Racquetball in Las Vegas at the end of September.

Posted on

IRT 2024 Worlds Group Stage recap and Knockout Preview

Longoria is the ladies favorite heading into the knockouts Photo via US Open 2019, Kevin Savory

The matches come fast and furious at the 22nd annual International Racquetball Federation – IRF World Championships. The Round Robins finished late on 8/26/24 and the knockouts start first thing 8/27/24 morning.

The round robins “eliminated” the lowest finishers in each RR group, who drop to a consolation bracket of sorts while the top 2 from each group comprise the winner’s bracket/single elimination knockouts going forward. This ended up eliminating a few surprise players/teams, but for the most part the RRs went according to seeds across the board.

Quick observations from the group stage:

– In Men’s singles, just one upset of a top seed when Diego Garcia upset Costa Rica’s @Andres Acuna . Garcia grabs the #5 seed while Acuna drops to #14 seed and a very tough hill to climb to get back to the semis or finals. Probably the other biggest shock was India’s Vineet Singh grabbing the 2nd seed out of group 8 to claim a knockout spot in the top group. The biggest names to fall into the consolation bracket probably were Chile’s Johan Igor or perhaps South Korea’s Namwoo Lee, but otherwise the Men’s singles was pretty chalky.

– In Women’s Singles: @Carla Munoz upset USA’s @Kelani Lawrence , the #2 overall seed, in a solid international upset. @Angelica Barrios – Raquetbolista took out USA’s @Michelle Key in another upset by seed, but clearly not by world ranking, to knock both of USA’s top players out of a top 8 seed in the knockouts. The biggest upsets in the group stage were Guatemala’s @MaMaria Renee Rodríguez getting knocked into the consolation bracket, as well as Canada’s @Danielle Ramsay and Ecuador’s @Maria Jose Munoz.

– In Men’s Doubles: no real surprises. There were a couple of team upsets by seed but not by talent. Chile’s Natera/Igor was in a group of death, and Guatemala’s Galicia/Salvatierra faced an uphill battle to qualify. Perhaps the biggest story line of the group stage here was several 5-game battles that the top seeds had to undertake to maintain their perfect record on Monday.

– In Women’s Doubles, the big shock was Guatemala’s former gold medal winning team of Martinez/Rodriguez getting taken out by Canada’s Lambert & Parent. Lambert plays only sparingly and Parent is still pretty new on the world stage, so to take out a top 4 touring pro in Gaby is huge. The DR’s up and coming team of Delgado & Cespedes falls to the consolation bracket out of the same group.

– In Mixed: Guatemala shocked Canada’s Murray/Lambert team to claim the #2 knockout seed. #1 overall seed mar/Mejia had to go 5 games to top Chile’s Munoz/Natera, and USA needed to come from 2 games down to “upset” Argentina’s Miranda/Centellas to claim the #4 seed in knockouts.

—-

Knockout Previews:

– Men’s Singles: Acuna/Keller is a tough opener for both and an upset watch. #10 Salvatierra can take out #7 Garcia in the only real upsets I see in the 32s or 16s. In the quarters, I can see Argentina’s Garcia taking out USA’s Bredenbeck (he rarely tours but when he does he gets results), while the bottom half’s seeds should move on easily. I see Moscoso topping Garcia in one semi, DLR taking out Parrilla in the other, and Moscoso beating a somewhat rusty DLR for the title.

– Women’s Singles: The quarters will be epic: Longoria-Rivero, Vargas-Barrios, Mejia-Gaby, and Munoz-Mendez, with a couple of LPRT-semis quality matchups. I’m thinking that it turns out to be Longoria-Vargas in the top semi, the one player Longoria really didn’t want to see until the final. Vargas looked a bit off at the LPRT season opener, nursing an injury according to my sources, so It wouldn’t surprise me if she falls to the grinder Barrios or Longoria. Paola to the final from the top. From the bottom, whoever wins between Mejia-Gaby should advance to the final. Either way, its advantage Paola, who I think wins yet another world title.

– Men’s Doubles: Mexico’s Parrilla/Portillo probably isn’t even Mexico’s best doubles team, but they should get to the final over USA’s Manilla/Sebastian (who haven’t quite gelled as a team so far). From the bottom, I like Canada’s veteran team of Murray & Iwaasa to pick on Carrasco endlessly and move past Bolivia. In the final, Mexico wins.

– Women’s Doubles: Mejia and Herrera won 7 of the 8 LPRT doubles titles last year, and there’s no reason to think they won’t cruise to the title here.

– Mixed Doubles: the most unpredictable draw. I could see Mar/Mejia getting beat first round by Natera/Munoz, or I could see them winning it. Moscoso/Barrios versus Miranda/Centellas is an awesome opener. The top half is stacked, while the bottom half opens up really well for USA’s DLR/Scott, who should easily get to the final. But i think they’ll fall to whichever team advances from the top; i’ll guess Moscoso/Barrios.

Keep on watching on the IRF streams. Lots of fun action to come.

Ill be curious to see how they do the Team competition, which right now is stubbed out on r2 as just the top four. I’ve got the spreadsheet of typical IRF points calculations updated for the group stage for now; the expected teams are in the lead so far (Mexico, Bolivia, then USA though Argentina is right there).

Posted on

22nd IRF Worlds Event Preview

Moscoso always come to play at Worlds, and he’s the #1 seed this week. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

R2 site: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=42436

This weekend kicks off the 22nd ever World Championships, the pinnacle of international competition in our sport. The event is being held in San Antonio, at the Thousand Oaks Family YMCA, the same site that holds the LPRT’s Battle at the Alamo every year. By the time you read this, pool play will have kicked off.

This is the first time that the IRF has held its World Championships, or any major international competition, on USA soil since 1996, when the tournament was in Phoenix. It’s been nearly 30 years since either Worlds or the Pan American Racquetball Championships was held in the country of the sport’s origin, but we’re back now. USA Racquetball made the commitment earlier this year to host the tournament based partly on this argument; it has been way too long.

The competitors, who are coming from at least 16 different countries, will compete in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles for the next week. All the players will compete in round robin competitions for the first few days, which are seeded per the IRF’s seeding policy (country-based, not individual based, and driven by the results in IRF competitions over the last couple of major tournament cycles). Once RRs are done, the draws will be seeded fully and then we’ll do a single elimination knockout phase all next week, culminating with Saturday finals in all divisions.

We’ll post a knockout preview once those draws are set, with predictions.

For now, we see that there’s several top IRT and LPRT players here who are early favorites. In Men’s singles, Moscoso & DLR likely feed into the two top seeds on the men’s side. Current #2 Montoya didn’t qualify, leaving Parrilla and Portillo as the Mexican representatives and semis favorites. In Ladies singles, four of the top five ranked pros are here (Longoria, Mejia, Vargas, and Gaby), which means the eventual semis and some of the quarters even will be pro-final quality matches.

One thing fans will notice; unlike any pro event and unlike most other international events, this event will play some Olympic style draws (where the knockouts have sub draws) and there will be some sort of team competition (either as a team or based on the individual performances of country teammates). That’s because this tournament also will serve as the qualifier to the 2025 World Games, held in China.

We weren’t sure there would be racquetball at the Chengdu, China based World Games, but word came out recently that the country had committed to the event. Furthermore, they’ll be playing mixed doubles (not just singles as were played in Birmingham back in 2022). So, that means each country will qualify exactly one man and one woman (a change from 2022). Furthermore, instead of individuals qualifying based on their singles performances, a team competition to be held this week will determine the 16 countries who qualify in.

Then, the seeding at the 2025 WGs will go by individual performances here in San Antonio, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Lastly, the WG 2025 will be limited to 16 countries, with 4 saved for Asian countries (host China plus 3 others, likely to be South Korea, Japan and maybe India). There will also be 4 saved for European countries (the likely participants seem to be Ireland and Germany for sure, but two other European countries might be hard to come by. We’ve had reps from Spain, England, Ukraine, Catalonia in the past few cycles, but we’ll have to see who is here in SA.

The remaining 8 countries are for North and South Americans, but if Asia/Europe can’t field 4 teams there will be additional spots opened up. The favorite 8 American countries to qualify seem to be USA, Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Chile. That would leave aspiring and frequent international teams like Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic on the outside looking in unless a spot is freed up.

Qualification details are here: hopefully i’m interpreting this document correctly: https://www.internationalracquetball.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/IRF-Qualification-TWG2025s.pdf

First things first though; round robins kick off on today 8/24/24 with streaming on IRF’s facebook channel.

@International Racquetball Federation – IRF

International Racquetball Tour

LPRT

@USA Racquetball

Posted on

2024 PARC Individual Event Recap

Sam Bredenbeck with his first international medal. Photo via Sam’s instagram

The 35th annual Pan American Racquetball Championships tournament is in the books. Here’s a recap of the knockout stage action, along with links for the results as entered into the Pro Racquetball Stats database.

Congratulations to the winners:

– Men’s Singles: @Rodrigo Montoya , Mexico

– Women’s Singles: Maria Jose Vargas , Argentina

– Men’s Doubles: Andres Acuna & @Gabriel Garcia , Costa Rica

– Women’s Doubles: Maria Jose Vargas & Natalia Mendez , Argentina

– Mixed Doubles: @Michelle key & @Sam Bredenbeck , USA

Executive Summary: Montoya wins his third major IRF Men’s Singles title. Vargas also wins her third IRF singles title, her last one coming in 2018. Costa Rica’s doubles title is just the second major IRF title for that country. Argentina’s women’s doubles title is their 3rd together. lastly USA’s mixed title is the second in a row for team USA, who also won last year’s World title.

Pro Racquetball Stats DB match results. Click on these links to see the match results in the DB:

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

– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/b0m

– Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/vr8

– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/n6z

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

Team Points Results From Knockouts

PARC now includes a “Team competition” where the countries compete against each other, but for decades the “Team Standings” were determined by a standard algorithm that awarded points based on group stage and knockout performance. I’m unclear whether IRF continues to name “team winners” in this same way, but here’s the team results

(You can get these “team results” via queries available from the IRF singles page off of proracquetballstats.com historicall)

Combined Team (Overall)

1st – USA

2nd – Argentina

3rd – Canada

4th — Chile

The combined team title came down to the Mixed final between USA and Canada; if that result had gone the other way, then USA and Canada would have switched places at 1 & 3.

Men’s Team

1st – Canada

2nd – Costa Rica

t-2nd – USA

4th – Mexico

Canada’s two men’s finals power it to the Men’s team. CRC and USA tied for 2nd, but CRC pips them with better knockout results.

Women’s Team

1st – Argentina

2nd – USA

3rd – Chile

4th – Canada

Argentina win both singles and doubles in the Women’s competition and dominate.

——-

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

Men’s Singles:

There were a couple of “upset by seeds” results in the knockouts that probably weren’t really upsets on paper. In the quarters, Costa Rican #5 @Andres Acuna took out USA’s #4 Charlie Pratt Racquetball in three straight. In the semis, Mexican #1 Rodrigo Montoya cruised past Acuna in three easy games 9,2,3 despite having lost to Acuna on the IRT in the most recent event to get to his 6th international Men’s singles final since 2018. From the bottom half, Canada’s #3 @Samuel Murray destroyed USA’s #2 @Jake Bredenbeck 3,0,3 in a scoreline that can only indicate some sort of injury to Jake (I have no information and didn’t see the match live, so this is an assumption).

In the final, the pair of IRT regulars split the first two games, then Montoya won a very long 15-13 game three that seemed to take the air out of Big Canada. Montoya holds on 11-8 in the fourth for the title.

—

Women’s Singles:

#5 Chilean CArla Munoz scored two straight upset by seed (though not by current LPRT rankings), topping USA #4 Michelle Key in the quarters, then Argentinian #1 Natalia Mendez in the semis to earn the final. From the bottom, current LPRT #1 Argentinian @Maria Jose Vargas held serve against Canadian @Juliette Parent in the quarters and then Dominican Republic’s Merynanyelly Delgado in the semis to make the final.

In the final, Vargas crushed her south american rival Munoz 1,3,5. Thanks to rally scoring, the final was finished in less than 30 minutes, featured just 22 minutes of on-the-court time, and Munoz’s 9 total points included just two points on her actual serve (the rest being side-outs). One of the reasons I struggle with rally scoring is a result like this: rally scoring prevents players from “digging in” and grinding out sideouts to keep games close and try to gradually turn the tide of matches.

—–

Men’s Doubles.

A huge upset from the top-side, as the #1 Mexican team of Montoya and @Sebastian Hernandez was taken out in the semis by team Costa Rica (consisting of Acuna and Gabriel Garcia . Great win for team CRC. On the bottom side, team Canada (the 2022 PARC champs and runner’s up last fall at the Pan Am Games) held serve in a close 4-game match against team USA Jake and @Sam Bredenbeck to earn a return to the gold medal match for the 4th time internationally since 2019.

In the final, team CRC continued to impress and scored another upset, taking out the favored Canadian team in a long 5-game match.

—-

Women’s Doubles:

The overwhelming favorite #1 Argentines Mendez & Vargas cruised into the final from the top half, topping teams from Cuba and the DR along the way. Team USA #2 seeds @Naomi Ros and @Lexi York nearly squandered a 2-game lead in their semi against team Chile, but came alive in the fifth 11-1 to secure a gold medal appearance.

In the final, team USA played admirably against the two LPRT touring veterans and pushed the match to five games. It couldn’t really have been closer, with Argentina winning 11-9 in the fifth. Total points scored in the match for each team: 50 for Argentina, 49 for Team USA. Crazy.

—-

Mixed Doubles

The Mixed draw saw a huge upset in the semis, with #1 Argentina (@Gerson Miranda

and Vargas) going down in five games to Team Canada (Parent and Coby Iwaasa ) in five back and forth games, securing a third gold medal match for Canada here in Guatemala. From the bottom half, team USA got revenge from their group-stage loss to team Chile (Munoz and Jaime Mansilla ), winning in four to secure a second gold medal appearance for the Americans.

In the final, Team USA worked its way to three straight nail-biting games, winning 9,10,9 to claim the title.

——

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

Next up on the Racquetball Calendar: https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2…/edit…

There’s an IRT satellite in Billings Montana next weekend, then an LPRT stop in San Antonio later in April.

Next up on the IRF calendar is the Bolivarian Youth Games in two weeks’ time, then nothing until 2024 Worlds, also in San Antonio.

International Racquetball Federation

International Racquetball Federation – IRF

Posted on

35th Annual IRF Pan American Racquetball Tournament Knockout Preview

Montoya is #1 seed in both men’s singles and doubles; can he convert with a new partner? Photo Kevin Savory 2022 Portland IRT event

Welcome to the 35th iteration of the Pan American Racquetball Tournament, held every year since 1986 (with the exception of 2 Covid cancellations and a civil unrest cancellation in 2000). The tournament was first held in 1986 in San Jose, Costa Rica, and was initially called the Tournament of the Americas. It generally is a showcase for Central and South American countries, having been held just once in the USA (1990 in Jacksonville). This year is back in Guatemala City, same host as last year, when the original planned host of Tarja, Bolivia fell through at the last minute.

This year’s tournament and its participation portends some possibly dark times coming to the international component of the sport. Because its annually held and is lesser regarded than the every-two-years World championships (to be held later this year in San Antonio), the PARC event often fails to attract the best players from the major countries. This year in 2024 however, we’re seeing a huge gap in the player pool across the spectrum of the sport.

– Bolivia does not have a team represented here at all, despite being the defending team champs from the last int’l event.

– Colombia is not here, thanks to their confederation collapsing in corruption a couple of years ago

– Argentina only sent one male participant, a u21 player in Miranda who only recently converted.

– Despite the tournament being IN Guatemala, their top two ladies players (Gaby Martinez and Maria Renee Rodriguez) are not playing. MRR now lives in the states and has a job, but Gaby’s absence reportedly is due to a financial dispute with her home country.

– Mexico did not send a single female player, almost shocking in that Longoria clearly treasures these int’l titles.

– Honduras: also just sent two males, no females.

– Ecuador does not have a team here at all. Nor does Venezuela or Puerto Rico, two smaller countries who infrequently attend.

– Speaking of federation financial issues, @USA Racquetball chose not to fund this trip at all for its players, who resorted to private fundraising and gofundme pleas to finance the trip. Bravo to Team USA players who are there, but its clear we have a weaker team there with a number of our top qualified players absent for various reasons (injury, retirement, suspension, and pickleball).

It’s sad to see this happen in real time, but this is likely to be the story going forward as federation financing becomes harder to come by. That all being said, as of this writing we’re through the group stages and the knockouts are set, and there’s some very solid matches coming up featuring regular touring pros that should be great to watch.

Three reminders for this event:

– IRF plays rally scoring

– there’s a group stages that determines the seedings for the knockout stages.

– Group stage seeding is done by country, NOT by the player, and then group results turn into knockout staging.

Interestingly, for what i believe is the first time, the organizers have split the singles knockouts into two groups. Normally the group stage of 20 guys results in 20 players seeded 1-20 in the knockouts. Here, there’s now a “Gold Draw” of the best 10 knockout players and then an “Elite Draw” of the remaining 9 players who all finished 3rd or 4th in their groups. This is an interesting development, probably giving the lesser players more of an opportunity to win something here. (Doubles still goes into one big knockout).

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=42151

——————————

Let’s preview the Knockouts: We’ll go singles then doubles.

Men’s Singles: There were no real upsets in the group stages of the Men’s Singles. The sole upset by seed came when @Samuel Murray took out Mexican #2 @Sebastian Hernandez in the group stage to claim the #3 knockout seed. Miranda took Acuna to five games, but still came in 2nd in the group.

The quarters could have some good matches: @Andres Acuna probably “upsets” #4 Charlie Pratt Racquetball in the quarters to play into #1 @Rodrigo Montoya from the top-half, while both bottom-half quarters are solid: Murray versus @gerson Miranda and Jake Bredenbeck taking on Mexican u21 Hernandez.

Both semis could go either way, but I like Montoya over Acuna as he seems to be extra-tough internationally, and I like Bredenbeck to work his way past Murray despite the two having a relatively even h2h history.

I like Montoya over Bredenbeck in the final.

——————————

Women’s Singles:

Group stage recap: Group 2 was gutted by missing top players and upsets, leading to the DR’s Merynanyelly Delgado to top the group and claim the #2 knockout seed and send USA’s @Lexi York to the “elite draw,” out of medal competition.

The knockouts will feature a very tough 4-5 matchup between CArla Munoz and Michelle Key , kind of a bummer but there’s basically 5 touring pros in the knockouts and two of them had to meet early. Maria Jose Vargas should cruise to the final from the bottom half, while #1 Natalia Mendez will have her hands full with whoever wins between Munoz and Key. I’m guessing Carla wins both those matches to face Vargas in the final, with Vargas winning.

——————————

Men’s Doubles:

The only real “upset” in the group stage was the Bredenbecks taking out team Costa Rica (Acuna & @Gabriel Garcia) in five, coming from 2-0 games down to do so. This earned them the #3 seed and a slightly better pathway to the final in the knockouts.

Knockouts prediction: the quarters should be easy to call, then the semis will be fun. I think team Mexico will be led by Montoya to the final over Costa Rica, while from the bottom half team Canada (Murray and @Coby Iwaasa ) are going to be too tough for team USA (@jake bredenbeck and Sam Bredenbeck ) to handle. In the final, I like the experience of Canada to pick on the younger Hernandez and edge out a win.

——————————

Women’s Doubles:

The #1 seeds Vargas & Mendez are the clear class of this competition, which only really has one other touring pro even playing in Munoz. @Naomi Ros and Lexi York played well to earn #2 seed in the knockouts, and the final should be Argentina cruising past team USA.

——————————

Mixed Doubles:

In the group stage, Team Chile shocked team USA to claim the 2nd seed, but in terms of the knockouts they’ll be playing again in the semis. The odds-on favorite here is Argentina, who is powered by Mendez and the very-good Miranda. Look for them to top the winner of the Chile/USA semis rematch for the title.

——————————

Check the IRF page for streaming notifications, which should have already started today for the knockouts.

Associations

International Racquetball Federation – IRF

Posted on

2023 Pan American Games Recap

Moscoso wins his 4th major IRF title in the last two years and establishes himself as the best international player in the world. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

Racquetball’s highest international honor, the Pan American Games, has completed its singles and doubles competitions. Here’s a recap of the winners:

Congratulations to the individual winners:

– Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso: Bolivia

– Women’s Singles: Paola Longoria: Mexico

– Men’s Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya & Javier Mar: Mexico

– Women’s Doubles: Gaby Martinez & Maria Renee Rodriguez, Guatemala

– Mixed Doubles: Adam Manilla & Erika Manilla, USA

Five events and four different countries represented in the winner’s circle, a great testament to the spread of the sport and talent throughout the two continents.

R2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=41548

PRS links to Match Reports for this event:

– Men’s Singles: http://rb.gy/pq3qo

– Women’s Singles: http://rb.gy/6hk0y

I’ve run out of URL shorteners in my account for the month, so for the Doubles just got to www.proracquetballstats.com, click on IRF Doubles, then pull down for these three events.

– Men’s Doubles:

– Women’s Doubles:

– Mixed Doubles:

——————

Here’s a run-through of the notable results for me in each draw.

Men’s Singles:

In the 16s, three interesting results for me. Andres Acuña handled Canadian Coby Iwaasa in three straight, a solid win for the Costa Rican over a tough player in Iwaasa who we rarely see on tour. Mexico’s Eduardo Portillo was stretched to five games before advancing over Ecuador’s Jose Daniel Ugalde. Lastly, the toughest match of the round was USA’s Adam Manilla advancing over Argentina’s Diego Garcia in five games. Garcia regularly gets upset wins whenever he can get to a pro event, and this was a very solid win for Manilla despite the seeds.

In the quarters: #1 seed @Conrrado Moscoso handled Acuna as expected, but USA’s top player Daniel De La Rosa fell in five games to Portillo in a huge upset. Portillo won 13-11 in the fifth, with the final call being a disputed service return skip. The courts in Santiago unfortunately were constructed with a small gap between the floor and the front wall, and to this observer it looked as if DLR hit a perfect return that would have rolled out on a normal court but which “popped up” on this court; the call stood and Lalo had his win. On the other side, Manilla game Mexico’s Rodrigo Montoya a run for his money but fell in five. Lastly, the #2 seed Carlos Keller Vargas held serve against Big Canada Samuel Murray to move on.

In the semis: Moscoso blitzed Lalo, while Keller shocked Montoya (the 2019 Pan Am games gold medalist) with a 5-game win to make it an all-Bolivia final.

In the final, Moscoso and Keller, who annually seem to play for the Bolivian National singles title and who have gone back and forth for years, played another in their series. This time around, Moscoso came out on top in three games. Conrrado wins his fourth straight major IRF title (2023 PARC, 2022 Worlds, and 2022 PARC; Bolivia did not send teams to the 2022 World Games) and has really solidified his place at the top of the Men’s international game.

———————–

Women’s Singles

The 32s and 16s went basically as expected. A couple notable round of 16 matches included Costa Rica’s Maricruz Ortiz topping Guatemala’s @Maria Renee Rodriguez by the score line of 9,7,17. third game: 19-17. The match of the round though was the 2-15 seeds Carla Muñoz and Maria Jose Vargas , who went the distance with the Argentine coming from 2-1 games down to win.

In the quarters, Ortiz continued to impress, topping the draw’s #1 seed Natalia Mendez 12-10 in the fifth to move on and secure a medal. Current LPRT #1 @Montse Mejia took out the 2022 PARC champ Angelica Barrios in three. Three-time defending champ Paola Longoria moved past USA’s Erika Manilla in three, and Vargas rebounded from her near-upset loss to grind out a great 3-game win over 2018 World Champ and 7-time IRF singles finalist Ana Gabriela Martinez to move on.

In the semis, the two Mexicans held serve, with Mejia shutting down Ortiz in three, while Longoria reversed a recent trend of losses to Vargas on tour with a solid 4-game win to set up an all Mexico Final.

In the final, Longoria won her 25th IRF singles title of her career, and her fourth straight Pan American gold, with a 3-game win over her new rival.

—————–

Men’s Doubles

The clear-cut #1 Men’s Doubles team in the world Rodrigo Montoya and @Javier Mar cruised to the title, dropping just one game along the way.

The quarter finals featured two major results: the #2 seeded Bolivian team of Moscoso and @Kadim Carrasco was shocked by the Guatemalan team of @Juan Jose Salvatierra and @Edwin Galicia. Bolivia was the finalist earlier this year at PARC, but they were one-and-done here. Meanwhile, the battle of heavyweights in the quarters was team USA versus team Canada. Murray and Iwaasa won the 2022 PARC event together and are a very experienced team, and they pulled the 5-game “upset” over De La Rosa and @Alejandro Landa to send the US team home one-and done. Canada ran to the final to face team Mexico and took game one before falling.

—————–

Women’s Doubles

The Guatemalan pair of Martinez and Rodriguez finally broke through at a major and took the title, topping the surprise finalists from Argentina Mendez an Vargas. Gaby and MRR have been playing together for a decade and have made a slew of major international Women’s Doubles finals but have always fallen short of winning. Not on the day today, as they played the veteran Argentine team tough and outslugged them for the gold medal.

Vargas and Mendez were in the final by virtue of a shocking upset of the #1 seeds and heavily favored team from Mexico Mejia and Alexandra Herrera . Team USA fell to the Argentines in the quarters, while team Bolivia (Barrios and Daza) lost to the Guatemalans in four close games in the other semi.

—————–

Mixed Doubles

There’s not a long history of Mixed Doubles in IRF events, but the few that have been held have been dominated by Mexico. They’ve won 3 of the 4 such events and were the losing finalist to Bolivia in the other. So when both Mexico and Bolivia were upset in the semis, it sent some shock waves across the sport.

Team Argentina took out team Bolivia (Moscoso & Barrios) in one five-game semifinal triumph, while team USA shocked team Mexico (Portillo & Longoria) in the other, to guarantee a first-time winner in the final.

There, the Manilla’s took over and dominated, winning the Gold medal 4,4,6 with a great game plan of having Adam range over to cherry pick balls and Erika out-hitting fellow power-swinger Vargas along the right.

—————–

Team Standings.

At the end of the five bracket competitions, the conventional IRF points tally was tabulated to determine the overall Team standings. This is different from the Team competition that followed all the individual draws, an event that seems to have been added on to make the trip more worthwhile to the players. These are unofficial standings and are not generally done for events that don’t feature group stages.

Overall Team Standings:

1. Mexico 760

2. Bolivia 540

3. Argentina 440

4. USA 380

5. Guatemala 370

Mexico cruised to the combined title thanks primarily to the Bolivian’s poor Women’s showing. Only the Mixed gold saved USA from being in 5th place behind Guatemala, a country that literally only has one facility in their entire nation.

Men’s Team Standings:

1. Bolivia 360

1T. Mexico 360

3. USA 200

3T Canada 200

5. Costa Rica 150

Mexico won doubles, Bolivia won singles, so perhaps the tiebreaker is Bolivia having the better runner’s up performances.

Women’s Team Standings:

1. Mexico 400

2. Argentina 300

3. Guatemala 240

4. Bolivia 180

4. USA 180

Bolivia would win a TB by virtue of better Doubles performance over USA, if we were awarding team medals.

—————–

As was well discussed during the event, streaming/broadcasting was non-existent officially until the finals, and even then just the doubles was broadcast on the https://panamsportschannel.org/ channel. It is what it is; racquetball fans are just not used to participating in an event where the broadcast rights are sold as a package and free streaming is readily available. We did get some guerrilla streams from parents and players, which kept us satiated here at home.

However, during the doubles final, the streaming was magnificent. High quality cameras showed crisp, crystal clear images of the sport. If only we could get this quality week in/week out. That was a treat.

——————

Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…/

The IRT is in Boston in two week’s time, then the LPRT is in Chicago the week after, so we get all the pros in action in November.

International Racquetball Federation

International Racquetball Tour

LPRT

Posted on

2023 Pan Am Games Racquetball Preview

Longoria is the 3-time defending Pan American Games gold medalist. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

This weekend, the sport of racquetball competes in the Pan American Games. The 19th annual Pan American Games is being hosted by Chile, who built a fantastic new racquetball complex to host this competition. Absent the sport ever being put into the Olympics, this quadriennal competition featuring all the countries in the two American continents is the absolute highest level the sport currently competes.

Racquetball first appeared in the Pan Am games in 1995, in Buenos Aires. In that tournament, John Ellis topped Michael Bronfield in an 11-10 final to cap off his amateur career before turning pro, with Derek Robinson and Canadian Sherman Greenfeld making the semis. On the Women’s side, two legendary female hall of famers from the USA battled in the final, with Michelle Wolf (at the time, Michelle Gould) topping Cheryl Gudinas for the title.

Making it into the Pan Am games was a seminal moment for the sport; it meant we were finally to be recognized as an “Olympic-level sport” in the eyes of the USOPC and IOC (since Pan Am games rises to that level), and it led to an official relationship with the highest US sports organization that lasts to this day.

Racquetball has now been competed in 6 Pan Am Games, missing only one event since the 1995 event (that being Brazil in 2007, when no courts were built). On the Men’s singles side, players from the USA won the first 5 Pan Am golds, with Rodrigo Montoya topping Alvaro Beltran in the 2019 final in Peru to break that streak. See http://rb.gy/gjl3f . For those who remember this famous match, Beltran was ahead in the second game when he dove for a ball and shattered the back glass door, covering himself in shards of glass. He was on a roll but ended up losing the match.

On the women’s singles side, Paola Longoria has dominated the last three events as expected, and is in Chile to pursue a 4th straight. See http://rb.gy/0cav6 .

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=41548

——————————

They play singles, doubles, mixed and a team competition. We’ll do a quick preview of the draws with some predictions.

As is normally the case in International events, the seeding is not as fans of the game would expect. That’s because the seeds are done by country (not player), and the country performance for several past events is taken into consideration. Furthermore the #1 and #2 seeds per country are driven by National results. It means we’ll have matchups of top pros way too early as always, and unbalanced brackets … as we have with practically every IRF competition.

Men’s Singles

Thanks to poor recent performances, team USA is the 3rd ranked country, meaning its representatives (Daniel De la Rosa and Adam Manilla ) are seeded 5th and 6th. DLR will have to face Mexican #2 @Eduardo Portillo in the quarters to get a shot at #1 overall seed Conrrado Moscoso in the semis.

In the bottom half, Manilla gets dark-horse #11 Diego Garcia in his opener and could be looking at a quick exit. Defending champ Rodrigo Montoya probably has to contend with Garcia and then the winner of the Carlos Keller Vargas – @Samuel Murray winner to get back to the final. Still, the top half is heavily weighted.

Usually when I look at a possible Moscoso-DLR match, i take into account the elevation, the ball, and the court construction. IRF uses the Gearbox black (slow), and Santiago is at a decent elevation (1,800 feet). I don’t know the court construction but can guess its panel. These factors seem to cancel each other out, but the slower the game plays, the better the advantage for DLR will be. DLR is healthy, has the game plan, and the patience that Moscoso doesn’t have. Meanwhile, Moscoso has won the last three major IRF events (2023 PARC, 2022 Worlds, 2022 PARC) … but has yet to have to contend with DLR in these competitions.

I’ll predict DLR takes Moscoso out in the semis and then tops Montoya in the final. DLR didn’t switch sides to fly all the way down here to lose.

————————

Women’s Singles

Lots of top-10 LPRT matchups early on in this bracket, as Argentine Natalia Mendez gets a #1 overall seed but has to contend with former #2 LPRT pro Frederique Lambert in the 16s. If she can get past the Canadian, she may have to contend with Costa Rican dark-horse Maricruz Ortiz. Meanwhile, the following four players are all in the same quadrant: #1 LPRT pro @Montse Mejia, 2022 PARC champ Angelica Barrios, former top10 touring pro Veronica Sotomayor , and USA’s @Michelle key . Just a brutal draw for all involved, but its hard to see anyone but Mejia coming out from the top.

The bottom half features five of the top 10 on the LPRT tour right now, including several recent tourney winners. @MarMaria José Vargas is the #2 seed, but last time she faced #7 @AAna Gabriela Martinez she got beat 9,12. 3-time defending champ Longoria is seeded #3 (by virtue of her win over Mejia at Mexican Nationals earlier this year) and is set to face top American Erika Manilla in the quarters, a player she’s dropped games to but never lost to. I see Gaby taking out Vargas, then losing to Longoria in the semis.

I sense Longoria vs Mejia in the final, and even though Mejia is #1 in the rankings, Longoria is #1 in international play and wins her 4th PanAm gold.

—————-

Men’s Doubles:

There are great doubles matches all over this draw, with all the top teams present. #1 Montoya/Mar will barely sweat before making the final, while the bottom half will be a dogfight. USA (DLR & Alejandro Landa ) vs Canada (@Coby Iwaasa & Samuel Murray ) will be a tough one, but the winner here will be favored over #2 Bolivia (Moscoso playing with @Kadim Carrasco ). In the final though I favor Montoya & Mar to defend their Pan Am gold from 2019.

——————

Women’s Doubles:

The #1 team of Longoria & Mejia is the clear favorite. Team USA (Manilla & Key) will have a tough quarter against team Argentina (Mendez & Vargas) to then take a crack at #1 seeds. From the bottom, the long-time Guatemalan pair of @Maria Renee Rodriguez and Gaby will be favored to get to the final, but will be tested by #3 Bolivia (Barrios and @Jenny Daza Navia ). Look for Mexico to win.

—————–

Mixed Doubles:

#1 Moscoso & Barrios won the 2023 PARC event over Montoya & Longoria; now Mexico is represented by Portillo & Longoria and I think Bolivia is an even bigger favorite to win. #4 Argentina (Vargas & Garcia) will be tough, as will #3 USA (Manilla and Manilla), but I expect this to go chalk.

———————————

After the individual events, all the players get together for a team competition. Those draws will come out later on, but its the individual matches that matter.

———————————

A comment; i’m sure fans of the sport have seen the video put out by @Cristina Amaya this week, talking about what happened and why she and teammate @Maria Paz Riquelme were excluded from the competition. The pair finished 6th in Women’s rankings at the 2023 PARC and should have qualified, but (if I’m understanding the situation) their defunct/bankrupted national federation did not file the paperwork to include their delegation, and thus their spots were given away. This all apparently happened in May but was only found out recently by the understandably crushed Colombian players. What a sh*tty thing to happen, and honestly someone should have notified them or made an exception. It’s not Amaya and Maria paz’ fault their federation collapsed due to corruption and greed. Their two spots (apparently) went to the next team in line, which was Cuba (it also looks like the Dominican Republic snuck two players in thanks to two of the countries ahead of them giving up female spots). Its a shame, and a situation that should have been avoided.

———————————

Streaming outlook: it looks grim for streaming options, in that this event (unlike practically every other racquetball tournament) features broadcast rights that have been sold elsewhere. I’m sure we’ll see guerrilla streams here and there, but don’t hold your breath for 100% coverage.

Associations

International Racquetball Tour

LPRT

International Racquetball Federation

Pan American Racquetball Confederation – PARC

USA Racquetball

Posted on

IRF Central American & Caribbean Championships wrap-up

A first ever international title for Portillo. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

The IRF hosted a regional tournament for the first time since 2018 as the Central American & Caribbean games were held this past week in the Dominican Republic. Technically the actual sporting event is based in El Salvador, but the racquetball component was sent over to the DR thanks to a lack of facilities in the host city/country.

This is the 9th iteration of these games that have had a racquetball component. The first one was in 1990, when Mexico hosted the event and its two singles components were won by Raul Torres and Hilda Rodriguez of Mexico, two very early pioneers of Mexican racquetball. In fact, Mexico has always dominated this competition, winning 12 of the previous 16 singles titles.

see https://rball.pro/ppk and https://rball.pro/jq9 for lists of past singles winners.

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

– Men’s Singles: Eduardo Portillo

– Women’s Singles: @Paola Longoria

– Men’s Doubles: @Rodrigo Montoya and @Javier Mar

– Women’s Doubles: Montse Mejia and @Alexandra Herrera

– Mixed Doubles: Eduardo Portillo and Paola Longoria

A clean sweep for team Mexico; five events and five titles. Portillo gets the double, as does Longoria.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=41377

Match Reports in the PRS database post-load:

– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/8y5

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

– Men’ Doubles: https://rball.pro/bze

– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/i4r

– Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/85r

——————

Lets review the five main draws:

Men’s Singles: In an all-Mexican final, and a rematch of Mexican Nationals from earlier this year, Portillo got a very solid win over countryman and #1 seed Rodrigo Montoya 7,11,13. Lalo wins his first ever international title. Recognition to Guatemala’s Edwin Galicia , who upset DR’s Ramon De Leon to get to the semis. Also shout out to Cuba’s Maikel Moyet for a solid win over former IRT touring pro Felipe Camacho in the knockouts.

Women’s Singles: Guatemala’s @Gaby Martínez upset newly crowned LPRT #1 @Montse Mejia in the semis, but couldn’t vanquish the long-standing #1 @Paola Longoria in the final. Longoria wins her 5th straight title in this competition. Props to CR’s Maricruz Ortiz for making the semis.

Men’s Doubles: this tourney was always coming down to Mexico vs Costa Rica in doubles, the two teams with significant pro experience, and the final did not disappoint. Team Mexico Montoya/Mar tookt he title over Andres Acuna and @Gabriel Garcia , but not without stretching the current top pro team to 5 games in the final.

Women’s Doubles: Team Mexico featuring the new power house team of Mejia and Herrera battled back from two games down to topple Team Guatemala, featuring the long-time partnership of Ana Gabriela Martínez and Maria Renee Rodriguez .

Mixed Doubles: Team Mexico featuring Portillo and Longoria had to dig pretty deep to top Team Guatemala featuring Galicia and Martinez, coming back from 2-1 games down to take the title in the 5th.

All three doubles finals went 5 games and must have made for fantastic viewing.

—————–

There wasn’t a whole lot of streaming on the weekend; apparently per JT R Ball the tv rights were owned by the host country and all we got were some guerilla feeds from people onsite.

——————

Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

https://docs.google.com/…/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMb…/

Next up on the calendar is the World Outdoor Racquetball Outdoor Nationals at Marina Park! This great event has been going on since 1974 and we help promote/support the event with data and broadcast materials.

——————-

tags

International Racquetball Tour

LPRT

International Racquetball Federation