Category: IRT

Posted on

IRT 45th Annual Lewis Drug Pro-Am recap

Kane Wins again! Photo credit: unknown

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Kane Waselenchuk

– Doubles: Conrrado Moscoso & @Kadim Carrasco

Kane wins his 3rd tourney on the trot, 15-matches in a row since a shock loss to Alonso last May. He extends his own record of being the oldest player to win a Tier 1 on tour. Lastly, he drastically increases his lead atop the tour rankings, and now owns nearly double the points to just the #2 player on tour. Kane continues to be unstoppable.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=46712

——————

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

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/b5e74e

—————-

In the 64s:

– Ortega survived a solid match from Floridian Alejandro Herrera Azcarate , who may have just flamed out after crushing the young Mexican in game one.

– Tour veterans Horn and Franco both had winning results in their return to the tour after so long away.

—————-

Notable matches from the 32s:

– #17 @Diego Gastelum cruised past #16 Robby Collins in the 16/17 match; If Trujillo is in the top 10, then Gastelum should eventually be as well.

– #9 Jake Bredenbeck had probably the hardest round of 32, having to stare down Argentine @Diego Garcia to move on. I thought this would be closer, but Jake handled Garcia 9,9.

– Sam Bredenbeck , back on tour after months away, cruised past #13 CARLOS RAMÍREZ 3,5 in an upset by seed but probably not by talent.

– #3 @Adam Manilla was the unlucky recipient of seeing @Sebastian Franco for his round of 32, but worked his way past the long-time top 10 Colombian to move on.

– #15 @Eduardo Portillo Rendon took out #18 @Kadim Carrasco in a far-too-early match for the former top 6 player, who has seen his ranking dip as he spent much of 2024 missing events to work on his career.

– #2 Rodrigo Montoya defeated his old WRT rival David ” Bobby” Horn in two to end Horn’s comeback early.

—————-

In the 16s, we got seed carnage. Five of the top Eight seeds fell in this round, as the latter part of the draw was littered with opportunistic double digit seeds.

– In the 8/9 match, which @Alan Natera has dominated lately, #9 Jake Bredenbeck crushed the Chilean 7,1 to move into the quarters.

– Jordy Alonso got a wbf-ns walkover against @Andree Parrilla , robbing neutrals of a very anticipated match.

– @Javier Mar is back, and took out #3 Manilla in a breaker.

– #10 Jaime Martell Neri got a well-played win over #7 @Erick Trujillo to move into the quarters.

– In the biggest upset of the night, #15 Portillo destroyed #2 Montoya 6,4 to move into the quarters. Nobody likes to see a top-6 player in the 16s, but all credit to Lalo here controlling Montoya’s power game. He wasn’t done yet either…

—————-

In the Quarters

– #1 Kane dominated Jake, who is one of the few players on tour with a h2h win over the king, 3,8 to move on.

– #4 Moscoso survived the first real test of his comeback from arm injury, and he did so in solid fashion. After falling down early in the first against Alonso, he ran the table to close out game one and then jump to a big lead in game two. Jordy clawed his way back to 10, but the Bolivian advances to setup the dream matchup in the semis 7,10.

– After his big 16s win, Mar couldn’t continue his run and fell to the rising Costa Rican @Andres Acuna in three. Acuna makes his way into another semi and has solidified his spot in deep in the top 8.

– Portillo cruised past Martell 2,10 with his sights on the final.

—————

In the Semis

– Kane and Moscoso played an interesting, back and forth match that highlighted a salient fact often repeated in this space. The top players on tour can beat Kane … but they have to play three perfect games to do so. Moscoso played one perfect game, game 2, wining 15-10, but it wasn’t enough. After splitting the first two games, Kane stayed consistent while Moscoso floundered and Kane wins 11-6 in the breaker.

– In the other semi, Lalo and Acuna played a tactical close match, with Lalo advancing 11,14 to setup a final few would have predicted.

In the Final, Kane put his USAR Ranking on the line (Kane’s #1 there, but Lalo has a h2h win over him, and a defeat would immediately put Portillo top), but the result was anticlimactic. Kane wins 5,8 and Lalo wasn’t ever really in danger of an upset.

—————-

Points Implications of results

Assuming this is a Tier1+ points event …

Kane drastically extends his lead at top, replacing last year’s semis loss with the Tier1+ points of this year’s win. Moscoso should go to #2, jumping both Montoya and Manilla. Acuna should rise one stop to #5, a career best. Natera should finally get out of the #8 spot and give himself a chance to avoid Kane in the quarters. Alonso’s results should put him in the top 10 for the first time. Portillo should jump from 15 to 12, while Gastelum jumps a bit deeper into the top 16.

—————-

Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/0212c1

Moscoso wins just his third career Pro doubles title, his first with Carrasco, with a well played 11-9 tiebreaker win over the top seeds Montoya/Mar.

—————-

Open Singles, other notable draws

– Gastelum topped local open favorite Jordan Barth in the Men’s Open final.

– Miranda & Garcia took a very talented Open Doubles draw over Bear & Portillo in the final.

—————-

Fantasy Racquetball Competition Wrap-up

Here were the top 5 rankings from Fantasy Racquetball for the event:

1. JT R Ball / @Daily Racquetball who predicted Lalo to the final.

2. @Mitch Brayley

3. Yours Truly Todd Boss

4. Shawn Watts

5. @Joe Linnell

6. Kurtis Cullen

I guess the Canadians are pretty good at this 🙂

—————-

Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters @Richard Eisemann and Carrie Wegener Reitmeier

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/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMbIP9SZd0MssH_nPGU/edit?usp=sharing

Canada has its second nationals qualifier this coming weekend, then we have Mexican Nationals the last week of February. The next pro stop will be in early march.

——————-

tags

Posted on

45th Annual IRT Lewis Drug Pro-Am

A rare appearance this weekend from Sebastian Franco. Photo Kevin Savory 2018 US Open

One of the longest running privately run tournaments in the sport is set for its 45th hear. Mark Gibbs is running back the Lewis Drug Pro-Am in Sioux Falls once again, one of the most popular events on tour.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=46712

This is the first Tier 1 of the 2025 season/year, and the first under new tour ownership and involvement. We’ve already seen Adam Manilla ‘s impact, with great social media profiles of players on the IRT’s Facebook page leading up to the event. We may see some interesting change to the tour, its structure, its draws, and whatnot with the new ownership and new commissioner Dave Negrete , but for now its business as usual.

There’s 36 players in South Dakota this weekend, including the top 17 ranked players and 18 of the top 20. There’s some returning names, some well-traveled players from South Africa, and the draw looks like it will give us some great early round matches. This event is the return of Bolivian Conrrado Moscoso, who was #1 on tour most of last year but who suffered an arm injury that cost him the points race and a couple of events late in the season. Is he at 100% we’ll soon see.

——————————-

Early round matches to watch for:

There’s just two round of 64s, both of which are interesting:

– top Florida amateur and former touring pro @Alejandro Herrera Azcarate takes on up-and-coming Mexican talent @Guillermo Jesus Ortega in a fun one to fight for the right to play Kane.

– Long-time pro David ” Bobby” Horn returns to the tour; he faces US junior national team member @Benjamin Horner.

– Former top10 regular @Sebastian Franco, who hasn’t played on tour since Feb 2023, is back. He recently took the Kelley brother’s invitational, so we know he’s got some top-level playing as of late, so he should be ready to compete.

——————————-

round of 32 matches to watch for:

– #9 @Jake Bredenbeck cannot be happy to see Bolivian turned Argentine Diego Garcia as his opening round opponent. The two met last August at worlds and Jake was stretched to an 11-9 fifth game before advancing. Garcia is an upset-favorite, with multiple prior wins over top 10 players on tour like Acuna, Lalo, Trujillo, Carson, etc. this is a quarter-final’s quality match in the 32s, though the advantage goes to Jake, who only had to drive a few hours to get here.

– #5 Andree Parrilla will have his hands full with U21 star @Gerson Miranda, making a rare state-side appearance.

– #12 @Jordy Alonso , who suddenly has legit aspirations to the semis of every event he plays, has a tough opener against one of the best amateur players in the mid-west in John Goth .

– For his troubles rising to a career best ranking, #3 Adam Manilla has to face off against Franco in the 32s. They’ve met twice in the 2018-19 range and split on tour. Manilla should advance, but Franco is not exactly rusty and could pose some problems.

– In the 15/18, pilot-to-be Eduardo Portillo Rendon takes on Bolivian @Kadim Carrasco . Lalo should advance and cause some trouble in this draw.

– #2 @Rodrigo Montoya projects to face Horn, two long-time rivals who have a playing history going back more than a decade. They were WRT rivals, playing a handful of times there, once internationally, but never on IRT. I’d say that Montoya is the favorite here, but Horn won’t go down without a fight.

——————————-

Round of 16:

– #1 Kane Waselenchuk should face Gastelum in a repeat of the 16s from Pleasanton. Kane beat him 2,2 then, probably expects to be a similar score-line this weekend.

– The 8/9 match this weekend projects to be @Alan Natera and the winner of the Jake/Garcia match. Unlike the last few 8/9 matchups, Natera won’t be favored here, and I’d expect either Jake or Diego in the quarters.

– #5 Parrilla vs #12 Alonso. It’s safe to say these guys go back a ways, being a year apart, both hailing from the hotbed of San Luis Potosi in Mexico, and frequently playing in both local events and at Mexican Junior national tournaments growing up. Parrilla has a year’s edge on Jordy, which helped him out in juniors. Now? The two are pretty evenly matched, play a pretty similar game style, and this is a true coin flip for me. I always like rooting for the underdog, so give me Alonso and the points.

– Manilla vs Mar: I’ve always had a soft spot for Mar, who has split his two matchups with Adam (though both were played a while ago). Manilla has been on a roll, Mar has not really been getting the marquee wins he needs lately to keep up his dark-horse fame. I’ll go with Manilla here.

– Trujillo-Martell in the 7/10 is a fun one: I think Erick has the advantage here.

– Montoya-Portillo in the 16s. Again, not the round of 16 that Rodrigo would want, a player who has more than a couple h2h wins against him and who has demonstrated he can handle the pace. Upset watch here.

——————————

Projected Qtrs:

– Kane over Jake: Bredenbeck famously has a career win over a healthy Kane, but the two seem to be going in different directions right now.

– Alonso over Moscoso: We’ll know pretty quickly if Moscoso’s arm is 100% because he’s going to need to hit his lines against Jordy to win. However, if Moscoso is back, this is a tough one for Alonso to win b/c Conrrado has the advantage in power, athleticism, and shot-making. Alonso plays smarter but has to play lights out to win. This is my favorite quarter final if it comes to pass.

– Manilla over Acuna: Adam rides the hot hand and takes out a possibly-still dinged Acuna (who forfeited out of the last event with injury)

– Montoya over Trujillo; they’ve played at this juncture a couple times, and Rodrigo has little difficulty getting past his younger countrymate.

Semis:

– Kane takes out Alonso/Moscoso winner. I think many would like to see Moscoso’s power against Kane’s power … but i have a sneaky suspicion it’ll be the more cerebral Alonso playing here. If they do, Kane will be looking for major revenge after last year’s exit in Canoga Park, where Jordy beat him 11-1 in the breaker. Kane’s more focused, in better shape, and will be in revenge mode here.

– Montoya faces Manilla in a rematch of the surprise upset win by Adam last December at his home tourney in Pleasanton. I was surprised Adam won then, and I’d be surprised if he won here after years of watching him rarely get to the semis. But something has clicked for Adam, and this is danger territory for Rodrigo. I still like Montoya here, but wouldn’t be surprised with an upset.

Finals; I’m projecting another meeting between Kane and the player on tour I think has the best chance of beating Kane; Rodrigo Montoya. Their last meeting was instructive to me: Kane squeaked out a 15-14 game one win, then Montoya rolled him in game 2 15-7. In the breaker, Montoya lost focus on a bad call, let a few points go by in a row, and that was that. Kane is so good at keeping his foot on your throat, he’s so focused on the court, that you cannot give up a mental edge like that. I’m not sure if Montoya can keep it together for three games, but he’s got the current best package of power (to keep Kane from just rolling out service returns), athleticism ( to extend rallies and make Kane hit that one extra shot), and maturity (to be patient on the court, to make adjustments, and to go for the right shots) to beat Kane.

All that said, Kane is the favorite to win.

——————————-

Doubles review

There’s 14 teams in pro doubles, with some great matches up and down the draw. I love the Garcia/Miranda team, basically the future of Argentina racquetball, who faces Manilla/Horn in the round of 16. Herrera/Franco is a fun all-Colombian team that will give #3 Parrilla/Portillo some fun.

#1 seeds Montoya & Mar won’t be pushed until the semis, where they project to take out Natera & Acuna (who I think will outlast the rusty Horn & Manilla in the quarters). Meanwhile in the bottom half, I think #3 Portillo/Parrilla can play “keep away” from Moscoso, focusing on Carrasco in their semi against the Bolivians to move into the final.

Final’s prediction: Mar/Montoya outlast Parrilla & Portillo but its a battle.

———————————

Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the IRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. This weekend both @Richard Eisemann

and Carrie Wegener Reitmeier are on the mike, and I’ll be helping out with data throughout the weekend.

Coincidentally, if you’re interested in playing Fantasy Racquetball for this event, The IRT is using the same site that LPRT uses to do fantasy racquetball. To join the IRT’s “league” and pick a bracket; here’s the instructions:

Can you predict the results of the event, match by match? Give it a try to win some bragging rights!

Go to https://officepoolstop.com/ (or if already logged in: https://officepoolstop.com/Brackets/79031)

Login or create an account

Scroll to the bottom and click on Join

Enter League code: 79031

Enter League password: IRT2025

Click on Join

Click on the player you expect to win each matchup including the finals. 8 ) Scroll back up to the top to enter the combined score of the final game, so if you expect 11-10, enter 21.

Click on Submit Bracket

Associations

International Racquetball Tour

Posted on

IRT 2024 Season Recap Part 3: Notables outside top 20 and Commentary

Carson extends his season tournament streak. Photo Portland 2019 via Kevin Savory

In part 3, we’ll talk about the notable players outside the top 20, talk about who’s left the sport or seems to be leaving the sport, and then at the end talk about the recent IRT ownership news and provide some commentary about the state of the sport.

Notable Players outside the top 20 this year:

– #22 @Sam Bredenbeck played the first three events of the year, then opted out of everything after May. His brother continued to tour for the rest of the year. Is Sam done playing the tour? He’s entered 28 tournaments in his career, with 8 round of 16s to his name. Round of 16 money isn’t enough to justify the expenses of touring.

– #23 Rocky Carson showed up for 2 events this year to secure his 29th career season with a tournament played. He’s now 3rd all time in terms of seasons with appearances behind Cliff’s 35 and Ruben’s 32.

– #25 @Jim Douglas played all 6 events, lost in the round of 32 in all six events, but is one of the few to play in every event this year.

– #26 @Jhonatan Flores could be the next big thing coming from Bolivia. He cruised to the 2024 18U junior world title (defending the same title he won in 2023), only dropping two games in the semifinal against Mexico’s Eder Renteria. He popped into the USA to play two events in March, and made a run to the quarters in Lombard with wins over James Black, Jake, and Collins. He took then stretched Kane to a tiebreaker, eventually losing 3, (13), 7. This guy is the real deal … and of course he’s Bolivian so we’ll probably barely see him on tour thanks to financial challenges inherent to the sport.

– #32 Diego Garcia Racquetball , another guy we rarely see in the states but who very well might be one of the best 10-12 players in the sport. His IRT results were lacking this year, but his international results were decent (semis at PARC, qtrs at Worlds).

– #36: @Alejandro Cardona, Mr. WRT, is still playing events and getting results. He played the first three events of the season and still can hit the ball.

– #38: @Daniel De La Rosa , 3-time IRT tour champ, now retired from touring. Despite what he said publicly in October 2024 and despite what his sponsors promised, his pickleball calendar basically crushed his racquetball season. After entering the season-opening Lewis Drug event, DLR wasn’t seen on the IRT again. He made time though to dominate US Nationals, and then cruise to a world title in San Antonio. He also played the team event at 3WB, then hopped a red-eye to make his MLP event in Virginia Beach. But the realities of the pickleball commitments are clear; he’s done playing racquetball on any regular basis. The Pickleball community values having “the racquetball champion” play their sport, so i’m sure he’ll find time to play amateur nationals and major IRF events going forward, but his time on the IRT may be done.

– #45 Gerson Miranda, #47 Hector Barrios, and #55 Sebastian Hernandez are all top-notch junior players who would represent the next generation on tour if they could play it regularly.

– #60: @Coby Iwaasa played one event, another guy who probably could be a top 15-20 player or better if there was the financial incentive to tour.

– #65: @Alvaro Beltran managed to play one event; he played the Lewis Drug and got beat by Lalo in the opener. He’s still a fantastic doubles player and continues to be a force in outdoor, but his singles time may be done except for the occasional drop-in event close to home.

– #77 @Brad Levine played the SoCal Open, and in doing so extended his own personal record of being the oldest known entrant to an IRT event.

—————

2024 saw an entire season pass without appearances from several notable players who have been active, and in some cases highly ranked, in the past few seasons.

– Alejandro Landa has retired as announced and has not appeared.

– Sebastian Franco, a regular tour player in 2022, did not play a single event this year.

– Maryland resident, former top 10 player, and Formula Flow partner @Mario Mercado did not play a single event. His business partner Zelada had one result.

– Carlos Keller Vargas continues to represent Bolivia internationally but did not play a single tour event in 2024.

– Nick Riffel, who is Adam Manilla’s regular outdoor partner and former touring pro; zero results this year.

– Sebastian Fernandez filled in last minute to win a US National title but played no pro events.

– Bobby Horn did not even enter his own event this year, but apparently is training to compete at the Lewis Drug later this month.

– Charlie Pratt’s usual single season appearance at his home town event didn’t sanction this year.

– Nothing from Mexican talents Javier Estrada, Eduardo Garay, Christian Longoria, or Gerardo Franco.

With several top-10 stalwarts now gone, there’s certainly opportunity for the next generation of players to move up, and we’re already seeing that with new players in the top 10 this year.

——-

Thoughts on 2025 and the future of the Men’s Pro Sport.

It’s not really controversial, or even penetrating, to say that the sport is in trouble. The Men’s tour in 2024 had just six stops; Lewis Drug, Minnesota HoF, Shamrock Shootout, SoCal Open, Inland Empire, and the Golden State Open. Only three of these even existed a few years ago.

That means that, just from the 2022/2023 seasons, the IRT has lost:

– Longhorn Open (UT changed its policy on hosting)

– Suivant Consulting/Williams Accounting Atlanta event (has Donald Williams stopped sponsoring events?)

– New York Open (Baer brothers stepped away)

– World Singles & Doubles (coming back in 2025 but probably for last time)

– Capital Classic (IRT co-owner Warigon has stopped sponsoring IRT events)

– Tracktown Open (maybe a one and done for 2023)

– Dovetail/Sarasota Open: Kinkin redirecting funds to support Jrs and USAR

– Rally for our Warriors in Boston (Stuart Solomon has a longer history sponsoring LPRT)

– US Open (USAR financial debacle with then-staff failing the sport and the event)

– John Pelham (more money for charity, less for pros)

That’s an entire TOUR worth of events gone in 2 seasons.

Go back a couple more years and you have former events like Arizona Open, the Lou Bradley, the Valentine Open, the Los Compadres guys in SoCal, an event in St Louis, and event in San Antonio, and the Mercedes Benz sponsored event in Cincinnati. All of these tournament directors and events are gone. Can they be reclaimed?

The 6 events last season is the fewest number of events on tour (skipping the covid-related 2021) since the tour collapsed in 1988-1989. They were able to recover then; can they now? In both cases new ownership took over; this time its Keith Minor, who has brought along the financially-connected Negrete, the motivated Manilla, and a big checkbook to hopefully rebuild relationships with the 15 or so tournament directors who have left the sport in the last few years.

Also, nowhere on this list is a single event outside the United States. The tour is dominated by Mexicans; when was the last time an IRT stop was held in Mexico? The answer? 2011. LPRT has had stops in Mexico pretty regularly but nothing for IRT. The WRT came and went, holding dozens of Mexico based events and driving a huge following in the country, and then the IRT literally hires the WRT founder … and still no Mexican events. It’s just as bad for Canada: last pro stop north of the border was in 2008 despite a Canadian national winning a dozen titles since then. We managed to put one event in Bolivia, that sport-crazed country, in 2019 … but nothing since. On the one hand, yes I understand the financials and exchange rates. But on the other hand … where the hell are the sponsors in these countries? Racquetball is crazy popular in both countries, but there’s nobody who can get a pro stop funded??

2024 Junior Worlds showed the Mexican/Bolivian dominance in the sport pretty well: 29 of the 30 titles were won by Mexican or Bolivian players/teams, yet those two countries never host pro events, and as a result their top players struggle to compete on the established pro tour of the sport. I’d really like to see how U21 winner Acha or U18 winner Flores would fare if touring regularly; instead we may get one or two annual trips from them and probably a seeding in the 30s and a brutal round of 16 loss with almost no prize money to dissuade them from coming back.

The tour is likely going to be won by a 44 yr old next year, with a slew of 29-yr old players populating the rest of the top 10. Where’s the next generation of players who will take the mangle? Can a 22yr old like Erick Trujillo step up, or will we see a 50-yr old Kane still winning titles in the year 2030?

I’m hoping to see a more robust tour schedule for 2025; we’ve already seen a slew of new event announcements, which is a good sign. My conversations with Keith indicate we may literally double the stops in 2025 from 2024 (fingers crossed), but certainly we’re in a better place than we were on tour late last year. The new group has some new ideas, and that might bring a spark to the sport.

Best of luck to Minor and the new team, and I can’t wait for the first event of 2025.

Posted on

IRT 2024 Season Recap Part 2: Players ranked 11-20

Alonso was one of the biggest stories of the year. Photo via Alonso Twitter page

We went through the top 10 in part 1. Lets talk about the guys who finished 11-20, which include a combination of grinders, former top 10 players who missed time, guys on their way out, and guys on their way in.

We start with the #12 ranked player b/c there was a tie for 10th on tour, so technically our first post had one additional player reviewed.

– 12: @Jordy Alonso . One of the biggest stories of the season was the run Alonso made at the SoCal Open in May (see https://rball.pro/pno for the match report. As the #30 seed, he won a round of 64 against Mexican Alejandro Bear, then gave Kane Waselenchuk his earliest career loss in the 32s, beating him in the breaker 11-1. He didn’t stop there, then topping Collins, Martell, and Montoya to make the final before falling to Moscoso. Making the final as a #30 seed was the second highest seed in the history of the sport behind only Kane’s return from his 2-year suspension as a #39 seed making a final. He continued getting success the rest of the way and nearly powered into the top 10. Alonso is not a flash in the pan; he had gotten signature wins before, whether it was on the IRT or it was in Mexican Nationals, but has rarely played on tour over the years.

Outlook for 2025: if he plays full time, he’s got the talent to finish deep in the top 10. I think he’s better than the guys who all finished in the 6-11 range, and could push deep into the top 10 with some results. Prediction for 2025: #7

13. Carlos Ramírez ; the Torreon, Mexico native quietly has played nearly every event on tour over the last two years, becoming a constant presence in the main draws, and for his troubles earned enough points to finish #13 on tour. He’s never advanced past the round of 16 in his career; his best result on tour probably was a tie-breaker loss to Carrasco at the 2024 Minnesota event.

Outlook for 2025: Ramirez is a regular on tour, and regularly gets to the 16s. That means he’s bound to finish in the 13-16 range; i’ll guess he gets pushed down a couple of slots and finishes in the 15-16 range in 2025. Prediction: #16

14. @javier Mar; Mar had his typical IRT season: played about half the events, got a couple of solid results (made a semi in Pleasanton), upset a couple of top-10 players (Jake, Acuna) had a couple of early round battles that didn’t go his way (round of 32 losses to Carson, Trujillo), and showed well on the doubles court (won a title in Pleasanton and finished #6). He can really shock the field (in 2022’s Capital Classic he beat, in order Roland Keller, Garay, Parrilla, Jake, and Murray to make a final). He struggled with a core injury that limited his singles play for months, and has a career that prevents him from committing to the tour full time.

Outlook for 2025: I’ve always been a fan of Mar, ever since watching him stare Kane down at the 2018 US Open and play him as tough as anyone had played him, losing 12,10 to a guy who owned the tour at the time. But Mar has had trouble replicating those results on the regular. It seems like this is who he is: a guy who makes about half the events, can get a run going, but just doesn’t play enough to crack the top 10. Prediction for 2025: #15

15. Eduardo Portillo Rendon : After four straight season in the top 10, including some significant wins and a title in 2022, Lalo missed four of the six events this season while doing flight training, studying to become a pilot. If he plays the tour regularly, he’s a top 6-8 player easily. But his schedule is an unknown; it may be very difficult for him to commit to a 4-day weekend to play a tour event while being low-man on the pilot totem pole call sheet.

Prognosis for 2025: I’m going to assume he’s missing a big chunk of the season again, playing when he can, and thus will be limited in what he can accomplish. I’ll guess #13 for next year.

16. @Robby Collins continues to chug along on tour, playing all six events, making four round of 16s but taking a couple of early losses. This has been his pattern over the past three season and seems likely to continue. He’s a veteran player who’s a tough out for a lot of his typical round of 32 opponents, but a long shot to advance past a top8 player.

Outlook for 2025: the new US Junior national team coach and sometimes-partner to Horn and Manilla in their organizational exploits seems set to continue touring regularly, so a 16-18 finish seems likely once again. Prediction: #17.

17. Diego Gastelum comes in at #17 and along with Trujillo represents the next generation of top players in this sport. Trujillo, Gastelum, Acha, Sebastian Hernandez, and Jhonatan Flores are all in the 18U/21U circle and are of similar talent levels, and they seem set to follow in Trujillo’s footsteps to try to make noise in the sport. We havn’t seen a ton from some of these players yet domestically (cost and visa issues), but some we have, including Gastelum. He beat this year’s U21 world champ Acha at worlds last year, and has some back and forth results with Trujillo in both juniors and adult events.

Prognosis for 2025: I sense Gastelum will continue to tour regularly, and I favor him to make a bunch of 16s. I can see him incrementally jumping up the ranks. I’d love to see him h2h against players like Natera or Carter or Collins to see where he rates. Prediction: #14

18. @Samuel Murray . Murray showed up at the season opener and won it for his second career tier 1 title… then he missed the rest of the pro season. He continued to play for Canada and Internationally, but not on the pro tour. Right now, he represents a first for the sport; he won his last event and may actually be retired. If this is the case, he walks off Pete Sampras style with a win, and may end up breaking a bunch of my reports that all assume players lost their last match.

Outlook for 2025: is he retired? Seems like it. He’s now 31 and is in kind of the same boat as Jake Bredenbeck: he’s a power-guy who’s aging and spent most of his 2023 season struggling to make the quarters on tour. He’s got a good thing going in Canada though, where he hasn’t relinquished the National title in a decade and thus guarantees an influx of money from the association for a while. Still, I have to think he’ll sneak across the boarder for the Lewis and Minnesota events and may get some results. I’ll go #20 next year.

19. @Kadim Carrasco continues to do what he’s done for the past few season: plays most of the events, sometimes gets to the round of 16, never beyond. In 33 career pro events he’s never gotten to the quarters. But, he has had decent success on the doubles court with Moscoso and can hold his own on the forehand side.

Outlook for 2025: more of the same; at age 36 he’s still solid and apparently likes the travel, so I’ll guess he finishes in the 19-20 range again. Prediction: #19

20. Cole Sendry. one of the top USA juniors has been a traveling man this year, flying all over the country to play pro-stops and top events. He’s shown some solid progression, with a win at the Kelley Brother’s event, and he’s gotten some decent IRT results, generally winning when he should have . His IRT losses this year were mostly understandable (Carter, Cuevas, Jake, Parrilla, Portillo). He made two round of 16s, lost in the 32s the other times.

outlook for 2025: clearly he’s actively touring, so I’d expect him to rack up points similarly to the way Carlos Ramirez does. I’d like to see him get some wins against the likes of Cuevas and Ramirez, but his seeding often has him playing a tougher opponent in the 32s. Still, playing all the events and getting wins guarantees a top 20 finish these days. Prediction: #18

Stay tuned for part 3.

Posted on

IRT 2024 Season Recap Part 1: the Top 10

Another title for Kane. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

Hello Racquetball Fans! Welcome to my annual tradition of recapping the results of the Men’s pro International Racquetball Tour season. This annual set of posts is to notify the community of the final season rankings now being loaded and live in the database, to publish some useful links wrapping up the season, and then to talk about the players.

We’ll do 3 parts:

– Part 1: Top 10 ranked players and master links

– Part 2: Players ranked 11-20

– Part 3: Notable Players ranked outside the top 20 and commentary about the state of the sport.

—

First, here’s some quick links for the 2024 rankings and how they present in the database:

– 2024 Rankings, from 1-77: https://rball.pro/lwj

– 2024 Season Summary Report for all 2024 players: https://rball.pro/hx0

The season-ending ranks for each player also flow to their personal Season Summary Reports for their careers. For example, here’s Adam Manilla’s Career Season Summary report, showing his year-end rankings per season: https://rball.pro/r8k

—

Now, lets run through the year’s top 10.

1. Kane Waselenchuk , He wins 4 of the 6 events for the year after missing an entire year due to his blown Achilles heel injury. He breaks several age-based records in tour history: he’s now the oldest to finish #1 by 4+ years (besting Rocky’s 2018 accomplishment) and is now oldest to win a tournament (besting Ruben’s long standing 1993 record). He wins the tour title by more than 800 points (that’s two tier 1 wins) thanks to ill-timed injuries to his strongest competitor, and things will get worse for the rest of the tour before it gets better: his first 2024 tournament to expire was a semis loss, so he’s favored to replace that result with a win to increase his lead to start the 2025 season. Some will call his 2024 performance an indictment of the depth of the tour, others will continue to see Kane for what he is: one of the most dominant individual athletes in the history of sports.

Prognosis for 2025: Honestly, I see no reason he can’t repeat as #1. The two players who can really challenge him regularly (Montoya and Moscoso) still can’t seem to put together a complete match to beat him. Kane may be 43, but he still has pinpoint accuracy on his serves and can power nearly everyone off the court without expending a ton of energy. He’s most vulnerable in events where he has to play twice in a day, or against players who can get him off-balance with the serve consistently; that’s a short list in the pro game right now. Prediction for 2025: Repeats as #1.

See https://rball.pro/4oa for more age-based records.

2. Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball : Montoya had a career season, finishing ranked #2 on tour, the highest he’s ever been ranked. He didn’t find the winner’s podium this year, but did make a final (losing 11-10 in January to Murray) and three semis along the way . After years of promise and part-time touring, he’s finally seized his spot amongst the tour elite. He also remains the #1 doubles player in the world, finishing atop the IRT Pro Doubles ranking list.

Prognosis for 2025: Montoya played every event in a season for the first time in his career, but he has a full time non-rball career that may cost him appearances here and there. I think he slips down behind Moscoso for next year. Prediction for 2025: #3.

3. Adam Manilla jumped his year-end ranking from a 2023-emulating #6 to a career-best #3 with a surprise run to the finals of the season’s final event (which awarded Grand Slam points due to the total prize purse). Manilla has toured for years now at age 29 and has generally been a “quarters” ceiling kind of player, but got a career-best win in his home event over Montoya to make his first career final and jump his ranking to #3. This was all the more impressive because, as anyone who’s run a tournament knows, running an event and trying to play in it can be really difficult.

Prognosis for next year: With all due respect to his finals run, Manilla is hitting in rarified air right now. He’s got 58 career events and has made it past the quarters just twice. I think he’ll continue to make quarter finals regularly and will finish in the 5-6 range like he did in 2023. Prediction for 2025: #6

4. Conrrado Moscoso ; Many thought 2024 would be Moscoso’s year; he ascended to #1 early in the season with DLR’s January upset and subsequent leaving the tour, and held the #1 ranking until he got hurt. Just ahead of the October 2024 Inland Empire event, Moscoso announced an arm injury and subsequent surgery for a condition that was called “periostitis.” Googling that term, we discover sometimes called “Tennis Elbow” and is a repetitive use injury. Conrrado missed the last two events of the season and slipped to 4th in the standings. As of this writing, we’re assuming he’s back and healthy for the start of the 2025 season. But time is now officially running out for Moscoso to make his mark; he’s 29, has been touring for years, and has missed a couple of real opportunities to finish #1 on tour. Interestingly though … I don’t sense that’s his real priority; based on conversations with tour insiders, Conrrado is far more interested in international titles than he is in winning a tour title. I’m sure he likes the money though that comes with IRT titles; a dollar here is worth seven Bolivanos, which makes for a great payday if he cashes cheks here.

Prognosis for 2025: assuming he’s healthy, he’ll have his work cut out for him early; being the #4 seed means he plays into #1 Kane in the semis and will struggle to defend his early 2024 results. But, if he can get himself back to the #3 slot on tour, he’ll favor his chances when he faces #2 Montoya (8-2 in their last 10 meetings). He also seems to now be free of a couple of players who have had success against him on tour (Sam Murray has 6 tour wins over Moscoso since 2018), which will clear the path for him into the later stages of events. But, I still don’t see him supplanting Kane when they meet up. Prediction for 2025: #2,

– #5 @Andree Parrilla : Another up and down season for Parrilla, who finishes 100 points behind #3 Manilla but had a better season on paper with 1 final and 2 semis reached. Still, its his sixth straight season in the top 5 on tour, but he seems mired in the 4-5 spot on tour, always coming up short against the top players on tour. Well, now one of those top players is out of the picture in DLR, so there’s room for the SLP product to move back up. He missed an event, then had an unlucky draw in Pleasanton (losing in the 16s to Lalo), else he may have easily finished 3rd this year.

Prognosis for 2025: Parrilla’s big challenge will be when running into Moscoso in the quarters in the 4/5 quarter, but once that gets cleared up Andree has owned the career h2h versus Manilla and should be favored to gradually pull ahead in the poitns race throughout 2025. Generally the only players he’s losing to right now are Moscoso & Kane. He always plays Montoya tough, if he can work his way up to force that as a regular matchup, which may help him finish high. I think though, he settles back into his regular 4/5 spot at season’s end: Prediction for 2025: #4.

#6: Andres Acuña finished around 100 points back of Parrilla for 6th, his career high finish and the sixth straight season he has improved on his season-ending ranking. He made 2 semis, 2 quarters, and had 2 round of 16 losses this year (once to Kane, once an 11-10 heart-breaker to Martell). He probably should have finished higher. Nonetheless; 2 semis are his career best, and he had a couple of really impressive results this year (a win over Montoya, plus a win over the red-hot Alonso). Acuna couldn’t stay away from Kane this year, losing to him four times in 6 events.

Prognosis for next year: If the only person you lose to is Kane, you’re going to do well on tour. Acuna is at his peak age (29) and can build on some momentum. I think he continues to get some solid wins and stays right in that 5-6 range next year. Prediction for 2025: #6

#7 Erick Trujillo finished around 100 points below Acuna and is the first player we’ve encountered in these rankings that i’d call the “new generation” of players. Every one of the following players is either 28 or 29 right now: Moscoso, Montoya, Parrilla, Manilla, Acuna, Mar, Natera, Carter. Of the regular touring players who get results, really only Trujillo and Portillo are at an age where they’re still improving as opposed to being at or near peak age 28-29. This season, Trujillo definitely had some consistency and made the quarters in 5 of 6 events (hence the #7 ranking). he had some solid wins; he beat Jake this year, has wins over Natera and Martell. He had some success at Mexican Nationals but lost to a relative unknown Acha in World Juniors.

Prognosis for next year: He should continue to make quarters, but at #7 and without the flip seeding of yester-year, he’ll continue to run into a #2 seed and lose at the quarter final stage unless he can break through with a big win and change the story. I’d like to see him with a win over Montoya or Moscoso before believing he can improve on a 7-8 range finish. he also is in jeopardy of getting passed by a couple of players who finished in the teens but who are better players. Prediction for 2025: #9.

#8 @Alan Natera showed real improvement in 2024 over past seasons, making the quarters in 4 of 6 events (versus just 2 of 9 events in 2023), but only saw his ranking rise one from the prior seasons.

Prognosis for 2025: #8/#9 can be tricky; you’re always faced with a similarly skilled opponent in the round of 16 only to face off against the top seed a round later with little hope of advancing. Natera solved these 8/9 matchups in 2025, but then would get waxed in the quarters by either Kane or Moscoso. It’s hard to break out of this spot, and for that reason I think he stays right in this general area again in 2025 save an injury above him. Prediction for 2025: #10

#9 @Jake Bredenbeck is at a career cross roads; he’s now hit age 33, which has proven to be a critical year for pro racquetball players historically. There’s dozens of examples of pro players who retired right in the 32-33 age range because they face the same problem Jake does: the tour may be passing him by. A year after he had a win and three finals, Jake failed to get even to the semis of any event this year and took four losses in the 16s or 32s (Trujillo, Flores, Alonso, and Mar). A couple of these were certainly unlucky matchups, and he can improve on his ranking for sure, but is this what he wants to keep doing?

Prognosis for 2025: He’s had some success against Natera, who he’ll run into in the 16s now, and I think he’ll be able to replace some 16s with some qtr losses. He’ll favor his chances if he’s playing Trujillo at the same junction. He can push Kane/Conrrado in a 1/8 quarter but will struggle to get to a semi going forward. At some point he may face the same question many before him have: is it worth it to tour and spend money flying around in order to get round of 16/quarter final money at best when you’re in your mid-30s and are starting to wear down physically and may be thinking about your future? I think he hangs around for one more season but time is running out. Prediction for 2025: #8.

#10T: Jaime Martell Neri and Thomas Carter . Amazingly Martell and Carter finished with identical points for the season, each making one QF and other wise losing in the 16s. I say this is amazing because players get fractional point credits for losing in three games versus two, making it really difficult to tie across an entire season. Martell achieves his first ever top 10 finish on tour after barely touring until 2017 and then not having a single IRT result for three seasons. He’s a solid player who can certainly get wins, and is dangerous if he gets hot . His quarterfinal this season was achieved with an 11-10 win over Acuna.

Meanwhile, Carter also achieves a career first top 10 and got his one quarter final this year with a solid win over Carrasco. He’s very consistent in his career: 33 round of 16 finishes across a decade of competing, with five total QFs spread across five different seasons.

Outlook for next year: I think Martell is better positioned to keep a hold of a top-10 ranking; Carter faced off against Natera in the last three events of the season in the 8/9 spot and lost each time; those have to turn into wins for Carter to move up. I’m sensing though that a couple of guys who played part time in 2024 will jump them both for the top 10 in 2025, something we’ll talk about in part 2 of this series.

Prediction for 2025: Martell #11, Carter #13.

——

That’s it for Part 1. Tune in tomorrow to talk about the 11-20 ranked players for the season.

Posted on

2024 Golden State Open Wrap-up

Manilla makes the finals in both singles and doubles. Photographer Kevin Savory

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: @Kane Waselenchuk

– Doubles: @Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball & Javier Mar

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

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

——————

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

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

—————

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

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

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

—————-

In the 32s:

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

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

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

—————-

In the 16s:

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

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

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

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

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

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

—————-

In the Quarters

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

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

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

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

—————

In the Semis

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

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

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

—————-

Points Implications of results

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

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

—————-

Doubles review

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

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

—————-

Open Singles, other notable draws

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

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

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

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

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

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

—————–

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

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

——————

Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

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

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

——————-

tags

International Racquetball Tour

Posted on

IRT 2024 Golden State Open Preview

Kane returns to the top spot on tour, and has the 2024 title wrapped up. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

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

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

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

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

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

——————————

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

In the round of 64:

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

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

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

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

——————————-

Projecting the 32s:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

——————————-

round of 16:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

——————————

Projected Qtrs:

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

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

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

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

Semis:

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

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

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

——————————-

Doubles Preview:

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

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

———————————

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

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

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

Associations

International Racquetball Tour

Posted on

2024 Capital Classic Recap

Montoya wins the double in Severna Park Photo Kevin Savory 2022 Portland IRT event

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

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

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

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

Lets recap the action.

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

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

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

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

Men’s Doubles Review:

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

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

Posted on

IRT 2024 Inland Empire Pro/Am Recap

Kane regains #1 on tour. Photo credit: unknown

Congrats to your Pro Singles winner on the weekend: Kane Waselenchuk

Kane wins his 127th career Tier 1 IRT title. We’ll talk about the final and the point implications later on.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=44845

——————

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

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

In the 32s: A last minute draw change jumbled the lowest 7-8 seeds from where they stood monday, and led to just a couple of compelling matchups in the opening round.

– Mexican U21 Gastelum upended USA junior Cody elkins 10,10 to earn a shot at Kane

– Alonso took out Antone 13,4; the USA national team member made him sweat in game one for sure.

– The biggest result, and biggest shock to me: Martell easily beat Garcia 4,10. That’s tough for Garcia, who I think was the only South American to make the trip.

—————-

In the 16s:

– Alonso took out Jake in a tough 11-9 breaker. I don’t think this is an upset necessarily based on the way both have been playing, and it gives you some pause to ask, “just how good is Alonso?” If he played regularly, is he top 4? Too high?

– Trujillo took out Martel, also in a breaker. This isn’t an upset by seed, but it is a notable result b/c Trujillo has had some losses recently to his fellow countrymen. This is a solid win over a solid player and gives Trujillo’s top 10 ranking a boost.

– Montoya edged his doubles partner Mar in a breaker. No surprise they went to a 3rd game; even if one is the #2 seed and the other is in the 20s, these two are neck and neck talent wise.

—————-

In the Quarters

– #1 Kane cruises past Natera 6,4. He’s just getting warmed up.

– Great win by Acuna, downing Alonso 2,13. I thought for certain we were going to see another Alonso-Kane matchup, but the Costa Rican had other thoughts.

– Parrilla had a typical 7,13 win over Manilla. Both control players tried to out control the other, and Andree was better at it.

– Montoya set down Trujillo 12,3. After a close first game, the powerful Rodrigo went to town and advanced with ease.

—————

In the Semis

– Acuna kept it close b/c he has a game plan against Kane that we’ve seen before, but just not a good enough one y et. kane advances 10,7

– In the other semi, two players who have played each other dozens of times over the years faced off again, and this time Parrilla took out Montoya 9,6 to move into the final.

—————

In the Finals, we got an interesting matchup. Kane and Andree have a history playing each other. One of their first meetings was a 0,0,0 embarrassment at the 2016 US Open when Andree was a budding player on the competing WRT. They met in the final of Chicago a few months later and Parrilla pushed Kane in at least one game, showing a bit of a gumption at the time. They’ve usually played close games, albeit mostly Kane wins … then Parrilla got an 11-10 finals win over Kane in January 2022 for a big win.

Kane jumped out to a massive first game lead, ahead 10-0 at one point, and he honestly looked miffed when Parrilla finally got a point and ruined his donut. Well, that wasn’t going to be where Parrilla stopped … he ran off ten unanswered points himself to tie the game and Kane had to press to win it 15-14. Game two was one-way traffic for the Mexican, who crushed Kane 15-3 to force a breaker.

Fun fact: on the IRT, when players split the first two games, the player who won the second game has the advantage, having won 51% of the time. So advantage momentum, albeit only slightly. Kane had none of that, crushing Parrilla 11-3 to win the match. Andree scored 32 total points, Kane 29 … but it was the points at the end that counted. The end of the match was a little testy, with Andree having some words for Kane on his way out of the court, which were returned in turn.

—————-

Points Implications of results.

Kane regains 1st place on tour, for the first time in several years. The last time he was #1 on tour, the best I can tell, was at the 2021 US Open. He has about a 90 point lead on #2 Moscoso, but we know that Moscoso is now out for the rest of 2024. Parrilla now sits third and Kane has him by about 377 points. That’s huge; the next event to drop was Boston in Nov 2023, which Parrilla won, so that means he’s defending winner’s points/400 points. Montoya has dropped to 4th, just a handful behind Parrilla, and has a quarter and semi to defend the rest of the way out.

But the 377 gap is massive: if there’s just one more tier 1 (which is worth 400 for winning, 501.33 if its a tier1+), Kane basically has the year end title already sewn up. We know about Pleasanton in November; maybe we get Pelham Memorial increased to Tier 1 in December, but it was a Satellite last year. So amazingly Kane is in pole position to win the year end title

—————-

Open Singles, other notable draws

– With no Pro doubles, the Open Doubles came down to the four best pros playing, with Mar/Garcia topping Sendrey/Gastelum in the final.

– In Men’s Open, doubles partners Sendrey and Gastelem both advanced to the final and then double forfeited.

– Arizona’s Susie Boulanger & Damian Zamorano took the Mixed Open Doubles final in a walk-over.

—————–

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

——————

Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

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

Next up is the Pleasanton Golden State Open in Pleasanton in a month’s time.

——————-

tags

Posted on

IRT 2024 Inland Empire Pro/Am Preview

Can we get another Alonso run? Photo via Alonso Twitter page

Hello racquetball fans! It’s been a minute since we were talking about the Men’s pro tour (last tier 1 stop: May in Canoga Park), but they’re back in action at a site that the Men’s tour has never visited before (at least for a Tier 1): Spokane, Washington.

Washington has been host to the IRT in the past, but not for more than a decade.

Seattle has hosted a dozen big-time events over the years, and in the late 80s/early 90s Seattle hosted the “Grand Nationals” event that was often the sole major of the year. Famously, in 1988 the tour rolled into Seattle to finish off the season at the CityFed Grand Nationals, with the year end title completely up for grabs; the players on tour knew that the final major would have a massive amount of points awarded, and any one of the top 5-6 players entering that event could win the year end title. the #1, #2 and #4 ranked players all fell in the quarters, and #3 seeded @Ruben Gonzalez topped #5 @Egan Inoue for the tournament win and year-end title.

Because it’s been some months since the IRT was in action, we’ve seen a bit of movement in the rankings, so the projected quarterfinals may look a little different than you’d expect. We’re also seeing a bit of a thinner draw due to the geographic location of the event and the difficulty some international players have in getting there. However, that all said, we’re going to see some excellent matches all the way through.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=44845

The most obvious Top player missing is #1 Moscoso, who suffered an arm injury while training over the weekend, basically the day before he was set to board a plane to come to the USA. He’s set to have surgery this week and could be sidelined for the rest of the season, a dagger to his chances of finishing #1 for the first time. Also missing is current #10 De La Rosa and #12 Sam Murray, the latter somewhat surprisingly given the few Tier 1 events we are set to have in 2024. In Conrrado’s absence, Kane ascends to the #1 seed for the first time since the 2021 US Open. He’s in the driver’s seat to win the 2024 title right now, years after he last won it at the end of the 2019-2020 season.

——————————

Let’s preview the draw. Here’s some notable matches I’m looking at. The draw was re-made at the very last minute because of the dropping out of Kadim Carrasco due to travel issues thanks to Milton (lots of South Americans fly through Florida as a transfer point) which scattered every round of 32 and 16 matchup.

In the 32s:

– #12 @Carlos Ramirez takes on #21 John Wolfe , who toured for a brief period a few years back. Ramirez very quietly has now risen to #16 in the rankings and is the #12 seed here by virtue of several absences, and he’s done so mainly by his consistency attending events on tour. He’s made three round of 16s in his career 15 events and his best ever result may have been a 2022 win over Gastelum. He has a solid opportunity to get into another round of 16 here.

– #13 @Jordy Alonso vs #20 @Wayne Antone Racquetball : Antone was set to play Carrasco before he dropped out; now he has to fend with a guy who put an “L” on Kane and made a tour final earlier this year. Antone’s solid, but Alonso has the ability to beat basically anyone if he’s on.

– #14 Cole Sendrey gets a fun one against Canadian National #19 @Lee Connell. The Canadian has been around the block and is old enough to be Cole’s dad, but can still play. Sendrey will need to focus to win this match.

– #11 Robert Collins vs #22 @Gatlin Sutherland. This is a fun one: Collins was just named the US Junior National team coach (well deserved by the way), and Sutherland is a regular on the US Junior National team. How will the player do against the coach? This is Sutherland’s pro debut. he’s had some success in US Junior nationals event (one title back in 2014, made the finals of 16s two years ago, and he owns 4 junior national doubles titles), but he’ll have his hands full with veteran Collins.

#10 @Jaime Martell Racquetball vs #23 @Diego Garcia . The last minute seed change has the most impact on Martell, who has a career high seeding here only to get drawn against Garcia. Last time Diego showed up an an IRT event, he took out two top seeds and took a game off of Montoya in the quarters before falling, and at the last Worlds he beat Acuna straight up and fell 11-9 in the fifth to Jake. I see Garcia moving on.

——————————-

round of 16:

– #1 Waselenchuk vs #16 @Diego Gastelum ; Kane gets started with a decent tie; Gastelum is no pushover, being the 2023 U21 world champ and with a handful of wins over IRT top 10 player Trujillo in the last couple of years. He’s probably best known for taking Jake to a 15-14 game one loss at the 2023 Worlds event out of nowhere, shocking those in attendance who had never seen him before. That being said, for Kane this isn’t the same as running into someone like Alonso, and he should move on.

– #9 @Thomas Carter vs #8 @Alan Natera: These two meet again. They were 8 & 9 at the last IRT event, and Natera cruised to an 8,6 win. I see a similar result here.

– #4 @Jake Bredenbeck vs #13 Alonso. Jake is the unfortunate recipient of the Alonso matchup, a player who beat Kane, Collins, Martell, and Montoya at the last IRT event. Is Alonso the new Landa on tour? For those who don’t remember, Landa didn’t tour regularly until deep into his 20s, but would periodically show up at pro stops and knock off top-seeded players with ease. I see Alonso doing the same now.

– #7 @Erick Trujillo vs Garcia: these two faced off twice at the 2022 Worlds u21 junior championship, with Garcia winning in the group stage and then in the U21 final. Both games went the distance, all 5 games. Trujillo didn’t get to #7 by accident and has some wins on tour for sure, but so does Garcia. I still like the dark-horse here.

– #2 Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball vs #15 @javier Mar; the luck of the draw pits long-time doubles partners and good friends Montoya & Mar together at this stage, instead of two rounds subsequent. The last time they played, Rodrigo got the better of his friend in 2023 in Minnesota, but Mar absolutely has beaten him in the past. Mar has struggled with injuries for some time, but seems to be healthy and is coming off a solid 3WB event. I still think Montoya is the favorite but it could be close. Upsets frequently happen when two people this close play.

——————————

Projected Qtrs:

– #1 Waselenchuk over #8 Natera; Kane over powers the Mexican turned Chilean.

– #13 Alonso over #5 Acuna: Jordy is too much of a shotmaker for Acuna to handle.

– #3 Parrilla over #6 Manilla: both players have straightforward paths to the quarters thanks to the last minute schedule change, and Parrilla is gifted a semis slot.

– #2 Montoya over #23 Garcia: they met in 2023 World Singles in Denver as mentioned above, and Montoya won in a breaker. I’d expect a similar result here.

Semis:

– Kane over Alonso. Kane will have learned how to beat Jordy, will be on the gas from the get go, and won’t lose to the same guy twice.

– Montoya over Parrilla: just too much firepower at this point in both players’ careers.

Finals;

– Kane over Montoya: you hate to predict against the best player of all time, but if there’s a player who has both the game and the mentality to beat him, I think its Rodrigo. When they played in Minnesota, Kane won 14,(7),2 in a match that was a lot closer than the score indicated. The first game was a coinflip and Montoya cruised in game two before letting his concentration slip a bit in the breaker. Kane never lets his concentration slip, and still has the power and shot-making ability to counter even the athletic Montoya.

——————————-

Doubles:

There’s no pro doubles here, but there is an Open doubles that’s gotten some late prize money, so look for some of the traveling pros to pour into Open doubles to try to earn a bit more cash. Mar & Garcia as #1 seeds and I like them over #2 Sendrey/Gastelum in the final.

———————————

Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the IRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Look for Favio Soto, Samuel Schulze, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew all weekend on the mike, calling the shots! Thanks to Favio for giving me an advance copy of the draw and for being a fan.

Thanks to the Tourney Director Rich Carver for putting this event on!

Thanks to our main sponsors @mche property Services and the @Spokane Athletic club; it goes without saying that without you and your support, we don’t have a sport.

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

Associations

International Racquetball Tour International Racquetball Tour