Category: IRT

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Sonora Open wrap-up

Ochoa completely earned this win, with victories over several good players.

Another weekend, another strong Mexican draw for a non-Tier 1 IRT event. Lets review the Sonora Open.

R2link for the event.

The Sonora open draw was a bit deeper than last week’s Torreon draw, with a number of up-and-coming players falling in the round of 16. Among them; Rogelio Castillo, Daniel Maldonado, and Juan Loreto.

From the Quarters on-wards:

– #1 Rodrigo Montoya Solís, looking for two wins in two weekends, downed the youngster Eduardo Lalo Portillo with ease 3,7. Portillo couldn’t do much with the World Champ on this day.

– #4 seeded Javier Estrada took out #5 seeded two-time World Racquetball Tour year end champ Alex Cardona in two tight games 12,14. An excellent win for Estrada, who has now put himself in a position to make waves every time he plays.

– #3 Alan Natera Chavez could not continue his good run of form, losing to #6 Jaime Martell in a tiebreaker.

– #7 Ernesto Ochoa got revenge for last week’s quarter-finals loss by thoroughly dominating #2 seed Javier Mar 6,7. Ochoa did not miss on opportunities, made his shots and completely earned this win.

In the Semis:
– #1 Montoya earned a tough close win over #4 Estrada 10,14.
– #7 Ochoa continued his great run, beating #6 Martell in a tiebreaker.

In the final:
– Ochoa took game one over Montoya, thoroughly earning the win with incredible court coverage and crisp shot making. Mid-way through Game 2 ahead 10-6, Montoya hit the side wall awkwardly on his ankle and had to retire. So Ochoa gets the win, but wasn’t able to quite put the exclamation point on the event like he seemed he was capable of.

For me, the events of the last two weekends have now escalated the status of both Estrada and Ochoa into near top-20 realm world-wide. Great playing, great ball.
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Also a fun doubles draw, with all the top players teaming up for a solid doubles draw. In the final, the top team of Montoya/Mar had to forfeit after Rodrigo’s injury, defaulting to #3 seeded Natera/Martell. Natera and Martell had easily downed the two aforementioned players on great form (Estrada and Ochoa) in the semis while Montoya/Mar had taken out the excellent doubles players teaming up in Cardona/Martell 11-8.

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Gran Torneo Del San Isidro Wrap-Up

World Champ Montoya takes the tier-4 event in a walk-over final.

Gran Torneo Del San Isidro Wrap-Up

Hello Fans. We have a break in the schedule this week, but there was an interesting non-Tier 1 IRT event last weekend in Mexico, and another this weekend in Sonora. We don’t normally cover non-Tier 1 IRT events (and we do not load them to the databases), but this draw featured strong local draws of top players that I wanted to cover. So here’s a wrap up of the Tier 4 International Racquetball Tour​ event called Gran Torneo Del San Isidro, held in Torreon, Mexico.  We’ll wrap the Sonora Open early next week.

The Men’s Pro draw from Torreon is here at r2sports.com.

Here’s a quick wrap of the event from the quarters on:

In the Quarters
– #1 seed Javier Mar topped Ernesto Ochoa in a tiebreaker. Ochoa made a great run to the 2017 Alamo City open, topping both Gerardo Franco Gonzalez​ and Andree Parrilla​ along the way.

– #4 seed Jaime Martell Neri​ was upset by #5 seed Javier Estrada. Martell won the 2018 WRT Georgia Open, downing both David Horn​ and Jake Bredenbeck​ along the way.

– #3 seed Alan Natera Chavez​ squeaked by #6 Eduardo Lalo Portillo​ 11-10 in the breaker. Portiollo is still playing in 18U, lost in the 18U World Juniors last year but has a 16U World Juniors title under his belt. He’s part of a crew of players in the 18-22 range in Mexico right now who are all world class.

– #2 seed Rodrigo Montoya Solís​ defeated #10 seed Rogilio Ramirez in two.

In the Semis:
– #1 Mar was stretched to a tiebreaker by #4 Estrada but advanced. Estrada and Mar met in the semis of the 2017 Mexican Nationals, but his career win may be his round of 16 win over world #2 Alejandro Alex Landa ​in the Mexican Worlds selection event in June, knocking Landa out of contention for a spot on the Mexican world’s team.
– #2 Montoya cruised by #5 Natera 6,5. Natera has had a fantastic year, making the semis of the 2018 Mexican Nationals as the #32 seed, beating #1 seeded Mar, Gerardo Franco and Christian Longoria​ before falling to world #4 Daniel De La Rosa in the semis.

The final unfortunately was a walk-over win by Montoya over Mar, robbing the fans of a potentially fantastic match. Montoya is of course the defending world champ, and Mar beat two top 10 IRT players in Mario Mercado​ and Samuel Murray​ en route to the US Open quarters last October. Mar also topped Montoya in the final of the WRT 2017 La Loma event. Meanwhile Montoya’s capabilities are well known, winning a stacked 2018 World’s event by topping the likes of Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo​, Horn and Charlie Pratt​ in the final.

 

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IRT Season Opener in Laurel Wrap-up

Rocky Carson takes the season’s first pro stop.

The first event of the new International Racquetball Tour is in the books; lets recap the event. Great turn-out to watch matches Thursday night; we thought there might have been 150 people present at peak capacity watching matches.

R2sports link for the tourney.

The draw was impacted late in the game, when a points shuffle resulted in Alejandro Landa overtaking Kane Waselenchuk for #2 on tour, and then Kane withdrawing after the draws had been finalized due to a car accident. This meant 3 of the top 8 players were out … but 16 of the top 20 and 22 of the top 30 were present, representing a very solid draw.

Match Report here for this event at www.proracquetballstats.com

Congrats to Rocky Carson on his win. This is his 26th IRT tier 1/GS win; he is now just 3 titles behind Jack Huczek for 5th all-time on tour.  Click here for a list of most titles won on tour.

Here’s a review of the matches I found notable per round, highlighting upsets and tough wins.

In the 64s:

  • Gerardo Franco got a solid win over country-man Jordy Alonso, a player he hadn’t beaten on the professional ranks before.
  • Atlanta native Maurice Miller got a good win over veteran Colombian Set Cubillos.
  • Adam Manilla outlasted the 16-yr old Bolivian phenom Diego Garcia in a tie-breaker; Garcia played quite well for his pro debut and went on to make the Open finals in a very deep draw, taking Acuna to a tiebreaker.
  • Felipe Camacho beat home town favorite Dan Fowler despite the local rooting interest.
  • Legendary New Jersey player Mitch Posner managed to score a point, losing to Andres Acuna 1,0.
  • Playing on his home court, Troy Warigon took a tight match 14,14 over Costa Rican Sergio Acuna.
  • Robert Collins took out another local favorite, North Carolina’s Brent Walters 14,12.
  • Long Island’s Nick Montalbano beat “the Ref” Scott McClellan in two.

In the 32s:

  • Gerardo Franco continued his run, topping Nick Riffel to qualify for the main draw.
  • Andree Parrilla won the last match of the night Thursday night, ending at nearly 11pm, topping Miller in a solid 11,8 win featuring back and forth action.
  • Andres Acuña topped fellow veteran IRF player Camacho 11,6 to advance to the main draw.
  • In one of the best matches of the night, Jake Bredenbeck topped Stocktonian Mauro Rojas in two tight games 14,11. These two big hitters blasted balls at each other all match and Jake came out on top. Look out for Rojas, who just graduated from 18U; he has every much the power as Jake and could surprise a top 8 player soon.
  • The longest match of the 32s may have been Thomas Carter outlasting Texan Justus Benson in a tie-breaker that lasted an hour and a half. His prize? A walk-over into his first career quarter-final.
  • Jose Diaz took out local favorite Warigon in two games … and had to do it despite the largest crowd of the night rooting against him the whole way.
  • Montalbano continued his good run, topping another IRT touring vet in Collins to advance to the main draw. Montalbano becomes the only non-touring pro/local player to advance to the main draw at this event.

In the 16s:

  •  #1 Rocky Carson advanced with ease over G. Franco.
  • #9 Parrilla surprised #8 David Horn, showing no signs of fatigue from his two-match qualifying late into the previous night, winning in 2 to force a Carson showdown.
  •  Manilla earned his third ever quarter, topping DC-area resident and #5 seed Mario Mercado 11-10. Great tourney for Manilla, who I thought was a candidate to get upset in the 64s … serves me right for picking against him; now he’s in the 8s.
  • #4 Sebastian Franco cruised into the quarters, topping Acuna.
  • #14 Carter got his walk-over over #3 Waselenchuk and his first career quarter finals appearance.
  • #6 Samuel Murray had a solid win over Bredenbeck, advancing in two games 13,7. I thought this had upset potential, especially after Murray’s struggles at Worlds, but this was a solid win.
  • #7 Jansen Allen held off Jose Diaz’s upset attempt to get to the quarters.
  • #2 Landa advanced easily over Montalbano, ending the local player’s run.

In the Quarters…

  • #9 seed Parrilla had the match on his racquet at 10-10 in the breaker, and blew a game-winning pass into the ground. #1 Carson took advantage and won the ensuing rally to advance by the skin of his teeth.
  • #4 Franco ended Manilla’s excellent tourney 9,4.
  • #6 Murray outclassed Carter 2,11 to advance to the semis.
  • #2 Landa overcame a big 1st game deficit to the cruise over #7 Allen.

The semis thus represent a “chalk” draw of remaining pros, featuring #1, #2, #6 and #4 seeds.

  • In the upper semi, #1 Carson rebounded from his near defeat in the quarters to trounce home-town favorite #4 Sebastian Franco in two.
  • In the other semi, #6 Murray secured his first pro win over #2 Landa, and also his first ever pro Tier 1 final, with a solid tiebreaker victory over his frequent doubles partner.

In the final, Carson and Murray met for the 6th time professionally …. and Carson made it 6-6 with a solid 2-game victory to claim the season’s first title and extend his grip on the #1 ranking on tour.

Next up for the tour is the US Open. I had a great time Thursday night meeting players and talking stats with the IRT staff. I got some great, great suggestions for site augmentation and hope to spare some time coming up to develop and add some awesome new functionality. Stay tuned for announcements here to that end.

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IRT Laurel Season Opener preview

(Editor’s Note! I’ve modified this post in the predictions section: after its publication Kane withdrew and the rankings/seedings flipped Kane and Landa, so I’ve corrected the text to account for this).

Welcome to the 2018-19 International Racquetball Tour season!

The draw is up for the first event so lets talk about it.  Click here for the r2sports.com Tournament link.  Or, if you cannot read this link, go to www.irt-tour.com and click on the link directly from the home page. Or wait til Thursday when the brackets for the whole tourney are released in full on r2sports.com.

After a summer of angst over the status of 12-time champ Kane Waselenchuk, the sports most dominant player is in the first draw of the season and will be looking to extend his current on-court winning streak of 61 matches, which was interrupted for months last season by a knee injury that eventually cost him the year end title. However, after the draws were posted; Kane reportedly suffered injuries in a car accident and withdrew. He’ll remain in the draw and a lucky qualifier will get a bye into the quarters.

This is the first ever Men’s pro event held at the well-known (to Mid-Atlantic tournament players anyway) Sportfit Laurel club, which currently also hosts the annual LPRT Christmas classic and which has hosted an annual event called the Wintergreen Classic in Jan/February for more than 30 years. This is also the first time the Men’s pro tour has played in Maryland since the early 1990s, when the Merritt Security club outside of Baltimore used to host one of the VCI challenger series events every year. It is also the first time the Men’s tour has returned to the Washington DC area since 2003, and as a DC-area resident i’m obviously excited to be able to *drive* to see the Men’s pros for the first time in 15 years.

The Laurel club is unique for its court construction. They are panel courts, but a construction design choice spaced out the support beams a bit too far, leaving the courts being quite “slow,” even for panel courts. I wonder if this will be a source of frustration for players, especially those who are used to playing faster, concrete courts or who are used to playing at elevation.

One other personal note about the club: Sportfit Laurel was the first racquetball club where I ever played. I joined in early 1994 and played there until moving to Northern Virginia in December 1997. It has long held a large, vibrant racquetball community and was an awesome place to learn how to play.

I’ll be at the club Thursday night (Hurricane willing) for all of qualifying and look forward to catching up with the community.

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Enough about the club and my personal history there; Lets take a quick look at the draw: There’s 40 players entered, a healthy draw that is the largest non-US Open draw since Sept 2014 and portends well for the depth on tour this year.

Top 20 IRT players missing: three: #4 Daniel De La Rosa, #5 Alvaro Beltran, and #12 Charlie Pratt. Beltran and Pratt were in the draw as of Monday but were late withdrawals (Beltran to injury, Pratt to the Hurricane). These two missing top 8 players gives Sebastian Franco a #4 seed, a career best and a potential semi against Rocky Carson, a good early test for the defending champ.

Interesting international players attending: Andres Acuña and Sergio Acuna from Costa Rica, Jordy Alonso, Set Cubillos Ruiz, Erick Cuevas Fernandez, and lastly Bolivian Diego Garcia, a 16U player who made the semis of worlds this year who is coming up on a RYDF sponsorship to get a taste of the IRT in person. He could be the next best thing from the racquetball-mad country of Bolivia and he could be an interesting watch.

East coast top players entered who we don’t normally see elsewhere: David Austin, Geoff Heskett, Maurice Miller, Nick Montalbano, Troy Moore, Pedro Meruvia, Jamal Harris, Brent Walters and semi-regular IRT tour player Troy Warigon, who is the only pro entered who plays out of the Laurel club (that technically may not be totally true; I think Sebastian Franco also plays out of Laurel but don’t quote me on that).

Special Mention in the draw; former top-10 touring pro Dan Fowler is entered into the draw, looking to appear in a Men’s pro event for the first time in nearly 10 years. His last on-court pro appearance was in January 2009, and he stopped touring professionally in Oct 2004. Fowler and his wife Doreen Fowler (herself a former touring ladies pro) are both DC-area residents, have a long history of giving lessons and clinics in the Suburban Maryland area, and currently own and run a health club in Suburban MD. Its great to see Fowler back on tour even if its just for one event.

One other Special Mention: New Jersey legend Mitch “Captain Charisma” Posner is attending … he’s entered into Pros … and 60+. I’m sure he’ll be decked out in his trademark all-Red for his pro match.

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Lets get to previewing the draw:

Qualifying match-ups: here’s the Thursday night matches to look forward to:
– Gerardo Franco v Alonso: tough opener for both Mexicans, who fly an awful long way to play each other. Alonso owns a 2-0 h2h lead over Franco on the WRT, but it was Franco who had two top-10 wins on the IRT last season to leave an impression. could be pretty close.
– Garcia-Adam Manilla; this could be a shocker; Garcia is an unknown junior from Bolivia who could be a sleeper. Possibly a tough opener for Manilla, or perhaps a cake-walk facing a youngster who is an awful long way from home.
– Felipe Camacho – Fowler: an interesting match between the veteran IRT player Camacho and the former top-10 player Fowler. Can the retired veteran return to his top 10 form for a night? If so Camacho may be in trouble.
– Heskett – Thomas Carter: its a cross-state match-up of PIttsburgh area-based Heskett and Philadelphia area-native Carter. And its a golden ticket into the quarters so expect a heavily contested match.
– Robert Collins – Walters; a tough match up of regional top player Walters and IRT veteran Collins; could be an upset here.

Round of 32 interesting potential match-ups
– b vs Mauro Daniel Rojas; a tough round of 32 for both players; Rojas has been touring regularly since graduating from Juniors and has had a number of really tough early round match-ups
– Garcia-Cuevas Fernandez: an intriguing match=up of younger international players … which may not happen since both face tough first rounders against regular touring vets; this could easily be Manilla-Wolfe instead.

Round of 16 projections:
– Carson over Alonso
– Bobby Horn vs Andree Parrilla; 8/9 is always tight; Horn owns h2h 3-1 across IRT, WRT and IRF. Advantage Horn.
– Mario Mercado – Garcia: Mercado ends the cinderella run of the 16 yr old.
– S. Franco over Acuna: this IRF-style match between two veteran int’l players should be an easy victory for the “home town” Franco.
– Carter over Kane in a walkover
– Bredenbeck over Samuel Murray; first big upset; Bredenbeck has beaten Murray before and has the power to keep up with him. Jake is better than his seeding and ranking and will take a big step forward this tourney towards improving both.
– Jose Diaz over Jansen Allen ; Diaz beat Allen in two in April but they’re 2-2 h2h on the IRT: I expect a close Diaz win for the upset.
– Alejandro Landa over Walters: Landa’s been given a clear path to the finals and may not be stopped.

Quarters projections
– Carson-Horn: Horn has never beaten Carson, but Horn has also never been better. He’ll look to draw upon his international summer and his increased training to topple the 2017-18 champ.
– Franco over Mercado: these two country-men have never met officially in any capacity that I track, though i’m certain they’ve played a thousand times both hailing from Cali, Colombia. I’ll go with Franco.
– Bredenbeck over Carter: Jake’s string of unlucky draws ends here.
– Landa- Diaz: Landa handles the Stocktonian

Semis and Finals predictions: I’ve gone pretty much chalk: 1-4 versus 3-2.
– Carson over Franco; he’s 8-0 lifetime over Sebastian and has had the summer to recover from his knee operation.
– Landa-Bredenbeck; wow, interesting match of contrasting styles here. Landa is 5-0 lifetime over Jake and has historically done a good job of mitigating Jake’s power game. I’ll predict he makes it 6-0 here.

Final: Carson over Alex Landa

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Welcome to the new season! Can’t wait to see some racquetball!

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Kane Waselenchuk Retrospective

Kane announces his retirement.

A statistically focused review of Kane Waselenchuk‘s career.

On 4/28/18, minutes after winning the final event of the 2017-18 season, Kane shocked the racquetball world by announcing that he was “90%” sure he was retiring from full-time touring.

There’s all sorts of chatter here and there on this subject on facebook right now in the rball community, a lot of it inexplicably negative. So how about some positivity in reflecting on what an amazing career he’s had to date?

I’ll say this, from my perspective as the guy who tracks all of this data for www.proracquetballstats.com: Kane’s dominance is the reason many of the cool reports on the site exist, and I’ll be bummed to see him go and stop chasing records. There are not too many people in the professional sports landscape who get to say that they won their last match. As for the future, as a fan of the pro sport and someone who is always trying to predict who beats who in head to head match-ups, I’m also excited to see the next era of the sport, to see who steps up next year to challenge Rocky for the next title. It was always an inevitability that the current elder statesmen of the tour were going to step aside; i’m just surprised by who bowed out first and when. I sincerely hope he changes his mind and chases a 13th title (and beyond).

Its quite a few months away from the start of the 2018-19 season, and 90% isn’t 100%, so this whole post may be premature … but going under the assumption that we’ve seen the last of Kane full time on tour, I thought it’d be fun to put out some fun stats on his career. Every one of these figures can be found by running a report on the website, but if you have any questions how to see these data points for yourself, i’m always available.

Pro Tour Titles:
– 12 pro tour titles; 6 more than the next closest competitor (Cliff Swain‘s 6 pro titles)

Some Tournament title stats:
– 110 pro tournament wins, 39 more than the next closest competitor (Cliff’s 71 “known” tour wins)
– Tournament win percentage of 68.3% for his career. To put this in perspective, if 68.3% was his MATCH won/loss percentage
he’d still be top 15 of all time.
– He reached the finals in 74.5% of the tournaments he ever entered. Think about that fact; 3 out of every 4 tournaments for his career featured him in the final.
– He won the 7th pro event he ever entered (same as Cliff and Sudsy Monchik in terms of fastest ever).
– He owns 13 US Open titles, triple the closest competitor.

Wins and Losses
– “Retires” with a career record of 553-50, a .917 winning percentage. 
– He’s so far ahead of the 2nd best player in terms of career W/L percentage (Marty Hogan at .844) that he could lose 50 straight matches and still be in the lead. Fifty. This to me is the most amazing stat about Kane’s career.

– 13 of his 50 career tour losses were forfeits where he never even took the court (either through injury or missing a tournament after the draw had been made). So some would like to say his career W/L record is even more impressive than it already appears. 
– Most wins against him: Cliff Swain, who finished 9-13 head to head against Kane.
– He’s had just 12 losses in the last decade, most by forfeit.
– There’s just one player in the history of the tour who has a winning record against him: John Ellis , 2-1.
– He’s 73-3 for his career against Rocky Carson, who was his closest competitor for most of his reign.
– the last on the court loss he suffered was to Jake Bredenbeck in May 2016, retiring in the 5th game after winning the first two and suffering an injury.
– The last on the court, non-fft related loss was to Jose Rojas in Sept 2013. Prior to that you have to go back to Jan 2009, a semis loss to Alvaro Beltran. That’s nearly a decade ago.

Streaks
– Won 19 consecutive tournaments entered between Jan 2009 and Jan 2011.
– He owns the top six consecutive tournaments won streak of all time, each of which is in the double digits.

– Compiled a 134 match on the court winning streak, between Jan 2009 and Jan 2012.
– Also had additional such streaks of 108 matches and he retires with an intact 61 match winning streak on the court. He owns the longest three such match winning streaks in pro tour history (Marty’s great 1976-77 season is the fourth longest winning streak).

– Completed two fully undefeated seasons (forfeits or otherwise); 2009-10, 2016-17; the first such seasons ever done on tour.
– Several other seasons, when accounting for forfeit losses, were also “undefeated” seasons.

– He completed a perfect season in terms of games won/lost, going 85-0 in games played during the 2016-17 season.
– This was part of a streak of 113 consecutive games won between May 2016 and Oct 2017. For me, this might be his most amazing accomplishment on the court. He was so dominant for so long that he didn’t even drop a game for a year and a half.

Miscellany
– Career donut count: 130 given, 3 taken. During tournaments, I’m often asked to recall the individual donuts he’s received in lieu of match losses. (In case you’re wondering; Swain gave him a donut in 2001, again in 2004, then Rojas gave him a donut in 2012 before getting donutted himself in the second game. 
– He won a title in the last 15 seasons in which he competed.

– He owns the top 7 most dominant finals performances in terms of points conceded, and 19 of the top 22.
– He owns the top 17 most dominant tournaments in history (and 33 of top 34), once winning a tourney and conceding just 19 points in 12 games across 4 matches.
– Just about the only records he doesn’t own in the history of the tour are longevity/age based, ones that I’d have no doubt he could eventually eclipse if he were to continue playing deep into his 40s.

So, that’s some fun stats for you. I hope you enjoy, and long live King Kane.