Category: IRT

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Jhonathan Flores

– Doubles: Conrrado Moscoso & Kadim Carrasco

TL/DR Executive Summary: Flores becomes the 47th ever IRT Tier 1 tourney winner at the tender age of 20, fulfilling the promise that many have been speaking of since he first popped onto the scene two years ago at this event and took a game off of Kane.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=52434

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

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/1bf755

In the 32s, a couple of notable results:

– A week after getting pounded by Carrasco, USA junior Cole Sendrey got a career win with an 11-10 squeaker over the veteran Bolivian.

– Trujillo, for the second event in a row, edged fellow Mexican up and comer Gastelum to move into the 16s.

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In the 16s:

– Portillo struggled against Natera but advanced, injuring his ankle in the process, an injury that would force him to retire against Kane in the Quarters.

– A couple weeks after trouncing Parrilla in the 16s, Flores carried an arm injury into this event but still managed to grind his way past the ultimate grinder in Andree to move into the quarters.

– Manilla continues his comeback with a solid win over Javier Mar

– Moscoso falls behind early to Trujillo, but advances 10,4.

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In the Quarters, a couple of shocks

– Kane gets a walkover after a 15-3 game one win

– Jake plays great ball and trounces Montoya 8,6 to move on.

– Flores grinds out a game 1 win over Acuna 15-12, then blows him away 15-1 to move into the semis.

– Manilla gets the best win of his career, controlling the tempo and ousting Moscoso in the quarters to put a big dent in his title chances.

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In the Semis

– Kane just looks ordinary and Jake comes out firing in an 8,12 win. Per Manilla, the court conditions really hampered left-handed drive serves up the right side, which presented a very tough challenge for Kane, Adam, and other lefties all weekend, and resultingly Kane resorted to lob serves far more than he may have liked. Did he have any lingering knee issues from two weeks prior? It did not seem so to this observer, and Jake played clean ball to move on.

– Flores moved past Manilla but needed a tiebreaker to do it.

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In the Finals, I watched and kept running notes based on the import of the match.

Game 1: Jake jumps out to early lead; he’s playing super fast, and interestingly getting points by taking pace off, not increasing pace. But, Flores digs in, starts chipping away at the lead point by point and goes from 2-7 down to 9-9. Flores first serving at a very high pace, getting a lot of weaker returns from jake. Flores also incredibly adept at ceiling ball rallies and gets a lot of “who makes the error first” points. Takes the lead at 10-9; jake only really successful against Flores’ serve when he attacks.

Clearly, Both players are struggling with court conditions, and seem to have best success working along the right side of the court and/or depending on pinch/splat kills. Manilla talks about just how fast Flores is on the court; not from a diving perspective but from a court coverage perspective. Flores rekill off of Jake’s drive is scary good.

The pair trade points 9-9, 10-10, 11-11… jake gets a couple of points quick where Flores tries to get too cute mid-rally with pinch shots while Jake is in front court. Jake’s use of jam serves all game pays off with a setup on 13-11 but Flores crushes a forehand kill to save first game point. Flores takes a curious timeout 11-14 and entering service box… doesn’t pay off. Flores skipping a ton of opportunities late leads to Jake winning first game 15-11.

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Game2

Flores jumps out early with a series of awesome rallies. Now both players taking pace off during the rallies, perhaps due to the inconsistencies of the court (bowed front wall, cement side walls vs panel front, weird bounces off the back). Suddenly Flores is up 6-0. Flores really showing how good a ceiling ball player he is; he “wins” ceiling ball rallies over and over, with Jake the first to make a mistake and give Flores an attacking opportunity. Flores just starts lob serving looking to enter into CB rallies as a result, with great success.

Suddenly you look up and its 10-1 … Flores is swinging easy, getting the bounces, makes some amazing adjustments off the back court bad bounces … game is getting away from Jake. Flores comes up slow from a dive and loses a couple of

quick points … ended by a buried backhand 2nd shot, which seems to give Flores his air back. Game seems stalled for Flores; he’s either tired or just a bit lackadaisical; suddenly its 13-7 as Jake goes on a run. Flores struggling to put

balls away he was killing before. Jake will get a couple points … then Flores wakes up and kills a ball with ease but is struggling to put the game away. Wakes up, hits a great jam for a 3-shot rally to get to game point then pulls out a rare right-side drive for an ace and Game 2. Lots of expended energy here from both players in a game that probably should have been like 15-2.

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Game 3

Flores serving to start TB; goes with lob serve again; someone (Alvi?) is giving him tips that he’s winning the CB rallies. Jake gets in the box, goes back to his Jam serve, which has give him a lot of success this match, boom up 3-1. Broken ball in game 3 … a rarity for the FF ball. Flores makes a couple of fatigue errors … jake sees it and runs off a bunch of points. Flores needs to take a TO, Jake quick serving him to take advantage … In a flash its Jake 6-2.

Flores clearly tired … needs to remember to hit the ball at full tilt and not to ease off; that’s his strength. He goes back to drive serve, gets a couple of points quick to get it back to 4-6. Ace serve for 5-6. Flores scores 5 in a row by getting his intensity back; scores them in a flash.

Now its Jake on his heels momentum-wise… jake gets a tricky service return to get the serve back at 6-7 but gets a crap bounce mid-rally to lose the serve again … everything going Flores way. Jake guts out a tough rally with a buried splat from deep to get the serve back at 6-7. Flores goes from a really poor circus shot mid-rally to give up a point for 7-7. Jake gets a killable return off a z serve for 8-7, but Flores kills a serve off the back wall to get back in the box.

Flores keeps jake on the move for 8-8. Flores cracks out a serve leading to 9-8 lead and jake TO. Back in the box; great rally ends with a Flores diving kill for 10-8.

match point on his racquet: Went for a pinch rollout; 2nd serve … lob serve, yet another CB rally … jake leaves one short and Flores eventually buries it for his first pro win. Fitting that he wins the match on yet another ceiling ball error from Jake;

Some quick stats/info here: This is obviously Flores’ first tourney win. He wins in his 11th career event, which is pretty fast but not really near the 7-8th event range that the likes of Kane, Cliff, Sudsy all achieved.

Flores Age at first win: 20years, 249 days.

Youngest 1st time winners: 10th youngest ever.

– age 17: Serot, Harnett, Hogan

– age 18: Swain

– age 19: Huczek, Monchik, Waselenchuk

– age 20: Wagner, Yellen, Flores, GPeck

– age 21: DLR, Doyle, Hilecher, Inoue, Parrilla, Rojas

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Flores is the 47th player ever to win a Tier 1. Here’s the last 10 or so first-time winners and the date they won:

35: De La Rosa is the 35th distinct player to win an event with his Dec 2014 tourney win in New Jersey

36: Charlie Pratt is the 36th ever winner by virtue of his Dec 2017 Portland win

37: Alejandro Landa is the 37th ever distinct winner with his Sioux Falls 2018 win

38: Sebastian Franco 38th with his San Antonio 2018 win

39: Andree Parrilla the 39th distinct winner with his March 2018 Lombard win.”;

40: Conrrado Moscoso became the 40th and most recent distinct winner in Mar 2019 with his win at the Bolivian Grand Slam”;

41: Samuel Murray became the 41th and most recent distinct winner in Jan 2021 with his win at the Suivant Consulting Grand Slam”;

42: Mario Mercado became the 42nd and most recent distinct winner in Nov 2021 with his win at the Arizona Pro-Am”;

43: Eduardo Portillo became the 43rd and most recent distinct winner in Sept 2022 with his win at the Capital Classic in Severna Park”;

44: Jake Bredenbeck became the 44th and most recent distinct winner in Dec 2022 with his win at the John Pelham memorial in Portland”;

45: Rodrigo Montoya became the 45th and most recent distinct winner in Mar 2023 with his win at the Minnesota HoFame tourney in Minneapolis”;

46: Andres Acuna became the 46th player in the history of the pro tour to win a Tier 1 with his 9/7/25 win over Kane Waselenchuk at the World Singles & Doubles event in Colorado”;

47: Jhonathan Flores became the 47th player in the history of the pro tour to win a Tier 1 with his 3/15/26 win over Jake Bredenbeck to take the 2026 Shamrock Shootout”;

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Points Implications of results

As Noted, Kane missed a massive opportunity to bury Moscoso in the season standings with Conrrado’s quarter final upset. He extends his lead a little bit for the season … but if Conrrado wins 2 of the remaining 3 and makes the final of the third, he’ll take the season title. However … the presence of Flores now really complicates things for both players; he’ll move up to 8th in the standings, meaning he’ll play into Kane in the quarters in a full draw, Conrrado if someone in the top8 is missing. So we’re likely to get more matchups of the new young gun against the established top 2 players.

Here’s a link to my IRT Rolling 2year Calendar XLS, which I use to approximate the points after each event. It is not exact but it’s usually close enough to the actual rankings, which @Ryan Rodgers does with @R2 Sports App on behalf of the tour after each event, to allow some quick post-event analysis before the rankings post.

men

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z6eg6NJT6fjGMfRRyKTNLShAiDoz0TzzmQCt1_SbNBo/edit?usp=sharing

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/8bd97a

Carrasco and Moscoso won their 4th pro doubles title of the season, topping the long-running top-dogs Montoya & Mar once again. It’s just a matter of time before the Bolivians take over the top spot, and they have to be the PARC favorites now, even over the newly crowned Mexican national champs Parrilla & Portillo.

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Open Singles, other notable draws

– Open Singles: Flores, two weeks after staying in Open singles to the detriment of his pro results, was absent from the Open singles this weekend smartly, which opened the door for new blood. In the final, Guatemalan Juan Salvatierra took out Ohioan Victor Migliore in a tough final.

– Open Doubles: Migliore teamed with Herrera Jr. to make it two titles, topping the kids Williams & Sendrey in a walkover final that smells like travel issues.

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

Thanks to the Tourney Director Dave Negrete for putting this event on!

Thanks to the Tourney Sponsors Papa Nicholas, KWM, and others. Without you, we do not have a pro 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.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

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

Beach Bash 2026 is this coming weekend! quite a change to go from windy 30s to sunny 80s in Florida. Then, the week after starts the 2026 Pan American Racquetball Championships (PARC) along with the World Team Racquetball event in Louisiana. We also have USAR Intercollegiates the last weekend of the month, finishing off a very busy stretch.

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tags

International Racquetball Tour

One of the longer-running events on tour is this coming weekend in the Chicago-land area, as the tour visits a club it hasn’t played at in years for the 2026 Shamrock Shootout. They’re playing in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was site to the debut of the portable court back in 2008.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=52434

We’ve got a solid 36-pro draw with 17 of the top 20 players present, which will make for a fun opening couple of days of matchups.

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

In the round of 32:

– two IRT vets in Sam Bredenbeck and Robbie Collins meet in the 16/17 seed match

– Alonso is back after a weekend off; he faces DJ Mendoza in a fun one

– WE get a rematch of last week’s Carrasco-Sendrey matchup

– WE also get a rematch of the great opening round match between Trujillo and Gastelum.

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round of 16:

– Lalo Portillo is back after a weekend off; he plays into Natera in the 8/9

– Montoya-Alonso is a great round of 16 match between two guys who can both get hot and get results

– Wonder kid Flores faces off against Parrilla once again; he beta him 1,3 two weeks ago, but may not be 100% this weekend.

– Manilla-Mar in the 7-10 could be an upset for the lefty.

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Projected Qtrs:

– Kane projects to play Portillo in my predictions; Portillo is an awkward player to play and who can score points, so tough round for Kane

– Montoya-Jake in the quarters is a hard hitter’s dream.

– Acuna/Parrilla could be an upset for the Mexican, who loves Chicago and has some of his best results here.

– Moscoso should cruise through Manilla

Semis: I like Kane over Montoya, and Moscoso over Parrilla, to give us what we want; another 1v2 Kane v Conrrado final.

Finals;

Moscoso has won four straight tourneys, and has beaten Kane 3 times in a row. Can he keep these streaks alive? It certainly didn’t look like it for the first 19 points of the Minnesota final … but Conrrado found a way to win.

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Doubles review

All the usual teams are here and together; even though there’s some compelling partnerships right now on tour, the final will likely come down to whoever wins the semis between newly crowned mMexican national champs Parrilla/Portillo and the Bolivian champs Moscoso/Carrasco. Look for Parrilla/Portillo to win the semis and get another win over Montoya/Mar in the final.

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

Thanks to the Tourney Director @dave negrete for putting this event on!

Thanks to our main sponsors Papa Nicholas Coffee, KWM Gutterman, and the Klaimatis foundation ; 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.

IRT Club Fantasy: If you’re in the IRT Club, sign up to play Fantasy Racquetball along with myself, Brian Pineda, and other club members. Also, be sure to tune into our Fantasy Fast Break podcast, which we do before and after every IRT Tier 1 event!

Associations

International Racquetball Tour

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Conrrado Moscoso

– Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball & Javier Mar

TL/DR Executive Summary: Moscoso wins his 4th straight IRT event, but took a 15-0 donut from Kane while doing so.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=52146

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

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/d06f93

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In the 32s:

– Garcia blanked Sam Bredenbeck in the opener before he made a match of it; the Argentine moves on 0,12

– Trujillo topped Miranda 13,10 in an expected solid, close game.

– Carrasco crushed Sendrey 9,1; Cole may have to go back to the drawing board if he doesn’t turn around these results.

– Carter crushed Mendoza 5,3 to send a message to us pundits who continue to count him out.

– Gastelum topped Collins 14,14 in a match that was as close as it sounds.

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In the 16s:

– Adam Manilla rebounded from a 15-1 stomping in game one to save match points against in game two and advance. Score: (1),14,9

– Bolivian U21 star Flores certainly made a statement, beating @andree Parrilla 1,4 after having lost to him twice last season 11-10. Wow.

– #4 Jake Bredenbeck got by Trujillo by the skin of his teeth, 11-9 in the breaker. Looks like Trujillo is ready to get his top-10 ranking back.

– The bottom half went chalk, with all four seeds advancing rather easily.

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In the Quarters

– Kane took out Manilla 4,10 as Adam the technician worked some points but couldn’t really challenge the king

– Flores took out Jake 8,12 to make the semis and setup a dream matchup with Waselenchuk

– Montoya trounced Acuna 7,5 as predicted on the IRT Club Fantasy fastbreak podcast.

– Moscoso cruised past Mar in game one 15-6 and Mar felt something in his back and forfeited to save himself for the doubles run.

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In the Semis

– Flores/Kane was one of two matches I watched with intent this weekend. Here’s my report.

In Game 1, Flores jumps out to early lead; Kane makes several uncharacteristic errors. The Bolivian has sneaky power, with mechanics eerily similar to Carlos Keller (no surprise, they’re both from Santa Cruz). Kane stepped up the pressure, jumped right back in; heavy balls, put-aways, and a couple of Flores balls left up and its 5-6. Flores got a couple aces but generally had a very low 1st serve percentage, not a recipe for winning. Kane continued to grind out points, jumped to 11-7. Flores back, nearly ties it at 10-11 down, but Flores just isn’t handling Kane’s lob serves, either skipping them or giving Kane 3rd shot kills in the front court. Flores buries an overhead splat forehand for some wow factor, but Kane got to game point first at 14-10. Flores somehow escaped a 12-14 rally to get the serve back. Suddenly Flores buries a ceiling ball off the back wall for 14-14. On the ensuing serve, Kane hits a swinging kill shot on the service return that had us gasping. At 14-14, Kane gains control of the rally and buries a backhand for the 15-14 win.

Second game, Flores’ body language is terrible, he loses two ill-advised appeals quickly, he’s over hitting … and he’s looking like the game is going to get away from him fast. Flores also looks tired, as he very well might since he played a Men’s Open match a few hours earlier in the day (he didn’t forfeit out of Men’s Open despite being in the Pro semis). It’s one-way traffic, as Flores’ mental letdown of letting game one go and his overall fatigue catches up to him and he can’t stop the Kane train. Teaching moments all around. Kane ends up winning the game 15-1, emblematic of a game that Flores checked out of early.

– From the bottom half, Moscoso wasn’t terribly troubled by Montoya, really showing what the gap is between himself, Kane, and the rest of the tour right now.

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The Finals was one of the more interesting matches i’ve ever seen. Again, I took notes as I watched. Here’s how it went.

Kane wins the toss, opens up drive serving and gets three very fast points. He mixes several aces, gets a couple of 3 shot rallies and is in complete control in the early part of game one, jumping out 8-0. He’s hitting absolute missile drive serves to Moscoso’s forehand that are unreturnable. The Bolivian finally calls time out at 0-9 down … this game is probably a lost cause already. The few rallies that Moscoso is getting into he’s error-prone and misses a slew of shots .. but this is as good as i’ve seen Kane serve in months. The normally athletic Moscoso has just one dive in the game … which indicates just how dominant Kane has been. 15-0 Kane win and he screams as if he’s just won a major title; he’s definitely got something to prove here and is playing with an intensity rarely seen.

Game two starts more of the same, he’s hitting the crack ace serve to his right side over and over. At 0-4 in the second, Moscoso finally scores on an ace to Kane’s forehand, ending a 19-point run. Amazing. Moscoso grinds it back to 4-4 but it looks like tenuous comeback. Moscoso settles down and the pair battle it out for most of Game 2, with Moscoso holding a slight lead throughout the mid game. Moscoso turned his ankle at 13-9 up, bad enough that Kane ran over to him, but after a brief break he quickly served out the game and we’re in the tiebreaker.

Kane jumps ahead again in the TB, but once again Moscoso grinds back, grabs the lead. At 6-3 up, Kane lands on his knee awkwardly and is very clearly hurt. He also takes a medical TO, but comes back barely able to put weight on the leg. Despite that, he guts out the rest of the game and even scores a few points as Moscoso makes some mental gaffes (a double fault on a lob serve?) and struggles to

put the game away. Eventually he serves out the tiebreaker and wins the match. final score: (0),9,7 in one of the weirdest matches I’ve ever seen. Kane could barely put weight on the knee and I’m kind of surprised he chose to even give it a shot and risk further injury, and it amazed me he was even able to score points given what he was dealing with.

Quick donut trivia: Here’s a list to every final in the history of the tour: https://rball.pro/000f20 . It’s just the 3rd time ever that the winner of a tour

final has taken a donut-against: it happened in the 1986 Ektelon Nationals final, when Yellen gave Hogan a donut but lost in five, and it happened at the 2009 Kentucky Pro-am, when Huczek donuted Mannino in the 4th to extend it to five but then lost the match.

Also, this is just the second donut of Conrrado’s career; the first was in this event last year, when he badly hurt himself in game one against Bobby Horn and played out the entire second game instead of forfeiting, losing 13,0. So, technically this is the first time Moscoso had a donut put on him when he was healthy and trying.

As an old friend once said … it only takes 26 to win.

With the win, Conrrado wins his 4th straight tournament and is now on an 18-match win streak on tour. That streak now includes 3 straight h2h wins against Kane … but by no means should anyone think that Moscoso now “owns” Kane. Not when Kane can turn it on like he did in Game 1 to not only win but to absolutely dominate.

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Points Implications of results

With the win, Conrrado continues to tighten the lead that Kane has at the top. Using the 10-best results logic that will determine the 2025-26 champ, Kane’s lead is now down to 243 points on Moscoso. Which sounds like a lot … but here’s the rub: there’s 3 tournaments left on the schedule, so Conrrado has those 3 events to replace three tourneys from March-April last year where he got hurt and had a round of 32 loss, a missed tourney, and a round of 16 loss. Just making the finals in the remaining 3 events represents a 735 point swing, more than enough to eclipse Kane. However, Kane has a zero result that he can replace as well, and if he wins one of the 3 remaining we’re going to be looking at a very, very close race. In fact, if Kane manages to win one of the 3 remaining and make the finals of the other two, I think that would guarantee him the year end title. The loss of the US Open suddenly makes the last 3 events incredibly important.

Here’s a link to my IRT Rolling 2year Calendar XLS, which I use to approximate the points after each event. It is not exact but it’s usually close enough to the actual rankings, which @Ryan Rodgers does with @R2 Sports App on behalf of the tour after each event, to allow some quick post-event analysis before the rankings post.

men

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z6eg6NJT6fjGMfRRyKTNLShAiDoz0TzzmQCt1_SbNBo/edit?usp=sharing

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/31a568

Mar & Montoya cruised to a win over a depleted Moscoso & Carrasco in the final, which was played right after the singles match.

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Open Singles, other notable draws

Flores ended up not only staying in the Men’s Open singles draw but winning it. He had to play the semi just before playing Kane in the biggest match of his pro career … and it showed. I can’t blame these traveling South Americans for entering three draws and getting the most opportunities to make money though.

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Fantasy Racquetball Competition Wrap-up:

I had a banner weekend: my four picks in Fantasy were Trujillo, Flores, Montoya, and Moscoso. Three of my four made the semis, and I picked the correct winner. Probably my best fantasy showing yet.

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Carrie Reitmeier, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre, and the entire IRTLive crew. Great job announcing the players from Minnesota legend Matt Miller.

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What’s next on the Racquetball calendar?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

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

We have a week’s break, then the IRT heads to Chicago for the Papa Nicholas Shamrock Shootout. After that, March also features Beach Bash, NMRA nationals, PARC, and the WTR in Louisiana. Great month.

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tags

After a month of National championships and a satellite last weekend, we get a full Tier 1 stop at the University of Minnesota for the 2026 Minnesota Hall of Fame event.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=52146

Big draw this weekend, with 31 pros in the singles draw. Just two top 20 players aren’t here: Portillo fresh of his 1st Mexican national title and his fellow Mexican Jordy Alonso. Otherwise, the entire top 20 plus a big chunk of the 20-30 guys plus a slew of internationals are in town.

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

In the round of 32:

– Garcia/Sam Bredenbeck is a tough one for both players, as one would expect in the 16/17 seed match.

– Trujillo is here again, and plays into a very tough Miranda in the opener.

– Sendrey and Carrasco meet again; they played in the 1st round of the Sioux Falls event a few weeks ago; will Cole have learned anything?

– Mendoza v Carter: DJ played great at USA Nationals; can he get an upset?

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round of 16:

– Waselenchuk v Garcia: would be a rematch of Sioux Falls round of 16 if Diego gets by the younger Bredenbeck brother. Kane handled him 5,9 then; would Diego be able to improve on that result? It just goes to show how tough it is to break out of that range of rankings.

– The 8/9 projects to be Manilla/Natera: Natera is coming off an upset early loss in Portland, while Manilla took out Lalo in the last event; advantage Adam.

– The Trujillo/Miranda winner takes on Jake, who’s fresh off a national championship and playing on his “home courts” so to speak. that’s a tough round of 16 for the big man.

– Portland’s champ and everyone’s favorite dark horse plays into Andree Parrilla … who beat him 11-10 twice in the span of a couple weeks last year. Flores just took out Acuna and one would think he could beat Parrilla as well, but he has to get over that mental hump.

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Projected Qtrs:

– Kane over Manilla in an all-lefty battle

– Flores over Jake: might as well stick to my dark-horse upset guns.

– Montoya over Acuna: Even though Acuna is the higher ranked player I think Montoya is the better player.

– Moscoso over Mar: fun fact; these two first played at Junior Worlds in 2014 as 18U. Other players at that event? Mercado, Acuna, Iwaasa, Manilla, Mar, and Garay. Phew; that was a stacked event.

Semis:

– Kane over Flores: remember, Flores took a game off of Kane in March 2024 in their first meeting, the first time people really took notice of the Bolivian. Would love to see another matchup to see what happens now.

– Moscoso over Montoya: would love to see this firepower semi.

Finals: another Moscoso vs Kane meeting. We’ve gotten it twice in two tournaments, and it’d be only fitting if we got another one. Their last meeting was a dominant 9,3 win for the Bolivian, who seems like he’s turning the mental corner against the long-time #1 player. Based on what I saw in Sioux Falls, I’m predicting another Conrrado win.

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Doubles review

Mar & Montoya just got upset in the Mexican nationals by Parrilla/Portillo, but there’s no Portillo here this weekend, so they are the #1 seeds and favorites. There’s some fun teams in the draw: Flores/Martell, the young-gun mexican team of Gastelum/Trujillo, Sendrey/Mendoza, the Bredenbecks playing together, Manilla/Parrilla, the Argentine national team of Garcia/Miranda, and the rising Bolivian team of Moscoso/Carrasco.

All will be gunning for Montoya/Mar, but none can get them.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the IRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Look for Carrie Reitmeier, Favio Soto, some guest shots from Minnesota native Matt Miller, and Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew behind the scens all weekend on the microphone, calling the shots!

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

IRT Club Fantasy: If you’re in the IRT Club, sign up to play Fantasy Racquetball along with myself, Brian Pineda, and other club members. Also, be sure to tune into our Fantasy Fast Break podcast, which we do before and after every IRT Tier 1 event!

Associations

@International Racquetball Tour

Pelham Memorial Tourney of Champions quick recap

There was an IRT-600 level satellite last weekend with some very solid international players making the trip up early to get in two IRT events along with next weekend’s Minnesota HoFame event; lets do a quick recap.

The Pelham Memorial in Portland has served as a Tier 1 in the past but has downgraded over the past couple years so as (per my understanding) to give more to the charities it supports. This year, the 600-level means that half the top 8 can enter along with anyone outside the top 8, which gave us a 21-man strong field.

r2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=50667

Reminder: we don’t load non-Tier 1 events into the PRS database.

Your top 4 seeds here were Acuna, Natera, Carter, and Martell. They were set to face a stiff challenge from a slew of South Americans who made the long flight up. Lets recap what happened.

From the top half, #1 Acuna cruised into the semis, where he faced #4 Martell. Martell got a very solid win over #5 Miranda in the quarters, making this trip worthwhile since he missed Mexican Nationals for it. Acuna cruised past Martell in the semis to make the final from the top-side.

Meanwhile, the seeds in the bottom half ran into South American trouble early, as #2 Natera was taken out in the quarters by Diego Garcia, and #3 Thomas Carter was dominated by Bolivian Jhonatan Flores in the other quarter. In a battle of two of my favorite dark horses, Flores topped Garcia 7,8 in the bottom semi to move into the final.

There, Flores didn’t seem too troubled by Acuna, winning 9,6 to take the title. Flores has mostly been ousted of IRT tournaments lately by the likes of Waselenchuk and Parrilla, but Acuna is by far the biggest scalp he’s taken so far in his pro career, and sets him up nicely from a confidence perspective for Minnesota in a few days’ time. Not to spoil the Minnesota Preview, but Flores’ seed and pathway gives him a solid chance to go deep.

Flores also entered in the Men’s Open singles draw (instead of doubles), winning that over former Bolivian junior Ezequiel Subieta for a dual singles title winning weekend.

In Doubles, the Argentine national doubles team Miranda/Garcia took the title over Alan Natera and super-sponsor Mark Frank.

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Next up; Minnesota. We’ll be publishing a podcast for the IRT club later this week and I’ll do a preview once we have the draws and matchups.

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Conrrado Moscoso

– Doubles: @Eduardo Portillo & @Andree Parrilla

TL/DR Executive Summary: Moscoso wins his 12th career title in dominant fashion, while Portillo and Parrilla get a solid win in the lead-up to Mexican Nationals in a few weeks.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=51976

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

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/16c211

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In the 32s:

– Garcia took out Sam Bredenbeck, but needed a breaker to do so.

– Trujillo’s return proved fruitful, taking out Gastelum in the 32s and (as we’ll see later on) winning the Men’s Open title.

– Parrilla was pressed by the Canadian Connell but moved on.

– Carrasco gave Sendrey a setback 11,9.

– Former touring pro Pratt gave Portillo a lot more than he wanted in a round of 32 match but fell in two.

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In the 16s:

– My two favorite players to choose for upset wins early (Garcia and Flores) ended up playing the tourney’s two top seeds, and neither came much close to an upset. Kane beat Garcia 5,9, while Moscoso beat Flores 13,8 to move on. As it turned out, this was the closest match Moscoso would have in South Dakota.

– Natera made a statement against Alonso in the 8/9 game, cruising to a win.

– Trujillo pressed Parrilla but fell 12,13.

– Manilla got a great win, topping Portillo 9,7 to move on.

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In the Quarters

– Kane blew past Natera 5,2

– Parrilla dominated his long-time Rival Montoya 9,6

– Bredenbeck did not seem troubled by Mar 8,7

– Moscoso cruised past Manilla 5,2.

This setup a pure chalk semis.

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In the Semis

– Kane utterly destroyed Parrilla 2,0

– Moscoso wasn’t too troubled by Jake and won 6,9

In the Finals, we got the match most were looking for; 1v2, Kane v Conrrado. Legacy champ versus the up and coming possible replacement. The pair met in the semis of the SoCal Open in December, with Moscoso putting together a comprehensive game one and holding on for dear live to win in two .

On this day, Moscoso looked unstoppable. Game one was close for a while, but instead of Kane pulling away after a long mid-game period of closeness, it was his opponent, who turned a close game into a 15-9 win. In game two, it was one way traffic. Conrrado could do no wrong; he blitzed service returns, he hit his lines, he put away pinch shots, he played great defense, and Kane had no answers. Conrrado won game two 15-3 to take the title. Its Conrrado’s 3rd straight title, 14 match wins in a row, and his 12th in his career, tying him with DLR for 12th all time.

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Points Implications of results

With the win and with Acuna’s missing the event, Moscoso edges a bit closer to Kane and now sits in 2nd place. I’ve got them about 400 points apart, which seems like a lot, but the way the tour is going to determine the 2025-26 champion makes this race a ton closer.

At the end of June, presuming the US Open happens, the tour will have had somewhere in the range of 13-14 Tier 1s in that time along with a bunch of satellites. But, only the best 10 results will contribute to your final ranking. So, Right now Conrrado trails Kane by a ton of points, but their Tier 1 results since Jan 2025 look like this:

– Kane: 3 wins, 2 finals, 1 semi, 1 missed event

– Conrrado: 3 wins, 0 finals, 2 semis, 1 round of 16, 1 round of 32, 1 missed

So, if Conrrado has the opportunity to turn those last three results into a bunch of semis and finals, even if he doesn’t win out between now and June he’s got a ton of opportunity to catch up. This title race may very well come down to the last event.

Elsewhere in the top 10: Jake also jumps Acuna for 3rd, meaning that if i’ve got my spreadsheet estimate right, Acuna plays into Kane in the semis at the next event. Also, Natera now moves into 8th ahead of Lalo, Carrasco is up to 14th, and Gastelum drops down to 16.

Here’s a link to my IRT Rolling 2year Calendar XLS, which I use to approximate the points after each event. It is not exact but it’s usually close enough to the actual rankings, which @Ryan Rodgers does with @R2 Sports App on behalf of the tour after each event, to allow some quick post-event analysis before the rankings post.

men

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z6eg6NJT6fjGMfRRyKTNLShAiDoz0TzzmQCt1_SbNBo/edit?usp=sharing

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/6d76e5

This was a super fun draw. Two legends flew up to SD to play in Alvaro Beltran and Rocky Carson and they put on a show. Beltran teamed with the young phenom Flores and nearly took out the Montoya/Mar top pair, losing 11-10 in the quarters. Eventual winners Parrilla/Portillo barely got out of the first round, advancing over the Bredenbeck brothers by 14,14. Meanwhile, the legendary Carson teamed with lefty Adam Manilla and went on a huge run, upsetting the #2 seeds and making the finals before falling 14,7.

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Open Singles, other notable draws

– My two favorite youngsters Trujillo and Flores made it to the Open final, where they played a barn burner won by Trujillo 11-7 in the third, a pretty significant win for a player who’s taken some time off, and over a guy who a lot are looking at as the best of the next generation of players.

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Fantasy Racquetball Competition Wrap-up: Sam Murray is back on top after pipping me in the results this weekend.

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

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

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

We’ve got one big event each weekend this month: Canadian Selection event next weekend, then USAR Nationals, plus Mexican Nationals is sometime in Feb, and then we get another IRT Satellite at the end of the month.

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tag

International Racquetball Tour

One of the longest running events in the land, and one of the most important and most popular events on the Men’s schedule each year is upon us: the 46th annual Lewis Drug Pro Am in sunny, warm Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

This player favorite provides great hospitality and camaraderie and is always one of the best attended events on the calendar. This year is no different, with 35 singles pros and a slew of legends playing doubles only making their way to Sioux Falls. Thanks as always to tournament director and part IRT owner Mark Gibbs for making this event happen year after year.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=51976

top20 players missing include #2 Andres Acuna (out for a travel issue) and #13 Argentine Gerson Miranda. Past that, the entire top 20 and a bunch of the 20-30 ranked players are here, making this a really solid draw top to bottom.

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

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In the round of 32:

– Right off the bat, the 16/17 is a banger, with Diego Garcia taking on hard-hitting Sam Bredenbeck. I’m always favoring Garcia to make deep runs in events on account of his international success; lets see if he can take the first step.

– Montoya takes on Emir Martinez, a doubles specialist veteran from Mexico who used to have solid success on the old WRT.

– Erick Trujillo is back after some time away; he’s seen his ranking plummet and he has to face tough countryman Diego Gastelum first round.

– Cole Sendrey, fresh from World Doubles in December, gets veteran Bolivian Kadim Carrasco to start. If Sendrey wants to move up in the rball world, this is the kind of match he needs to win.

– Former Bolivian junior champ and now DC suburb resident Ezekiel Subieta faces off against Javier Mar in a tricky match.

– World 16U junior finalist Santiago Castillo makes his IRT debut against Adam Manilla, who’s been pulling double duty helping with tour operations and trying to play. A distracted Manilla could take a shock loss here.

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round of 16:

– The two players I always favor to get upsets (Diego Garcia and Jhonathan Flores) are routing right into the #1 and #2 seeds here in Kane and Conrrado, which takes away some of the fun. Anyone else in the draw, i’d think about picking an upset, but these two would have to pull a massive upset to move on.

– Alonso/Natera in the 8/9 could be a fun one.

– Parrilla takes on the Gastelum/Trujillo winner.

Otherwise the 16s looks pretty straight forward for the upper seeds this week.

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Projected Qtrs:

– Kane over Alonso: I will say this, as i said on the podcast. If Kane is to lose this weekend, it’ll be highest likelihood in this QF match here, against a guy whose beaten him in the past and in the second of a back to back round day. Kane’s got to win his 16s against a tough opponent in Garcia, then rest, then recover, and then play another guy who can play him tough.

– In the 4/5 Montoya vs Parrilla for about the 1,000th time in their long careers.

– Bredenbeck plays into Mar this event. Mar has a couple wins over Jake, but Jake beat him in Sept, so advantage USA

– Moscoso, if he gets past Flores, has to fend off Portillo in the quarters, a trouble spot versus a player who gets wins every time he shows up.

Semis:

– Kane over Montoya; I just don’t think Montoya has the consistency to beat Kane, despite having the athleticism and power.

– Moscoso over Jake: too much firepower

Finals; So, last time we saw Conrrado-Kane the Bolivian pitched a near perfect game in game one to blow away Kane, then held him off for a win. Can he do it again? We have a new ball in SD that should play faster, plus concrete walls, which could make for some fireworks. Nonetheless, if kane gets here i’m favoring him to win.

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Doubles review

Love seeing Alvi and Rocky in the draw; they’ll shake things up. The top half of the draw is stacked; if Montoya/Mar can get past Alvi and Flores in the quraters, they’ll cruise to the win. On the bottom half, I love what Rocky and Adam might do to the field and like them for the final.

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

IRT Club Fantasy: If you’re in the IRT Club, sign up to play Fantasy Racquetball along with myself, Brian Pineda, and other club members. Also, be sure to tune into our Fantasy Fast Break podcast, which we do before and after every IRT Tier 1 event!

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@iInternational Racquetball Tour