Gudinas qualifies for the main draw in her 21st US Open appearance. Photo via WPRO blog Mar 2012
Qualifying is done for the LPRT; lets highlight the notable matches and preview what looks to be a fantastic round of 32.
In the 64s: – Linda Tyler took out Costa Rican junior Maricruz Ortiz in a tie-breaker to earn a shot at #1 Longoria.
– Jenny Daza Navia took out US junior Annie Roberts 8,5 in Robert’s debut. Daza feeds into the 6th seeded Mendez, a player she can beat.
– Legend Cheryl Gudinas qualifies for another US Open main draw, downing Mexican youngster Anna Rivera 13,9.
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Here’s some round of 32 matches to watch for:
– #9 Masiel Rivera Oporto vs #25 Jessica Parrilla; man, what a tough first rounder for Rivera, who has shot up the rankings in the last year and is on the cusp of a top8 ranking (Rivera was seeded 22nd in this event last year by way of comparison). Parrilla is of course on the come back trail from being a former top-4 pro. Expect a hard-hitting battle here and a possible upset by seed.
– #12 Montse Mejia vs #21 Maria Renee Rodriguez; they havn’t played in several years, and the draw is well positioned for Mejia to make a semis run this year. This is a first test. Rodriguez is trying to build on some solid wins in 2019 on the court.
– #14 Frederique Lambert vs #19 Angelica Barrios; Two years ago this would be a predicted blow out, as Lambert was ranked #2 on tour and Barrios was still in juniors. Now this is a dangerous match: Barrios dispatched two top-10 players in the Bolivian grand slam to make the semis and made the quarters of the Pan Am games before losing to Longoria. This one may come down to how rusty Lambert is.
– #6 Natalia Mendez Erlwein vs #27 Daza; The veteran Bolivian has been known to take out top ranked players; in this event last year she topped Vargas, for example. Mendez needs to be on her A-game for this South American match-up.
– #7 Nancy Enriquez takes on #26 Hollie Rae Scott; this should be an interesting one. Scott is the reigning intercollegiates champ and was the losing US national finalist in 2019. I’m not sure Scott has faced someone with the power of Enriquez before (this is their first meeting) so this should be an interesting match.
– #10 Brenda Laime Jalil vs #23 Michelle De La Rosa; people forget, but in 2015 mDLR (nee Key) finished 7th on tour in her sole full-time season of touring before stepping back for family reasons. She’s a player. Laime has climbed into the top 10 on tour with some solid results, but this is a different challenge for her.
——————— We’ll regroup for the round of 16s later today.
Lets run through the qualifying rounds for the LPRT ahead of the main draw. Hopefully by the time you read this the matches havn’t already started 🙂
There’s 41 players in this draw, and the LPRT qualifies the top 24 into the main draw, so 17 players are competing for 8 main draw/round of 32 spots. This means one round of 128 and then a round of 32.
Here’s a quick run through notable round of 64 matches to look for.
– #32 Maricruz Ortiz vs #33 Linda Tyler; Costa Rican junior international Ortiz makes just her 3rd ever pro appearance and is set to play infrequent pro player Tyler. A good test for Ortiz, who started representing her country in her age-16 season and still has two full years left in 18U.
– #27 Jenny Daza Navia vs #34 Annie Roberts; another generational battle; Bolivian Daza has been playing for her country for more than a decade and, in 2018, took out Maria Jose Vargas Parada in the 32s of the Open. Roberts makes her LPRT debut here; she’s the two-time defending USA junior 16U champ and is playing in her 16U season.
– #31 Cheryl Gudinas, who has won this event twice, faces off against #34 Anna Rivera, who is just finishing up her age-18 year. Fun fact: Rivera was born in Feb 2000; Gudinas won four straight pro titles starting in 2001.
– #26 Hollie Rae Scott takes on Colombian veteran international #39 Carolina Gomez. Scott is the reigning intercollegiates champ and lost 11-10 in the US national final in May to Kelani Lawrence Meanwhile, we havn’t seen Gomez in a pro event since the 2010 US Open, though she’s been a regular fixture in the IRF circuit for Colombia for most of this decade.
————— Once the qualifiers are set, we’ll circle back and review the round of 32.
Hey rball fans! Before we do previews of the big event, I wanted to do a quick run-through of the US Open-specific reports that are available at the website.
Here’s a quick run through the reports. All the links below are available on both IRT and LPRT sites but the URLs will default to the IRT. And i’ve thrown in some fun trivia along the way.
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– US Open Participation Summary: Historical summary of all Participants in the US Open. http://rball.pro/C1040F
Rocky Carson will be participating in his 23rd US Open this weekend; per our records he’s only missed one (and he very well may have played in it; we only have the main draw in the database for the 1997 US Open; if Rocky played but didn’t qualify he’s made every one). On the ladies side, Cheryl Gudinas will be making her 21st appearance this year, moving into a tie for 1st all time among women with Susy Acosta.
This year’s Men’s pro draw of 94 is the biggest draw we’ve seen in a decade and dwarfs last year’s 69 entries. On the ladies side, the pro draw of 41 players is right in line with the last few seasons of participation. The peak of participation for both the Men and the Women was in 2003 (110 men, 50 women).
– US Open Tourney Qtrs/Semis/Finals historically: Historical summary of Q/S/F Participants in the US Open (1996-present). http://rball.pro/70639E
– US Open Results Summary: Summary of US Open-only finishes, all players. http://rball.pro/5945F3
Only 11 men in the history of the event have even made the final of a US Open; Kane Waselenchuk of course has 14 titles. On the ladies side just 10 players have even made a US Open final, with Paola Longoria owning 9 titles.
– Ages of all US Open Winners: All US Open Winners with Age of winner. http://rball.pro/D204C8
In one of my more interesting factoids, Kane is simultaneously the youngest and the oldest ever Male US Open winner. On the ladies side, Longoria is youngest winner (at the age of 19 in 2008), while Gudinas is the oldest winner, taking the title in 2004 at the age of 37.
Lastly,
Dean DeAngelo Baer had a great new suggestion to add for this year; US Open-specific W/L records per player. So, you can select “Player W-L in US Open” report per player to get just isolated W/L records at the biggest event on the stage.
Here’s kane’s US Open only W/L: http://rball.pro/39C5FF . As you might imagine for someone who has won the last 14 US Open’s he’s entered … his W/L record is pretty solid. He’s 85-3 lifetime in this event. Here’s Paola’s record: http://rball.pro/514386 . She’s 60-7 in this event.
The big story ahead of this event was LPRT #1 Paola Longoria going for her 100th professional win. She had family and media on site for the event, but lost in the final. I’m sure she’s under a bit of pressure to hit a milestone win that’s been pushed in social media for months … and now she’ll have another opportunity to do so at the sport’s biggest event, the US Open.
As some of you may have noticed from the broadcasts, yours truly was at this event Friday night to see the 32s and 16s, and I got to help with the broadcast for the quarter final matches on the show court. It is the first time in a while I’ve seen the Ladies pros up close, and I had a blast working along side Timothy Baghurst, LPRT Commissioner Tj Baumbaugh and LPRT gadget king Jerry J Josey Jr., who work tirelessly to put on these events. My first time on the mike was a lot of fun and I hope you all enjoyed listening to the commentary as much as I had calling the matches.
—— Lets recap the event, and I’ll provide some additional commentary for the matches I saw up close.
There were three round of 32 matches, all involving traveling pros and local VA players, including tournament director and Hall of Famer Malia Kamahoahoa Bailey (who fell in two to Jessica Parrilla).
Notable Round of 16 matches: – #9 Brenda Laime Jalil got a solid win over #8 Adriana Riveros 3,14. – #4 Rhonda Rajsich was somewhat fortunate to get by #13 Carla Muñoz Montesinos in their round of 16 match, advancing by the scores of (14),14,4. This was a back and forth match for the entirety of the first two games, with the ladies trading points back and forth, trading leads, etc. Both veteran players played solid tactical games. Munoz had the advantage in game two, leading 14-12 when an odd sequence of events occurred; the referee asked for a replay of a point well after it was completed due to a belated ruling on the serve; this seemed to slightly unnerve Munoz, who lost the 2nd game and wasn’t competitive in the tie-breaker. Credit to Rajsich though; she sensed something was amiss, got the call she needed and kept her composure to win out. – #3 Maria Jose Vargas Parada advanced over reigning US National champ #14 Kelani Lawrence in two tight games 13,10. Lawrence was playing on the courts she grew up on and had the home town crowd rooting her on against one of the world’s best. I must also note; it’s not too often we see two generations competing in the same event like we did here with Mom Malia and daughter Kelani. That was cool to see. – #6 Nancy Enriquez outlasted #11 Sheryl Lotts (12),8,0. Lotts really played a solid game to take the first, but Enriquez settled in, took over game two with her power, and then went on a run that Lotts couldn’t stop in the tie-breaker to secure the 11-0 tiebreaker win. Enriquez has sneaky power; you don’t realize it until you’re up close how much pace she hits with. – #2 Samantha Salas Solis topped former top-4 touring pro Jessica Parrilla7,8. Salas struggled even to get to this event on time, pushing through the same local storms in the Monterrey region of Mexico that prevented 4th ranked Alexandra Herrera from traveling. She arrived in time though to face off against a tough opponent in Parrilla, and a slug-fest ensued. Both players really put some velocity onto the ball, but i’m not sure i’ve ever seen a harder hitter than Salas. Towards the end of game two, Parrilla started working Salas’ backhand more on the serve, had some success, but it was too little, too late as Salas moved on.
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In the Quarters, thanks to Alexandra Herrera‘s absence we had some unexpected match-ups … in fact three of the four quarter final matches featured players who had never played each other professionally. It made for some unexpected results.
– #1 Longoria cruised past #9 Laime 1,4. Laime was outclassed by the veteran, but credit to her for getting this far (a career best showing). – #4 Rajsich squeaked past #5 Natalia Mendez in the first game, then cruised to a two game win 14,1. This is only the 2nd time these two have met in a pro setting. – #3 Vargas dominated #6 Enriquez 6,3 to move into the semis. – But the surprise of the round, perhaps the surprise of the last two seasons, was #7 Masiel Rivera Oporto beating #2 Salas 12,14. Rivera hung with the hard-hitting Salas, worked her backhand well, and got a career win to advance to her first semi final. Salas played 9 pro events last season and made the final of all nine, but now has been upset in both events so far this season.
In the Semis: – #1 Longoria raced past #4 Rajsich 5,3 to move into the finals, continuing her dominant tourney. – #3 Vargas mashed her way past Rivera 11,9 to move into her second final of the season.
In the final, Longoria took game one in her quest for 100 … but Vargas had other ideas, winning game two and the tiebeaker to spoil Longoria’s record-setting win attempt. Vargas gets her first ever professional win over Longoria and gets an early lead in the points rankings in her quest to take over the #2 spot from Salas, or perhaps to challenge for the year end title.
Longoria and Salas bounced back from losses to take the doubles crown, cruising to the title without dropping a game. They topped the #2 seeded Argentinian team of Vargas/Mendez in the final.
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Next up for the LPRT? The US Open in Minneapolis!
Thanks to the Chesapeake crew for bringing Ladies pro racquetball to the Tidewater region for the first time ever.
Longoria goes for her 100th tourney win. Photo via Fran Davis Racquetball
A busy weekend for racquetball includes the 2nd LPRT event of the season, the LPRT by the Beach in Chesapeake, VA.
Hosted by women’s racquetball legend Malia Kamahoahoa Bailey, its the first time the Ladies pros have ever been to the area, and the its the first time pro racquetball has returned to the Virginia Beach/Tidewater area since April 2006 (when the IRT had a stop for a couple years at the same host club).
Of note for this weekend: Paola Longoria goes for her 100th career Women’s Pro event win, an amazing accomplishment, and more than double any other known win total for women’s pros in the history of the game.
Who’s here and who’s missing: 9 of the top 10 are here (missing only #7 Amaya Cris), and then four from the ladies ranked 11-20 are present (missing several part-time players or Bolivian-based players who only sporadically travel). 20 total pros are in the singles draw,
Lets preview the singles draw:
Post publishing Note: clearly the hurricane has caused some travel issues; #4 Alexandra Herrera dropped out, basically forcing a complete redo-of the draw from #4 downward, so basically this post and analysis is now moot.
In the round of 32: – #16 Leona Parrilla vs #17 Erin Rivera: Parrilla continues to work her way back, this time setup to run right into #1 Longoria in the 16s. – #13 Adrienne Fisher Haynes vs #20 Malia Bailey; Malia finished in the top 3 three straight seasons in the early 1990s, including two tourney wins, and has just one pro appearance since 1993 (a round of 32 loss in Gaithersburg, MD in 2006). Can she take out the regular touring pro Haynes? Kelani says Malia’s still playing tough … – #15 Kelani Lawrence vs #18 Amie LeBrun Brewer: The reigning US national champ and daughter of Malia takes on a tough local Virginia player in Brewer, who’s working her way back from injury.
In the 16s: – #1 Paola Longoria vs #16 Parrilla: Longoria kicks off her run to 100 against former top 4 player Parrilla, a tougher match than normally expected in the 16s. – #8 Masiel Rivera Oporto vs #9 Adriana Riveros: these two met twice last year, with Rivera getting a career win over Riveros at the Bolivian grand slam. I think Riveros advances here. – #7 Nancy Enriquez vs #10 Brenda Laime Jalil; they’ve met in the 16s now three tourneys in a row; two weeks ago Enriquez triumped 11-7 in the breaker; can Laime break through?
Qtrs projection: – #1 Longoria over #9 Riveros – #5 Rhonda Rajsich over #4 Alexandra Herrera: i’m playing a hunch that the 3-game format will favor Rajsich here. – #3 Maria Jose Vargas Parada over #6 Natalia Mendez Erlwein; the two Argentinian doubles partners renew their now frequent singles rivalry; they played each other in 5 consecutive pro/IRF events last season. Vargas is 5-0 over her teammate; she makes it 6-0h ere. – #2 Samantha Salas Solis over #7 Enriquez
Semis: – #1 Longoria over #5 Rajsich – #3 Vargas over #2 Salas: this is now suddenly the most compelling match on tour; Salas had been dominating the head to heads lately, including three straight semi finals wins in the last three pro events of last year, but Vargas took a tense 11-9 win in the semis of the season’s opener to make a statement on this season. Expect another barn burner, and i’ll go with another tight Vargas tiebreaker win.
Final: Longoria vanquishes Vargas for her 100th.
——————- Quick doubles preview:
The #1 world team of Longoria/Salas looms large over this 8-team draw, missing the 2nd best team of Herrera and Montse Mejia due to the latter’s missing this event. I’d expect #1 vs #2 in the final, with the Mexican pair taking on the Argentinian national team of Vargas/Mendez, with a Mexican victory.
——————– Look for streaming in all the regular places by following LPRT. Timothy Baghurst will be in town to broadcast, and I hope to get there for at least the friday matches, being that its in my home state and all.
In the 16s: – #8 Amaya Cris dominated #9 Masiel Rivera Oporto 3,9 to advance. This should be an interesting season for Amaya with her renewed training regiment. – #12 Montse Mejia got a solid 2-game win over #5 Rhonda Rajsich, reversing the result from their meeting in Lima a few weeks ago. – #4 Alexandra Herrera barely held off #13 Jessica Parrilla 11-9 in the breaker. Its the third straight defeat in the 16s for Parrilla at the hands of Herrera, but she keeps getting closer. – #19 Maldonado fared well against #3 Maria Jose Vargas Parada losing in two 9,10. A good showing for the 20-yr old. – #11 Flores got the biggest (only) upset of the round, topping #6 Natalia Mendez Erlwein in two. Its the 2nd year in a row they’ve met in this event … and the 2nd year in a row Flores upset the Argentinian. – #7 Nancy Enriquez was stretched to a tiebreaker by #10 Brenda Laime Jalil before advancing. Laime continues to make main events, solidifying her ranking in the 12-16 range, but she has yet to have a break through win.
In the quarters: – #1 Paola Longoria took out #8 Amaya 8,9 to advance. – #12 Mejia continued her upsetting ways, taking out #4 Herrera in two games and perhaps making a statement about the current heirarchy on the tour. – #3 Vargas advanced in two straight over 18U champ Flores. – #2 Samantha Salas Solis blitzed past #7 Enriquez 1,6.
In the semis; two heavyweight battles and two interesting matches: – #1 Longoria and #12 Mejia were neck and neck in game one, with Longoria pulling out a close one, then she broke away in game two to advance 13,5. – #3 Vargas got just her 3rd pro win over Salas in a tense, back and forth 11-9 tiebreaker win.
In the final, Vargas mounted a furious comeback in Game 1 but fell slightly short, then Longoria took over in game 2 to win her namesake title 13,6.
The two top Mexican teams advanced to the final as #1 and #3 seeds. #3 Mejia/Herrera downed the #2 Argentinian national team of Vargas/Mendez 12,13 to advance.
The final was a rematch of several major events in the last couple of years (these are all Finals); – 2016 US Open – 2017 Chihuahua Pro stop – 2018 Battle at the Alamo – 2018 World Doubles – 2018 Mexican Worlds selection – 2018 Paola Longoria Experience – 2018 US Open – 2019 Mexican Nationals – 2019 Kansas City pro stop.
The #1 team had won every one of these finals matchups save for the 2018 Worlds selection event.
On this day though, the younger team of Herrera/Mejia stuck with the hard-hitting veteran team, mounted a solid comeback in game 2 after letting game 1 slip away, then just out-shot the #1 team behind really solid serving from Herrera and took the title.
This past week, the LPRT became the last of the major racquetball organizations to convert to standard/amateur/international scoring standards, abandoning the 3 out of 5 games to 11 structure that had been in place for years.
This is the first time a change in the scoring system for the ladies pros has occurred since 2002. But prior to that, the ladies pro tour changed scoring constantly, and its an interesting history. I’ve kept track of the scoring system changes over the years here: http://www.proracquetballstats.com/…/lprt_scoring_changes.h… . Here’s a brief review:
– 1974: In the beginning, the NRC’s standard scoring system was best 2/3 games to 21, tiebreaker also win by 1. – 1975: some qualifying rounds were one game to 31. See Aurora 76 as an example. – 1976 est: 3rd game not to 21 but to 11. Believe this happened in 1976 along with Men’s side, fixing the tiebreaker to not be such a grind. – 1980: Scored in two sets of best of five games to 11, tiebreaker best of three; with rally scoring. Example score: 3-1, 2-3, 2-1. This scoring method has wreaked havoc on the PRS results code, coincidentally. – 1981: The third set is replaced with a single game. Still rally scoring. Example Score: 2-3, 3-2, 15-11. – 1983: Best of five, to 21; rally-scoring. Example score: 13, 17, (14), 18. – 1986: Best of five, to 11, win by one. More or less Consistent with the Men’s scoring by this point. – 1995 est: Same best of five to 11, but win by two instead of win by one. The Men’s tour had a similar change at some point in his time-frame as well. – Aug 2000: Back to Rally scoring and games to 21, win by 2. “Ping Pong” style serving where each player would serve five times in a row. It was said at the time this change was done to try to counter-act the dominance of Michelle Gould on tour. – Aug 2001: Scoring change again: best of five games format, with games played to 15, and scoring on every rally. But no more ping pong – Sept 2002: Abandoned rally scoring for 2002-03 season, back to “normal” best of five to 11, win by two conventional pro scoring. – Aug 2019: conversion to amateur/international scoring.
I may be missing some smaller variations in the scoring, but these are the major changes over the years.
We’ve updated the code in a similar fashion to what we did in Jan 2019 when the International Racquetball Tour made this same change, but we’ll have to wait until we get some data entry to ensure that the code correctly interprets the new scoring method.
My two cents on the change? Well, i’m bummed there’s no more crazy 5 game scores from a code perspective; I love watching 15-13 matches or the thrill of a 12-10 5th game super tiebreaker. But I’ve also come around on Doug Ganim‘s theories on the scoring system with respect to tiebreakers in later rounds. There’s many more of them now than there were longer matches in the old score format.
Last season on the IRT, which was the first entirely in the new scoring method, 21% of matches went to the tie-breaker (see http://rball.pro/8BD641) and 25% of matches from the Quarters on went to a tie-breaker. These stats are skewed of course by having one particular dominant player basically win every match in 2 irrespective of the round.
By way of comparison, In the last season where the IRT had 3 out of 5 games to 11 … 14% of matches from the Quarters on went to the tiebreaker 5th game. So the new scoring method is giving us more 3rd game tiebreakers than we had 5th game breakers in the previous system at the business end of tournaments.
I also feel (without much in the way of hard proof necessarily) that the 3-game format enables some players to get wins where they would have run out of gas in the 5-game format. Anecdotally we see more upsets of top players in the best-of-3 format versus best-of-5; Paola Longoria has taken losses in best-of-3 national and amateur competitions as of late, but has just two best-of-5 game losses in the last three pro seasons entirely. It is easier for a skilled but less-than-fit player to pull off a win in best-of-3 versus outlasting a fitter player in a 2 hour best-of-5 marathon.
After an incredibly busy summer of events, the pro racquetball season is back. Welcome to the 2019-20 season; first up; the LPRT kicks off with a Grand Slam event; the Paola Longoria Experience in her home town of San Luis Potosi, SL, Mexico1
22 pros are in SLP for this event; lets take a look at the draws.
The top 8 players are here, setting up some frequently seen possible quarter finals from last season. We’re missing the 9th, 10th, and 11th ranked players ( Frederique LambertAdriana Riveros and Gaby Martinez), which has elevated Masiel Rivera Oporto all the way to a 9th seed. Its an odd absence for Riveros, who only missed three events in the last two seasons.
Lets preview the draw;
Interesting play-in/round of 32 matches: – #16/#17 Mexican lefty youngster Monserrat Perez Hellman takes on Guatemalan international Maria Renee Rodriguez, who is fresh off of a solid Pan Am Games showing (she and Martinez made the women’s doubles final). I like MRR here. – #12 Montse Mejia gets a chance to avoid the #1 seed in a pro event for the first time in a while, and starts out playing country-woman Carolina Rivera in the opener. – #14 Sheryl Lotts made the trip and gets an early test against another young Mexican player Denisse Maldonado. – #11 Ana Laura Flores , the reigning Mexican 18U champ, takes on the 2018 Mexican 14U champ Daniela Rico in a generational junior battle. – #15 Veteran Susy Acosta takes on a player nearly half her age in #18 Erin Rivera.
Possible Round of 16 matches of note: – #8 Amaya Cris vs #9 Rivera: these two played at the final LPRT stop of last season, a 4-game win for Amaya, who has not stopped traveling or playing this summer. I like Amaya here to advance. – #5 Rhonda Rajsich vs #12 Mejia: they just played each other in LIma, a beat-down by Rajsich. But this is a great opportunity for Mejia (who has the talent to challenge for the top) to make a run. Will she learn from her Pan Am Games early exit? – #4 Alexandra Herrera vs #13 Jessica Parrilla: Herrera has knocked Parrilla out in the round of 16 in both her top-level tournaments back so far, and likely does it again here. Despite it being more than a year removed from her knee injury, Parrilla still is not back to top form.
Projecting the Quarters: i like the top 8 seeds to advance with a lot of chalk here on out. – #1 Paola Longoria vs #8 Amaya: Longoria will be looking to win her namesake tournament as she did last year to kick off the season. – #4 Herrera vs #5 Rajsich: Alexandra finally broke her losing streak to Rajsich at the end of last pro season, while Rajsich is coming off a long two week period in Lima (where, to be fair, Herrera also was … but was merely on the Mexican team and did not play). I like Herrera here. – #3 Maria Jose Vargas Parada vs #6 Natalia Mendez; as I frequently noted last spring, these two long-time Argentinian team-mates and doubles partners had not never met, now cannot stop facing each other. Vargas has never lost to Mendez, and I don’t see that starting here. – #2 Samantha Salas Solis vs #7 Nancy Enriquez: If Enriquez does not slip up against up-and-comer Brenda Laime Jalil, she’ll fall at this stage. Salas was shut out of the Mexican singles team at the Pan Ams, but raced to the doubles gold with Longoria.
Semis and Finals: Longoria over Herrera, Salas over Vargas, and Longoria over Salas, This was the semis and finals of the final LPRT event from last season, and I think they pick right back up where they left off.
———————- Doubles preview:
10 teams here; I like the top two Mexican teams of Longoria/Salas and Mejia/Herrera to meet in the final, with the Pan Am Gold medalists to take another title.
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Reminder: LPRT has a new scoring system, and i’ll put up a post this weekend with a look back at the scoring systems used by the ladies pro tour over the years.
The LPRT has released its schedule for next year and it looks great. Lots of new events, fully 5 Grand Slams, and 16 total Tier 1s/Grand Slams. That’s 6 more events than last year, great news for the sport.
It looks to me like all 10 events from last year are returning, and they’ve added 6 new events in Chesapeake VA, Mexico City, Ft. Lauderdale, Seattle, Guadelajara and Denver.
Longoria finishes up an undefeated season, her 10th pro title.
A quick run-through the tour-related significant events on the LPRT this season. This data is kept in running format at this link, constantly being updated as major player/tour news happens:
– June 2018: Jessica Parrilla, just finishing up the 2017-18 season ranked 3rd on tour, suffers a knee ligament injury while competing in the 2018 Mexican Worlds Selection event. She does not return to the LPRT until the last event of the 2018-19 season.
– June 2018: World #1 Paola Longoria has a WADA scare ahead of the International Racquetball Federation – IRF summer events (Central American & Caribbean Games). Her suspension is overturned on appeal and she competes (and wins) the final over Guatemalan Gaby Martinez.
– August 2018: Guatemalan Gaby Martinez shocks the women’s racquetball world by upsetting #1 Longoria in the 2018 Worlds final in Barranquila, Colombia. She made a statement early, downing Vargas in the RRs, then easily beat Salas in the qtrs, Mendez in the semis before taking out Longoria in a tie-breaker final.
– Dec 2018: at the half-way point of the new season, #1 Paola Longoria and #2 Samantha Salas Solis have separated themselves from the rest of the pack; five of the six tournaments have been #1 vs #2 in the finals, and they’ve opened up a significant gap to the next tier of players. Frederique Lambert has fallen nearly out of the top 10 thanks to school commitments: she’s finishing Medical school.
– Mar 2019: Jessica Parrilla returns to the court for the first time since her June 2018 injury, competing in the Mexican Nationals. She played both singles and doubles in the event but did not travel to the subsequent LPRT event in Bolivia. She ends up playing just one LPRT event on the year, the season’s last tourney in Kansas in June.
– Mar 2019: Ana Gabriela Martinez suddenly announces her retirement from the sport at age 19, to focus on her studies and other interests. She retires ranked #9 on the tour despite only playing part time. In 2018 she defeated Longoria to take the IRF World Championship as an 18yr old, then later in the year missed out on a rare chance at the Adult/Junior double by losing to Mejia in the 18U world Junior final.
– Mar 2019: The Bolivian Grand Slam event happens, the first time an LPRT event has been held in the country. Unfortunately, Paola Longoria suffered a slight injury and missed the event. Despite Longoria’s absensce, the Ladies had a strong showing, with 8 of the top 10 players traveling (Lambert also missed the event). The local Bolivian players had a great showing, with Angelica Barrios making the semis and upsetting several top LPRT pros, and naturalized Bolivian Maria Jose Vargas taking the title in a hard fought 5-game tiebreaker over Samantha Salas.
– Jun 2019: Paola Longoria completes another undefeated season, with Samantha Salas making the finals of 9 of the 10 events on the year, clearly establishing themselves as the two top players on tour. Last season’s #2 Lambert has fallen all the way to #9 on the season, having finished medical school in May.
that’s it for the season. We anxiously await the announcement of the 2019-20 slate of events.
