Congrats to Paola Longoria on her win this weekend in NY.
With this win: – this is Paola’s 90th tournament title in the database and 97th that she claims (we have yet to reconcile this difference with her media group). – She remains undefeated on the season, improving to 33-0. – Paola creates an insurmountable lead at the top of the season to date rankings, ensuring her 10th pro title (more on that later). – Paola extends her current match winning streak to 37. – She improves to 49-3 career on the LPRT over #2 Salas.
In the 32s/qualifiers: – #12 Brenda Laime Jalil needed four to get by Canadian Michèle Morissette, who just finished representing Canada at PARCs 2019 and played solidly.
———————— In the 16s: – In a battle of two of the worlds best, far too early, #1 Paola Longoria avenged a loss in the 2019 Mexican Nationals final to top Montse Mejia 11-7 in the 5th. It was a battle though, a back and forth 5-game monster.
– #5 Rhonda Rajsich came from two games down to take out youngster Laime.
————————- In the Quarters: – #1 Paola Longoria took out last year’s 2nd ranked player and #8 seed Frederique Lambert in three straight.
– #5 Rajsich again came from 2 games down to top #4 Alexandra Herrera and remain undefeated against the lefty Mexican in her career.
– #3 Maria Jose Vargas topped her doubles partner #6 Mendez in straight sets, her 4th win over Natalia in the last few weeks.
– #2 Samantha Salas cruised past #10 Amaya to make the semis for the 8th time in 9 tries this season.
So nearly chalk into the semis: 1,2,3,5.
————————- In the semis: – #1 Longoria had to come from two games down to top #5 Rajsich. After dropping the first game 4, a battle royale ensued in game two, with Rhonda topping Paola 13-11. From there though, all champion, as she cruised to win the next three games 2,3,1.
– #2 Salas beat Vargas in three straight advance to her 8th final in 9 events this year.
————————— In that final, Longoria improved to 49-3 on the pro tour over her doubles partner Salas … but she had to work to do so. A back and forth affair resulted in another 5 game match for Longoria before she came out on top.
Three 5-gamers in this event for Longoria; that doesn’t happen too often. But she comes out with the title.
————————— One more event for the LPRT; a grand slam in Kansas City in mid June. However, Paola has sewn up the year end title, having an insurmountable points lead at this point over Solis for #1. And Solis has a similarly insurmountable lead for #2. We’ll go through the points ramifications in the preview for the last event for the rest of the top 10 after the Kansas event.
But Longoria has now officially wrapped up her 10th pro title. Congrats to Paola on this great accomplishment!.
In addition to the huge International Racquetball Tour draw in NY this weekend, there’s also a big LPRT draw AND a solid mixed doubles events combining both pro tours for just the 3rd time in the last few seasons (that i can see).
Lets preview the ladies singles draw. 21 ladies present, including 14 of the top 15 ranked players (only missing the newly-retired Gaby Martinez, who still sits in the top 10 from results earlier this season) are here and the draw is solid.
Qualifying/round of 32 matches to watch: – #16 Montse Mejia vs #17 Hollie Rae Scott; an interesting match between the reigning 18U junior world champ and the reigning USA RacquetballIntercollegiates champ. Mejia is favored here but Scott has wins over top 10 players in the past and won’t go easily. – #20 Maricruz Ortiz, a finalist in the World 16U juniors in 2018 and who just represented Costa Rica at the 2019 PARCs, faces off against #13 LPRT touring regular Cassie Lee. – In the 15/18 match, 18yr old Ana Laura Flores takes on Ceci Orozco Pratt, an infrequent but long-time LPRT player.
round of 16 matches to look for: – #1 Paola Longoria vs Mejia: wow, what an opener. Paola Longoria beat Mejia at the 2018 UnitedHealthcare US OPEN Racquetball Championships, but then Mejia topped her in the final of the 2019 Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol Nationals to claim the #1 seed at the 2019 International Racquetball Federation – IRF PARC championships. This is a semis or finals quality match right out of the gate. While Longoria remains the undisputed #1 player in the world, Mejia has the talent to be there some day. But on the pro tour, in the best of 5 format, Longoria’s superior fitness will win out and she’ll win on the day.
– #8 Frederique Lambert vs #9 Adriana Riveros; newly minted MD Lambert returns to the pro tour fold having shedded a ton of points as she finished off medical school. Lest anyone forget, Lambert was the #2 player on tour in both of the last two seasons … so she’s a threat to win whenever she plays. But how rusty is she? I think she advances here.
– #3 Maria Jose Vargas Parada vs #14 Yazmine Sabja Aliss; they’ve only played twice, both in the back end of IRF tourneys in 2018. Vargas held serve to top Yazmine Sabja Ráquetbol to win the 2018 South American Games, then beat her again in the quarters of 2018 Worlds. Both native Bolivians, they meet in NY where Vargas has been playing really solid lately and advances.
– #6 Natalia Mendez vs #11 Masiel Rivera Oporto; Rivera has been playing well this season, making a quarter in her home country Bolivian Open. Natalia Mendez Erlwein has been pretty consistently advancing to pro tournament quarters and had a great run at the PARCs, making the semis.
Projected Quarters; this is almost identical to last weekend’s Quarters, with only Lambert replacing Amaya.
– #1 Longoria over #8 Lambert: well, if Longoria wants this event, she’ll be earning it, facing last year’s 2nd best player here in the quarters. That being said, Longoria is 26-1 career on the LPRT over Lambert, so she likely moves on here. – #5 Rhonda Rajsich over #4 Alexandra Herrera ; despite their seeds, Rajsich has never lost to Herrera (9-0 lifetime) and held on for a 5-game marathon win last weekend. I think she makes it 10-0 here. – #3 Vargas over #6 Mendez: Argentina’s #1 and #2, long-time doubles partners, and now facing each other for the fourth time in the last six weeks. Vargas should triumph again. – #2 Samantha Salas Solis over #7 Nancy Enriquez; they met in the quarters last week, a 3-game win for Solis who improved to 7-1 career on LPRT over Enriquez and should advance here again.
Semis and Finals: I’m predicting the exact same results as San Antonio; Longoria over Rajsich, Salas over Vargas, and for the 7th time this season a final featuring Longoria and Salas.
Natera the double winner on the weekend in San Antonio.
It was quite a busy weekend for pro racquetball. A 35-man IRT tier 1 draw in Florida was actually missing a slew of quality players, who opted mostly to stay closer to home and compete in the IRT tier 4 draw held in conjunction with the LPRT Battle at the Alamo event in San Antonio, TX.
Because of the quality of the event, and the solid mixed pro doubles event, I thought i’d do a quick review of the draws here.
A note: we do not load lower IRT tier events into the database, but as a fan of the game here’s a draw review.
—————————– A 15-man pro draw; here were the notable results round by round.
In the 16s: – Erik Garcia won a rematch of the USAR intercollegiate finals earlier this month, topping Texan Alejandro Almada in a tiebreaker. – Alejandro Alex Cardona whitewashed the youngster Sebastian Longoria 0,0. Sebastian Longoria is playing in his age 17 season, while Cardona is one of the top 15-20 players in the world, so this is hopefully a good learning experience for Sebastian.
In the Quarters: – #1 seed Gerardo Franco Gonzalez beat #9 seed A.J. Fernandez 4,5. – #5 Seed Garcia got a very solid win over #4 Ernesto Ochoa in a tiebreaker. I have Ochoa in my top 30, and Garcia just took a big step up based on this win and his performance against Rocky Carson at qualifiers in Feb. – Perpetually under-seeded Alan Natera Chavez took out #3 Javier Estrada7,7. Natera has wins over Javier Mar and Rodrigo Montoya in the past year and has made the semis of Mexican Nationals two years running … but has never appeared in a Tier 1 IRT event and thus has no points. – #7 seed Cardona topped #2 seed, IRT regular Nick Riffel11 and 12. A tough first match-up for Riffel in this event, coming up against the two-time WRT tour winner.
In the semis: – #1 Franco topped Garcia 3,7, ending the collegiate champ’s run. – #6 Natera squeaked by Cardona 11-10 in the breaker, probably a good indicator of where both players are right now. I think its probably fair to say the bottom half of this draw was more challenging than the top.
In the final, Natera defended his San Antonio title by wiping out Gerardo Franco 10 and 5. A solid weekend of victories over world top 30 players for Natera, who continues to impress.
—————————— Mixed Pro Doubles.
Interestingly, the LPRT didn’t play ladies pros and instead opted for Mixed Pro doubles. So there was a solid draw of 14 Mixed pro teams that included most of the top LPRT pros playing with (primarily) the Mexican traveling pro players.
In the final, Paola Longoria teamed with Gerardo Franco to face Montse Mejia, who was playing Natera. Mejia and Natera came out on top, making Natera the double winner on the weekend.
——————— Here’s a wrap of the notable matches by round to me:
In the 32s: – Laura Brandt took a game off of #16 seed Guatemalan #1 Maria Renee Rodríguez before losing in four. Notable because Brandt is 56 years old, still competing with players nearly 1/3rd her age. Bravo.
In the 16s: – the #8/#9 match gave us a classic yet again, with doubles partners and Colombian team-mates Amaya Cris and Adriana Riveros going to a 5th game tie-breaker before Amaya pulled it out. – #5 Rhonda Rajsich was stretched to the limit, getting an 11-9 fifth game tiebreaker win over Colombia youngster Brenda Laime Jalil. – #3 seed Maria Jose Vargas Paradaheld on for a 5th game win over Montse Mejia in a semis-quality match-up. Vargas won the first two games, Mejia the next two, and the tie-breaker was 11-8.
In the Qtrs: – #5 Rajsich continued her career dominance over #4 Alexandra Herrera, improving to 9-0 lifetime with a 5-game win. – #3 Vargas beat her country-mate and doubles partner Natalia Mendez for the third time in the last month (after having *never* faced each other).
In the semis: – #1 Paola Longoria took out long-time rival Rajsich in three. Rhonda owns 15 of the 30 career pro losses on Longoria’s resume, but could not beat her on this day. – #2 Samantha Salas Solis held serve against Vargas, advancing in three games to face off against Longoria.
In the final, Longoria improved to 48-3 against her doubles partner Salas on the pro tour, winning in three for the title. There have been 8 LPRT events this season; Longoria and Salas have met in the final of six of them.
——————— With the win, Longoria extends these personal streaks: – She’s now won 33 straight matches, the 5th best such streak known. – She’s still undefeated on the season, now 29-0. – She’s only dropped 4 games this season. – She’s now got 89 wins in the Pro Racquetball Stats database (which, we know, does not match what her media team claims; we’re still working to resolve that issue).
——————— Points implications for the rest of the season:
There’s two more events on the LPRT schedule; this coming w/e in Syosset then a Grand Slam in Overland Park, KS to finish off t he season
https://www.lprtour.com/schedule
Longoria holds a 450 point lead over Salas for 2nd, who then has an even larger lead over Herrera and the rest of the tour. In order for Salas to overtake Longoria, Paola would probably have to miss both the remaining events and Salas would have to win the Grand Slam and make at least the final of the Syosset event to take the title. There’s no way any other player has enough time to catch up.
So, while its mathematically possible for Longoria to lose the title, its likely that she’s basically sewn it up for this season.
Post Publishing Editor’s note: the draw was remade completely just prior to the begining of play when Frederique Lambert withdrew. So most of the predicted matchups below are now moot. Apologies; I don’t have time to re-write it and re-analyze it.
Like the IRT, the LPRT is back in action this weekend in San Antonio, the 8th year running for an LPRT component at the Battle at the Alamo event.
22 pros entered here, coming on the heels of a huge PARC event in Colombia, which may have dampened attendance a bit. Nonetheless, the top 10 active pros are here, and a good chunk of the ladies ranked 11-20 are here as well, and it looks like a solid draw.
here’s some of the singles matches to watch for:
Round of 32: – The #16/17 seed match is a good one:Maria Renee Rodríguez taking on Mexican vet Susana Susy Acosta. Rodriguez got a solid win at PARCs representing Guatemala over 6th ranked Mendez but lost in the knockouts early. – #11 Adrienne Fisher Haynes takes on Daniela Rico, the current reigning World 14U junior champion. Haynes was the most accomplished female junior in the sports history, winning 10 World Junior titles. Rico won’t get there, but has four more years to extend her record.
Round of 16: – #8 Frederique Lambert vs #9 Adriana Riveros; Lambert, Canada’s undisputed #1 female, couldn’t commit the time to play in PARC this year, and her training has driven down her ranking to its current #8 spot. She was the #2 ranked player at the end of the last two seasons running, lest anyone forget. Fred should advance here and give Paola an early QF test. – #4 Alexandra Herrera versus #13 Brenda Laime Jalil; nothing like lefty versus lefty to make both players uncomfortable. Laime has challenged a bit lately on tour, perhaps a benefit of playing at CSU-Pueblo with fellow touring pros Munoz and Riveros. – #7 Nancy Enriquez vs #10 Amaya Cris; they’ve met once; in the 16s of this event last year, an Enriquez 3-game win. Amaya is coming back from a long week at PARC, and may struggle to keep up with the tough Enriquez here. – #2 Samantha Salas Solis vs #15 Montse Mejia; wow, what a brutal match-up for a round of 16. I have these two players 2nd and 3rd in my world power rankings right now, and they meet here in the 16s. Mejia is coming off an upset loss early in the PARC knockouts to Mendez, while Salas paired with Longoria to dominate the doubles and win her 16th career IRF doubles title. I suspect that the longer pro format favors Salas here, even though in their last meeting Mejia shocked Salas (and then Longoria) to win the 2019 Mexican national title. Salas comes back to win a 5 game battle.
Projected quarters: – #1 Paola Longoria vs #8 Lambert; an early battle between the top two players over the past 3 seasons. Lambert’s focus hasn’t been on touring, while Paola Longoria just cruised to her 8th PARC title. Longoria runs away with this one. – #4 Herrera vs #5 Rhonda Rajsich; despite fighting through a lingering knee issue that hampered her in both Bolivia and at PARC, Rajsich still made the quarters of both events with tough wins throughout. She’s also never lost to Herrera, 8-0 lifetime on tour. What happens here? Its been a year and a half since they met, and Herrera has consistently made the semis this season (5 of 7 events; semis or better). I think Herrera may break through here. – #3 Maria Jose Vargas vs #6 Natalia Mendez Erlwein; these Argentinian countrymates had never met until this year; now they’re slated to play for the third time in 2 months. Their semi finals meeting at PARC was a tough one, with line judges called in early, eventually won by Vargas in the tiebreaker. I sense Vargas continues to have the upper hand over her doubles partner. – #2 Salas vs #7 Enriquez; Enriquez does have some career wins over Salas … but they were a while ago. Miami 2011, then before than in juniors in 2005. Salas has otherwise held serve, though it took a huge comeback in South Carolina in January for her do to so, winning a5th game tiebreaker. I like Salas here thought.
projected Semis: – Longoria over Herrera: Longoria is 12-0 lifetime over Herrera and in those 12 wins has only dropped a couple of games. Seems likely to be 13-0. – Vargas over Salas: a rematch of the Bolivian Open final, won 11-9 in the 5th by Vargas. Salas leads h2h on the LPRT 5-2, but including international competitions its nearly dead even now. I like Vargas’ trend right now, I think she’s the hot hand, and will head to the final.
Projected final: – Longoria over Vargas, a rematch of last week’s PARC final and what would be their 34th meeting. Longoria is 32-1 through the first 33 meetings, so odds of a Vargas win seem slim.
That’s it: my predictions look pretty chalky, with only one upset by seed from the quarters on. Hopefully i’m wrong and we have some darkhorse upsets on the weekend.
————————- A quick note: this event also is an IRT lower tier event …and because of its proximity to Mexico, a ton of solid IRT regulars opted to play here instead of in Florida. There’s 12-13 guys in Texas this weekend who normally would be at the main event, including a couple of top 30 guys in Gerardo Franco Gonzalez and Nick Riffel (who are the top two seeds). It looks to be a very solid draw and we’ll review it separately later on.
In the opening round/Round of 32s, no real surprises. There were 7 matches, and there were 6 three-game wins by higher seeded players. The sole upset was #18 Romina Rivero over #15 Daniela Molina, which earns her a shot at the 2nd seeded player.
In the 16s … a few upsets. – #1 Samantha Salas dropped the first game to Bolivian youngster Micaela Meneses before advancing in four. – #9 Bolivian Yazmine Sabja Aliss put together a solid match, downing #8 Colombian Amaya Cris in three games. – #12 Bolivian Angelica Barrios shocked #5 seeded Nancy Enriquez in three straight 5,6,3. Barrios was the 2017 16U champ and is playing in her age 18 season, and this win avenges a loss Barrios had to Enriquez at the 2018 US Open. – #4 Rhonda Rajsich took out home-town Bolivian veteran Jenny Daza Naviain three straight to move on. – #3 Maria Jose Vargas was stretched to the brink before downing Bolivian 16U world champ Valeria Centellas 11-9 in the 5th. – #6 Natalia Mendez took out Bolivian native Brenda Laime Jalil in three straight forward games. – #10 Masiel Rivera Oporto, Bolivan native now living outside the DC area, avenged a loss earlier this pro season and took out #7 Adriana Riveros in a barn burner 11-9 in the 5th. – #2 Alexandra Herrera downed Bolivian junior Romina Rivero in three.
Before moving on, i wanted to point out the nature of the Bolivian players who advanced into the 16s. Meneses is the 2x defending 14U world champ, playing in her age 15 season. Barrios was the world junior 16U title in 2017 and thus is in her age 18 season. Centellas is the reigning 16U champ and also has one more year in 18s. Rivero was the 14U champ in 2015 and 2016 and thus is in her age 17 season this year. All told including Sabja (world 18U winner in 2009) there’s 5 different former Bolivian junior national champs in this draw.
The future is coming for women’s pros, and its coming from Bolivia.
In the Qtrs, one significant upset: – #1 Salas was taken to the brink against Bolivian #1 Sabja, advancing by the quite-close scores of 10,10,11. There really was not that much between these two players on the day. – #12 Barrios took out her second top seed in as many rounds, defeating Rajsich in four. – #3 Vargas took out her doubles partner #6 Mendez 6,5,4 in the first ever competitive singles meeting between the Argentinian #1 and #2 players. – #2 Herrera dropped the first against Bolivian Rivera, but then took over the match and dominated the rest of the way, advancing in four games (2),6,2,2.
In the Semis: – #1 Salas split games with #12 Bolivian junior Barrios before taking over and cruising to the final in four games. – #3 Vargas looked to be cruising to an easy win, but then dropped games 3 and 4 and barely held on with an 11-9 5th game win over #2 Herrera.
In the Finals, Vargas over came a 2 games to 1 deficit and outlasted Salas with a great comeback, winning 11-9 in the fifth. Vargas wins her 4th pro title of her career and also gives her just her 2nd pro win over Salas in 7 meetings.
——————- On the doubles side, the Argentian #1 team of Vargas & Mendez (both of whom are naturalized Bolivians) outlasted the #1 seed of Salas & Rajsich (playing together for the first time) in the final to take the win and give Vargas the double on the weekend.
My preview was so big, I had to split it up between the IRT and the LPRT so I could keep tagging the players. See the IRT version for the overall history of Raquet Bolivia racquetball and the larger preview for this event.
On the LPRT side, the #1 player Paola Longoria is missing (as per @the racquetball blog & Evan Pritchett reporting; she has a shoulder injury), which robs this event of the ladies #1. Of the remaining top 10, only Frederique Lambertand newly-retired Gaby Martinez are missing. Its such a long flight, such a tough ask of pro players to give up basically a week to compete, that it isn’t terribly surprising that many have opted not to make the trip (especially those with rigid obligations or kids or work commitments). Paola Longoria has such a huge lead on even #2 Salas though that this absence means little for the year end title race. Like with the men, about half of the 23 person ladies pro draw are locals, several of whom will make noise in this draw.
There’s 7 round of 32/play-in matches, mostly featuring all-Bolivian match-ups and the lowest ranking touring LPRT pros.
We start to get fun matches in the 16s: – In the #8/#9 match, a doozy: Yazmine Sabja Aliss vs Cristina Amaya Cris they’ve met three times in international play (all three Sabja wins) and I’m guessing Sabja will ride the home crowd to a win here. – #5 Nancy Enriquez vs #12 Angelica Barrios; they met at the US Open; a four game win for Enriquez. Since that time, Barrios made the semis of World Juniors 18U (losing to eventual champ Montserrat Montse Mejia for the 2nd year running in the semis) and made the round of 16 in Chicago. She’s definitely an up and comer … but probably doesn’t quite yet have the chops to take out Enriquez. – #4 Rhonda Rajsich vs #13 Jenny Daza Navia these two last met at the 2016 worlds, an 11-10 RR win for Rajsich. This is no walk-over for the 4-time pro tour champ. – #3 Maria Jose Vargas vs #14 Valeria Centellas: I don’t expect the 16-yr old to win here, especially given Vargas’ power .. but she could make things interesting. – #7 Adriana Riveros vs #10 Masiel Rivera Oporto; another tough match of regular tour pros; they met at the US Open in October and Riveros took a four game win. I’d expect a closer game here as Rivera plays on her native soil.
Projected Quarters: – #1 Samantha Salas vs #9 Sabja: they played at the 2018 PARCs, an 11,12 win for Salas. I think the pro format may make this a closer match. – #5 Enriquez over #4 Rajsich: Nancy is a bit more rested than Rhonda, who just finished playing a ton of outdoor matches at Beach Bash last weekend. – #3 Vargas over her country-woman #6 Mendez – #2 Alexandra Herrera over Riveros
Semis: Salas over Enriquez, Vargas over Herrera.
Finals: Salas over Vargas.
———— LPRT Doubles
There’s also an 8-team doubles draw that features some interesting match-ups. Current World Doubles champs Sabja & Centellas are seeded last and face off against Salas & Rajsich … who have never played with each other. Because Mejia is missing, Herrera is playing with Enriquez at the #2 seed. The Argentinian National team of Vargas & Mendez is seeded 3rd, while the Colombian #1 team of Amaya/Riveros is 4th.
I think the Bolivian champs can make the final and win this draw over the Argentinians in the final.
Hello Racquetball Fans; it is a historic week for professional racquetball as the first ever pro tournament is being held in Racquetball-mad Raquet Bolivia.
Bolivian racquetball burst onto the scenes internationally in 2010, when Ricardo Monroy won the 2010 Pan American Racquetball Championships (PARC) topping the #1, #2 and #4 seeds along the way. Fellow Bolivians Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo andCarlos Keller Vargas have since followed-up with significant international results on the Men’s side, with Keller taking the 2018 PARCs and a young Moscoso making the 2014 Worlds final, losing to Rocky Carson.
On the Women’s pro side, Bolivian Trail-blazers such as Yazmine Sabja Ráquetbol, Carola Loma and Jenny Daza Navia have made finals of international events for a decade, but have yet to push through with a major adult international victory.
In the mean-time, the Bolivian juniors are starting to dominate; Bolivians took the 14U and 16U titles at last year’s World Juniors (Luis Antonio Aguilar and Diego Garcia Quispe respectively), and both Bolivian 18U players made the semis before losing to the eventual Mexican finalists. It was a similar story on the Girls side, with Valeria Centellas taking the 16U title while simultaneously holding the World Adult Doubles title with Sabja from last summer. Bolivian junior girls have won 11 world junior titles in the last 5 years, more than any other country.
And now, with the first ever pro stop in Bolivia, nearly every player just mentioned is playing, along with a good collection of traveling IRT and LPRT regulars. In addition, we get a few South American regular internationals plus a good chunk of the Guatemalans who were in Chicago two weeks ago.
All told; this tournament has a reported 359 total participants, including equally massive Men’s Skill divisions and a ton of juniors playing. Bravo to the community to make this such a huge hit.
Lets get to the draws. —————
On the IRT side; half the current top 10 did not make the trip; Kane Waselenchuk could have basically sewn up the 2018-19 IRT title with a win in Cochabamba but chose to stay with family. Daniel De La Rosa, Samuel Murray, Sebastian Franco and Jose Diaz also miss the event out of the current IRT top 10, leaving a relatively wide-open field and a pretty solid opportunity for Carson in particular to put himself back in the driver’s seat for the year end IRT title. Rocky will return to #1 with at least a finals appearance, and DLR likely drops to 6th on the season with little chance of getting back into the top 4. None the less, there’s a massive 40-person draw that’s about half Bolivian locals, half traveling pros. Oddly, despite this being a “Grand Slam” the top 8 qualified into the 16s, meaning the typical huge advantage over the locals. Lets see how it affects the Bolivian dark horses.
In the round of 64, a couple of interesting matches right off the top:
– #24 Carlos Keller Vargas vs Gerson Miranda: tough first match for both players. Keller (as noted above) is a PARC champ and a regular Bolivian national team representative, while Miranda is one of the top juniors in the country, representing Bolivia at World Juniors last November and losing in the semis in his age 17 season. Keller likely takes this, but Miranda is a name to watch going forward internationally. – #23 Conrrado Moscoso vs Fernando Ruiz Michel: the other member of Bolivia’s 2018 18U team ironically faces off against the other regular member of Bolivia’s adult national team. I really wanted both Miranda and Ruiz Michel to have shots at traveling IRT players instead of being eliminated by the two Bolivian nationals who i think can make serious noise in this event, but the draw was not favorable to the juniors here.
The action heats up in the 32s: – #16/#17 MoMo Zelada vs Kadim Carrasco; Another regular member of the Bolivian adult team, Carrasco has some serious power, and has a long history of traveling to the states for pro events. However, Maryland resident and Bolivian native Zelada is no slouch and should handle Carrasco here. – #9 Thomas Carter vs #24 Keller Vargas: Carter’s the highest player to not get a bye and it catches him here, having to face the former Pan Am champ on home soil. – #12 Robert Collins vs #21 Edwin Galicia; Collins should be able to handle the Guatemalan here to advance to the main draw. – #23 Moscoso vs #10 Felipe Camacho; they’ve met twice in international competitions, both easy Conrrado wins. Moscoso advances with eyes on making a deep run in this event.
In the main draw, we get the first action out of the traveling seeded pros: – #1 Carson takes on Zelada, a match between two almost identical game styles. Both play focused, tactical racquetball with thought put into every service choice. Unfortunately for Zelada, Carson is the best at it and advances in two straight. – #8 Jake Bredenbeck continues to struggle on the season by running into Bolivian international Keller Vargas at this juncture and loses in two straight. This may be an upset by seed, but not by world power ranking, as Keller has more than a few wins over top IRT pros. – #5 Mario Mercado dodges the landmines of local players and gets a straight-forward match against #12 Collins. Collins has played well this season but this is a win for Mercado here. – #4 Andree Parrilla faces off against his countryman Eduardo Lalo Portilloand handles him in two, but not before Portillo makes some noise and gives Parrilla a scare. – #3 Alvaro Beltran faces off against #19 Eduardo Garay Rodriguez, formerly from Mexico but now playing out of Cali, Colombia. This is a brutal draw for Beltran, as Garay has multiple wins over top 8 IRT pros and didn’t have to make four flight connections to arrive in Bolivia. I think Beltran can win this, but wouldn’t be surprised if Garay played him lights out. – #6 Rodrigo Montoya celebrates easily his best ever tourney seeding by taking down countryman Gerardo Franco Gonzalez at this juncture. – #7 David Horn is the unlucky seeded player who gets to face Moscoso, who has the talent to make the semis of any IRT event, full draw or not. They’ve met twice; Moscoso beat him in 3 at the 2017 US Open while Horn got him a the 2015 PARCs. I think Moscoso advances on home soil here. – #2 Alex Landastarts his tourney against Bolivian World Junior 16U champ Diego Garcia, who can make some noise but doesn’t have the game to beat Landa at this point in his career.
If the 16s go as I predict, we may have some quarter final match-ups for the Ages: – #1 Carson vs #24 Keller Vargas: they’ve played before internationally, and while Keller can beat some players he’s not going to beat Carson on this day. – #4 Parrilla handles #5 Mercado and continues his relatively easy draw into the semis here. – #6 Montoya takes out whoever advances between Beltran and Garay. If its Beltran, it’ll be the third time they’ve met in the quarters in three months and the first two have been relatively easy Rodrigo wins. If its Garay … Montoya has beaten Garay twice in WRT events in the last couple of years, one of which was a pretty close 11-9 barn burner. – #2 Landa vs Moscoso. Well, here it is. Sudsy Monchik tells me that Moscoso is one of the best in the world and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the tier of players just below Kane & Rocky; here’s his chance. Landa has shedded rankings points all season (it was inevitable; with Kane back Landa wasn’t going to win multiple events this season), and will have to really hustle to win here. I’m going to go with my gut and say that Moscoso wins this to advance and firmly cement his place among the game’s elite.
Semis projection: – #1 Carson vs #4 Parrilla: Parrilla had the match-winning point on his racquet and skipped the winner before losing 11-10 in Laurel to open this season the last time he played Rocky, and the two times before then Andree beat him. Four of Andree’s five losses this season are to Kane. I think he’s ready to take the next step. I’m going out on a limb here and predicting a Parrilla upset here. – #6 Montoya vs #23 Moscoso. This is a heck of a match. Its also a re-match of a highly anticipated 2018 Worlds quarter final last November won by Montoya in a tiebreaker. Who would take this rematch? I’m tempted to go with Montoya again. But honestly I could see a Moscoso win on home soil in front of a frenzied packed house too, bringing all the energy of an international competition.
Final: Moscoso over Parrilla to shock the pro world. If the final comes down to this, its a rematch of a classic 2017 US Open round of 16 match, won by Moscoso 11-8 in the 5th. I can see a similarly close match here.
————— IRT Doubles:
14 teams battling it out, and a whole slew of interesting teams playing. Beltran is teamed with Landa (not DLR, his regular partner) at #1, Carson is playing with Camacho and seeded 5th, Jake & Horn are seeded #3, the fantastic Bolivian #1 team of Keller & Moscoso is seeded 6th, and the semi-regular team of Parrilla & Montoya (who have more than a few pro titles together) are seeded 2nd.
I’m going with Landa/Beltran over Carson/Camacho in one semi, Keller/Moscoso over Parrilla/Montoya in the other, and the Bolivians winning on home soil in the final for a possible double for Moscoso on the weekend.
With this win, Paola extends some current personal records: – This is her 88th win in the PRS database – She extends her current match winning streak to 29 – She makes it 6 wins out of 6 tournaments on the season. – She’s built a nearly insurmountable lead over #2 Salas for the current season rankings, leading her by near 900 rankings points.
—————
Here’s a review of the draw, highlighting notable results by round:
In the 32s; – Kelani Lawrence got a solid win over LPRT touring vet Maria Renee Rodríguez in four games. – Natalia Mendez took out Mary Mary Dee Kirchoff in three straight; this was a notable match up in that Kirchoff is literally three times Mendez’ age. Bravo for still competing in your 60s on tour. – Youngster Ana Laura Flores took out veteran Susy Acosta in four close games. – Biggest upset of the round: collegiate player Hollie Rae Scott took out the 39 seed Cristina Amaya 12-10 in the 5th. Career win for Scott.
In the 16s, mostly chalk and easy wins for the top seeds, but a couple of matches worth noting. – #5 Rhonda Rajsich had to face her doubles partner in Sheryl Lotts and won in three games. (Sheryl went on to take the Women’s Open draw 11-10 in a thrilling tiebreaker win over Amaya). – #3 Alexandra Herrera was donuted in the second game against Lawrence …then donuted her right back and won by the unique scores of 8,(0),0,8. Its not often you see someone both give and take a donut in a match. – But the big upset of the round was #10 Adriana Riveros taking out #7 Natalia Mendez 11-7 in the breaker.
In the Quarters… – #1 Paola Longoria advanced in 3 games over the woman who vanquished her in last year’s worlds final Ana Gabriela Gaby Martinez 8,8,6. This is the third time they’ve met on tour this year, all 3 game wins for the champ. Longoria improves to 15-1 career h2h over Martinez in all competitions, making last year’s worlds final look like the aberration, not the predictor. – #4 Maria Jose Vargas took revenge over last tourney’s loss to Rajsich, beating her in four games to take the slim lead in their h2h matchups. – #6 Nancy Enriquez advanced to just her 3rd career semi-final with a come-from-behind win over #3 Herrera. Enriquez dropped the first two games, then blitzed by Herrera in games four and five, 2 and 1 respectively to advance. – #3 Samantha Salas Solis fought off the upset-minded Riveros 6,9,4 to try to continue her finals streak on tour this season.
In the semis… – #1 Longoria improved to 31-1 all time in all competitions over Vargas, though she had to come from a game down to do it. – #2 Salas improved to 6-2 all time in all competitions over Enriquez, but not without having to work for it, coming from 2-1 games down to win in a tiebreaker.
In the final: – Longoria improved to 55-3 all time over her doubles partner Salas with a relatively straight forward 1,2,6 three game win. Salas never seemed like she was a threat to Longoria on this day, leaving opportunities up and quickly becoming frustrated with her opponent’s consistency.
———————- In doubles, Longoria made it a double, winning the doubles title with her finals opponent Salas over the Argentine national doubles team of Vargas/Mendez.
As with Singles, Paola has now won all 6 pro doubles events this season, 5 of them with Salas. Longoria improves to 109-5 in pro doubles since we started tracking it in 2013, winning 38 of the 43 doubles events she’s now entered.
————- Next on the schedule for the LPRT is the big Bolivian Grand Slam, a combo IRT/LPRT event in Cochabamba, the first time either pro tour has ever been held in Bolivia.
The LPRT is back in action, with its 6th event of the 2018-19 season. So far, #1 ranked Paola Longoria has made it 5 for 5 in wins, with four of those wins coming over her frequent doubles partner Samantha Salas Solis.
The annual event in South Carolina is a Grand Slam, and as such has drawn back into play a couple of intriguing players, which should make this draw more interesting than most. There’s 26 pros in the draw, tying a season non US Open high.
Top 20 players missing: #5 Frederique Lambert who has fallen to her lowest ranking on tour since Nov 2015 as she juggles school and some early upsets in previous events. #11 Carla Muñoz Montesinos misses just her 2nd tourney in the last two seasons. #13 Jessica Leona Parrilla remains on the sidelines recovering from her knee injury suffered last spring. And lastly #18 Yazmine Sabja Ráquetboldid not make the long flight. So we have 9 of the top 10, and 16 of the top 20 in the event.
Notably present is reigning World Champ Ana Gabriela Gaby Martinez, who is back and ranked #9 (likely seeded 8th) after making the semis in the first two events of the season and then missing the next three.
Lets preview the draw.
Notable round of 32 matches; there’s a ton of tough openers in this tourney.
– #16 vs #17 Masiel Rivera Oporto versus Brenda Laime Jalil; tough match for both ladies right out of the gate. Both players are playing the tour full time this year and are both looking for a breakthrough win. And … they’re playing doubles together. – #14 vs #19: Maria Renee Rodríguez faces Kelani Lawrence in another tough opener for both. Lawrence has less pro experience but has proven her mettle in the USA amateur draws, while Rodriguez has a ton of international experience and has represented Guatemala in Juniors and Adult draws for nearly a decade. – Cassandra Lee vs Laura Brandt: youth versus experience here in an intriguing first rounder. – #10 Adriana Riveros versus #23 Cecilia Ceci Orozco Pratt: Riveros should prevail but she probably would have hoped for an easier first rounder. – #15 Susana Susy Acosta vus #18 Ana Laura Flores : two Mexican lefties representing the two major Rball-playing communities (Chihuahua and San Luis Potosi) in the country battle it out in the first round. They met at the US Open with the youngster coming out on top and I’d lean that way again.
Round of 16 interesting matches: – #8 vs #9: Cristina Amaya Cris vs Ana Gabriela Martinez: tough match-up for both players. They met at this stage in this event three years ago, an Amaya win, but Martinez has a whole lot of silverware since. – #3 Alexandra Herrera vs the Rodriguez/Lawrence winner: i’m not sure who comes out of the feed-in match, but Herrera will have to hustle to advance out of the 16s. Ironically, Herrera topped both possible players in successive rounds as she was winning the 2011 Junior Girls 16U championship. – #7 Natalia Mendez vs #10 Adriana Riveros: these two top 10 players have only met once on tour; a 4-game Mendez win in June 2017. – #2 Samantha Salas vs #18 Flores: assuming Flores comes out on top in the 32s, she gets a first shot at Salas in any competition. Flores can beat top talent, but i’m not sure she can beat one of the top 2 players in the world.
Projecting the Quarters: – #1 Paola Longoria vs #8 Gaby Martinez; These two have met no less than 15 times in pro and IRF matches … but it was last summer’s World Championships that gave Martinez her one win in the series. Since then, they’ve met twice in the LPRT, both straight-forward Longoria wins. I see the same result here; Paola is just so dominant in the 5-game format. – #4 Maria Jose Vargas vs #5 Rhonda Rajsich; these two have now met 28 times (26 on LPRT) and are dead even. 14 and 14 each. Along that same line, they’ve met twice this season … and split, Vargas winning in Chicago and Rhonda winning in Laurel. I’ll predict Rajsich makes it two tourneys in a row. – #3 Herrera vs #6 Nancy Enriquez; Despite being the higher seed, Enriquez faces the easier path to the quarters in this event. But Herrera owns the career h2h record 5-1, just beat her in Boston, and should advance again. – #2 Salas vs #7 Mendez; they’ve got a scant 3 career match-ups, all three straight-game wins for Salas. She makes it 4 of 4.
Semis: – Longoria over Rajsich. Despite Rhonda’s demonstrated ability to still be able to top Paola, their only meeting on the pro tour in the last two seasons was a straight-game semis win in December. Expect the same here. – Salas over Herrera; they’ve already met twice in the semis this season, and both times Salas advanced.
Finals: Longoria over Salas. You hate rooting for #1 vs #2, but these two players have represented the final in 4 of the 5 events so far this season … and the only one where it wasn’t Longoria v Salas was an event where Salas couldn’t make the tourney b/c of travel issues.
—————————- In the doubles, we have some frequently-seen teams playing, including the reigning USA national champs Lawrence/Sharon Jackson, the US National runners-up in Rajsich and Lotts, The top team of Longoria & Salas, the Argentinian national team of Vargas & Mendez, and the Columbia team of Amaya & Riveros. Interestingly the top Guatemalans are not playing together this event.
I’m going with the top Mexicans versus the Argentinians in the final, with Longoria & Salas continuing their dominance with the win.
