Category: LPRT

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World Singles & Doubles Preview Pt 1

Moscoso is a player to watch this weekend. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory


Hello all. We are back, and this week coming up we have a massive tournament that has been months in the making in the World Singles & Doubles championships in Denver. More than 300 players are here, and the tournament includes an absolutely massive Men’s IRT draw, and equally huge women’s LPRT pro singles draw, plus the namesake Doubles events that have quickly made this one of the biggest events on the annual racquetball calendar.
Tournament Director and primary sponsor Jim Hiser first put on this event in May of 2018. After a year hiatus, Covid forced the cancellation of the 2020 iteration and months of delays in the 2021 event. But we’re here now, and fans are going to be better for it.
Today we will preview the Men’s and Women’s Pro singles draws, with Doubles previews coming later this week.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30515

First, lets preview the Men’s IRT Pro Singles draw.

There are no less than 53 players competing in this draw, the largest non US Open draw we’ve seen in more than a decade on the Men’s tour. 18 of the top 20 players are present, with #20 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez missing (he is rumored to be stepping away from the sport). The other glaring omission here is #1 Kane Waselenchuk, who also missed the Atlanta pro event earlier this year. His absence here will cause additional speculation as to his future in the sport; he continues to play and do clinics with Sudsy Monchik but has not played competitively in an IRT event since March of 2020. But the writing seems to be on the wall; we’ll have to see what happens when the US Open rolls around.

Lets preview the draw. Because of the size of the draw, there are several rounds of qualifying to get into the main round of 32. We even have a handful of round of 256 matches, mostly between players making their IRT debuts.
We’ll start in the round of 128: Here’s some interesting 128 matches to look for:

  • #25 Andres Acuña is the highest seeded player to miss out on a bye into the main draw and gets two extra matches for his troubles; he starts out with an international-flavored match between the winner of Ecuador’s Juan Francisco Cueva and Bolivia’s Hector Barrios.
  • Former Mexican National team member Abraham Peña faces off against Scott McClellan, a tough opener for the IRT’s primary referee and one that could end his tournament quite early.
  • #27 Carlos Keller Vargas, fresh off a double-qualifying Bolivian Nationals tournament, seems set to face Bolivian Junior Adrian Jaldin in his opener. Fly all the way to the USA, play the guy from down the street.
  • #30 Alan Natera Chavez faces a very tricky opener against Texan Ruben Baez, who beat Jake Bredenbeck and nearly topped Bobby Horn in the PAC shootout in Mar 2019. Upset watch here.
  • #34 MoMo Zelada faces a really tough opener in Guatemala’s #1 Javier Martinez.

In the round of 64, some great potential matches:

  • Acuna versus Colombia’s Andres Gomez could be full of fireworks. Gomez is no slouch and Acuna is going to have to work to get into the main draw.
  • Kadim Carrasco projects to face off against Pena, and I think Pena can advance into the main draw. Fatigue may work against the veteran Mexican, but he’s a workout-fiend and should have the fitness to advance.
  • Vargas potentially faces off against former IRT touring pro Nick Riffel in an interesting tactical battle.
  • An interesting all South American battle between Zelada and long-time Colombian national team member Set Cubillos Ruiz could be in play depending on earlier rounds.

Interestingly, I think by and large the 128s are all tougher for these players than their projected 64s to get into the main draw.

Projecting the 32s: here’s some possible matchups, though the depth of this draw could make for some upsets and make these predictions moot:

  • #17 Acuna vs #16 Adam Manilla; an interesting one; Manilla had some breakthrough wins just before the tours had to stop, but so did Acuna. I favor Acuna in my world talent rankings, and i’ll take him here in the upset.
  • #9 Jake Bredenbeck projects to face qualifier Pena in the 32s. Both players hit with a ton of pace, but I don’t believe Pena’s acrobatics will take him past the stronger and younger Jake here.
  • #13 Javier Mar, who always seems to run into tough players during qualifying, projects to take on fellow Mexican qualifier Javier Estrada at this juncture if results hold. And this spells bad news for Mar, because Estrada has beaten him multiple times in the past couple of years. Estrada doesn’t always travel well, but has wins over Mar on home soil plus in two RKT events in the latter part of 2019. I think Estrada wins again here.
  • #14 Thomas Carter projects to face off against Bolivian #2 Vargas at this juncture, and I think Vargas moves past the veteran lefty.
  • #11 Mario Mercado projects to face Natera coming out of the qualifiers, a potential barn burner of a match. Mercado has topped Natera twice in top-level meetings in the past, but I have Natera ranked higher personally. Natera can be hit or miss, with great wins and curious losses … but the same can be said for Mario. I’ll go with the seeded player here.
  • #10 Sebastian Franco set to face qualifier Zelada here … two players who are quite familiar with each other from years of both living near each other in the Baltimore suburbs. Franco is the better player and will be fresher and will move on.
  • #15 Eduardo Garay Rodriguez set to take on #18 Sebastian Fernandez, a potentially awesome match to watch. Fernandez has been stuck right in this 16-18 range for quite a while, and tournament after tournament it seems to bite him with tough match-ups. This time is no different, with Garay coming in hot. A contrast in styles here; Patata plays casual and tactical, while Garay plays balls-out 110% power. Look for Garay to move on here.

Round of 16: I project plenty of upsets in the play-in, so here’s my projected 16s.

  • #1 Alejandro Landa over #17 Acuna: While Acuna topped Landa at PARC a couple years back (a result that led to Landa’s removal from the Pan Am games team and his subsequent defection to the USA…) Landa dominates Acuna when “it counts” on tour. Landa moves on quickly here.
  • #8 Lalo Portillo over #9 Bredenbeck: Lalo has beaten Jake a couple times in the past relatively easily, and should again here.
  • #5 Andree Parrilla vs #12 Montoya: these two have played so many times in the past (they’re the exact same age and traded off Mexican Junior National and World titles for years). Montoya has had the slight upper hand lately at the Mexican Adult and Pro level, including a win over Andree in the Mexican Nationals final earlier this summer. Advantage Rodrigo.
  • #4 Daniel De La Rosa vs Estrada. DLR probably would rather face Estrada versus Mar, but Estrada’s amazing 2019 Black Gold cup win included a h2h win over Daniel. So the history is there, but DLR has turned around his pro career lately and should advance here.
  • #3 Samuel Murray, the champion of the most recent IRT event, should not be troubled by Keller and should move on.
  • #6 Alvaro Beltran projects to face Mercado, a player who he’s faced a number of times both internationally and professionally and should have no trouble advancing past here.
  • #7 Conrrado Moscoso, fresh off another Bolivian national title, set to face #10 Franco. Power versus … more power, and Moscoso should move on here.
  • #2 Rocky Carson, fresh off his 8th US national title, set to face the hard hitting Garay. This is not the match-up Carson would have wanted here; the last time these two played it was an 11-7 gutted out win for Carson, and that was in Mar 2020. Carson is a year older, Garay is a year more experienced. Upset watch here.

Projected Qtrs:

  • Landa over Portillo: Lalo has been playing well, but not well enough to top landa.
  • DLR over Montoya: this could be fantastic match. DLR has two successive pro wins over Rodrigo, but Montoya has some dominant wins over DLR in the past as well. Any given sunday, but for me DLR on the day.
  • Beltran over Murray: yes Murray won the last event and is the #3 seed, but Beltran has never lost to Murray professionally, and most of his wins have been lopsided. Plus, I always pick against Alvaro and its time he gets his due.
  • Moscoso over Carson. Moscoso has played a grand total of 10 IRT tournaments in his life .. and in three of those, he’s taken out Rocky. Well, he’ll make it 4-4 here, as he’ll be on a mission in a Kane-less field to win the title.
    Semis:
  • Landa over DLR: Landa has DLR’s number lately, beating him the last 7 times they’ve played in top level matches that I track. But these matches are often close. There’s little between these guys, but without Kane in the field Landa will be looking to pad his title count.
  • Moscoso over Beltran: Conrrado has topped Alvaro both times they’ve met professionally, but Alvaro the crafty veteran can hang with the hard-hitting Bolivian and make him earn it.

    Finals; Moscoso over Landa: they met in the Bolivian Grand Slam and a streaky Moscoso blanked Landa in the breaker for the win. I think that Conrrado, day in and day out, is the 2nd best talent on the planet and is always a favorite against anyone not named Kane, and i’ll take him here.

LPRT Pro Singles Review


As with the Men, there’s a robust draw of 34 ladies pros this weekend, right in line with the last handful of major events.
Thanks to her duties covering the Olympics for a sport channel in her home country, #1 Paola Longoria is not in Denver. This means a first-even #1 seed for Alexandra Herrera. Other top 20 pros missing include #15 Kelani Lawrence and #16 Adriana Riveros for a pretty solid 17 of top 20 present.
No qualifying here; a straight draw from the 64s onward. Here’s some early round matches to look for:
In the 64s…

  • top Ecuadorian vet Maria Paz Munoz is here (at least, I think that’s who is here), playing in the round of 64 because of having zero points. Its unfortunate she plays into the #1 seed Herrera, because she could have done some damage with the right seeding.
  • Also, welcome back to Ladies pro racquetball Aisling Hickey, who has represented Ireland on the international stage previously.
  • #16/#17 features two top Americans pitted against each other early in Sheryl Lotts and Hollie Scott. Look for Scott to move on.
  • #13 Amaya Cris takes on #20 Susy Acosta in an interesting battle between long-time LPRT touring veterans.
  • #19 Micaela Meneses Cuellar, fresh off her double qualification weekend at the Bolivian Nationals, faces #14 Maria Renee Rodríguez in a really tough opener for both. Meneses can win this match, thought MRR has been steadily improving.
  • #22 Lucia Gonzalez matches up with #11 Nancy Enriquez in a brutal first rounder for both. The last time they met, Gonzalez blasted Enriquez in the 2020 Mexican Nationals. But Enriquez has been playing very strongly since. I have Lucia as one of the top 7-8 players in the world … but she keeps running into top players early in pro draws; can she get a couple of signature wins here?
  • – #15 Brenda Laime Jalil taking on #18 Masiel Rivera Oporto; two players who play frequently and who match up pretty well meet, fittingly, in the 15/18 matchup. I have Rivera slightly ahead of Laime in my personal rankings, but to me this is a tossup.

Some great projected round of 16s here:

  • #1 Herrera should move past #17 Scott, but it might be close.
  • #8 Valeria Centellas should top veteran #9 Rhonda Rajsich, who is in danger of dropping out of the top 10 for the first time in 20 years.
  • #5 Natalia Mendez Erlwein should top #12 Carla Muñoz Montesinos; they’ve met 5 times previously in top-level events and Mendez is 5-0 over the Chilean.
  • #4 Samantha Salas Solis should dominate whoever comes out of the Amaya/Acosta match.
  • #3 Maria Jose Vargas Parada should move past the Bolivian junior Meneses, still playing 18U despite finishing runner-up at their Nationals.
  • #6 Jessica Parrilla ended Gonzalez’ 2020 Mexican Nationals run, and will do so again here. I think Parrilla has a bit too much power and game flexibility for Lucia to handle.
  • #10 Ana Gabriela Martínez over #7 Angelica Barrios – Raquetbolista; an upset by seed, but probably not by talent. last time these two met was at Junior worlds in 2017, a win for Martinez in the RR stage. It is good to see two young players making such inroads to the sport and these two project to be at the top of the sport for years.
  • #2 Montse Mejia should cruise past the winner of the Laime/Rivera match.
    Quarters:
  • I think #8 Centellas can take out #1 Herrera. They’ve never met in a top level event, but i’ve got Valeria slightly ahead of Alexandra in my personal rankings. We’ll see; this is a great test for Herrera, who has managed to avoid frequent match-ups with the young starlets on tour such as Barrios, Centellas and Mejia.
  • #4 Salas just topped #5 Mendez in Kansas City and will do so again.
  • #3 Vargas versus #6 Parrilla; tough one. On paper normally this is Vargas all the way, but she’s still working back from time-off for childbirth. I think Parrilla can take this one.
  • #2 Mejia versus #10 Gaby; for me, the top two players in the world not named Paola, meeting in the quarters. That being said, Mejia has dominated their recent meetings and hasn’t lost to Gaby since 2016 16U worlds. They met in KC a few months back and Mejia dominated in winning 8.6. Mejia tops again.
    Semis:
  • #8 Centellas over #4 Salas; they’ve only met once, a Salas win a few years back, but that was before Salas hit her rough patch of form. Centellas has ascended since and is in a prime spot to make the final.
  • #2 Mejia over Parrilla; the two Mexican rivals have met several times in the past, with Leoni winning all of them, including a big upset at the 2020 Mexican Nationals, but that was before Mejia found her current gear. She topped four of the world’s best in order in straight games to win in KC, and she won’t be stopped here.

Finals: a rematch of the KC round of 16 that Mejia won handily 9,8 happens in the final, and Mejia takes her second straight LPRT title.

Who is Streaming this weekend? The IRT crew Dean DeAngelo Baer and Pablo Fajre are heading to Denver to stream this weekend, so stay tuned to the IRT feed for all your streaming options.


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 FB. If your name is here and it isn’t tagged … it probably means I attempted to tag you but FB stripped it.
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2021 TeamRoot SuperMax Wrap-Up

Mejia captures her first ever pro tournament, doing the double along with it. Photo Kevin Savory US Open 2019

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

  • Pro Singles: Montse Mejia
  • Pro Doubles; Mejia & Alexandra Herrera​

Mejia gets just her second ever win over Longoria to take her first ever pro title. She becomes the 28th person ever to win a Tier 1 women’s pro event. She also breaks Longoria’s 39-match winning streak, the 7th longest in the history of the sport on the women’s side.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=37491

Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Match report in PRS: http://rball.pro/DD7F6B

In the 64s, some surprises starting right at 8am Friday:

  • Solid win for Colombian María Paz Riquelme, taking out the junior upstart from Bolivia Natalia Mita. Fun fact about Riquelme; she got her start playing racquetball when she lived in Arlington Va, and she used to play in the leagues that I ran as a club pro there in the 2006-2007 time frame. I don’t think i can take all the credit for her success though 🙂
  • Annie Roberts had a great turn-around to notch her first LPRT win, storming back from a 15-8 first game loss to take the second game 15-0 and then hold on for the 11-10 tie-breaker win over Colombian junior Camila Rivero
  • Erika Manilla took a close one from fellow American Michelle De La Rosa3,11 to move on.

In the 32s, the notable results

  • #16 Adriana Riveros dominated #17 @Maria Maria Renee Rodríguez 4,11 to move on. I would have expected this to be closer; a solid win by Riveros.
  • #8 Angelica Barrios​ made quick work of #25 Daniela Rico​ 10,2; they had gone deep into a tie-breaker in the last event when they met.
  • #12 @Carla Carla Muñoz Montesinos and #21 Masiel Rivera Oporto (a former top10 player herself) played it as close as you could, with Munoz edging out the Bolivian-American 11-10 in a fantastic back and forth, tense match.
  • #11 Nancy Enriquez​ dominated the tough Ana Laura Flores​ 6,6 in the opener.
  • #20 Brenda Laime Jalil​ got the biggest upset of the round, topping Colombian veteran Amaya Cris in two.
  • #10 Montse Mejia​ cruised past Bolivian junior @Micaela Micaela Meneses Cuellar​ 8,4 to start off her tournament.
  • In the most talent-laden opening round match, #7 Valeria Centellas played very solid racquetball to move past the criminally under-seeded #26 Lucia Gonzalez 12,7.
  • #15 Kelani Lawrence​ and fellow American Sheryl Lotts played it as close as they could, with Kelani taking an 11-10 tie-breaker.
  • #2 Alexandra Herrera was given a stiff challenge, advancing by 10,14 in two close games against Manilla.

In the 16s:

  • #1 Paola Longoria​ cruised past #16 Riveros to move on.
  • #8 Barrios took care of business against the veteran #9 Rhonda Rajsich,9.
  • #5 Samantha Salas Solis​ left no room for an upset over #12 Munoz, who has challenged her (and beaten her) in the past. She moves on 7,7
  • #4 Natalia Mendez​ handled the upstart #20 Laime, controlling the match and moving on.
  • #14 Gabriela Martinez​ took out #3 @Maria Maria Jose Vargas Parada with relative ease 3,7. This was a tough round of 16 for Vargas, just coming back after a break, having to go against the under-seeded Gaby. This sets up some possibly very compelling matches later on in the bottom half.
  • #6 Jessica Parrilla​ turned the tides on the surging #11 Enriquez, and showed some serious mettle in coming back to win game two and the match. She moves on 7,14
  • #10 Mejia got a solid win over #7 Centellas 9,8, in a match of two of the better young players on tour.
  • #2 Herrera withstood a tough opening game, then cruised to the win 14,1 over Lawrence.

In the Quarters

  • Barrios got her points and definitely played better than the last time she met #1 Longoria, but Paola persevered and moved on 8,10.
  • #5 Salas got a great win over #4 Mendez, turning the tide from their last meeting in South Carolina and buldling on her solid showing at Mexican Nationals. Is Salas back? This win should put her back to #4 on tour going into the next event.
  • #14 Martinez continued her pathway through the draw, topping #6 Parrilla in two relatively in-control games. Is Martinez back? Clearly she’s one of the top 4-5 players in the world, and the tour would be better with her on it full time.
  • #10 Mejia held serve against her doubles partner and moved into the semis over #2 Herrera in two closer games. Its always tough to play your doubles partner, and the two know each other’s games intimately. Mejia moves on for a compelling semi final.

In the Semis

  • Longoria improved to an amazing 52-3 against her long-time rival Salas, topping her 7,6 to move into the finals of the 25th consecutive LPRT event.
  • Mejia topped Martinez 8,6 for the fourth successive time in major/pro competitions to move into just her second ever pro final.

In the Finals, which some pundits (ahem, me) predicted, Mejia took it to Longoria in a way she hadn’t done since her sole previous victory over the #1, and kept up the pressure all game for the two-game win.

Points Implications of results:

The big move, of course, is Mejia, who should move from #10 to #3 with this big win. That is assuming that there’s no rolling expiration of points going on and we’re just adding existing points to the current totals for each player. It will be the first time Mejia has been anywhere close to the top of the LPRT rankings, where she really belongs based on her talent level.

Other minor moves in the rankings that i’m projecting include:

  • Mendez dropping from 4 to 6
  • Centellas dropping out of the top 8.
  • Martinez moving up from 13 to 11.
  • Laime moving up 2 spots to 18.

Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: http://rball.pro/27A5B6

Round of 16: two minor upsets in the 8/9 and 7/10 matches, other wise seeds held.

In the quarters, all four top seeds held serve, but it wasn’t easy; three of the four matches went to tie-breaker and the top seeds were stretched 9,10 by the American duo of Lawrence & Scott.

In the semis; a shot across the bow of ladies pro doubles; the Guatemalan national team of Martinez & Rodriguez handled the #1 Longoria/Salas team to move into their first pro doubles final as a team. On the bottom-half, Mejia & Herrera moved into the final as well, easily handling the Argentine duo of Mendez/Centellas.

In the final: the Mexican duo made quick work of the Guatemalans in game one, then held on 15-14 in game two to give Mejia the shock double on the weekend. Final score 1,14.

Women’s Open draw

There was a very solid women’s open draw on the weekend as well, which featured 18 players and was headlined by #7 and #8 players Barrios and Centellas as well as several former top 10 pro players.

The semis nearly went chalk, with 4 of the top 5 seeds advancing, all regular LPRT touring pros. Erin Slutzky had the biggest upset of the early rounds, taking out #4 Amaya Cris 11-10 before falling to #5 Enriquez easily in the quarters.

In the semis, four countries represented: Bolivia, Mexico, Chile and Argentina. A very international semis.

  • Barrios got a solid tiebreaker win over Enriquez.
  • Munoz got one of the better wins of her career by topping Centellas in 2.

In the final, Munoz finished off Barrios in two to capture the crown and finish off a significant weekend of results. She finishes atop the open draw with a series of wins over top 8 players and wins a draw that included at least 4 current or very recent top 10 players. Great weekend for the Chilean.

Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst​, Jerry J Josey Jr.​., and Tj Baumbaugh​. Thanks to Leo Ray Vasquez​ for his weekend broadcast work as well. Lastly thanks to Sudsy Monchik​, who was in KC with his wife for the event and who did a great job broadcasting as always. I’d like to say that the streaming video quality looked really amazing this weekend, more “high def” than I’d seen it before, and the broadcast team did a great job of live action camera switching. Bravo and kudos to the entire tech team of LPRT.

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 FB. If your name is here and it isn’t tagged … it probably means I attempted to tag you but FB stripped it.

Next up on the Racquetball Calendar?

  • Next weekend there’s an RKT event in Chihuahua.
  • The next big tournament is the Outdoor Nationals in Huntington Beach, CA the weekend of 7/11/21.
  • The weekend after that will be the US Team Qualifying plus Junior Nationals in Des Moines.
  • The next known LPRT event is the combo IRT/LPRT World Doubles event in mid-august in Denver.

tags

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TeamRoot SuperMax Preview

The LPRT is back in action, and back in Kansas City for the fourth time in three years. Thanks to major LPRT benefactor Randy Root and Teamroot.com for running his 4th grand slam and for his ongoing support of the sport (both pros and outdoor).

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=37491

36 of the top women’s pros from around the world are here competing representing 7 different countries.

Top20 players missing: None. For the first time that I can think of writing these previews, there’s not a single top20 ranked player missing from a pro event. The highest ranked players missing are #22 Erin Nocam Rivera and #23 Susy Acosta, neither of whom are full time tour players at this point. So this should be a fantastic draw.

Big news: the return of #3 Maria Jose Vargas Parada, who took time off the tour for the birth of her second child. She’s back, and it should be interesting to see how rusty she is when it comes to competing in the back-end of this event.

Round of 64
36 players means a round of 32 in Overland park; here’s a quick look at the compelling play-in matches:

  • #32/33 Linda Tyler versus Montserrat Pérez; Tyler got a great win in the last LPRT event opener; this matchup projects to be a bit tougher.
  • A couple of international juniors have flown in to make their pro debuts. Bolivia’s Natalia Mita and Colombia’s Camila Rivero are both 16U players and will provide tough matchups for María Paz Riquelme and Annie Roberts respectively.

– The 31/34 match is a bruiser; 2020 US National team qualifier Erika Manilla is set to face former touring pro and current top outdoor specialist Michelle De La Rosa. One top American will bow out quite early here, and I suspect it will be Manilla.

Round of 32 matches to watch for: Here’s some of the openers that I think will be compelling:

  • 16/17 features two touring veterans in Adriana Riveros and @maria renee rodriguez, who have only managed to face off once before in a top-level event despite both competing on tour for years. Riveros topped MRR in 2016, but things are a lot closer between them now. I still slightly favor Riveros here, but MRR should push for the win.
  • #8 Angelica Barrios vs #25 Daniela Rico: these two managed to play in the first round just a few weeks ago, with Rico pushing Barrios to a breaker. No reason not to think it could happen again.
  • #13 Amaya Cris will have her hands full with #20 Brenda Laime Jalil; upset watch here.
  • #14 @ana gabriela martinez vs #19 Hollie Scott; these two played a barn burner in December, with Scott pushing the former World Champ to a breaker before falling. Lets see if the USA #1 can push the Guatemalan #1 here, in the kind of international matchup that Scott will be seeing later this year at Worlds.
  • #7 Valeria Centellas vs #26 Lucia Gonzalez; another repeat of a 1st rounder from early may, where Centellas topped the dangerous Lucia in two solid games. Gonzalez skipped Mexican Nationals last week, perhaps to rest up for the super max. Despite the seedings of both players, these are (in my estimation) 2 of the top 6-7 players in the world, and this is the best round of 32 in terms of talent.
  • #10 Montse Mejia vs #23 Micaela Meneses Cuellar; a tough draw for the young Bolivan, running into perhaps the 2nd or 3rd best player in the world right now in Mejia.
  • #15 Kelani Lawrence vs #18 @sheryl lotts; another USA vs USA match, with Lawrence favored to down her some-times doubles partner.

– #2 Alexandra Herrera vs mDLR: if Michelle advances, Herrera has a far more difficult round of 32 than she may like. These two played a 12-10 5th game at the US Open a couple years ago, and mDLR can push the lefty. Herrera should advance, but will have to work for it.

Round of 16 projections.
-#1 Paola Longoria should dominate the veteran Riveros.

  • I see #8 Barrios taking out #9 veteran Rhonda Rajsich.
  • After several years entrenched at #2 on tour, Samantha Salas Solis has fallen to #5, but had a great run at Mexican Nationals last week, getting wins over several tough compatriots, and will look to build on that here. She gets an opponent in #12 Carla Muñoz Montesinos who upset Salas in Dec 2019, so she has the playbook to win, but i like the way Salas is trending. Samantha to advance.
  • #4 Natalia Mendez over Laime.
  • #3 Vargas projects to play #14 Martinez in a really tough round of 16, especially given her time off. Based on talent levels, this should be a close one for Vargas, but she could be rusty from the layoff. I like the winner of this match to make a deep run.
  • #11 Nancy Enriquez just beat #6 Jessica Parrilla last week at Mexican Nationals handily, and I think she does it again here.
  • #10 Mejia over #7 Centellas; man this quarter is tough; Centellas, Lucia Gonzalez and Mejia are basically 3 of the top 6 players in my personal rankings, and they all play into one quadrant of one quarter in this draw. Mejia has not lost to Valeria before and should advance here.

– #2 Herrera over #15 Lawrence: Herrera takes out her second successive American.

Projected Qtrs:

  • #1 Longoria over #8 Barrios; a rematch of the shock final in the Dec 2020 supermax event, which rocketed Angelica to the top 8 on tour. Paola makes quick work of the young Bolivian player here.
  • #4 Mendez over #5 Salas: these two met in the quarters of the Sweet Caroline and Natalia dominated. Despite Salas’ excellent run in Mexico, Mendez is playing too tough right now and advances.
  • #11 Enriquez loses to Vargas, despite playing in top form.
  • #10 Mejia tops #2 Herrera to give Alexandra her earliest exit for a while. I think Mejia is either the 2nd or 3rd best player in the world, and she’ll get a chance to prove it here.
    Semis:
  • #1 Longoria over #4 Mendez; Paola is 5-0 lifetime over the Argentine.
  • #10 Mejia over #3 Vargas; at full strength i give Vargas the edge here, but with the layoff, Mejia gets the edge
    Finals;

– Longoria takes out Mejia once again in the final of a big event for the title.

Doubles review
16 teams competing in a full 16 draw. the #1 team of Longoria/Salas has won dozens of titles together now; they should advance to the final from the top bracket over the Guatemalan team of Martinez/MRR, who have been playing amazingly well together as of late. Don’t count out the US national doubles champ team of Lawrence/Scott, or the Colombian national team of Amaya/Riveros though.
From the bottom, somehow despite constantly making pro finals, Herrera/Mejia are still not seeded 2nd. No matter; the bottom half of this draw is not nearly as stacked as the top half, and the Mexicans should meet and beat the Argentine national doubles team of Mendez/Centellas in the semis to make for another all-Mexican final.

Look for Longoria/Salas to win and give Paola another double.

Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Look for Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr.., and Tj Baumbaugh on the mike, 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 FB. If your name is here and it isn’t tagged … it probably means I attempted to tag you but FB stripped it.
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2021 Sweet Caroline LPRT Grand Slam Pro-Am Wrap-up

Longoria keeps on winning. Photo via US Open 2019, Kevin Savory

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

  • Pro Singles: Paola Longoria
  • Pro Doubles: Paola Longoria & Samantha Salas
    The 101st career tier-1 or higher singles win for Longoria (107 overall including satellites). And this is the 33rd pro doubles title for the Salas/Longoria pairing since we started tracking ladies pro doubles data in 2014. Amazing.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=37154

Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: http://rball.pro/C41F20

In thee 64s: Just three matches in the early days, but an opening barn-burner as Texan Linda Tyler, who drove 13 hours the day before the match to get an 8am start time, downed Bolivian vet Jenny Daza Navia in an 11-10 back and forth match.

In the 32s, here were the notable and upset matches:

  • In the 16/17 match, Kelani Lawrence showed no signs of rust and came out blazing against her USA top rival Hollie Scott. Lawrence raced to a huge early lead in game one, held on to take that game, then chipped away at Scott in game two to advance 11,7.
  • #8 Valeria Centellas made a statement in topping dark-horse favorite Lucia Gonzalez in strong fashion 11,9. Centellas has added a power component to her game that should let her really challenge the players ranked above her, and did not let the dangerous Gonzalez get the upset here.
  • #5 Rhonda Rajsich made fast work of 19-yr old Shane Diaz, playing in just her 2nd pro tournament.
  • #12 Nancy Enriquez put on a serving clinic and blasted #21 Ana Laura Flores 4,3. Enriquez mixed up her serves, using deadly jam serves and devastating drive serves to blow past a dangerous 1st round opponent in Flores and advance.
  • #4 Angelica Barrios – Raquetbolista was pushed in her opener against Daniela Rico before advancing in a tie-breaker. 14,(12),3.
  • #19 Brenda Laime Jalil got the upset over her country-woman Adriana Riveros 11,11 in what might portend to be a changing of the guard in Colombian racquetball. Amaya and Riveros have long been 1-2 in Colombian racquetball heirarchy; Laime is looking to break into that grouping to represent the country at the next Int’l event.
  • In the 15/18 match, Sheryl Lotts saved match points against and came back from 0-6 in the breaker to beat Maria Renee Rodríguez in the best match of the round. Final score (12),14,8. Really very little between these two players on the day and a shame one had to lose.
  • – #2 Alexandra Herrera made fast work of #31 Erika Manilla, a match many thought would be closer.

In the 16s:

  • #1 Paola Longoria got a scare in game two, as Lawrence raced out to a huge early lead, but reeled her back in and advanced in two games over Kelani 5,13.
  • #8 Centellas got her second solid win in a row, downing touring veteran Chilean Carla Muñoz Montesinos10,9.
  • #12 Enriquez continues to look rejuvenated after easing past #5 Rajsich in two easy games 7,6.
  • #13 Montse Mejia took out the Kansas City finalist Barrios in two close games 12,14. The last time these two met was the semis of 2018 World 18U Juniors, and these two (along with Martinez) represent a golden generation for women’s racquetball.
  • #3 Samantha Salas Solis eased past a tough #19 Laime 14,9.
  • #6 Natalia Mendez continues to get statement wins, this time downing reigning World Champ Ana Gabriela Martínez 7,10. Mendez clearly has a new approach in the service box and has some added pace; her projected quarter will be telling.
  • #7 Jessica Parrilla] played the round’s only tiebreaker, advancing past veteran Colombian Amaya Cris 11-8.
  • – #2 Herrera downed her second American in a row, moving past #18 Lotts in two.

In the Quarters

  • Longoria dominated Centellas 2,6. Longoria played bottom board over and over and the young Argentine could do little to stop her.
  • Mejia outlasted her countrywoman Enriquez, splitting the first two games then running away in the breaker. 14,(13),1. Enriquez has made a big statement in this event.
  • Speaking of statements, Mendez ran past Salas 7,6 to advance to just her 5th career semi final. Whatever she’s been doing during the pandemic, its working.
  • Herrera dodged a bullet and took out her countrywoman Parrilla in a tiebreaker. Score 7,(14),3. Herrera continues her steady-eddie pace and advances to another semi.

In the Semis, both promising match-ups turned out to be two game blowouts.

  • Longoria downed her erstwhile rival Mejia for the Mexican #1 crown 4,7. It has now been more than two years since Mejia’s famous win over Longoria in the 2019 Mexico National finals, and Longoria has been dominating their matchups of late. Mejia needs to regain her mojo from that final and figure out a pathway forward if she wants to break through.
  • Herrera cruised past Mendez 6,8. Mendez’ fantastic tourney run ends, and Herrera proves the doubters wrong by living up to her seed and advancing to her 5th career final.

In the Finals, Longoria and Herrera played a back and forth first game, but then Paola ran way in the second to take the title 12,3.

Points Implications of results
Thanks to the lack of pro events, when this tournament posts we’re set to have some pretty wholesale changes at the top unless the LPRT decides to persist some tournament points or go to a longer term before retiring points. But, assuming we’re staying with a 12-month rolling calendar, here’s what the rankings will look like after these results:

  • Herrera moves to #2
  • Barrios will move up to #3
  • Mendez will jump to #4, all three career highs
  • Mejia jumps from 14 to 6, much more in line with her true talent level.
  • Gaby Martinez jumps from 11 to 7.
  • Salas drops from 4 to 8, which may not be in line with her true talent level but is indicative of her performance lately in pro events.
  • Rhonda drops from 6 to 12, which would be the lowest she’s been ranked professionally since 1999.
  • Vargas drops from 2 all the way to 13 thanks to missing this event.

Which would make the top 8 seeds in the next event go like this: Longoria, Herrera, Barrios, Mendez, Parrilla, Mejia, Martinez, Salas. Which puts Mejia and Longoria on opposite sides of the draw.

Doubles review
Match report in the PRS database: http://rball.pro/C0E57E
A healthy doubles draw featured 15 teams and some great match-ups. The 16s had several tie-breakers, including an 11-10 win for the American duo of Rajsich/Lotts over Laime/Gonzalez.
The quarters featured the all-American team of Rajsich/Scott taking a game off the #1 team but losing. The Guatemalan national team cruised into the semis. The #2 Mexicans were dominant in games 1 and 3 but took game two off in advancing, and the USA #1 team of Scott/Lawrence took out the Argentine national team in an upset.
In the semis, it was Mexico over Guatemala in one side (though the improving Guatemalan team stretched the #1 seeds to 11-9 before falling) and Mexico over USA in the other to setup another all Mexican final.

In that final, a final seen more and more on tour, we saw Longoria/Salas taking out Mejia/Herrera in two quick games.

Other Major Draws:

  • Women’s Open featured a 12-person draw with some interesting results between touring pros outside the top 10. In the final, we saw Micaela Meneses Cuellar take out Manilla in the final. Meneses turned 17 just a couple of months ago and took out three solid pros en route to the title.

– Men’s Open was very entertaining; 25 players from everywhere from Mexico to Maryland duked it out. In the final IRT top8 player Lalo Portillo took out the #2 seed from Maryland MoMo Zelada in two games. Portillo blew through this draw, never giving up more than 8 points in a game all weekend.

Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., and Tj Baumbaugh, along with JT R Ball who flew in from California to help out with streaming and broadcasting. Great job all; it was a grueling broadcast schedule.
Thanks to the Tourney Directors Josey and Jacob Vargueuse for putting this event on!

Reminder to Players! Please like and follow this page so that when I tag you, you see it. Facebook will only retain tags of people that like/follow a page, which means lots of you are not getting the notoriety of getting tagged and noticed on FB.

Next up?

This coming weekend is an RKT event in Chihuahua that should be interesting. The NMRA has its Nationals in St Louis. The next LPRT event is Teamroot super max is June 20th.

tags
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2021 Sweet Caroline LPRT Grand Slam Pro-Am Preview

Welcome back pro racquetball fans! We have not had a full tier pro event since early January, and the ladies have not had a full pro event since early December 2020, so we’re more than due.

r2sports link for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=37154

There’s a huge draw of pro ladies in South Carolina this weekend; 35 players signed up, the largest ladies pro draw since the 2019 US Open. #1 Paola Longoria is the defending champ here, having won the Jan 2020 event over #2 Maria Jose Vargas Parada. We won’t have a rematch this year, since Vargas recently gave birth to her second child and is on a playing hiatus.

The top 8 features one relatively new name: Angelica Barrios is currently ranked 5th, seeded 4th, thanks to her break-through performance in December’s Kansas City grand slam. The pandemic has really wreaked havoc on the tour rankings, making single event results even more magnified in importance.

The rest of the draw is stacked, missing just 2 players out of the world’s top 20 (Vargas and #19 Masiel Rivera Oporto).

Lets preview the draw, which was released late Wednesday night in an online reaction event, a great idea from the LPRT and commissioner Tj Baumbaugh.

Play starts with a few round of 64 matches.

  • Bolivian veteran #32 Jenny Daza Navia makes a rare pro appearance, and faces Texas amateur #33 Linda Tyler.
  • Former Mexican junior national champ #35 Montserrat Pérez takes on another former Mexican Jr National champ in #30 Naomi Ros. Ros was the 2018 Junior world champ in 12U, putting her in her age 15 season, while Perez won the Mexican 18Us in 2015.
  • #34 Costa Rican Maricruz Ortiz, the reigning world 16U world junior champ, takes on a drastically under-seeded #31 Erika Manilla, who made the US Team qualifying event final in Feb 2020 in her last competitive event.

Projecting the 32s: Here’s some of the round of 32 matches that I think may be interesting and/or competitive:

  • #16/#17: I frequently note that these 16/17 and 15/18 matches are always tough, and this one will be the same. #16 Hollie Scott takes on #17 Kelani Lawrence, who have met in the last three major US Team qualifying/Nationals events. Kelani took out Scott in the 2018 Nationals en route to a finals loss, then they played an amazing 2019 final with Lawrence edging Scott 11-10 to take the title, then met up in the 2020 qualifier in the semis, where Scott took out Kelani on the way to the title her self. Lawrence is now seemingly recovered from the eye injury she suffered in Las Vegas in September, but I’m predicting Scott to take this one.
  • #9 Carla Muñoz Montesinos vs #24 Graci Wargo; the newly matriculated Junior Floridian Wargo faces a tough early test from the newlywed Munoz, who now has a pretty solid regular training partner in husband Alan Natera Chavez.
  • #25 Lucia Gonzalez v #8 Valeria Centellas; Wow, what a first round match up this is. Centellas raced into prominence partly thanks to her results at this event last January and has maintained her top10 presence since. But Gonzalez might be the best player in the world outside of Frederique Lambert who does not tour regularly and routinely takes out LPRT top 10 players when she does compete. I like picking upsets and I’ll go with Lucia here.
  • #12 Nancy Enriquez vs #21 Ana Laura Flores; long-time top10 player Enriquez faces a tricky opener against the youngster Flores, who beat Scott and barely lost to Rajsich in her last pro appearance in March 2020.
  • #20 Susy Acosta makes an appearance in her 23rd straight season, but likely falls to her countrywoman #13 Montse Mejia.
  • Its Colombia v Colombia in #14 Adriana Riveros vs #19 Brenda Laime Jalil. Last time they played, it was Sept 2019 and Laime advanced, and I’ll go with the upset again here.
  • #11 Ana Gabriela Martínez takes on 17yr old Bolivian Micaela Meneses Cuellar in what could be a close opener.
  • The always competitive 15/18 match should be interesting; #15 Maria Renee Rodríguez takes on #18 Sheryl Lotts. These two met in this same tourney last year, a come-from behind win for Lotts. In fact, they’ve met 5 times at pro or international events and it has always gone tiebreaker. Lotts owns the career 4-1 advantage and i’ll predict she advances.
  • #2 Alexandra Herrera, who gets a career high seeding here, likely faces one heck of a challenge in #31 Manilla. These two have never met, but Manilla has proven herself to be able to hang with top players. Herrera is normally a model of consistency, rarely taking early round upsets and playing to her seeding … but she’s going to have to work for this win.

round of 16: Lots of tough openers, but if my predictions hold here’s your projected 16s:

  • #1 Paola Longoria v #16 Scott: Mexico’s #1 versus USA’s #1; Longoria advances but Scott gets some more experience against the best.
  • #25 Gonzalez over #8 Munoz: if Lucia can beat Centellas, she can beat Munoz.
  • #12 Enriquez over #5 Rhonda Rajsich; last time they met was a 3-game win for Nancy and I’m guessing it’ll be the same here.
  • #13 Mejia over #4 Barrios: despite the rankings, I think Mejia is perhaps the 3rd or 4th best player in the world. These two met in the finals of World 18U two years running in 2017 and 2018, both times a two-game win for the Mexican. Barrios had a heck of a run in Kansas City but falls here.
  • #3 Samantha Salas Solis overpowers #19 Laime
  • #6 Natalia Mendez over #11 Martinez: last time these two met was in the 2019 PARC, a Mendez career win. Mendez seems to have added some depth to her game and may be playing more than Martinez. When both are training full time the edge goes to Gaby, but right now i give the Argentinian the edge.
  • #7 Jessica Parrilla takes out #10 Cristina Amaya Cassino in a battle of two long-time pros.
  • #2 Herrera takes out her second straight top American player by advancing past #18 Lotts.

Projected Qtrs:

  • #1 Longoria over #25 Gonzalez: the run of Lucia ends here.
  • #13 Mejia over #12 Enriquez; Mejia has won their last few meetings.
  • #3 Salas over #6 Mendez: Salas has never lost to Mendez, but they also have not played in years. This could be close based on recent form of both players.
  • #7 Parrilla over #2 Herrera: they have not played since Dec 2019, when Jessica was still coming back from her knee injury, but they were always close. I think this could be the big breakthrough for Parrilla.
    Interestingly, I’ve predicted 7 of the 8 quarterfinalists to be Mexican. A great depiction of just how dominant that country has become on the ladies circuit.
    Semis:
  • Longoria over Mejia; One day Montse will break through with another win over Paola, but for now Paola rules.
  • Parrilla over Salas: if Jessica can beat Herrera, she can beat Salas in a power-for-power match

Finals: Longoria over Parrilla.

Doubles Preview:

15 teams in the doubles (odd since there’s 35 singles players entered), but it definitely features several international flavor teams as IRF countries start to think about the Worlds and PARC event coming up later this year.

The world’s best ladies pro doubles team is back together in Longoria/Salas; they’re the #1 seeds. They seem likely to face the Guatemalan #1 team of Gonzalez/Rodriguez in the top semis.

On the bottom, the #2 seeds are the new Argentine national team of Mendez/Centellas. They’ll face a tough quarter against the USA #1 team of Lawrence/Scott but look like underdogs against the strong Mexican team of Meija/Herrera.

I’ll predict a frequently seen final between the two top Mexican teams of Longoria/Salas v Mejia/Herrera. The veterans have taken the last 4 meetings against their countrymates, and i’ll go with Longoria getting the double here.

Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Look for Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., and Baumbaugh on the mike, calling the shots!

Thanks to the Tourney Directors Jerry J Josey Jr. & Jacob.k.varughese for putting this event on!

Reminder to Players! Please like and follow this page so that when I tag you, you see it. Facebook will only retain tags of people that like/follow a page, which means lots of you are not getting the notoriety of getting tagged and noticed on FB.

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TeamRoot.com Super Max LPRT Wrap up

2019 World Junior 18U champ Barrios takes a huge step up in the LPRT world. Photo via Barrios’ facebook page.

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Paola Longoria

– Doubles; Natalia Mendez & Valeria Centellas

In Singles, this is Longoria’s 100th career Tier 1 or higher pro win, and its the biggest pay day of her career (she has an additional 6 satellite tour wins, which is why last year’s US Open was advertised as her “100th pro win”). After her tough opener, she basically destroyed the field, allowing 32 points in four games from the 16s onwards, and has opened up a massive lead over #2 Vargas for second place in the rankings.

On the doubles side, This is Mendez’ third career pro title, with her third different partner. Centellas, who famously won the 2018 World Adult doubles title with Yazmine Sabja Ráquetbol] as a 16yr old, continues to show off her doubles chops playing for her new country, and the Mendez/Centellas partnership may be a pretty solid one going forward.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=36519

——————

Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: http://rball.pro/2A42D4

In the 32s, we had some solid matches but no surprises.
– #1 Paola Longoria had perhaps the toughest round-of-32 match she’s ever had, getting pressed by her young country-woman Lucia Gonzalez 10,11 in the first round. Gonzalez played well and was not awed by the #1 player, but superior fitness and consistency of the world’s top player shown through in the end.
– #16 Masiel Rivera Oporto held serve against #17 Erin Nocam Rivera Groves, advancing in two tough games 10,13.
– #21 Guatemalan #1 Ana Gabriela Martínez] upset #12 Colombian #1 Adriana Riveros Racquetball 7,8 to advance.
– #20 Hollie Rae Scott downed fellow American #13 Sheryl Lotts in two 3,9 to move on. Scott continues to show why she may be in line to race up the pro rankings with a full season of events, and why she’s currently the #1 ranked American woman.
– #11 Nancy Enriquez advanced by the skin of her teeth, saving two match points against and squeaking out an 11-10 tiebreaker win against Bolivian junior #22 Micaela Meneses Cuellar. Enriquez cruised in game one to win 15-8, then Meneses just steamrolled to an 15-5 win in game two. In the breaker, Enriquez got up early, then Meneses crawled her way back. For a bit it looked like an upset in the making, but at the end-game both players made critical misses and Enriquez utilized a backhand drive to close it out. Great match. It was the sole match to go breaker in the opening round.
– #23 Angelica Barrios played consistent and conservative racquetball to down #10 Amaya Cris 7,10 and move on. Amaya had the power, but Barrios kept calm and kept the ball in play over and again, and ground out a win.

—————-

In the 16s, we got 5 tiebreakers and a lot of close matches.
– #1 Longoria made short work of #16 Rivera 3,1.
– #8 Jessica Parrilla and #9 Carla Muñoz Montesinos were the last match of the night to finish, and gave the tournament perhaps its best match of the day. An 11-10 nail-biter that was back and forth in the tie-breaker, with both ladies having serves for match point saved against twice. Parrilla advances (10),13,10.
– #21 Martinez got her second upset of the tournament’s opening day, downing #5 Rhonda Rajsich 6,10. Martinez did not look troubled in the match and could be a dark-horse for further upsets. Rajsich suffers some unlucky seeding to face Martinez in the 16s and exits.
– #20 Scott got the biggest win of her career, downing #4 seed Samantha Salas Solis in a tiebreaker to move into the quarters. Scott was able to keep pace with the tour’s hardest hitter, and kept her composure as the match got tight at the end. Salas did not show much ill effect from her off-season shoulder surgery; she just ran into a hot player at the wrong time. Final score 11,(11),7
– #3 Alexandra Herrera came from a game down to top the resurgent #14 Maria Renee Rodríguez (11),11,2. MRR has stepped up her game, but Herrera (sitting at what I believe is her career best ranking #3) battled back to move on.
– #6 Natalia Mendez Erlwein played a tight game one with #11 Enriquez, then turned on the jets and cruised to a two game win. Mendez looks like she’s been working on her drive serve technique and aced Nancy repeatedly in the 2nd game to race to a win. She looks like another upset special in the quarters.
– #23 Barrios defeated #7 Valeria Centellas in a tiebreaker in a rematch of 2019’s junior world 18U title final to move on. An unlucky match-up here between two of the best young players in the world, both of whom look like they could be major factors in the sport moving forward.
– #2 Maria Jose Vargas Parada and #15 Montse Mejia played the first two games as close as one might have expected, splitting the games 12 and 14, but in the tiebreaker Vargas blitzed to a 7-0 lead and made it stick, taking advantage of some tentative shots in the breaker from Mejia to advance.Seed report: your 8 quarterfinalists are 1,2,3,6 … and 20,21 and 23. Three seeds in the 20s advance to the quarters.

—————-

In the Quarters, we saw some more tiebreakers and more upsets, with two players seeded in the 20s advancing to the semis.
– #1 Longoria faced off against #8 Parrilla, in a rematch of the finals of the 2020 Mexican Nationals. Paola left little doubt who the top player in the world is, blasting Parrilla 5,1 to move into the semis.
– In a battle of 20-something seeds to get to the semis, former World Champ Martinez cruised to a game 1 win, then lost her drive serve accuracy and allowed top American Scott back into the match. In the breaker though, she re-found her weapon and raced to an 11-1 win to move into the semis. Final score: 4,(12),1
– #3 Herrera held serve and moved into the semis over the resurgent #6 Mendez 9,14. Herrera has been consistently making the semis as of late, advancing to this gate in the last four pro events in which she’s appeared. It is one of the reasons she’s elevated to #3 on tour.
– In one of the more startling turnarounds i’ve seen on the pro tour lately. Bolivian junior Barrios came back from a game one drubbing 15-1 to dominate in game two, then hold on in a tight tiebreaker to beat the #2 seed Vargas and advance to the semis. Final score: (1),8,10. Barrios found a serve that vexed Vargas for most of game 2 and 3, and got a lot of 3-shot rally points off of it, enough to drive Vargas to frustrations. At the tail end of the breaker there were a couple of avoidable hinder calls, heightening the tension at the end. The 17-yr old advances to the semis.

Seeds in the semis: 1,3, 21 and 23. A tale of two populations of players right now in the world. The regulars and those talented players that are not playing full-time but which are equally as good as the top touring pros.

—————

In the Semis; one blow out, one more upset.
– #1 Longoria dominated her frequent international rival #21 Martinez 1,7 to move into the final. Martinez could not get anything going against the GOAT, and Longoria looks unstoppable. Martinez famously topped Longoria for the 2018 world title … but it remains her sole win in 14 tries against the world’s #1.
– #23 Barrios pulled off yet another upset in a tournament filled with them, and moved to the finals with a hard-fought two game win over #3 Herrera. Barrios was fatigued from her efforts on the day; she walked straight out of a tie-breaker win in the Women’s Open and onto the court to play this semi, and it showed in her play. But, she held on in game one, saving game points against, then pulled out game two. Final score 14,10. A #23 seed into the final is the 2nd highest seed on record ever to advance that far (behind only Rajsich’s amazing run in the 2000 US Open, where she reached the final as the #44 seed).

In the Finals

Barrios was talked into bowing out of the Women’s open draw, where she would have had to play two singles matches before her noon sunday pro final. Thus, she played the biggest match of her life fresh. Barrios was able to hang with Longoria early in each game, standing up to the champ and putting balls away, but Longoria’s tenacity and aggressiveness on the court wore down the young Bolivian, and the final score showed: Longoria took the match 5,7.

—————-

Points Implications of results.

The re-start of the tour after so many months had drastic effects on the tour ranking, and, with a huge influx of points from the “super max” grand slam and surprising quarter and semi-finalists, we’re going to see huge shifts again. If i have my points projections right:
– Barrios jumps from #32 to #8 thanks to the massive influx of points making a Grand Slam final.
– Mendez jumps her two closest rivals to rise to #4, a career high ranking for the Argentina representative.
– Martinez jumps from #26 to #13 and would be well positioned to make more deep pro tourney runs.
– Scott jumps from #25 to #15 with her excellent showing.

The top 30 pros who missed the event all lost at least 4-5 ranking slots as a result of the big jumps above them. They’ll have to make up ground the next time we have an event.

—————

Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: http://rball.pro/8FF6BA

15 teams battled it out for the huge doubles purse here. Seeds held in the first round.

In the quarters:
– #1 Longoria/Salas cruised past #8 Laime/Rivera in two.
– #4 Herrera/Mejia held serve against their Mexican counter parts #5 Parrilla/Rivera, but it took a tiebreaker to move on.
– #6 Martinez/Rodriguez took out Munoz/Enriquez in two games. The Guatemalan national team looks tough.
– #2 Mendez/Centellas ran past the Colombian national team of Riveros/Amaya. The newly-formed Argentinian team did not skip a beat and both players are excellent doubles specialists.

In the semis
– #1 Longoria/Salas held on after dropping the first game against their frequent rivals, #4 Herrera/Mejia, and moved into the finals with an 11-8 win.
– #2 Mendez/Centellas continued to dominate, crushing the Guatemalans in game two to advance 13,4

In the final…The Argentine doubles specialists split the first two games, but got really hot in the breaker and raced to the title win in an upset over the #1 Mexican team.

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Women’s Open: The Women’s Open draw had a huge purse, and a large draw of players competing for it.

The quarters went to seeds, mostly top non-top 8 touring pros.

In the quarters, Barrios upset top seed Munoz, Parrilla ousted Riveros, Centellas crushed Scott, and Enriquez took a tiebreaker win over Amaya.

In the semis, Parrilla got a walkover when Barrios withdrew, while Centellas topped Enriquez in two. In the final, Centellas topped Parrilla in two close games to take the title and finish off an impressive event.

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr.., and Tj Baumbaugh . Also shout out to Sandy Rios who did a great job on the mike all weekend, and to Leo Ray Vasquez who flew in to help with dual-court streaming.

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Next up? The next known pro tournament on the books will be the IRT Suivant Consulting Grand Slam in Atlanta in early January.

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TagsInternational Racquetball TourLPRTInternational Racquetball FederationInternational Racquetball Federation – IRFPan American Racquetball Confederation – PARCUnitedHealthcare US OPEN Racquetball ChampionshipsUSA RacquetballRacquetball CanadaFederación Mexicana de RaquetbolFederación Boliviana De Raquetbol – FeboraFederación Boliviana de RacquetballRacquetball ColombiaFederacion Colombiana de RacquetballAsociación Argentina de RacquetballFederación Chilena RacquetballRacquetball Rancagua, ChileASOCIACION DE RAQUETBOL DE GUATEMALAReaching Your Dream FoundationHashtags #racquetball#proracquetball#lprt

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Teamroot.com Super Max LPRT tourney Preview

The first Tier1 pro event since March is happening this weekend, and it looks set to be a fantastic event. Racquetball enthusiast and major sponsor Randy Root has sponsored a Grand Slam LPRT event for the weekend and its invitee list is a who’s who of women’s racquetball right now.

R2sports home page: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=36519

There’s 33 ladies in the Singles draw and a 15-team pro doubles draw.

top20 players missing; #12 Kelani Lawrence, still recovering from the eye injury she suffered in an assault in Las Vegas. #18 Cassandra Lee is the only other missing top 20 players, making for an astoundingly deep tournament.

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Lets preview the singles draw.

Round of 32: here’s some notable matches to watch for.

– #1 Paola Longoria vs #32 Lucia Gonzalez: right out of the box, a compelling match-up. Longoria is of course the #1 player in the world, but Gonzalez is a 7-time junior world champion who beat two top-10 women’s pros at the 2020 Mexican Nationals and probably would be pushing into the top 4 if she played the tour full time. A tough draw for Lucia and a tough opener for Paola.

– #16/#17 matches are always close and this will be the same. #16 Masiel Rivera Oporto takes on #17 Erin Nocam Rivera Groves in the opening round. These two met at the 2019 US Open, a tiebreaker win for Masiel.

– #12 Adriana Riveros Racquetball vs #21 Ana Gabriela Martínez; They’ve never met professionally, but have faced off four times internationally (Martinez leads 3-1). Martinez’s seed is no indicator of her talent; she’s taken significant time off recently for schooling. Look for Gaby to move on here and is a dark-horse in this tourney.

– #13 Sheryl Lotts v #20 Hollie Scott ; a match up of two of the best American women out there. Scott has been playing well lately and dominated Lotts at the 2019 qualifying event in Tempe when they last played. Look for the upset-by-seed here.

– #14 Maria Renee Rodríguez vs #19 Adrienne Haynes; an intriguing match-up between two veteran pros.

– #11 Nancy Enriquez vs #22 Micaela Meneses Cuellar; The layoff has not been kind to Enriquez’s ranking; she finished last season ranked 8th and was seeded 6th in the last tourney she played. Now she’s bounced all the way out of the top 10. For her troubles she gets the precocious Bolivian Meneses, playing in her age 16 season and who owns several world junior titles. Enriquez should advance but Meneses should play strong.

– #10 Amaya Cris vs #23 Angelica Barrios; these two faced off in the 2019 Pan Am Games, with the youngster Barrios taking an 11-10 win. She finished her junior career in Nov 2019 by taking the 18U title but has had few opportunities to play the pro tour since. I think this will be close but look for the upset.

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Projected round of 16 matches to watch for:

– #8/#9 Carla Muñoz Montesinos vs Jessica Parrilla; they played at this juncture in Jan 2020 in Florida, a closer 2-game win for Parrilla. They’re both back in the top 10 after big grinding efforts to get there, and expect a dogfight to get into the quarters.

– #5 Rhonda Rajsich vs #21 Martinez: Rajsich kicks off her 21st season of touring, still in the #5 slot, but runs into former world champ Martinez in a brutal round of 16 match. These two have met no less than 9 times over the years and always play close. I’ll guess this goes tie-breaker and watch for the second successive upset by the Guatemalan.

– #11 Enriquez vs #6 Natalia Mendez Erlwein; thanks to their general seeding over the past few years, there’s scant little history between these two perennial top 10 players; two split meetings in two months between Dec 2017 and Jan 2018. I’ll go with the Argentine in a breaker.

– #23 Barrios vs #7 Valeria Centellas; Centellas has rocketed up the rankings thanks to two big-time finishes last season, but runs into her former countrywoman in Barrios here. This is a rematch of the 2018 World 18U juniors championship just a year ago, a match Barrios won. I think Centellas is the better player, but Barrios has her number. Look for the upset.

– #2 Maria Jose Vargas Paradavs #15 Montse Mejia; what a round of 16 match; two of the four best women in the world face off two rounds too early. Mejia finished last season ranked #7 but tumbles all the way to #15 here thanks to ranking points machinations. Mejia played four events on tour last year; she lost to Paola all four times, beating everyone else in her path (including Vargas). But Mejia can be mercurial, losing early in internationals and at the 2020 Mexican nationals as the defending champion. I’ll go on a limb here and predict the upset because I like going with upsets. It may be a long trip for a one-and-done for Vargas, who isn’t playing doubles with her regular Argentine partners.

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Projected Qtrs:

– #1 Longoria over #8 Parrilla, a rematch of the 2020 Mexican National final

– #4 Samantha Salas Solis over #21 Martinez: we have not mentioned Salas’ name yet; the Covid layoff has enabled her to have surgery on her non-throwing arm, but she seems to be in playing shape. This may be a tough draw though if Martinez has been playing regularly.

– #3 Alexandra Herrera vs #6 Mendez; the lefty ascends to her highest career ranking to start the season, and she’s well positioned to advance to the semis as she leads 6-1 h2h over Mendez.

– #15 Mejia vs #23 Barrios: Mejia handled Barrios en route to winning both the 2018 and 2018 Junior World 18U girls championships, and I think she’ll handle her here again.

Semis: I’m predicting an all-Mexico semis … and two matchups of doubles partners.

– #1 Longoria over #4 Salas. Amazingly, Longoria leads the pro h2h over Salas 51-3. Salas struggled through last season, dropping all the way to #4, and now faces playing into Longoria a round earlier than expected. Longoria steamrolls into the final.

– #15 Mejia over #3 Herrera; Mejia has beaten her the last three times they’ve played professionally and will beat her again here.

Finals

– #1 Longoria over #15 Mejia. Mejia has a win over Longoria, the 2019 Mexican Nationals final … but has lost the other 9 times they’ve played, including 4 times last season, often in dominant fashion. Longoria knows how to beat Montse, and beats here again here for the Grand Slam title.

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Doubles review.

There’s 15 teams in the draw, with some familiar teams and some new ones. Lets take a look at how the draw may play out.

upset watch in the 16s;

– I like Rajsich/Neils over the #8 seeds Laime/Rivera.

– I like the Scott/Gonzalez pairing to push the Guatemalan national team of Martinez/Rodriguez.

Quarters:

I like the Colombian team of Amaya/Riveros to upset the all-Argentinian team of Mendez/Centellas in the quarters, otherwise for the seeds to hold.

In the semis,

– we get what should be the final: Longora/Salas vs Mejia/Herrera. These two teams faced off four times in pro doubles finals last season, splitting their encounters. They’ve also met in the finals of the last two Mexican Nationals, with the world’s top team taking the honors each time. It should be tightly contested but #1 moves on in this big money event.

– I like #3 Munoz/Enriquez to take out the Colombians and advance to the final.

In the final, #1 cruises to a win over the #3 seeds.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live.Look for Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., JP Edwards and Tj Baumbaugh on the mike, calling the shots! Randy is also flying in Leo Ray Vasquez to help out, which is great.Can’t wait for the matches!

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Tags

International Racquetball TourLPRTInternational Racquetball Federation – IRFPan American Racquetball Confederation – PARCUnitedHealthcare US OPEN Racquetball ChampionshipsWOR – World Outdoor RacquetballUSA RacquetballFederación Mexicana de RaquetbolFederación Boliviana De Raquetbol – FeboraFederación Boliviana de RacquetballRacquetball ColombiaFederacion Colombiana de RacquetballAsociación Argentina de RacquetballFederación Chilena RacquetballRacquetball Rancagua, ChileASOCIACION DE RAQUETBOL DE GUATEMALAReaching Your Dream FoundationHashtags #racquetball#proracquetball#outdoorracquetball#irt#lprt#wor

There’s 15 teams in the draw, with some familiar teams and some new ones. Lets take a look at how the draw may play out.upset watch in the 16s;- I like Rajsich/Neils over the #8 seeds Laime/Rivera; they played together at 3WallBall- I like the Scott/Gonzalez pairing to push the Guatemalan national team of Martinez/Rodriguez.I like the Colombian team of Amaya/Riveros to upset the all-Argentinian team of Mendez/Centellas in the quarters, otherwise for the seeds to hold.In the semis, – we get what should be the final: Longora/Salas vs Mejia/Herrera. These two teams faced off four times in pro doubles finals last season, splitting their encounters. They’ve also met in the finals of the last two Mexican Nationals, with the world’s top team taking the honors each time. It should be tightly contested but #1 moves on in this big money event.- I like #3 Munoz/Enriquez to take out the Colombians and advance to the final.In the final, #1 cruises to a win over the #3 seeds.———————————Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live.Look for Timothy Baghurst, Jerry J Josey Jr., JP Edwards and Tj Baumbaugh on the mike, calling the shots! Randy is also flying in Leo Ray Vasquez to help out, which is great.Can’t wait for the matches!———TagsInternational Racquetball TourLPRTInternational Racquetball Federation – IRFPan American Racquetball Confederation – PARCUnitedHealthcare US OPEN Racquetball ChampionshipsWOR – World Outdoor RacquetballUSA RacquetballFederación Mexicana de RaquetbolFederación Boliviana De Raquetbol – FeboraFederación Boliviana de RacquetballRacquetball ColombiaFederacion Colombiana de RacquetballAsociación Argentina de RacquetballFederación Chilena RacquetballRacquetball Rancagua, ChileASOCIACION DE RAQUETBOL DE GUATEMALAReaching Your Dream FoundationHashtags #racquetball#proracquetball#outdoorracquetball#irt#lprt#wor

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LPRT 2019-20 season Officially Complete

Longoria secures her 11th pro title. Photo US Open 2019 by Kevin Savory

With the last potential scheduled LPRT event on the schedule cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the LPRT has officially declared the 2019-20 season complete.

This is our season-ending post for the Ladies Pro tour.

Now updated at www.proracquetballstats.com for the end of the season:

– 2019-20 Rankings online: http://rball.pro/5DC5C8

– LPRT Tour History in bullet points: https://www.proracquetballstats.com/…/lprt_tour_history.html . Updated for the end of hte season

– LPRT List of Year End title winners: https://www.proracquetballstats.com/…/lprt_year_end_titles.…

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A note about the points at season’s end: there’s a rolling 12-month period of points, and then a season-to-date points total. In some cases they do not show the players in the same order. Thanks to the sudden end of the season there likely will be a decent reshuffling of player seeds upon the restart of next season. Where it mattered, I’ll note it in the write-up below.

See https://www.ladiesprofessionalracquetballtour.com/rankings for the current Singles rankings online.

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Congrats to Paola Longoria, who secures her 11th year end pro title. She went 32-1 on the season, winning 7 of the 8 events she entered and making the final in her sole loss (in Virginia in September of 2019). Her career W/L record on tour is now 472-31, an astounding 93.8 Winning percentage. She holds 99 tier 1 titles plus an additional six satellite titles for 105 pro titles for her career. She’s just turned 30 and seemingly has many more years of dominance ahead.

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Here’s some analysis of the rest of the top 10 and beyond.

– #2 Maria Jose Vargas Parada dominated this season, making 6 of 8 pro finals and downing Paola Longoria in Virginia for her 5th career LPRT title. She holds a significant lead now over #3 Salas heading into next season.

– #3 Samantha Salas Solis had an inconsistent season, making just one pro final on the season after making the final 9 times in 9 tries last season. She still holds a significant points advantage over #4 though, but has to be facing some questions in this off-season as to why her season went off the rails and what she can do to get it back on track.

– Alexandra Herrera holds steady at #4 for the third straight season. She made 4 semis, 2 quarters and missed 2 events in the 8-event season.

– #5 Natalia Mendez improved her year end standing for the fourth straight season, just barely pipping #6 Rajsich for the 5th spot on tour. She made two semis on the season.

– #6 Rhonda Rajsich finishes off her 20th straight season on tour ranked in the top 6 or better. She had an up and down season, getting upset in the 16s four times, but also making two semis. She seemed to improve as the season went on.

– #7 Montse Mejia finishes 7th on tour despite only playing half the events, and she made statements whenever she did play. This is her first career pro top-10 finish. In each of her four appearances, she exited at the hands of #1 Longoria and has a slew of wins over top 8 players. She actually led #6 Rajsich in season-to-date points and will likely jump up quickly next season. It is relatively safe to say that if Mejia played the tour full time, she’d be pushing for #2 just behind Longoria.

– #8 Nancy Enriquez held onto the #7 seed for most of the season, getting knocked out of it thanks to two late-season round-of-16 upsets to finish ranked 8th.

– #9 Amaya Cris survives a mid-season injury without too much rankings damage thanks to the abrupt end of the season, but she loses her long-held foothold on the #8 spot for the time-being and would face a tough opponent in Enriquez in the 16s just to face Longoria. Its hard to get out of the 8/9 spot.

– #10 Masiel Rivera Oporto takes the 10th spot by the skin of her teeth, pipping #11 Parrilla by just four points. This is Rivera’s first career top 10 finish.

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#11 Jessica Parrilla just missed out on a return to the top 10, but she had a great 2nd half of the season to build upon in her attempt to regain her former lofty ranking. She also made up some of the most ground on tour rankings wise, finishing last year ranked 37th after missing most of the season with a serious knee injury.

A side note here; the difference in points from #12 to #15 is just 33 points this season; that’s basically one additional quarter final appearance. One result can vault these players up the rankings significantly.

#12 Carla Muñoz Montesinos also made a great jump this season after finishing #20 last year. She had a couple of solid wins this year over top-8 players and should push for a top 10 spot next year.

#13 Brenda Laime Jalil repeats at #13 from last year’s season ending rankings. She made two quarters on the season and proved to be a tricky opponent all year.

#14 Ana Laura Flores also repeats at #14; she had a couple of solid wins on the year after blowing through Mexican 18U last summer.

#15 veteran Adriana Riveros takes a step back from touring and falls from #10 to #15 this season.

#16 Sheryl Lotts played top 10 pros tough all season, was seeded as high as #10 at one point but settles in at #16 on the season.

#17 Erin Nocam had a couple of solid wins and made a pro quarter this year, improving to #17 for the season.

#18 Maria Renee Rodríguez grinded (ground?) her way through the season to improve from last year’s #23 finish.

#19 Cassandra Lee played 6 of the 8 events on the season and played top-8 seeds tough all year. She falls slightly from last year’s #15 finish.

#20 Bolivian turned Argentine Valeria Centellas only played 4 events but made a quarter and a semi. She had wins over four of the current top 10 players on tour as well as the reigning US national champ. She’s also got one more year in juniors, which should send shudders down the spines of ladies pro players as she gains confidence and power.

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Notables in the 20-30 range:

#21 Adrienne Fisher Haynes finishes ranked on tour for the 21st straight season. The tour veteran got a solid win at the US Open and played top 8 players tough all season.

#22 Kelani Lawrence played 6 of the 8 events on tour this season and made a quarter-final after a solid win over Enriquez in Florida. The reigning US National champ seems poised to make a run up the rankings.

#23 Susy Acosta Racquetball finishes her 23rd season on tour.

#24 Frederique Lambert falls from 9th last season and 2nd the season before now that she’s a practicing medical doctor. The tour misses having such a talent involved on a regular basis.

#25 Hollie Scott continues to tour part time while in college and is a dangerous player when she does play.

#27 Ana Gabriela Martínez came out of “retirement” to play a few events, but falls precipitously from last year’s #11 spot. I’m hoping she returns to full time touring when her school commitments allow and competes for a top 10 spot.

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Other Notables the rest of the way

#35 Cheryl Gudinas earns ranking points in her 27th straight season, every season since 1993-4.

#33 Graciana Wargo was a pro debutant this season, as was #37 Megan Shelton, #46 Kathy Nells, #54 Ayoko Hanashi and #54 Annie Roberts . Wargo and Roberts are US junior national team members who played pro events for the first time this season.

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What’s next for the LPRT?

The team is working on rescheduling the TeamRoot.com classic to be the opener for the new season. No word yet on when that might happen. But the next time the ladies take the court it will be to start the 2020-21 season.

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Tags

International Racquetball Tour
LPRT
International Racquetball Federation – IRF
Pan American Racquetball Confederation – PARC
UnitedHealthcare US OPEN Racquetball Championships
USA Racquetball
Racquetball Canada
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
Federación Boliviana De Raquetbol – Febora
Federación Boliviana de Racquetball
Racquetball Colombia
Federacion Colombiana de Racquetball
Asociación Argentina de Racquetball
Federación Chilena Racquetball
Racquetball Rancagua, Chile
Jugadores Racquetbol Guatemala
Ferac Racquet
Reaching Your Dream Foundation

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LPRT 2020 Boston Open Wrap-Up

Longoria the double winner on the weekend. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Paola Longoria
– Doubles: Paola Longoria/Samantha Salas

Longoria wins her 98th career Tier 1 or higher event (105th title overall). See http://rball.pro/65DCE3 for a list of all LPRT tourney winners. Longoria beats her doubles partner in the final, then they turn around and take their second tournament in as many weeks (they won Mexican Nationals last weekend). They improve to 96-5 as a team since we began tracking LPRT pro doubles data in Sept 2013. click here for Longoria’s pro doubles history W/L by partner report; http://rball.pro/F5E61D

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=31948

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Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: http://rball.pro/4B764C

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In the 32s, a bunch of surprises to me, which in and among itself is NOT surprising in that this draw was stacked from the get-go:

– #12 Ana Laura Flores got a solid win over #21 Hollie Rae Scott 11-5 in the breaker. I thought this was an upset special waiting to happen but the lefty Flores recovered from a game one loss 15-14 to take the match and on.
– #14 Valeria Centellas flipped the script from a few weeks back in Laurel and topped #19 Kelani Lawrence in a tie-breaker.
– #10 Brenda Laime Jalil trounced #23 Ana Gabriela Martínez 13,5 to move on in a pretty surprising result for me. I’d love to have seen this match to gauge whether Martinez is rusty, or if Laime played out of her mind.
– #18 Maria Renee Rodriguez got a solid win over #15 Erin Nocam (i.e. Erin Rivera)11-8 in the breaker. Really solid win for MRR, who was stuck on several straight one and dones in the past few pro events.

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In the 16s, a lot of upsets.
– In the 8/9 game, a tie-breaker. After losing the first game 15-1, Masiel Rivera Oporto rebounded to force a tiebreaker but eventually fell to #9 Jessica Parrilla. Parrilla closes the gap a bit on the #10 ranking on tour but probably cannot get there this season.
– #5 Rhonda Rajsich overcame a strong upset bid from lefty youngster #12 Flores before advancing in a tie-breaker.
– In the biggest upset of the round, veteran #13 Adriana Riveros took out #4 Natalia Mendez in two games 8,10. Mendez was all out of sorts on the match, really seemed off from the get-go and Riveros took full advantage. This loss may end up costing Mendez the #5 spot on tour as Rhonda’s result moves the two players basically even on ranking points.
– #3 Samantha Salas Solis had a pretty amazing turnaround in her match against junior phenom #14 Centellas. She dropped the first game 15-3 and was essentially getting beat with 3-shot rallies over and over (serve, return, kill). Then mid-way through the second she found the light and dominated from there out, winning the second game and eventually the tie-breaker 11-4. A common refrain in these recaps is the sudden loss of form for Salas this season; can she build on this rebound and move forward?
– #11 Carla Muñoz Montesinos gets her second win over a top-10 player on the season, coming from a game down to top the #6 seeded Mexican veteran Nancy Enriquez in a breaker. She advances to her second quarter of the season and faces a player she beat the last time they played.
– #10 Laime gets a walk-over over #7 Amaya Cris; I thought her name in the draw indicated that she was going to attempt to play through her injury, but instead it just indicated that her hand injury occurred too late to change the draw. Reports indicate that she’ll be out of action for 6 weeks, which may put her participation in April’s PARC championships at risk. Amaya has represented Colombia at every PARC event (save one) since 2008.

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In the Quarters, the three top seeds plus a surprise advanced.

– #1 Paola Longoria dominated #9 Jessica Parrilla in a rematch of last week’s Mexican National singles final 6,3 to move on.
– #2 Maria Jose Vargas blitzed past #10 Laime 1,9 to advance to the semis.
– #3 Samantha Salas Solis turned the tables on #11 Munoz from their last meeting, advancing in two games 10,6
– The big surprise of the round was #13 Riveros beating her second top-8 player in a row, moving past #5 Rhonda Rajsich Fan Club in two solid games 13,10. Riveros makes just her second ever pro semi final; the only other time was more than four years ago (Jan 2016 in Cincinnati).

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In the Semis
– #1 Longoria trounced #13 Riveros 4,1 to advance to the final. Its been nearly 3 years since Longoria failed to make a LPRT final and this tournament was no different.
– #3 Salas got a well-earned win over #2 Vargas to make her first final of the season. It was a streaky match, with Salas racing to a huge first game lead before Vargas took it, then Salas saving off match point against and gutting out a second game win. From there, Vargas’ spirit seemed broken and Salas cruised to a well earned win.

In the Finals, Salas hung with Longoria early, running out to a lead even, and had some wondering if it was an upset-special … then Longoria turned it on and cruised to an 8,3 win.

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Points Implications of results: There’s only two remaining LPRT stops on the schedule right now: a tier 1 in San Antonio.in April and a “super max” grand slam in Kansas in June. While there could be more events added last minute, based on the fact that there’s just 2 events left…
– Irrespective of results at the remaining 2 events, Paola has a large enough lead over #2 Vargas (782 points) that she has guaranteed the #1 year end spot. It will be her 11th year end title.
– Despite Salas’ win over Vargas here, she remains well behind Maria for #2. Far enough behind that the only way Salas could catch Vargas for #2 is if she wins both remaining events (worth 500+ points) and for Vargas to miss them. That seems pretty unlikely, so we’re ready to declare that Vargas has sewn up #2 on the season.
– Salas seems pretty locked into #3 as well; she’s got a huge lead to #4 that would take some unlikely scenarios to overcome.
– #5 and #6 on tour may flip b/c of this event: Rhonda and Natalia both have nearly identical points right now.
– #7 and #8 might flip as well: based on my records Mejia and Enriquez also have identical number of points right now.
– thanks to a relatively large points gulf between 10 and 11, it seems likely that the year end top 10 has been sewn up for all participants; its just a matter of the order in the latter half.

The only other significant moves in the rankings would be Riveros moving up one spot, and MRR moving up two spots thanks to their results on the weekend.

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: http://rball.pro/352057

The top 2 seeds cruised to the final with little difficulty. There, the #1 seed continued their dominance over the doubles tour, beating the Argentines Vargas/Mendez in two. Longoria/Salas have never lost to Vargas/Mendez, and they continue the streak.

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Other Draws in Boston:
– Munoz topped MRR in the Women’s Open final
– Connecticut’s Jose Flores Jr. won a 20-man Open draw, topping Massachusetts’ Orlando Cabana in the final.

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Timothy Baghurst, great technical work and streaming graphics/replays by Jerry J Josey Jr., and mike work/tour leadership from Tj Baumbaugh.

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Next up on the schedule? we’ll publish wrap ups of the two IRT events that went on this past weekend tomorrow, then the IRT returns to Tier 1 action with the 35th annual Shamrock Shootout in Chicago next weekend.

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tags

LPRT
International Racquetball Federation – IRF
USA Racquetball
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
Federación Boliviana De Raquetbol – Febora
Federación Boliviana de Racquetball
Racquetball Colombia
Federacion Colombiana de Racquetball
Asociación Argentina de Racquetball
Federación Chilena Racquetball
Jugadores Racquetbol Guatemala

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LPRT 2020 Boston Open Preview

2018 World Champ Ana Gabriela Martinez makes a rare LPRT appearance.

Hot on the heels of Mexican Nationals last weekend (which involved a good percentage of the current LPRT regular touring squad), the LPRT returns after a five week break in the schedule.

We’re in Boston this week for the 2020 Boston Open. The Boston Open first popped up on the schedule in Oct 2016, was held three years running, missed 2019 but its great to see them back on the schedule for 2020.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=31948

24 Pros in the draw, a good sized draw and one of the bigger turnouts of the season so far. Notables playing this week include Amaya Cris, who just had hand surgery on her non-playing hand but will gut it out and play on the weekend. #12 Ana Laura Flores is here after curiously missing Mexican Nationals last week.

Notables missing this week: #4 Alexandra Herrera and #7 Montse Mejia. Herrera’s absence is odd; she has missed just two pro events in the last 5 seasons combined. Mejia continues to balance school and travel and probably could not miss two straight weeks of time.

From the 11-20 ranked players, only tour stalwart Adrienne Fisher Haynes is missing, meaning that the event is stacked, with 17 of the top 20 players present.

And, just to make this an even deeper draw, we have 2019 US champ Kelani Lawrence, the 2020 US qualifier champ Hollie Rae Scott, and 2018 World Champ Ana Gabriela Martínez making a rare appearance to make this one of the best LPRT draws in some time. All these top non-regular touring players will make the opening rounds brutal.

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

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In the 32s, here’s some matches to look for:

– #21 Scott versus #12 Flores: Great opener; Scott defeated Flores in the sole h2h match I have on record … in 2017. Flores started off the 2019-20 season with a bang, making the quarters, but has been one-and-done in 3 straight pro events since. Scott is hot (hey! I’m a poet and i didn’t even know it), is coming off a great showing in Tempe to take the qualifier title and essentially guarantee herself a spot on the US National team, and will be looking to make noise here. Look for Scott with the “upset” here.
– #13 Adriana Riveros vs #20 Susy Acosta; interesting match here; they met earlier this season and Acosta got the upset win, but otherwise Riveros has a ton of really solid wins lately on her resume. She was fantastic at the Pan Am Games in Lima, downing Centellas and Rajsich to make the semis. I’d favor Riveros here but the match-up with the veteran lefty may make for an upset as it did earlier this season.
– #14 Valeria Centellas vs #19 Kelani Lawrence; Centellas has raised some eyebrows on tour this year, with multiple wins over top 10players, but to get there in Boston she’ll have to go through a player who just topped her dominantly in a local event a month ago in Lawrence. This should be a really competitive match.
– #11 Carla Muñoz Montesinos vs #22 Lexi York; Munoz keeps climbing up the rankings on tour, now on the brink of the top 10. She’ll have a tough younger opponent in York to start her tournament this weekend.
– #10 Brenda Laime Jalil vs #23 Martinez: The presence of Martinez in the draw is the ultimate wild-card; when she’s playing regularly, she’s a top 4-5 player in the world and a threat to make the semis or better of any event she enters. But since “retiring” to go to school she’s played sporadically with mixed results. Here she runs into Laime, who has had a hit or miss season, missing more events than she’s played but making a quarter final in Virginia Beach in September. I think Martinez moves on here.
– #15 Erin Nocam vs #18 Maria Renee Rodriguez; An intriguing match between Rivera, the righy with an unconventional swing path and a number of solid wins this season, versus MRR, who seems stuck in a rut right now with five straight one-and-dones. I think Rivera moves on.

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Round of 16; here’s a look at the round as it may play out if my round of 32 predictions come to pass:
– #1 Paola Longoria vs #16 Sheryl Lotts; 9 times they’ve played, mostly in the 2012-13 time frame, Longoria is 9-0 against the American. Paola is fresh of a double win in Tijuana and hopefully shows no ill-effect of the nasty-looking turned ankle.
– #9 Jessica Parrilla vs #8 Masiel Rivera Oporto: Rivera unfortunately draws Parrilla, who took out defending Mexican champ Mejia en route to the final and qualified for the Mexican national team for the first time in years. Rivera beat Parrilla handily at the US Open earlier this season, but has suffered some early upsets since, while Jessica has been red-hot. Look for the upset here.
– #5 Rhonda Rajsich vs #22 Scott; Hollie didn’t have to play Rhonda at the doubles qualifier but won it by defeating the player who downed Rhonda in the final. Is it a changing of the guard in US Racquetball? Every time Rhonda does NOT win a title we have the same talk. But Scott is candidate 1-A right now to take over the mantle of the “Best American” based on results. This will be a good test for both player, and I think Scott moves on.
– #4 Natalia Mendez likely takes on #13 Riveros: a nice south american matchup; Mendez leads 4-1, Riveros beat her in jan 2019 but not since, and the matches are often close.
– #3 Samantha Salas Solis vs the Lawrence/Centellas winner: Salas has never lost to either player, and crushed Lawrence when they played in Greenville in January. Look for Salas to move on here in a close match.
– #6 Nancy Enriquez vs #11 Munoz: these two played three times in 2017, never since. Munoz has been creeping up the rankings, now sitting at #13 while Enriquez has been showing some vulnerabilities in earlier rounds this season. I think Munoz can get the upset here.
– #7 Amaya vs likely #23 Martinez: On paper Martinez is the better player, but she’s not playing full time. Meanwhile Amaya just had surgery and isn’t 100%. Not knowing just how sharp Martinez is … i’ll go out on a limb and predict the upset here.
– #2 Maria Jose Vargas Parada likely takes on #15 Rivera, in what I believe is a debut meeting for the two players. Vargas to move on.

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Projected Qtrs:
– #1 Longoria over #9 Parrilla: a rematch of last week’s Mexican National final, won by Longoria in two.
– #4 Mendez vs #22 Scott: these two are nearly the same age and have prior junior worlds meetings. But that was a while ago. I see a tough match here that could go either way, but I’ll go with the higher ranked Mendez to move on.
– #3 Salas vs #11 Munoz; if this meeting comes to pass, Munoz has a win already over Salas this season and should be able to repeat the feat. Salas took a slight knee knock last weekend; not sure if it was serious or not (it did not seem to affect her in the doubles final), but something to look out for.
– #2 Vargas vs #23 Martinez. Great match-up. They met at 2018 worlds (a Martinez win) and 2019 PARC (a Vargas tiebreaker win). I like Vargas here over the non-touring Martinez.

Semis:
– #1 Longoria over #4 Mendez; Natalia has never beaten the #1 player, and that won’t change here.
– #2 Vargas over #11 Munoz: Argentina vs Chile, a battle of two of the best Syrah-growing countries in the world. Oh, and two solid players. I have Vargas 8-0 lifetime over Munoz in pro and IRF competitions; she makes it 9-0 here.

Finals: #1 over #2 Longoria over Vargas.

6 of the first 7 finals this season have been Longoria v Vargas, might as well make it 7 of 8.

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Doubles review

13 teams entered. Some interesting teams this time around trying to dethrone Longoria/Salas. We have a number of internationally flavored teams: the #2 Argentinian national team pairing of Vargas/Mendez, a promising all-american team of #6 Lawrence/Lotts, the Guatemalan national team #9 Martinez/Rodriguez, and an interesting “all veteran” team of Rajsich/Acosta, with more than 40-years of pro experience between them. One last team of note: María Paz Riquelme steps in for Amaya to partner with Riveros this time around; Riquelme and I used to play at the same club in Arlington VA. If you’re reading this Maria … hello!

In the end, I’m going with the #1 team to prevail over the #2 Argentines in the final.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the LPRT on facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live.
Look for Timothy Baghurst], Jerry J Josey Jr., JP Edwards and Tj Baumbaugh on the mike, calling the shots!

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LPRT
International Racquetball Federation – IRF
USA Racquetball
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
Federación Boliviana De Raquetbol – Febora
Federación Boliviana de Racquetball
Racquetball Colombia
Federacion Colombiana de Racquetball
Federación Costarricense de Racquetball
Asociación Argentina de Racquetball
Federación Chilena Racquetball
Jugadores Racquetbol Guatemala