In the Semis; – Landa and Natera battled in a close game 1, then Landa pulled away to take game two 15-3 and advance to the final of his namesake tourney. – Cardona took two close games from Garay 13,12 to “upset” his 2nd straight seeded player and advance to the final.
In the Final: – Cardona took the first game, then Landa took over, beating his frequent Juarez club playing partner (12),5,6 to win the singles title in his name sake event. Not a bad showing for Cardona, who has stepped back from competitive play but still remains a dangerous player in every draw he enters. For Landa, two solid wins over tough opponents and a good warmup for the new season coming.
————————
In Men’s Doubles: – #1 seeds Landa/Cardona were upset in the semis by #4 Estrada/Ochoa in a tiebreaker. – #2 Natera/Garay downed #6 seeds (who got a walkover over #3 seeded team in the qtrs) Jose Martinez / Manuel Villarreal: to advance to the final.
In a good final entirely consisting of solid Mexican players who rarely feature in USA domestic IRT events, Estrada and Ochoa blasted their way to a win over Natera/Garay.
————————- Next up; the start of the 2019-20 pro season with the LPRT heading to San Luis Potosi.
Like last week’s event in SLP, there’s a solid Men’s Pro draw (18 players). its also an IRT sanctioned event; a Tier 2, meaning the winner does get a somewhat significant number of rankings points (120 points).
——————- Men’s Pro Singles draw
Lets pick up a preview at the quarter-final levels, given that it seems unlikely to have any upsets prior to that stage.
Projected Quarters: – #1 Alex Landalikely faces #8 Ruben Estrada, brother of Javier (who is also in the draw). Ruben was a force in Junior racquetball in the early 2000s, winning multiple Junior world titles but an accident in the late 2008-early 2009 time-frame derailed his promising career. He returned to pro racquetball in 2015 and has played sporadically since.
– #4 Ernesto Ochoavs #5 Alan Natera Chavez; a great match-up between two dark horses in pro racquetball. Natera’s win over reigning Pan Am Games champ Rodrigo Montoya Solís earlier this year at Mexican Nationals represents the potential of his game. They’ve played before and I favor Natera here.
– #3 Javier Estrada vs #6 Alex Cardona: a tough one to predict, given that Cardona has really stepped back in his pro touring. I’m going to predict Cardona gets the upset here.
– #2 Eduardo Garay Rodriguez vs #7 Polo Gutiérrez; I can’t wait to see what Polo has left in the tank after a long international career and having recovered from an arm injury. I suspect Garay is the favorite here.
Projected Semis: – Landa vs Natera: here’s some of the players Natera has beaten this year: Montoya, Estrada, Cardona, Gerardo Franco, Sebastian Franco and Charlie Pratt. That’s a lot of talented players. This is no cake walk for Landa, who I think should advance in a breaker but don’t be surprised by an upset. – Garay vs Cardona: Despite Garay’s resume of recent accomplishments, i still like Cardona here.
Finals: Landa over his doubles partner Cardona in a rematch of their every tuesday night league night.
——————- They’re also playing doubles at the events; 7 teams. The top seed is Landa/Cardona, the 2nd seed is the solid Garay/Natera team (who made the finals last weekend). Also in the Mix is the Ochoa/Estrada team.
I like the draw to go chalk; both Cardona and Landa are solid doubles players.
While the Pan American Games team events were wrapping up last weekend, there was a nice little Tier 5 IRT event happening in San Luis Potosi, SL Mexico with some top Mexican players. Here’s a quick wrap-up of the Men’s and Women’s draws.
Men’s Singles: there was a 20-man IRT pro draw, with the top 8 being household names to IRT regular fans. There were no upsets to the quarters, so we’ll pick up the draw review there.
– #1 Andree Parrilla topped #8 Alan Natera Chavez in a tie-breaker. As is often the case with Natera, he’s under-seeded in these events and has good wins on his resume and stretched the top seed in an early round. – #4 Eduardo Garay Rodriguez topped #5 Jordy Alonso in two tight games 13,11. Alonso has been playing well lately but couldn’t top Garay on this day. – #3 Eduardo Portillo Rendon topped #6 Ernesto Ochoa in a tiebreaker, a great win against a dangerous opponent. – #7 Javier Estrada took out #2 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez in a tiebreaker, a tough match-up in the quarters for Franco.
In the semis:
– #1 Parrilla outlasted Garay in two – #3 Portillo got a great win, trouncing Estrada 2,7
In the final, Parrilla dominated his younger countryman, winning the title 4,9.
Parrilla gets a nice jump start to the season; the odds of this tier 5 factoring in the 2019-20 race seem pretty small; Parrilla gets just 30 rankings points for winning a Tier 5 … he’ll get three times that just for showing up in the first Tier 1 next month.
—————
Women’s Singles
The Women’s Open draw featured a smaller draw of mostly younger Mexican women and included 3 recent Mexican 18U junior national champs. The draw when chalk to the semis….
In the final, Flores came back from a game one deficit to trounce Parrilla in the 2nd and 3rd games to take the title.
—————
In the Men’s pro Doubles: Parrilla & Portillo beat Natera and Garay in the Men’s doubles final.
Fun note: it was a Parrilla family affair, with father, son and daughter all competing. Fabian Parrilla
——————–
Next up on the racquetball calendar: – The Alex LandaTier 2 in Juarez this coming W/E – the first LPRT event of the season, the Paola Longoria Grand Slam in San Luis Potosi – then, after a break, the International Racquetball Tour slate begins with the season opener in Atlanta while the @LPRT heads to my home state of Virginia for an event in Chesapeake at the home club of former top touring pro Malia Kamahoahoa Bailey…. and the hometown of reigning US national champ Kelani Lawrence.
can’t wait to get started in on the new pro seasons!
In the wake of the Mexican Junior Nationals event a few weeks ago, I took some time to do some data loading so that the “matrix” reports I have showing all winners for all age divisions for all of time looked a bit better.
This is a quick notification post to rball fans to inform you of some data loading for Mexican Junior data, if you were interested.
You can also pull down the full match results for any year from the Event list in the Juniors database. I generally only put in the “older” age groups of full results (14s sometimes, 16s and 18s) and just note the final for the younger groups. Furthermore, there’s no Double Elimination results in the database; most of these events are DE.
Mexican Junior events have been a bit tough to keep track of; in any given year the US and Canada have “one” Junior National event. Mexico meanwhile has a Junior Olympics event (which sometimes takes “liberties” with the age groups, or skips them altogether), a conventional Junior Nationals, and even “World Selection events” that supersede the results of nationals. So as it turned out … some of the results I had previously for “Mexican Junior Nationals” were actually from the Junior Olympics events. I’ve now cleaned all that up.
We have online data for Mexican Jr Nationals for at least all winners from 2012-present now, thanks to some archive.org work. The earliest years generally only have winners posted, even for the older divisions. Hopefully, I havn’t made any mistakes; if anyone sees data entry errors please let me know.
Thanks to Ryan Rodgers who hooked me up with 2013 data so I could finish the data entry.
——————–
From here … in order to fully populate the Mexican Junior data, I need help from the Association. @Federación Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol if you’re reading this, do you have past records or past draw sheets I can leverage to do data entry? Do you have a list of at least the winners of past Junior championships?
Next up, i’ll do some similar work for Canadian juniors.
Landa is excluded from the Mexican team heading to Lima.
Over the past week or so, we found out through various forums that the Mexican National teams for the Pan Am Games were named in the past few days … and to say that the selection on the men’s side is “curious” would be an understatement.
As with the USA, the Mexican delegation’s team size was lowered to be just 3 players on the Men’s side due to results at the Pan American Racquetball Championships (PARC) earlier this year. Which means that, like with the USA leaving off National singles finalist David Horn , that it was likely that a significant Mexican singles player would be left out.
The obvious and (frankly) ridiculous omission is Alex Landa. Landa WON Mexican National singles earlier this year. So your reigning National singles champ, an event that exists to decide who represents your country in international events … is being ignored when determining the team playing in an international event.
Apparently, the Mexican federation used the results of its singles players at the PARC event to chose its singles representative. In a response to the uproar, the FMR president claims to have informed the players ahead of PARCs that their results would matter, this despite the entry form for Mexican National Singles in 2019 specifically stating that the winner and finalist of singles would represent Mexico at both PARCs and the Pan Am Games.
The team of Mar/Montoya won Mexican National doubles, so they’re a natural doubles pairing. Montoya likely plays the second singles spot, given that he was the 2018 Mexican national singles champ and then subsequently won 2018 Worlds. Of course, Mar himself is no singles slouch; he was the 2017 National singles champ and has represented Mexico well in international events in limited experience. So we’ll have to wait and see who takes the #2 singles spot for Mexico (note: it seems it will be Montoya playing #2 singles based on press releases).
But to this outside observer, it seems like the Mexican Federation went out of its way to find the one plausible scenario where they could make an argument to exclude Landa at the benefit of Beltran. Not surprisingly, Landa took to social media, and the story was picked up by numerous media outlets, and (if i’m reading the posts correctly), Landa may be summarily quitting the Mexican national team altogether and exercising his dual citizenship option to begin playing for the USA. More to follow.
——————– On the Women’s side, there’s also some drama, but not nearly as bad as omitting the sitting singles national champ. The Mexican women’s team won both singles and doubles at PARC, giving them 4 team members in Lima. I’m inferring the team based on press releases/official posts on facebook pages. We know … – Paola Longoria – Samantha Salas Solis – Montse Mejia – Alexandra Herrera
Are named for Lima. But … by insider accounts, Longoria & Mejia will play singles, while Longoria/Salas together will play doubles, which leaves Herrera … named to the team and traveling to Peru only to sit and watch? Its unclear.
The “drama” on the women’s side? Despite the fact that Mejia beat Longoria to win Mexican National singles final earlier this year, Longoria will play #1 seed in Lima … by virtue of finishing higher at PARCs than Mejia. The FMR is using the same logic exercised to omit Landa in order to seed Longoria higher than the player who topped her at Nationals. Furthermore, Salas has lodged criticism in various forums that she was passed over, given her dominant position on the pro tour this season (and she’s not wrong … but lost to Mejia at Nationals at an inopportune time).
Longoria & Salas are the natural doubles representatives; they won Mexican National doubles and have a slew of international titles together, and this will apparently be the sole event Salas enters.
——————– However it turns out, and who ever plays, you have to think the Mexican contingent is favorites to take home a slew of medals across the board. ——————–
The Pan Am games starts 7/26/19 and runs through 8/11/19. Follow along at http://www.internationalracquetball.com/ , and follow @international racquetball federation on Facebook for live streaming throughout.
The Campeonato Nacional de Raquetbol Infantil y Juvenil 2019 event was this past weekend, with the Junior National teams named for this coming November’s World Juniors.
Boys 18U: Sebastian Fernandez, Emir Martinez Boys 16U: Sebastian Longoria, Erick Trujillo Boys 14U: Luis Renteria, Jorge Gutierrez Ortiz Boys 12U: Eder Renteria, Ricardo Velarde Boys 10U: Luis Carlos Ochoa, Santiago Castillo Boys 8U: Rene Palomino, Arturo Gonzalez
Girls 18U: Ana Laura Flores, Maria Gutierrez Girls 16U: Guadalupe Griffen, Ximena Martinez Girls 14U: Ivanna Balderrama, Angela Veronica Ortega Girls 12U: Mariafernanda Trujillo, Yanna Salazar Girls 10U: Ximena Barraza, Mariajose Franco Girls 8U: Maria Malo uncontested
I *believe* this list is also the Mexican Junior team for Junior Worlds in November. However, some of the younger divisions saw different players advancing out of the loser’s bracket and may be the actual 2nd place finishers. The results above show the finals of the winner’s bracket throughout.
——————————– Here’s the updated Mexican Junior Nationals Matrix of all winners, now that we’ve updated the 2019 winners:
These results are very sparse when compared to USA, Canada and Worlds. I have some past r2sports links and will do an update, but any results prior to 2013 will require help from the Mexican National organization.
————————————– Here’s some wrap-ups of the divisions. From a database perspective, I have put in just the winner’s bracket matches from the 14U, 16U and 18U divisions on both sides. i’ve just put in winners for younger divisions.
In the 18U, #1 seed Sebastian Fernandez dominated the weekend, dropping just one game en route to a repeat 18U title. He beat #11 seeded Emir Martinez 1,3 in the final, who came out of a lower-side of the bracket clearly seeded poorly (the #2, #3 and #6 seeds all lost in the first round). The winner of the loser’s bracket/3rd place winner turned out to be #9 seeded Jose Ramos, who topped #4 seed Manuel Moncada (the only person to take a game off of Fernandez).
In the 16U, the seeds held to the final, where #2 Sebastian Longoria took out #1 Erick Trujillo 12,6. #12 seed Aldo Caraveo recovered from his semi finals loss to win the loser’s bracket/take 3rd place.
In the 18U, #2 seed Ana Laura Flores Saavedra blitzed her way to the title, winning the final 1,1 over 9th seeded Maria Gutierrez. #1 seed Ana Kristin Rivera recovered to take the loser’s bracket final and 3rd place, keeping her in play for a Junior World spot.
In the 16U, #1 seed Guadalupe Griffen topped #6 seed Ximena Martinez in the final 6,8. #2 seed Daniela Rico recovered from an upset qtrs loss to take the losers’s bracket and 3rd place.
In the 14U, #2 Ivanna Balderrama topped #4 Angela Veronica Ortega in the final 13,8. #1 seed Naomi Ros recovered to take 3rd.
————————————– That’s a wrap.
The next major tournament is Pan Ams in early-to-mid August. I’ll do a reaction piece to the ridiculousness of the Mexican Adult national team selection this week. I’ll also post some IRT season wrap-up content that i’ve had ready to go for a few weeks.
Sebastian Fernandez looks to cap off a very decorated junior career with his last 18U Junior tournament.
This coming week and weekend is Campeonat Nacional de Raquetbol Infantil y Juvenil 2019. This tournament should determine the representatives Mexico sends to World Juniors, being held later this year in November in San Jose, Costa Rica.
———————- Our records for Mexican Nationals events aren’t nearly as complete as for the USA and Canada: for the juniors, we only have records going back to 2013, and only for the older groups in the database. here’s some links to Mexican past junior champs:
There are a few defending champs entered into the draws. On the boys side: – defending Mexican 18U champ Sebastian Fernandez is here to defend his title. – defending 16U champ Elias Nieto has graduated to the 18U ranks. – defending 14U champ Omar Gonzalez has graduated to the 16U draw.
On the girls side: – 2x defending 18U champ Montse Mejia has matriculated, so we’ll have a new champion. – defending 16U champ Delia Aguilar is not at the event. – defending 14U champ Daniela Rico has graduated to the 16Us and will take on a group that includes some players already playing in the LPRT ranks.
———————- Lets preview the 18U and 16U draws, the ones with the players who followers of the pro game may have heard of or seen entered into draws.
Boys 18U: the seedings frequently confound me in these events (for example, last year the final was certainly predictable by observers of the draw, but the two finalist seeds were #12 and #23). This year Fernandez is the clear #1 seed, but the #2 seed Saul Rivero was topped by the guy seeded 14th in this draw Adrian Fernandez. Furthermore, Fernandez has to go against the 3rd seeded Nieto, the reigning 16U champ despite making it to the qtrs last year. I don’t get it.
I like Fernandez to repeat, irrespective of who comes out of the bottom. I’ll predict semis of #1 Fernandez, #4 Manuel Moncada, #3 Nieto and #15 Cuevas Fernandez, with Nieto losing in the final to the repeating Fernandez.
Boys 16U: #1 Erick Trujillo and #2 Sebastian Longoria would be my favorites to make the final, but there’s already been a slew of upsets of other seeded players, so it may be a wide-open draw.
Girls 18U: The two top seeds are the two Anas who I would have expected to be there. Ana Laura Flores Saavedra and Ana Kristin Rivera were both semi-finalists from 2018’s 18U competition are in the draw and should be the favorites to meet in the final.
Girls 16U: #1 seed Guadalupe Griffin and #2 seed Daniela Rico have pro experience, but so do a few others in the draw despite it being a 16U draw. It should be competitive.
I rec’d word after posting the preview that this tournament now counts as an IRT satellite event, which is great for the participants.
Here’s a quick wrap of the event, with notable results by round.
——————— Men’s Singles:
In the 32s: – #5 Alan Natera Chavez was stretched to a tiebreaker by youngster Elias Nieto. – #20 Daniel Maldonado took out top Guatemalan Juan Jose Salvatierra – In the biggest upset of the round, #4 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez was taken out by Jordy Alonso (14),14 and 9. Alonso has some solid results on his resume over the last two years, has gone back and forth with GFranco in several different venues, and made the semis of this event in 2017 (when it was an WRT event). – #23 David Ortega eased past #10 Christian Longoria 12,3, playing solid.
In the 16s. – #8 Ernesto Ochoa got a solid win over #9 seeded Ecuadorian veteran Fernando Rios 12,13. – #12 Lalo Portillo waxed #5 Natera 2,7 in a great career win. Portillo scored 25 of the match’s first 27 points to dominate a tough opponent like we havn’t seen before. – #3 Mario Mercado was stretched to a breaker by DR #1 Luis Perez before advancing. – In an equally surprising upset, last week’s dominant winner Javier Estradawas taken out by Ortega 8,13.
In the Qtrs: – #1 seed Andree Parrilla took out #8 Ochoa easily 5,5. – #12 Portillo continued his excellent run, topping off upset minded Alonso in dominant fashion 9,4. – #3 Mercado took a tough game one against #6 Javier Mar, who then retired with an injury. It looked like perhaps Mar suffered the injury towards the latter stages of game 1. – #2 Rodrigo Montoya Solis blitzed past upset-minded Ortega 1,9.
So in the end; your semi finalists are 1,2,3 and 12 seeds. Not too bad.
In the Semis: – #1 Parrilla ended Portillo’s run, dominating the younger player 9,5 – #2 Montoya was stretched to a tiebreaker by #3 Mercado but advanced.
In the finals, it was #1 vs #2 … and #1 won in dominant fashion 11,5. Montoya and Parrilla are the same age and played each other over and over in juniors coming up … Montoya generally has held the upper hand in their match-ups over the years; the last time i have them meeting in a top-level event was in the semis of 2018 Mexican Nationals, won by Montoya en route to the adult title. But now its Parrilla who is ranked in the IRT top 4, within spitting distance of #3, while Montoya has not played the tour full time and sits outside the top 10. Is the tide changing?
——————— Women’s Singles:
The draw was significantly weakened by the last minute withdrawal of its #1 and #2 seeds Paola Longoria and Samantha Salas Solis . Both took 0,0 losses in the 16s. Otherwise, the 16s went essentially chalk. We had a couple of notable matches/tiebreakers though: – #5 Amaya Cris got a solid 2-game win over #12 Maria Renee Rodríguez – #6 Carla Muñoz Montesinos was stretched to a tiebreaker by Dominican Republic #1 and #11 seed Merynanyely Delgado. – #7 Ecuadorian #1 Pazita Muñoz Albornoz was taken to a breaker by #10 Erin Rivera.
In the Qtrs: – #9 Jessica Parrilla got a tie-breaker win over #16 Ana Kristin Rivera (the walk-over recipient of Longoria’s late withdrawal). – #5 Amaya got a great win over #4 Alexandra Herrera in an 11-9 tiebreaker. They’ve played a few times in the past on tour and Herrera has mostly held the advantage. – #3 Montse Mejia took out #6 Carla Munoz 7,7 and is the new tourney favorite with the withdrawal of both top seeds. – #7 Maria Paz Munoz ran past #15 seed Ana Lucía Sarmiento (the beneficiary of the Salas walk-over) to advance to the semis.
So, your semi finalists are #3,5,7,8 seeds thanks to 1&2 withdrawing. Not bad.
In the semis: – #5 Amaya continued her great event, topping Parrilla in a tie-breaker. That’s three wins over top LPRT touring pros this weekend for Amaya. – #3 Mejia outlasted Ecuadorian vet Munoz 12,11 to advance.
In the finals, Amaya’s cinderella run ended quickly, losing to Mejia 4,2.
——————— Men’s Doubles
Just one upset to the semis by seed (#5 Natera/Mercado taking out #4 seeded Dominican Republic national team of Perez/De Leon).
In the semis, the top seeds Montoya/Mar cruised past Natera/Mercado, while #3 Parrilla/Portillo upset the 2nd seeded team of Ochoa/Estrada.
In the final, #1 Montoya/Mar took out their younger countrymen 13,9.
———————
Women’s Doubles
In the semis, The Longoria/Salas withdrawal opened up the top of this draw, and #4 seeds Parrilla/Delgado took out the Ecuadorian national doubles team of Munoz/Munoz, then the young Mexican team of Sacrisan/Sarmiento to make the finals. There, they face a former Mexican national doubles champion team of Herrera/Mejia.
In the final, Herrera/Mejia cruised to an easy win 1,5 to make Mejia the double winner on the weekend.
here’s a quick preview of the Men’s and Women’s “open” draw, which are basically pro draws. They’re using RKT seedings here, which will result in some wonky seeding as we’ll see below.
————————— Men’s Singles:
30 players, headlined by a number of the top Mexican players. Also, what looks like the projected Pan Am teams from Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Guatemala are entered to make for a solid draw.
Here’s a preview of what we may look for round by round:
In the 32s: – #9 Ecuadorian Fernando Rios takes on #24 Dominican Ramon de Leon in an IRF-worthy first rounder. – #3 Colombian Mario Mercado takes on #30 Guatemalan Javier Martinez in a tough first rounder for the top-10 IRT pro. – #23 David Ortega takes on #10 Christian Longoria in an interesting first rounder between two former Mexican junior phenoms.
In the 16s: – #8 Ernesto Ochoa likely takes on Rios in a great 8/9 seed match-up – #5 Alan Natera Chavez takes on #12 Lalo Portillo in a great match-up. Natera is a very dangerous player (he beat both Charlie Pratt and Sebastian Franco in Chihuahua earlier this summer), while Portillo has been steadily rising in the pro ranks. Could be a statement win for Portillo if he can handle Natera. – #3 Mercado likely takes on Dominica #1 Luis Perez, who had some really solid results earlier this year at the PARCs (beating Camacho, Murray and Ugalde). Might be a trip-up match for Mercado.
Projecting the quarters: – #1 Andree Parrilla vs #8 Ochoa: ignore the seeds; this is no easy match for Parrilla, who has lost to Ochoa twice in the last calendar year. Ochoa was upset in the 32s last event, but has the talent to beat anyone in this draw, and I think he has Parrilla’s number. Parrilla was down to Keller in the Black Gold cup before advancing and may be vulnerable. – #5 Natera vs #4 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez. they met in the Open draw in the last IRT event in Syosset, a Franco win. But I think Natera is the better player right now and is coming off a solid Chihuahua event. – #3 Mercado vs #6 Javier Mar; if Mercado can survive the gauntlet of early round opponents, he likely ends his run here at the hands of Mar, the most talented player in the draw irrespective of seeding. – #2 Rodrigo Montoya Solis vs #7 Javier Estrada. A rematch of the final of the stacked Black Gold event two weekends ago, won by Estrada in a tiebreaker as he achieved a career win. Can he follow up his performance in another city, against another stacked draw? I’m going to go with Estrada again; he’s got the hot hand.
Predicting the semis: – Natera over Ochoa ; they’ve played twice in the last couple of years, both Natera wins. – Mar over Estrada; I think Mar can handle Estrada’s power and advances, but this will be an excellent test for Estrada, as Mar can hang with anyone in the world.
Final: Mar over Natera, a rematch from 2018’s Mexican Nationals where Natera upset Mar … so this match-up if it happens could go eithe rway.
—————————– Women’s Singles
17 players in this draw, with a slew of top LPRT players and a very international look and feel. I count 6 different countries represented here, with a number of players clearly looking for competition ahead of the Pan Am games. Here’s a quick preview:
In the 16s: – #8 Marie Gomar, fresh off of an appearance at National Masters, takes on the recovering former top-4 pro Jessica Parrilla in the opener. – #5 Amaya Cris takes on #12 Maria Renee Rodríguez, I have the Colombian 6-1 over the Guatemalan here career across pro and int’l events, and even though they’re neck and neck in the pro ranks Amaya should advance. – #6 Chilean Carla Muñoz Montesinos takes on dangerous Dominican int’l #11 Mery Nanyely Ortiz in an IRF-flavored match.
Projected quarters: – #1 Montse Mejia vs #9 Parrilla; this will be an excellent test for Mejia, who has the talent to beat any of her country-mates but who generally doesn’t face a player of the calibre of Parrilla. – #4 Alexandra Herrera vs #5 Amaya: two LPRT pros who rarely meet; they’ve played four times … but none since May of 2016. Herrera should advance. – #3 Samantha Salas Solis vs #6 Munoz: they’ve met 8 times between IRF and LPRT events … and Salas has won all 8. – #2 Paola Longoria vs #7 Pazita Muñoz Albornoz; the Ecuadorian #1 has a long history against the Mexican #1; they’ve played 10 times dating to 2006 between IRF and LPRT events. Longoria is 10-0 in those match-ups.
Projecting the Semis: – Mejia over Herrera; they havn’t played since 2017. I think Mejia can outlast Herrera in a game-to-3 format. – Longoria over Salas: in what normally is the tourney final, these two face off in the semis. Longoria holds a 58-3 career record over her doubles partner … so its hard not to predict anything but a Paola win.
Predicted final: Longoria over Mejia. Mejia shocked the world topping Longoria at Mexican Nationals earlier this year, but Longoria handled their late pro season meetings and will stay focused to take this title.
——————————- Doubles
15 teams in the Men’s Doubles: I like the experienced #1 Mar/Montoya over #5 Natera/Mercado in one semi, the solid #2 Ochoa/Estrada over the youngster team of Parrilla/Portillo in the other semi, and for #1 over #2 in the final.
8 teams in the Women’s doubles, highlighted by the #1 Longoria/Salas team, which is essentially unbeatable. Look for Longora/Salas to take out the Ecuadorian National team of Munoz/Munoz in one semi, and for the former Mexican champion team of Herrera/Mejia to take out Amaya/Munuz in the other semi. Hard to predict a Longoria/Salas loss in the final, but its happened before to the lefty/righty combo of Herrera/Mejia.
——————————- Looks like a great event; hopefully we see some streaming. The host club in SLP has a great side-wall glass court for streaming options.
No database links at www.proracquetballstats.com; we don’t load up non Tier 1 events, despite how amazing the draw was. We’re reporting as fans of the pro game. And, what a tournament it was.
——————————— Wrap up of the singles event, with notable matches:
In the opening round 64: – doubles specialist Roland Keller got a solid win over regular touring pro Jaime Martell Neri 14,11. – Erik Garcia beat Mexican Jr legend David Ortega 12,11. – Javier Moreno‘s break from pro racquetball retirement ended quickly at the hands of youngster Erick Cuevas 12,6. – Jose Daniel Ugalde Albornoz was given a pass into the 32s and a match-up with Moscoso when Alex Cardona withdrew. This is a bummer; I thought the Cardona-Ugalde match would be great … and that a possible Moscoso-Cardona 32 match-up would be fantastic.
In the 32s: – Carlos Keller Vargas took out IRT touring regular Justus Benson 1,14. Good come-back by Benson to make game 2 competitive. – #5 Rodrigo Montoya Solis got a walk-over win over Roland Keller, who had to take injury time-out time in his earlier victory and may have been preserving himself for doubles. – #12 Javier Mar got stretched by American youngster Garcia to a tie-breaker before advancing. – Giant killer Alan Natera Chavez took out #13 Charlie Pratt in a tiebreaker. I thought Pratt had a solid run to the qtrs or semis here; will that now be Natera? – #19 Javier Estrada trounced #14 Sebastian Fernandez 2,6. In my personal world rankings I have these two literally one after the other but this was a pretty dominant win. – #7 Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo took out long-time Ecuadorian veteran Jose Daniel Ugalde 5,10 to get his tourney started with a solid win. – #15 Eduardo Garay Rodriguez got revenge for last week’s loss by topping #18 Ernesto Ochoa in two close games. – #2 Alvaro Beltran was taken to the limit by long time Ecuadorian vet Fernando Rios, saving match point against and advancing 11-10.
In the 16s, we started to see some serious upsets – #1 Andree Parrilla lost game one 15-8, then got an injury walkover to advance over two-time defending PARC champ Keller. Carlos looked like he was in discomfort from the latter portions of game one and didn’t event take the court for game 2. A shame, because I’d have liked to see if Keller could make a run to the semis or finals here. – #9 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez took an 11-9 close win over Lalo Portillo in the latest iteration of their rivalry (they were one year apart in Juniors and faced each other often growing up). – #5 Montoya downed doubles partner Mar 13,6, in a reverse of their match-up in Syosset. – Natera kept up his upsetting ways, this time topping IRT top8 player Sebastian Franco 11-9. – #19 Estrada continued to dominate, this time taking out top IRT pro Daniel De La Rosa 11-9 in the breaker. Estrada is another example of a dominant Mexican player who rarely plays the IRT: his sole IRT appearance was in 2010, as a 14yr old, when the tour made a stop in Chihuahua (his home town) – #6 Mario Mercado beat Costa Rican #1 Andres Acuña for the 2nd time in as many weeks to advance. – #7 Moscoso wiped out Costa Rican #2 Felipe Camacho to advance. – #2 Beltran recovered from his earlier match to take out the upset-minded Garay 11,1.
So your quarter final seeds are: 1,9,5,20,19,7,2. – #1 Parrilla advanced eily over #9 Franco 9,6 – #5 Montoya dropped the first game but came back to beat Natera in a breaker. – Hard hitting #19 Estrada came from 7-10 down in the breaker to score four unanswered and top IRT top 10 player and #6 seed Mercado 11-10. – #7 Moscoso took a close first game in controversial fashion over #2 Beltran, who then hobbled off the court midway through the second in an injury fft.
Semis: 1,5,19 and 7 seeds.
In the semis: – #5 Montoya trounced #1 Parrilla 6,3. This was technically their first IRT meeting; they’d met 8 times previously that I could track in the database (and likely more, since they’re the exact same age and were frequent competitors on the junior circuit). – #19 Estrada, if he hadn’t already made a statement in this tournament, made an even larger one in taking out #7 Moscoso in a streaky tiebreaker win. He raced to a 6-0 lead, then fell behind 12-6, then raced to a 15-12 first game win. In the second, Moscoso cruised to a 15-3 win. in the breaker, Estrada really bore down and broke away with solid play to dominate and take teh breaker 11-5. I had Moscoso winning this event, now I wonder if Estrada can beat the winner of Parrilla/Montoya.
In the final, Estrada indeed got the breakthrough win, beating Montoya (14),9,3.
Quite a weekend for the home-town 24-yr old. He beat 3 of the top 10 players in the world to win this event and, for me combined with past results is now clearly himself in that same category.
———————————- Doubles event:
The draw went mostly chalk to the quarters as expected, though the #10 seeded Pratt/Garcia team easily advanced over Guatemalans Christian Wer and Javier Martinez.
In the quarters: Beltran/DLR got a walkover, the CRC team of Acuna/Camacho took a scintillating 11-10 win over Parrilla/Portillo, Montoya/Mar beat a hobbled Bolivian team of Moscoso/Keller handily, and Pratt/Garcia took out #2 Colombian team 11-10.
In the semis, the two top Mexican teams both advanced to force a rematch of the 2018 Mexican National finals; Beltran/DLR over the Costa Ricans Acuna/Camacho, and Montoya/Mar over Pratt/Garcia.
In the final, Montoya/Mar got the better of Beltran/DLR 7,12 to take the title.
———————————– That’s a wrap for the 2018-19 IRT season! When the points post to the website, i’ll scrape it and update the PRS sites with end-of-year season rankings and what not, and will do a notification post to that end with all the yearly artifacts updated. We look forward to the initial publishing of the 2019-20 IRT calendar.
Next up on the rball calendar is US Junior Nationals next weekend in Portland. After that, we have more solid Mexican non-sanctioned events, WOR outdoor nationals in July, Mexican Junior natioanls in July, and then the Pan American games in august.
