Category: Mixed

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2026 Golden State Open Preview

Can Diego Garcia make another dark-horse run? Photo Kevin Savory US Open 2018

Welcome to one of (if not) the biggest pro racquetball event of the season. Brainchild of @Adam Manilla and David ” Bobby” Horn two years ago, this event has quickly grown into a must-attend stop on the tour. In their first season, the crew got the portable court out of storage, then in their second year put that money towards a dual IRT-LPRT event to include Mixed Pro Doubles, a situation that continues this year.

This year’s event features a huge Men’s pro draw and the debut event for the Ladies pro 2026-27 season. We’ll do a preview of both here.

R2 Sports App link: see comments to get around new FB limitations.
https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54262

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IRT Singles Draw Preview

There’s a solid draw of 37 Male pros here, representing 8 countries. We’re missing two top players (#3 Flores, who continues to have Visa issues and #5 Montoya, who may not have been able to swing Worlds and the GSO while holding a real job).

Here’s some of the early round matchups to watch for, and some projections for the rest of the draw.

In the round of 64:

– Galicia vs Kurzbard in a fun international quality match between members of the Guatemalan and Argentinian teams. We haven’t seen Kurzbard in a minute; last time he played an IRT event was in 2023 in Denver, and before that the US Open in 2017. But he just represented his country at Worlds and made the trip.

– Anthony Martin vs David Horn: Horn is pulling double duty doing tournament production and playing, and is still nursing a shoulder/arm issue from earlier this year. Martin has been playing tour events for years now and is a tough out.

– Erik Garcia vs Alejandro Robles Picon: Garcia is a 2-time Intercollegiates champ back in 2018-19, while Robles Picon is one of the better juniors out there, the reigning Mexican 14U National champ but still playing out of the Pleasanton/Stockton area.

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In the round of 32, here’s some fun ones to look for:

– #9 Trujillo vs Mangalampalli: Trujillo has the hot hand, and he starts this event with the local top US Junior Vaishant, who gets another crack at what it takes to be a top IRT pro.

– #12 Diego Gastelum vs #21 Diego Garcia: the best match of the round by far, and one that should be happening in the quarters instead of the 32s. Garcia curiously didn’t attend Worlds two weeks ago for his country, but makes the trip up here. Meanwhile, Gastelum has been grinding his way closer to the top 10. This may look like a blowout by seed, but Garcia is the favorite here.

– Carrasco-Salvatierra looks like a group stage IRF match. Carrasco is the higher seed but Salvatierra should challenge here.

– Martell- Collins features two veterans who know their way around the court.

– Natera-Castillo: see below.

Lastly, we have a slew of Mexican juniors in town, and a little birdie tells us to keep an eye out for the likes of Javier Gonzalez (18U player from Chihuahua), Salim Gonzalez (also an 18U player from Chihuahua), Santiago Galina (Mexican 21U player from San Luis Potosi), but especially Santiago Castillo, who was the World 16U runner-up last year in his age 15 season and is the two-time defending Mexican 16U champ. Castillo plays into #10 Alan Natera in the opener, and could get a quick shock upset to the draw.

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Round of 16 projected matches to watch for:

– In the 8/9 seed match we project to get Trujillo-Portillo, a great match of the Mexican players who have (or are poised) to take over the mantle of Mexico’s best now that the previous generation (DLR, Landa, Beltran) has moved on and the current generation (Montoya, Mar, etc) is aging.

– Garcia-Bredenbeck could be a barn burner. Diego has beaten Jake the last three times they’ve played, but two of those meetings were on the IRF using rally scoring and with full coaching staffs on site. Will it be different on tour?

– Manilla vs the Salvatierra/Carrasco winner: a great opportunity for Adam to make a deep run starts here.

– Acuna- Alonso should be interesting, in that Acuna missed Worlds and has been nursing an injury.

– Natera-Mar in the 7/10 would be great, if both players get there. both will have stiffer challenges in the 32s than they’d probably like.

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Projected Qtrs:

– #1 Moscoso over #8 Portillo: same matchup as in Fullerton.

– #21 Garcia over #4 Manilla: I see a big run for the dark horse Argentine

– #6 Parrilla over #3 Acuna: Andree has the h2h advantage here.

– #2 Waselenchuk over whoever comes out of the Natera/Mar quarter.

Semis:

– Moscoso stops Garcia … but this is no gimmie. Garcia beat Moscoso in the 2025 PARC semis and Moscoso needed a fifth game 12-10 to beat him in the World Games last year.

– Waselenchuk over Parrilla, rekindling an old rivalry that’s included a triple donut and an 11-10 tiebreaker win for Andree.

Finals; Yes, it’s boring but i’ve got 1v2, Kane v Conrrado for the 6th time in the last 9 finals on tour. Golden State 2024 featured a Kane win in a field w/o Conrrado (he had an arm injury), while Golden State 2025 featured a Conrrado win from a field without Kane (he had to miss last year’s even due to a wedding). This year, in year three, we hopefully get the two of them meeting on Sunday. I took Conrrado in Fantasy Fastbreak, but it’s a coin flip. The conditions (sea level, California heavy air, slower FormulaFlow ball, and panel courts) would seem to favor Kane, but Conrrado is entering a stretch between now and next March where he has to win to stay Number 1. This could be his year to finally finish #1, but he has to win here to keep pace.

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LPRT Draw Preview

The Ladies singles draw has 17 players as the LPRT kicks off its 2026-27 season, a pivotal one that will feature a changing of the guard both on and off the court. Long-time LPRT commissioner TJ Baumbaugh has indicated she’s stepping down, and there also seems to be a changing of the guard amongst the players as well. Long-time tour stalwart Paola Longoria just had a kid and may be off the tour for a while, and this event is missing a big chunk of the current top 10. This results in the two Argentines Vargas & Centellas being the two top seeds in the singles draw.

Here’s a preview of the Singles draw:

Round of 32: there’s just one match in the 32s, and it’s a good one. #16 Camila Rivero, the 3-time defending world 21U champ who is fresh off of a Worlds appearance representing Brazil takes on Andrea Perez-Picon, who was a finalist at World Juniors 16U last year. It has been a while since we’ve had a Bolivian junior champion matriculate to the pro tour and stick; perhaps we’ll see a run from Rivero.

In the 16s, here’s some to watch:

– #1 Vargas vs Rivero/Perez-Picon winner: the recently crowned world champ has a massive lead atop the rolling 365 day standings to start the season, and kicks it off against a young rival.

– In the 8/9 we get Manilla vs Parrilla. Both were in Chile representing their countries at Worlds. It has been a minute since Erika has been able to compete well in Singles after a hip injury derailed her career; it should be interesting to see how she moves this weekend.

– Herrera vs Scott: speaking of players who we haven’t seen in a while, former USA #1 Hollie Scott is here and has a possibly winnable match again a player in Herrera who’s been waning a bit lately on tour.

– #2 Centellas, who has her highest career seed, gets former US National champ Naomi Ros for her troubles. This one could go either way.

Projected Qtrs:

– Vargas over Manilla; this used to be a finals quality match between the two hardest hitters on tour. Hope we can get back there.

– Herrera over Salas: amazing that last year I thought Salas was retiring; now she’s the 5th seed in the season opener.

– Mendez-Amaya: long-time international rivals rekindle their head-to-head.

– Centellas – Sanchez: A great opportunity for Annie (Roberts) Sanchez to get to a semi.

Semis and Final: It’s hard not to predict against anything but a Vargas win right now on tour; she’s lost her primary rival in Longoria, and the only other two players in the world who can press her (Mejia and Gaby) aren’t here this week.

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Doubles preview: no doubles draws available as of this writing.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the IRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Also, since the LPRT is here, we’ll have dueling coverage from all your favorite voices. Look for Carrie Reitmeier, JT Rball, Rodrigo, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre, and the IRTLive crew all weekend for the men, and listen for Timothy Baghurst, Sandy Rios, Jerry J Josey Jr. for the women.

Thanks to the event sponsors: Presenting sponsor: JMB: Jacobs Malcolm & Burtt produce and Gold sponsors: Reignstorm group, Visit Tri Valley,Manilla Athletics, Camp Run Amuk

Thanks to IRT tour sponsors: KWM Gutterman, Frank Hotels, Papa Nicholas coffee

Reignstorm Group; tax and wealth management, Gearbox, Formula Flow, and

Black & White Energy drinks.

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

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

Associations

International Racquetball Tour

@lprt

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2026 23rd Annual IRF World Championships individual Events recap

Vargas wins her first ever World title. Photo via usaracquetballevents.com

The 23rd International Racquetball Federation – IRF World Championships bracket events are in the books. Here’s a recap of the knockout stage action, along with links for the results as entered into the Pro Racquetball Stats database.

Congratulations to the winners:

– Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso, Bolivia

– Women’s Singles: Maria Jose Vargas, Argentina

– Men’s Doubles: Andree Parrilla & Eduardo Portillo, Mexico

– Women’s Doubles: Alexandra Herrera & Samantha Salas, Mexico

– Mixed Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya & Samantha Salas, Mexico

Executive Summary: Mexico dominates the doubles to take all three team titles, and the two top-ranked pros on the pro tours hold serve to take World titles.

r2sports home page: (redacted for FB’s new Meta One policy)

Pro Racquetball Stats DB match results. Click on these links to see the match results for this event in the DB: (redacted for FB’s new Meta One policy)

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For the rest of the event, they will play a “Team competition” Davis-cup style where countries play singles and doubles as a team to advance; we’ll cover this and its World Games qualification import in an other post. Meanwhile, for decades all the individual play has historically resulted in separate “Team Standings” for IRF events. I’m not sure, with the advent of the team play recently, if IRF even maintains the Team Points results anymore … but we do for historical purposes. So…

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Team Points Results

The “Team Standings” were determined by a standard algorithm that awarded points based on group stage and knockout performance.

(You can get these “team results” via queries available from the IRF singles page off of the Pro Racquetball Stats historical site)

Combined Team (Overall)

1st – Mexico

2nd – USA

3rd – Bolivia

4th — Argentina

Comments: Mexico dominates, wins all 3 doubles titles. Two finals powers USA to one of its best finishes in years. Despite having almost no results in Mens, Argentina somehow finishes 4th.

Men’s Team Results

1st – Mexico

2nd – Bolivia

3rd – USA

4th – Canada

Comments: Canada’s finish powered by Webb’s semis and the men’s doubles team making the final. Not sure why Sam Murray and/or Coby Iwaasa don’t also choose to play singles in these competitions; their team would be better for it, with all due respect to Webb’s accomplishments this week.

Women’s Team Results

1st – Mexico

2nd – Argentina

3rd – USA

4th – Guatemala

Comments: Pretty impressive for Guatemala to finish 4th … with just Gaby representing them. Mexico wins in a transition year; this is the first year that they did not have Paola Longoria leading the line in nearly 20 years.

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Let’s run through the individual draws and talk about notable results.

Men’s Singles:

The group stage featured some interesting results; Canadian @Trevor Webb took out USA’s Sam Bredenbeck to earn the #3 seed in the knockouts. Mario Mercado returned to represent his home country and took his group. Argentina’s missing top players robbed two groups of a pro-quality competitor, making those groups wide open and resulting in two players advancing into the knockouts who probably didn’t expect to be there.

In the knockouts, Webb beat Sam Bredenbeck for the 2nd time in 3 days as they matched up once again; how is it we can’t manage to figure out how to fix the knockouts so at least there’s a different matchup than what we saw in the group stage? Seriously. It really isn’t that hard. Players from the same group and players from the same country cannot meet in the first knockout round; it’d take ChatGPT about 5 seconds to lay the brackets out so this doesn’t happen. It seems like every single time i look at an IRF draw i’m dumbfounded. rant off.

Webb then took out IRT touring vet Alan Natera to make the semis; a fantastic result for Canada. Moscoso eased past Parrilla in the qtrs, the best match of the round. In the semis, #1 USA Jake Bredenbeck got what most consider an upset win over Portillo, while Moscoso cruised past Webb to make the final. In the final, Jake held off Conrrado for a bit and took game three, but Moscoso took the title.

It is Moscoso’s 9th IRF singles title, but more importantly his 2nd career World Championship title. He won in 2022 and now again in 2026.

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Women’s Singles:

There weren’t many surprises in the group stage of the Women’s singles competition. The closest group was Group 6, where three ladies all finished 2-1 (Faeth, York, and the Bolivian 21U Amaya Ardaya. it went down to point differential, and Ardaya was left out. This was especially cruel since Ardaya beat York head to head, the group winner, and thus was left out of the knockout stages.

In the knockouts, Carla Munoz took out the Costa Rican teen phenom Faeth but then fell to Vargas in the next round. USA’s Michelle Anderson fell to Argentina’s Mendez in the first knockout round, a tough beat. Mendez then took out the tourney’s top seed Herrera before falling in the semis to Gaby Martinez, the sole female representative from Guatemala. In the final, Vargas continued her dominance over world Racquetball by taking her 7th career international singles title, but more importantly, her first ever World Title.

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Men’s Doubles.

the group stages went chalk, setting up a solid knockout bracket. The top four seeded teams advanced into the semis as expected, though both USA and Mexico needed 5 games to do so. From there, #1 Canada took out #4 USA in three to return to the final, while #2 Parrilla/Portillo reversed a recent IRT pro trend of losing to Bolivia’s Moscoso/Carrasco, winning in 3 to get to the final. In the final, Team Mexico made fast work of Murray/Iwaasa to take the title.

With this win on Thursday, Mexico sealed both the Men’s and the overall team title for their country at this year’s worlds.

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Women’s Doubles:

In the group stage, pre-tourney favorites Argentina and Mexico advanced easily, but Canada slumped toa 1-2 group stage record with a shock loss to Costa Rica to be eliminated at the group stage and pave the way for USA to move on as the #3 seeds.

In the knockouts, USA’s Manilla & Anderson got a very solid semis win over Vargas & Centellas, but then lost in a 5th game heartbreaker to Mexico.

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Mixed Doubles

A couple of interesting upsets occurred in pool play, most notably the Chilean husband/wife team Munoz & Natera, who were upset by the Costa Rican team of Guillen & Faeth and failed to qualify for the knockouts. This is the winning Mixed team from the 2025 PARC championships and they went 0-2. The Bolivian top seeds were beaten in another group, playing with a weakened team thanks to the missing top player Flores.

In the knockouts, the top seeds and 2023 Pan Am game champs USA brother/sister duo of Erika and Adam Manilla were beaten in the semis by team Guatemala, comprised of Gaby Martinez and Edwin Galicia. Guatemala could do nothing in the final against the powerful Mexican team of Montoya and Salas, who won 2022 PARC and 2022 Worlds and have historically been one of the best mixed teams in the world.

With this win. Mexico sweeps the doubles finals and finishes off a dominating Worlds 2026.

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A quick editorial:

Despite this being the World Championships, ostensibly the biggest event on the international calendar for these players … we were missing some major names from this event. On the Men’s side, defending World champion and former #1 player Daniel De La Rosa, despite earning his spot to represent the USA earlier this year, did not attend, Costa Rican’s men’s team was weakened by the loss of Andres Acuna, who may be out injured. Bolivia’s #2 Jonathan Flores did not make the trip despite it being in the country next door to Bolivia (his spot was taken by Mercado) despite earning it earlier this year. And both of Argentina’s top men (Garcia & Miranda) were absent, leaving two unknowns to hold the flag, and both went 0-3 in the group stage to not even qualify for the knockouts. Guatemala’s stalwart representative Maria Renee Rodriguez was missing and they did not send a second female, meaning that they had no Women’s Doubles entry; weird. There’s plenty of players in Guatemala who could have played here. Colombia did send a contingent… who then apparently no showed and forfeited out of all matches.

Observationally, it was disappointing not to see the best players at the biggest, most important international event on the calendar. Perhaps another sad note in the gradual decline of funding in our sport.

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Congrats to the International Racquetball Federation for another successful event. Thanks to the IRT streaming crew, and thanks to @Gary Mazaroff and Gustavo and all his co-announcers for their hard work all week.

Next up on the Racquetball Calendar …the Golden State Open on 11/8/26 weekend, featuring the IRT and the LPRT together for the Ladies’ first stop of the season.

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2026 South American Games Recap

Vargas wins twice and powers Argentina to the team win. Photo via usaracquetballevents.com

The @iInternational Racquetball Federation – IRF hosted the racquetball component of the 2026 South American games this week, just the 4th time that this regional competition has hosted the sport.

The South American games were created way back in 1978 and serve as a regional Olympic-style sports competition for just the countries of that continent. Thi

Racquetball first made its way into the competition in 1998, the 6th iteration of the event, but the results of that tournament are lost to history. It did not return until 2007, when the IRF held an out of cycle event in Ecuador. Then the sport was omitted for the next couple of events, returning in 2018 when the event was held in racquetball-crazed Cochabamba, Bolivia.

This past weekend technically is thus the 4th time the sport has bee included in the 13 iterations of the event, and once again the host city/country seems to play a part, since Argentina is hosting this year’s competition.

Five countries participated: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. Despite efforts to relaunch Colombia’s NGB, there were no Colombians here, nor players from other SA countries that have sent representatives internationally in the past like Venezuela and elsewhere.

In the end, as one might expect, the competitions all ended up being Bolivia vs Argentina in the latter stages, technically being Bolivia versus “players who were all born in Bolivia but who now play for Argentina.”

here’s a quick recap:

Congrats to the champions:

Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso
Women’s Singles: @Maria Jose Vargas
Men’s Doubles: Conrrado Moscoso & @Kadim Carrasco
Women’s Doubles: Maria Jose Vargas & @Valeria Centellas
Mixed Doubles: @Diego Garcia & Natalia Mendez V.

Argentina takes 3 of the five draws against its rival Bolivia to “win” the event.

PRS links to draws in the database:
Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/6b326d
Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/ed5c01
Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/cef63f
Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/cef63f
Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/3f1835

R2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54366

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Quick narratives about the draws:

Men’s Singles: The group stage was chalk, and the best match of the competition was probably the semifinal between Flores and Garcia. Flores took it 11-9 in the fifth, but it was yet another reminder that we need to see Garcia on the pro tour more regularly. I have a hard time not believing he’d be pushing for a top 5 spot if he made 100% of the events. In the final, Moscoso remained undefeated against his countryman across Amateur, IRF, and IRT events with a 3-game win.

Women’s Singles: Bolivia has seen a bit of a gap in its top women’s competitors thanks to Barrios’ knee injury; their representatives here were Camila Rivero and Valeria Miranda Martinez, who both fell to LPRT regulars in the knockouts. Rivero is the 3-time defending World Junior 21U champ but who has only a handful of pro tourneys under he belt; she lost in the semis to top-8 pro Mendez in five. Vargas cruised past her country-woman and now former doubles partner Mendez in the final.

Men’s Doubles: Ecuador’s Ugalde & Cueva was the top seed here thanks to their making the semis at PARC earlier this year (the highest finish of any South American country), and they finished 2nd in the group stage to the powerhouse Bolivian team of Moscoso/Carrasco. Argentina was missing Gerson Miranda, leaving the veteran Kurzbard playing along side Diego Garcia. The Argentines avenged a group stage loss to Ecuador in the semis of the knockouts, but then took a heavy loss to the Bolivians in the title game.

Women’s Doubles: It was Argentina and Bolivia 1-2 in the group stage, and then 1-2 in the final. Rivero teamed with long-time Bolivian veteran @Jenny Daza to press the Argentines in the final to 5 games, but they ultimately fell.

Mixed Doubles: The power of Flores could not push team Bolivia over Argentina, as Mendez outhit Dava one the right-hand side to make the difference in both their group stage and in the gold medal match.

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For the rest of the weekend’s competition, the players are all playing “team” competitions.

Congrats to all participants.

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Mexico Worlds Selection Event 2026 Recap

Portillo is taking over Mexican Racquetball. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

For just the second time that I can recall, the @federacion Mexicana de Raquetbol (FMR) held a stand alone qualification event to determine its team for an upcoming International event. In this case, Mexico’s best descended upon Tijuana last weekend for the 2026 Worlds Selection event, playing the whole slate of events (singles, doubles, and Mixed) to determine the team that will be heading to Worlds in Chile this coming October.

This was a special event for the history of Mexican Racquetball; the legendary multi-champion @Alvaro Beltran played in all three divisions, reportedly to be the final time he competes for Mexican Nationals after a decades long career at the top.

Here’s a recap of the play. As with their Jr. Nationals events, the singles draws play double elimination, with the winner’s bracket champion and the consolation bracket champs earning the right to represent.

Congrats to your Winners and team representatives:

– Men’s Singles: Eduardo Portillo and Andree Parrilla

– Women’s Singles: Alexandra Herrera and Jessica Parrilla

For the doubles: the winners will represent Mexico:

– Men’s Doubles: Eduardo Portillo & Andree Parrilla

– Women’s Doubles: Alexandra Herrera & Samantha Salas

– Mixed Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya & Samantha Salas

Here’s links to the draws/data in ProRacquetballStats.com:

– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/b841e9

– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/c9dba7

– Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/fb49e0

– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/b5eb15

– Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/e141e1

R2sports link for the event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54255

And here’s recaps of the five pro draws.

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– Men’s Singles:

Some of the up-and-coming players in both Mexico and the Pro scene fought well, but couldn’t overtake the veterans in the FMR. Trujillo, Hernandez, and Gastelum all pushed but eventually fell to Parrilla, Mar, and Montoya respectively in the early rounds. The Trujillo-Parrilla 4/5 seed quarter had to be amazing to watch, going to a 5th game and ending 17-15 in favor of Andree.

In the semis, reigning Mexican national champ Eduardo Portillo held serve against Parrilla to advance from the top seed, while #2 seed Rodrigo Montoya continued his recent dominance over his doubles partner Mar to also reach the final and setup a rematch from earlier this year between the two top players. In the final, Lalo once again came out on top, claiming the automatic berth to Worlds and the title. In the consolation final, Parrilla once again got the better of his long-time rival Montoya in a brutal 5 game match that included several “overtime” games.

– Women’s Singles:

This draw looked quite odd, in that it was missing the very-pregnant Paola Longoria and arguably Mexico’s top player Montse Mejia. In their absence, Alexandra Herrera cruised to the title, beating Jessica Parrilla in three. Parrilla came back around to claim the 2nd Worlds spot with relative ease, beating Rivera in the consolation final.

– Men’s Doubles:

Men’s Doubles saw a possible “changing of the guard” match happen, when the long-time dominant doubles team in the country Montoya & Mar were upset in the semis by the young team of Trujillo and Gastelum in five. They earned the right to take on defending Mexican doubles champs Portillo & Parrilla in the final. There, for the second time this year, Lalo & Andree won a Mexican major title to earn the right to represent Mexico; they both will now be the singles and doubles representatives in worlds.

– Women’s Doubles

With her long-time doubles partner Mejia missing, Herrera picked up the legendary veteran Samantha Salas for this event. Only three teams entered, so Herrera/Salas won their semi to take on Parrilla/Rivera in the final. There, Herrera and Salas took the title to send Samantha back to an International event for the 13th time in her career.

– Mixed Doubles.

In the somewhat recent history of top-level Mixed Pro Doubles action, Rodrigo Montoya and Samantha Salas have proven to be perhaps the best Mixed doubles team we’ve ever seen, regularly winning or making the finals of major Mixed competitions. They teamed up again this weekend as the top seeds and took out Mar/Herrera in the final to claim their spots for Chile. Salas double-qualifies for Worlds with the win.

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Congrats to the Mexican team heading to Worlds; they’ll certainly be tough to beat. They’ll enter as favorites alongside Bolivia, who shouldn’t have any travel issues with an event in South America and should be sending a full strength squad.

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2026 Mexican Junior Nationals recap

In Mid August, The Federacion Mexicana de Raquetbol (FMR) held the 2026 Mexican Junior National tournament in the Mexican racquetball hotbed of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Mexico is the last of the “big 3” North American countries to hold its Junior Nationals (Canada held theirs along with their Adult nationals at the end of May, while USA had theirs at the end of June), and the results of these events determine the national team members that will represent their country at the upcoming World Juniors in December in Bolivia.

Here’s a quick recap of the qualifiers and some commentary. It always takes me some time to get to the data entry for junior tourneys (its like entering the data for 18-20 pro events at once), but with this posting the PRS database is live with these results.

Mexican Junior tournament and qualification goes as follows: the entrants play a double elimination singles draw; the winner of the winner’s bracket is the champion and Junior National titlist, while the winner of the loser’s bracket is the 2nd player to join the delegation. This consolation bracket champ often is not the winner’s bracket finalist, and the format gives players hope of getting back on the team even with an early loss.

Mexico does not normally play any official doubles competitions at its junior nationals; the 2 singles qualifiers will form the gender doubles teams at Worlds. However, this year they played a full slate of Mixed doubles draws which WILL determine the representatives at Junior Worlds in the Mixed doubles competition. Thanks to Tourney Director and IRT broadcasting legend Favio Soto for the details.

R2 site for 2026 Mexican Jr Nationals: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=54254

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Congrats to the following Boys Singles winners and finalists for team Mexico (each has the winner’s bracket titlist listed first, then the consolation bracket champion and second national team representative second)

(click here https://rball.pro/olf for a Matrix of all Mexican boy’s titlists loaded into the database currently, dating to 2012)

– Boys 21U: Jorge Gutierrez, Sebastian Chevaile

– Boys 18U: Sebastian Reulas Reza, Nicolas Galindo

– Boys 16U: Santiago Castillo, Axel Sanchez

– Boys 14U: Alejandro Robles Picon, Matias Sandoval

– Boys 12U: Kerman Damian Gracia, Daniel Rodriguez

– Boys 10U: Daniel Alejandro Ayala, Angel Perez Rodriguez

– Boys 10Udb: Leon Sebastian Cardona

– Boys 8Udb: Mateo Ochoa

– Boys 6Umb: Carin Mora.

Commentary on the divisions:

In 21U, Gutierrez (the 2023 and 2024 18U champion) returns to holding a Mexican title with the graduation of 2-time defending champ Sebastian Hernandez, while Chevaile tops last year’s 18U champ Eder Renteria in the consolation bracket final to claim the 2nd national team spot as the 5th seed.

In 18U, all four top-4 seeds lost in their first round of playing in a rather large indictment of the seeding in this bracket (not an uncommon issue in these Mexican Junior tournaments). The 9th seeded Sebastian Ruelas ended up winning his 4th Junior national title and first sine holding the 2023 16U title. Top seeded and 2024 16U champ Galindo came all the way back in the loser’s bracket after losing to Ruelas in the quarters to claim the 2nd spot.

In 16U, Santiago Castillo repeated as 16U champ, beating his top rival Brian Axel Sanchez in the final. Sanchez won two 14U titles over Castillo, but now Santiago has his number. Sanchez secured the 2nd qualifying spot after losing the title game by winning the consolation bracket.

In 14U: US Expat Alejandro Robles Picon, who converted along with his older sister to represent Mexico in early 2024, won his first Mexican Junior National title as the #1 seed in 14U. He beat multi-junior titlist Hermann Raciel Gracia in the final, but Gracia got pipped for the other national team spot by #2 seeded Matias Sandoval, who Gracia had beaten earlier in the event.

In 12U, Kerman Damian Gracia, despite being the 2x defending 10U champ moving up to 12U, was the 12th seed but nonetheless made it 3 titles in a row. He beat 14th seeded Daniel Rodriguez in the title game, who then came back around to join him on the national team.

10U was won by Daniel Alejandro Ayala, his 2nd career Jr title. In the younger divisions, we got first time winners in 10Udb, 8Umb, and 6Umb by Leon Sebastian

Ochoa, Mateo, and Mora, Carin respectively. World Juniors no longer holds divisions for age groups younger than 10, so these national titlists will have to wait to compete internationally.

—-

Congrats to the following Girls Singles finalists for team Mexico:

(click here: https://rball.pro/qcm for a Matrix of all Mexican Girl’s titlists loaded into the database currently, dating to 2012)

– Girls 21U: Ivanna Balderrama, Yanna Salazar

– Girls 18U: Miranda Barraza, Andrea Perez-Picon

– Girls 16U: Maria Malo, Selene Bernal

– Girls 14U: Michelle Gomez, Valeria Covarrubias Delgado

– Girls 12U: Lia Medrano, Lia Montserrat Gonzalez

– Girls 10U: Jocelyn Dominguez Chavez, Valeria Carmona

– Girls 10Udb: Regina Castillo and Andrea Cancino both went 3-1 in their gruop stage.

– Girls 8Umb: Natalia Serrano

Commentary on the Girls divisions:

In 21U, Balderrama wins back the 21U title she lost last year in her final year of eligibility. She’s joined by Yanna Salazar on the team, who was the 18U champ two years ago. All Five ladies in this draw are former Jr National champs, and last year’s 21U champ Angelica Veronica Ortega didn’t even make the consolation bracket final to defend her title.

In 18U, Miranda Barraza ascended to #1 seed with the matriculation of both of last year’s finalists, then cruised to the title. She’s joined on the national team by Andrea Perez-Picon, last year’s 16U champion who made her way through the consolation bracket and secured the national team slot with a walkover against the player (Guillen) who knocked her out of the winner’s bracket.

In 16U: Maria Malo, who hadn’t won a junior national title since 8U in 2019, took the title. She’s joined by Selene Bernal, the 14U finalist two years ago to give the Mexican team some new faces in this age group.

In 14U, Michelle Gomez repeated as 14U champ by cruising through the draw. She was joined on the national team by Valeria Covarrubias Delgado, a newcomer.

in 12U, first time winner in Lia Medrano. In 10U, Jocelyn Dominguez Chavez repeated as the titlist. There were no girls-only multi/double bounce draws; they played co-ed in these draws and the champions were declared in the database from the best-finishing girl in each division.

———————–

Here were the winners of the Mixed Doubles competitions:

– Mixed 21U: Cristhian Sanchez / Cynthia Gutierrez

– Mixed 18U: Nicolas Galindo / Miranda Barraza

– Mixed 16U; Danna Hernández / Santiago Castillo

– Mixed 14U: Max Soto / Michelle Gomez

– Mixed 12U: Lia Montserrat Gonzalez Perez / Kerman Damian Gracia Castro

– Mixed 10U: Daniel Alejandro Ayala Garcia / Jocelyn Dominguez Chavez

———————–

Congrats to all the Mexican Junior National title winners and National team qualifiers for 2026. See you in December for World Juniors in Bolivia.

@International Racquetball Tour

@LPRT

@Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol

@International Racquetball Federation – IRF

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IRF 2026 Central American & Caribbean Championships wrap-up

Herrera wins her first ever International singles title. Photo Denver 2021 KenFife

The IRF hosted its recurring Central American & Caribbean Games, returning to the Dominican Republic for the 2026 iteration of the event.

This is the 10th iteration of these games that have had a racquetball component. The first one was in 1990, when Mexico hosted the event and its two singles components were won by Raul Torres and Hilda Rodriguez of Mexico, two very early pioneers of Mexican racquetball. In fact, Mexico has always dominated this competition, winning 12 of the previous 16 singles titles and sweeping all 5 titles in the 2023 version.

Countries participating this year: host Dominican Republic, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, and Cuba. Venezuela is an odd entry, as they are in neither Central America or the Caribbean, but hey I don’t make the rules. It is not the first time a South American country has bee included in this event. Heck, in 2018 Colombia HOSTED this event. I’m not entirely sure why Mexico is in this event year after year; they’re regularly included as a “North American” country, but I was a Math major, not Geography, so don’t listen to me.

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

– Men’s Singles: Rodrigo Montoya

– Women’s Singles: Alexandra Herrera

– Men’s Doubles: Eduardo Portillo/Andre Parrilla

– Women’s Doubles: Montse Mejia/Alexandra Herrera

– Mixed Doubles: Andres Acuna/Larissa Faeth

Exec Summary: Mexico wins 4 of the 5 titles, but 15yr old Faeth gets another win for Costa Rica’s Adult team internationally.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54300

Match Reports in the PRS database post-load:

– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/18bf6e

– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/8dc8e2

– Men’ Doubles: https://rball.pro/9544e2

– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/45b3f5

– Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/2bcd18

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Lets review the five main draws, calling out upsets and interesting results.

Men’s Singles:

The group stages were nearly 100% chalk, and with very few matches that even went beyond three games. The best match of the group stages was probably to determine 1st place in Group D, as Costa Rica’s Gabriel Garcia took out Guatemalan veteran Juan Jose Salvatierra in four close games to secure the #4 seed in the knockouts.

In the knockouts, the host Dominicans played well, with Luis Perez taking a game off of #1 seed Portillo in the quarters, and Dominican #1 Ramon De Leon upsetting Guatemala’s Garcia to reach the semis. Portillo had to go 5 games to top De Leon to make the final from the top, while two IRT top-10 players in Rodrigo Montoya and Andres Acuna battled it out from the bottom half, with Montoya advancing to return to the final. In a rematch of the 2023 final, Montoya blitzed Portillo 4,4,6 for the gold. It is first CAC singles gold, and his 4th career International gold medal.

——————–

Women’s Singles:

The group stage was mostly without incident; the two Costa Rican women entries were probably slightly overseeded thanks to their performance in the most recent Int’l event, and both were “upset” in the group stage. This gave Venezuelan veteran Marina Tobon the 4th seed in the knockouts, where she was summarily upset by Dominican Maria Cespedes in the quarters.

The biggest upset of the tournament though was from Costa Rican 15yr old Larissa Faeth, who upset the 3rd seeded Montse Mejia in four games. Faeth, who is the two-time defending 14U world Junior champion, is now regularly representing Costa Rica in Adult competitions and advanced to the semis here before falling.

In the top semi #1 Alexandra Herrera cruised past Cespedes in three, while from the bottom half Guatemala’s Gaby Martinez ended Faeth’s run in three, setting up a top-10 LPRT final between two old rivals. In the final, Herrera got her first ever IRF win over Martinez to claim her first ever International singles title.

——————–

Men’s Doubles:

A chalk group stage led to a 7-team knockout round with two heavy favorites … and one of them got upset in the semis. Costa Rica’s all-Acuna team of brothers Andres and Sergio got upset by the Guatemalans Salvatierra & Aldana in the semis to setup an unlikely final. In the gold medal match, team Mexico blitzed Team Guatemala to keep it an all Mexico gold affair.

——————–

Women’s Doubles:

The entire Women’s doubles draw went chalk, in both the group stage and in the knockouts. Top seed and defending champ Team Mexico was represented by Herrera & Mejia, one of the best doubles teams in the history of the sport and winners of dozens of titles both internationally and professionally; they advanced to the final from the top half. From the bottom half, long-time Guatemalan partners Gaby Martinez and Maria Renee (Rodriguez) Josey also cruised into the final to face off. In the final, Team Mexico made it 4-for-4 with a 8,4,8 win over the Guatemalans.

——————–

Mixed Doubles:

An upset free group round set the stage for the two top seeds (from Mexico and Costa Rica) to meet, but both were pushed before they got there. Team Costa Rica (featuring top-4 IRT player Andres Acuna and 15-yr old phenom Larissa Faeth) had to dig deep to top the Cubans in one semi, while team Mexico (featuring Rodrigo Montoya and Jessica Parrilla) got pushed to 5 games by team Guatemala before advancing. In the final, the top seeded Costa Rican team won their second straight IRF event, following up on their gold together in the PARC event in March, with a solid 4-game win over team Mexico. The 15yr old Faeth held her own along the right against veteran pro Parrilla and they got the win.

——————

The players will remain in the DR for a couple more days playing a Team event before heading home.

——————

Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

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

Next up on the calendar is the 2026 Mexican Junior Nationals next weekend. There’s an IRT-600 satellite event later in the month. Sometime in early August, look for Season in Review articles from yours truly recapping both the IRT and LPRT seasons.

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2026 USA Racquetball Junior Nationals Recap

DJ Mendoza has both outdoor and indoor chops, and won the Triple Crown at USA Junior Nationals this past weekend. Photo via Rick Bernstein

USA Racquetball held its 53rd annual Junior Nationals event last week in Des Moines, Iowa, getting some really huge draws for some of the mid-teen brackets in a promising sign for the future of tournament racquetball in the states.

With this post, is official notification that the Junior Nationals results have been entered into the ProRacquetballStats.com database. For Juniors, we upload full bracket results for 21s, 18s, 16s, and 14s, but just load up winners and finalists for all age groups younger than 14U. For doubles, we load up just the finalists.

The best way to see Junior Singles winners is with the cross-year/cross-age group Matrix reports built into the site. They show all the winners for all age divisions going back to 1974. Here’s direct links for each Matrix report:

– Boys USA Junior National Singles Champion Matrix: https://rball.pro/mey

– Girls USA Junior National Singles Champion Matrix: https://rball.pro/cpf

Each full division draw can be accessed from the “event” pulldown after you enter either the Juniors or the Junior Doubles section. One Junior Nationals results in 18-20 singles draws plus another 15 doubles draws being entered into the database, so there’s a lot of new data here this week.

R2sports home page for the 2026 event, with all the full brackets:

https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=50993

For 2026, congrats to your Boys Singles winners:

– Boys 21U: DJ Mendoza

– Boys 18U: London Townsend

– Boys 16U: Grant Williams

– Boys 14U: Scott Haacke

– Boys 12U: Ryan Joeckel

– Boys 10U: Damian Gil

– Boys 10Udb: Finn McGrath

– Boys 8U: Saharsh Gorthy

– Boys 8Umb: David Lopez

– Boys 6Umb: Vaihbhav Gorthy

Congrats to your Girls singles winners:

– Girls 21U: Naomi Ros

– Girls 18U: Alexis Boyko

– Girls 16U: Rebecca Christopher

– Girls 14U; Yana Alegria

– Girls 12U: Yana Alegria

– Girls 10U: Sameera Rai

– Girls 10Udb: Alyana Machado

– Girls 8U: Sasha Rai

– Girls 8Umb: Almira Pridatko

– Girls 6Umb: Nainika Singi

Congrats to your Boys Doubles winners:

– Boys 21U: Cole Sendrey & DJ Mendoza

– Boys 18U: Grant Williams & Evan Whitley

– Boys 16U: Grant Williams & Evan Whitley

– Boys 14U: Scott Haacke & Nicolas Suarez

– Boys 12U: Reyansh Chandel & Ryan Joeckel

– Boys 10U:Damian Gil & Luca Fernandez

Congrats to your Girls Doubles winners:

– Girls 21U: Naomi Ros & Ava Kaiser

– Girls 18U: Meyer, Elaina & Ortwerth, Stella

– Girls 16U: Boyko, Alexis & Christopher, Rebecca

– Girls 14U: Strobach, Addie & Whitley, Morgan

– Girls 12U: Singh, Riva & Marivada, Sloka

– Girls 10U: Rai, Sameera & Lu, Meiqi

And Congrats to your Mixed Doubles winners:

– Mixed 21U: Mendoza, DJ & Garcia Fatima Sanchez

– Mixed 18U: Reyes, Brandon & Torres, Montserrat

– Mixed 16U: Mangalampalli, Vaishant & Bawa, Sarah

– Mixed 14U: Haacke, Scott & Strobach, Addie

– Mixed 12U: Chandel, Reyansh & Marivada, Sloka

– Mixed 10U: Gil, Damian & Rai, Sameera

(Apologies for any typos: these were hand typed into this post, but should get typo-corrected in the database).

—

Here’s some quick commentary on the Singles champions by grouping.

Boys Singles quick recaps

Boys 21U came down to Mendoza and Sendrey once again, and once again DJ came out on top. These two have also met on the IRT recently, and after early career h2h dominance Mendoza has now taken over in their rivalry. In 18U, London Townsend (finalist last year) was able to take it one step further and claim his first Junior National title. Grant Williams, who was the losing finalist in four straight Junior National events prior to this year, finally got the gold, taking the 16U title with a dominant performance end to end.

In 14U, Scott Haacke took his second title (he won 12U two years ago). In 12U, Ryan Joeckel won his second straight title. Damien Gil took his first junior title in 10U while Finn McGrath took his first 10Udb title. Saharsh Gorthy took his 2nd straight 8U age group title, this year moving up from Multi-bounce. David Lopez took this year 8Umb title, and Saharsh’s younger brother Vaibhav Gorthy won the 6Umb division.

—————–

Girls Singles quick recaps

LPRT touring pro and 2025 US National champ Naomi Ros won her 6th straight junior national title since converting over from Mexico; she has one remaining year in U21. Alexis Boyko, who has had a couple of silver medals in the past, broke through in 18U for her first Junior National title. Yana Alegria, who two years ago won 10U, took both the 12U and 14U title, something we havn’t seen in Junior Nationals for some time. Sameera Rai took the 10U title for her 2nd career win. Alyana Machado won her first title in 10Udb, beating the 8U gold medalist Sasha Rai in the final. The two multi-bounce champions were both first time winners: Almira Pridako in 8Umb and then Nainika Singi in 6Umb.

—–

Multi-title winners

The following players took home the coveted “Triple Crown,” winning singles, gender doubles, and mixed doubles this year:

– 21U DJ Mendoza: singles, doubles with Sendry, Mixed with Sanchez

– 14U: Scott Haacke: singles, doubles with Suarez, Mixed with Strobach

– 10U: Damian Gill: singles, doubles with Fernandez, Mixed with Rai.

Also, special mention to Grant Williams, who won three golds this weekend: 16U singles, 18U doubles with Whitley, and 16U doubles with Whitley.

The following players took home the “double,” winning both Singles and a Doubles title in their age groups:

– Boys 12U: Ryan Joeckel

– Girls 21U: Naomi Ros

– Girls 18U: Alexis Boyko

– Girls 10U: Sameera Rai

Special mention to Yana Alegria for winning gold in both 14U and 12U.

These players took the “Double Double,” winning both Gender and Mixed doubles titles.

– 14U Girls and Mixed: Addie Strobach

– 12U Girls and Mixed: Sloka Marivada

—

Phew. that’s it for USA 2026 Junior Nationals. Congrats to all the 2026 winners. The National team includes the two singles finalists and the doubles winners in each division; those players have first right of refusal to represent Team USA at Junior Worlds later this year at a date/site yet to be announced.

Next up on the racquetball calendar? 2026 Outdoor Nationals, teaming with 3WallBall this year in Huntington Beach! We’ll preview and recap that event as we always do. We also will announce the 2026 WOR Hall of Fame Class at 2026 Outdoor Nats.

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IRF PARC 2026 Recap

Vargas wins the double in Guatemala. Photo via usaracquetballevents.com

The singles and doubles competitions for the 37th annual Pan American Racquetball Championships tournament are in the books. Here’s a recap of the group and knockout action, along with links for the results as entered into the Pro Racquetball Stats database.

Congratulations to the winners:

– Men’s Singles: Conrrado Moscoso , Bolivia
– Women’s Singles: @Maria Jose Vargas, Argentina
– Men’s Doubles: @Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball / Javier Mar, Mexico
– Women’s Doubles: Maria Jose Vargas/Valeria Centellas, Argentina
– Mixed Doubles: @Andres Acuna/Larissa Faeth, Costa Rica

Executive Summary: The favorites survived a crazy singles competition full of surprises and early upsets, with Moscoso beating Portillo on the Men’s side and Vargas topping Gaby in the Women’s singles final. Costa Rica’s mixed team won the title featuring the precocious Faeth alongside top IRT pro Acuna in a huge upset.

Pro Racquetball Stats DB match results. Click on these links to see the match results in the DB:

– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/1a85c7
– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/969028
– Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/587620
– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/61d2b9
– Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/8d73ce

Team Points Results From Knockouts

PARC now includes a “Team Competition” where the countries compete against each other at the end of the individual competitions, which is going on as you read this for the next couple of days, but for decades the “Team Standings” were determined by an algorithm that awarded points based on group stage and knockout performance. I’m unclear whether IRF continues to name “team winners” in this same way, but here’s the team results using the historical methods, which I also enter into the database for consistency across IRF events back to the beginning.

(You can get these “team results” via queries available from the IRF singles page off of proracquetballstats.com for past history)

If you’d like to see the worksheet that calculates these points, see here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SblLg5EbQ2KzXOmKHqxg-9iPPSMytmbH46Ay5hYJzZU/edit?usp=sharing

—

Combined Team (Overall)

1st — Mexico
2nd – Argentina
3rd – Bolivia
4th — Costa Rica

Summary: Mexico’s overall performance dwarfed even 2nd place Argentina as it reasserted its dominance after getting pipped by Bolivia in competitions lately. USA dips to an embarrassing 7th in the team points competition.

Men’s Team

1st – Mexico
2nd – Bolivia
3rd – Canada
4th – Costa Rica

Summary: USA out of the top four after poor singles results really cost them points, while Mexico dominated on the men’s side, with a win and a final in doubles and singles respectively. Despite missing Flores, Bolivia finished in second.

Women’s Team

1st – Argentina
2nd – Mexico
3rd – Guatemala
4th – Bolivia & Costa Rica tied

Summary: a double by Vargas powered Argentina to a clear win here. Once again, the USA is out of the top 4.

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Let’s run through the individual draws and talk about notable results.

Men’s Singles:

In the group stages, not too many major surprises or upsets. Argentina’s Diego Garcia beat Jake Bredenbeck to take their group but that’s not too much of a surprise upset. Bolivian 16U player Sebastian Borja lost in 5 to Argentina’s Gerson Miranda to lose the group, but that’s also as expected. The biggest RR upset may have been Canada’s Coby Iwaasa taking out Alan Natera, but again not too big of a surprise as Iwaasa is one of the best players in the world who never really played the pro tour regularly.

In the knockouts, massive upsets early. Borja took out Garcia in the 16s; he was the champion in this event last year. Iwaasa then took out Andree Parrilla; that’s two IRT top 10 players beaten for the Canadian. Lastly, Sam Murry took out No. 3 seed Gerson Miranda in a huge seeding upset, but probably an expected result based on the head to head matchup. All told, 5 of the top 8 knockout seeds were beaten in the first round.

16yr old Borja more than held his own, making the semis and losing to his own countryman Moscoso. Murray topped Acuna but couldn’t get past Portillo, giving the draw a 1v2 final despite all the carnage earlier. In the final, Moscoso dropped the first game but won the match in 4 for his 7th international title.

—

Women’s Singles:

Four of the five RR groups were straight forward, and then we had Group 4 with this quartet of players: Natalia Mendez, Annie Sanchez, Gaby Martinez, and Camila Rivero.

Editorial tangent: If there was ever a better argument for more intelligent seeding at IRF events, this is it. That’s two LPRT top 6 players in Mendez & Martinez, the current #12 LPRT player in Sanchez, and the 3-time defending 21U Junior world champ Rivero. Come on. In a competition that included, not to name names, literal B- players from lesser countries why would you stack a group like this? In the end, the players all beat up on each other, Sanchez went 0-3 and Mendez went 2-1 but finished 3rd on point differential to be omitted from the knockouts despite currently being ranked #5 on tour.

In the knockouts, the four top-ranked players in the competition all advanced to the semis as expected. There, Gaby took out Herrera and Vargas took out Mejia to get a solid final, where Vargas won and claimed her 5th career IRF singles title.

—–

Men’s Doubles.

No surprises in group stages, and all 13 entered teams advanced to the knockouts. There, the lack of Bolivia’s top team showed out, as they threw out two juniors who couldn’t do much with the powerful Canadian team. It probably didn’t matter, as the lopsided country-based seeding and the weird collapse of the Argentinian team cleared the way for Murray & Iwaasa to make the final. The bottom half was stacked, featuring Mexico, USA, and Costa Rica, but the Montoya/Mar juggernaut persevered and setup a dream final.

In the final, Montoya & Mar won a 5-game battle to claim their 5th career IRF doubles title together.

—-

Women’s Doubles:

No surprises in the group stage. In the knockouts, the powerful Argentine team of Vargas & Centellas outlasted a great push by the young Bolivian team of Rivero & Amaya to get to the final. In the stacked bottom half, Guatemala sent USA home early in the quarters but then fell to Mejia & Herrera in the semis. The Mexican pair, who has dominated Women’s doubles for years on tour, was upset in the final by the Argentine pair.

—-

Mixed Doubles

Perhaps the most wide open draw in the event was the Mixed Doubles event, which featured a number of teams who have had past success. Last year’s champs husband/wife pair of Natera & Munoz were knocked out in the semis by Bolivia’s Moscoso & Amaya, who then fell to Costa Rica (sporting the 16-yr old Larissa Faeth more than holding her own in this competition). In the final, Acuna & Faeth shocked the world with a win over Argentina’s Miranda & Mendez to claim CR’s second ever international title.

——

Commentary on the State of the PARC and International competitions

The 2026 PARC competition saw the return of a team from Colombia after several years away (their federation collapsed, causing stalwart Colombians like Cristina Amaya to decamp for other countries). We also saw Venezuela send a time for the first time in years, along with players from Cuba (who missed last year), Puerto Rico, and Peru. In fact, the only regularly attending country missing this time around was Honduras. So, that’s good to see.

Four of the countries however didn’t send any females at all (Ecuador, Cuba, Peru, and PR). Peru and PR’s attendees may have been completely independent/self financed, but the other two federations should have sent full teams.

Bolivia continues to be plagued by financial support issues, which cost them the attendance of Jhonathan Flores and any of their top females … instead he was replaced by their reigning 16U world champion Borja in singles and by two other youngsters (Aldin & Aguilar) in Men’s doubles, plus a female in Amaya who doesn’t even have any junior results, which likely cost them a shot at the overall team titles. They held their own .. but if international competitions are so important to the Bolivians, perhaps they should figure out how to support their teams.

——

Congrats to the International Racquetball Federation for another successful event. Thanks to the IRT streaming crew, and thanks to @Gary Mazaroff and all his co-announcers for their hard work all week.

Next up on the Racquetball Calendar: the IRT is back in action in Fountain Valley in two weeks’ time. Plus, I hear we may have an LPRT event in the making before the season ends.

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2026 Beach Bash Recap

Javier Mar dominated 2026 Beach Bash, winning both pro doubles titles. Photo via PK

Hello Racquetball fans. The first Outdoor “Major” of the 2026 season just finished up on the sunny courts of Garfield Street in Hollywood, Florida, and here’s a recap.

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Men’s Pro Doubles: @Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball & @Javier Mar
– Women’s Pro Doubles: Michelle Anderson & Anita Maldonado
– Mixed Pro Doubles: Javier Mar & Aimee Roehler
– Men’s Pro Singles: Jhonatan Flores
– Women’s Pro Singles: (no event)

Executive Summary: Mar gets the double gold while Flores wins in his WOR debut.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=48742

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Reports on ProRacquetballStats.com:

Match reports for 2026 Beach Bash:

– Men’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/a56f52
– Women’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/ead368
– Mixed Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/ead368
– Men’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/1a9bf2
– Women’s Pro Singles: (no event)

Triple Crown Reports for all past WOR major champions (which dynamically update every time there’s a new WOR major):

– Men’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/3lj
– Women’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/zoa
– Mixed Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/obz
– Men’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/9ey
– Women’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/h27

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Lets run through the draws, recapping the action.

——————

Men’s Pro Doubles:

A stacked draw saw a reshuffling of seeds last minute, which happens from time to time when there’s a last minute withdrawal/replacement and/or someone onsite pitches a fit. I don’t know which situation it was this time, but the early round shuffle still ended up giving the tourney some awesome early matches.

Freddy Ramirez and David Blatt as a #14 seed was pretty crazy, but they topped the #3 seeds with ease to face off against the 14-time pro champ Waselenchuk and Montanez in the quarters. Kane and Tito advanced, but ran into the Hall of Famer Sostre in the Semis, who put on a one-wall clinic as he & Benny advanced to the final from the bottom half. Meanwhile, the top seeds Montoya & Mar, who have more than proven their one-wall bonafides over the years, had to face a gauntlet of top players to get to the final: they beat Miller & Deida (3-time Beach Bash champs) in the 16s , then Rocky & Ramos in the quarters (Rocky owns 12 outdoor doubles titles), then Rolon & Pruitt in the semis (Rolon owns four one-wall major doubles titles). So, they certainly earned their spot.

In the final, Montoya/Mar outlasted Sostre/Goldenberg for the win. It’s Mar’s 4th major one-wall title and Montoya’s first.

——————

Women’s Pro Doubles:

In a 4-team draw, outdoor legend @Michelle Anderson teamed with NYC legend @Anita Maldonado to win the title. They beat Neils and Roehler in a rematch of last year’s Beach Bash final.

This is Anderson’s 38th career major outdoor doubles title, and Maldonado’s 8th.

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Mixed Pro Doubles:

Eventual Champs Javier Mar and hall of famer @Aimee Roehler upset the top seeds in the semis and cruised to the title. In the final they topped Sostre & Neils, never an easy task. It’s Roehler’s 11th career major outdoor title.

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Men’s Pro Singles:

Bolivian phenom Jhonatan Flores played his first outdoor event in the USA and ended up taking the singles title. He beat a very tough lefty in Ramos to start, then blitzed the one-wall king from NYC Sostre, then took out the #1 seeded Portillo in the final. A great showing for his first event. I’m not sure just how much one-wall or even three wall experience Flores has; Bolivian players often have Fronton experience in their home country, which isn’t exactly the same as one-wall but is an outdoor variation of the sport.

——————

Women’s Pro Singles:

There was no Women’s singles event this year, thanks to a historically low female turnout which we’ll talk about more later.

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Other Notable draws. This year, the age-based “pro” draws were absolutely stacked, often having bigger draws than their corresponding draws. Plus, a slew of legends of the game were in Florida just to compete in these age-based draws. So, we’ll cover them a big more comprehensively

– CPRT 40+ Doubles: HOFamer Robert “Iceman” Sostre and partner Benny Goldenberg brought the CPRT title back home to NYC, cruising to the title as the #1 seeds. In the final they topped the criminally under-seeded @Cliff Swain and @David Blatt, giving the final a very Northeastern flavor.

– Men’s 75+: Texas was in the house in this draw, as the final featured three players from the great one-wall community in San Antonio. Abel Perez, one of the major sponsors of outdoor, teamed with Javier Mar to face off against the king himself @Kane Waselenchuk and his partner @Matthew Barron. After Kane/Barron dispatched another legend of the sport in @Marty Hogan (playing with multiple-Beach Bash champion Ignacio “Iggy” Espinal) in the semis, they topped Perez/Mar in the final 21-15.

– Men’s 100+: Hogan wasn’t done after his 75+ loss; he and the outdoor legend Richie Miller took the 100+ event, beating the best that the Virginia-based Stratton Woods outdoor crew has to offer in Allen Small & Suresh Vemulapalli in the final.

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Some Additional commentary:

This year’s Beach Bash was stacked on the Men’s side, with great draws and a host of legendary names down in Florida competing. This is in no small part thanks to a reshuffling of the events that normally butt heads in March from the WTR crew in Louisiana, so bravo there. But where were the women? This year, the event was missing nearly all its Beach Bash LPRT regulars and the event couldn’t even field a women’s singles draw.

I know part of this is the loss of funding for the competitors, a big reason they came to Vegas for so many years. And part of it is just the pivoting we’re seeing in the field: Longoria is pregnant, Scott has essentially left pro racquetball along with her boyfriend DLR, Munoz is stepping back, Lawrence has completely stopped competing, Laime doesn’t travel as much, Rajsich stopped playing outdoor years ago, Sotomayor now lives 3000 miles away, and of course the continued presence of the AF event two weeks prior cuts into the travel availability of many top NYC-based paddleball experts who otherwise may have played… No good answer here. But, it’s a shame because the ladies were a huge draw and helped make Mixed Pro Doubles such a fun event to watch. Hopefully we see a renaissance soon.

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Thanks to the Tourney Directors Peggine Tellez , Jen O’Meara , @Mike Coulter, @Vic Leibofsky, Soda Man, and the entire 3Wall Ball crew for putting this event on and ensuring the legacy of outdoor majors.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMbIP9SZd0MssH_nPGU/edit?usp=sharing

Next weekend there’s three major events at the same time: PARC in Guatemala, Intercollegiates in Minneapolis, and the WTR event in Louisiana.

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tags

USA Racquetball

@WOR – World Outdoor Racquetball

@3Wall Ball

Posted on

USA Racquetball 2026 National Indoors Recap

Erika triple-qualified at US Nationals. Photo 2021 US Open via Kevin Savory

Congrats to your Open winners and new US National Team representatives: weekend:

– Men’s Singles: Jake Bredenbeck d Daniel De La Rosa

– Women’s Singles: Michelle (Key) Anderson d Erika Manilla

– Men’s Doubles: Daniel De La Rosa & DJ Mendoza

– Women’s Doubles: Erika Manilla & Michelle (Key) Anderson

– Mixed Doubles: Adam Manilla and Erika Manilla

Executive Summary: Erika Manilla wins 2 golds and triple-qualifies, while DJ Mendoza makes the adult national team for the first time. DLR also double qualifies in a Worlds year and will have a chance to defend his 2024 world singles title. Adam Manilla returns to the national team after a year’s absence due to injury. Michelle (Key) Anderson wins her first ever National singles title. Lastly, Jake Bredenbeck continues his long run on the National team by winning his first National singles title since 2019.

Congrats to all.

They join a distinguished list of direct US National team qualifiers, which I keep a roster of at this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hfxiw8chi8Dpl8U0E4LjShVKaqY2OLqbhqBDpgYX7zU/edit?usp=sharing

The Winners and Finalists of the Singles competition, plus the Doubles winners in each discipline will have first right of refusal to represent the USA at two upcoming 2026-27 events: the 2026 IRF Worlds in August at a site TBD, and then the 2027 annual Pan American Racquetball Championships in late March 2027.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=50421

Here’s links to historical US National Team finals for the various disciplines. These go back all the way to 1968 for the Men, 1970 for the women, and 2022 for Mixed as a relatively new category.

– US Men’s Singles finals; https://rball.pro/85i

– US Women’s Singles finals: https://rball.pro/24a5f1

– US Men’s Doubles finals: https://rball.pro/adf3cd

– US Women’s Doubles finals: https://rball.pro/9c5514

– US Mixed Doubles finals: https://rball.pro/ffd5bf

Lastly, here’s the links for the 5 match reports for the 2026 event in one spot:

– US Men’s Singles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/95a133

– US Women’s Singles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/f9a662

– US Men’s Doubles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/d03fe6

– US Women’s Doubles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/0a6212

– US Mixed Doubles 2026 Match Report; https://rball.pro/c58778

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Let’s review the notable matches in the National team qualifying draws.

Men’s Singles:

There weren’t any major surprises in this draw early; #5 Sam Bredenbeck upset #4 Thomas Carter in the quarters to make the US semis for the first time in his career; for his troubles he had to match up against his brother Jake. The two had only played competitively once in their entire careers, amateur or professional, prior to this meeting. Jake took out younger brother Sam in the semis to make the finals and guarantee his 6th singles qualification to the US team. Meanwhile, a rusty Daniel De La Rosa had to fend off an in-form Adam Manilla in the bottom semi, eventually pulling away in the 5th to win, advance to the finals, and setup a third successive match against Jake for the US National singles title. More importantly, he guarantees his 4th US National singles spot. DLR didn’t play for the US in any of the 2025 competitions thanks to his pickleball commitments, but in a Worlds year he’ll be highly likely to look for a shot at defending his 2024 World singles title.

In the final, Jake dominated play, with solid defensive ball and excellent court coverage. He wins going away 11,8,3 to claim his first National singles title since 2019.

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Women’s Singles:

The Women’s singles draw was upset-city from the start. Defending US Champ Naomi Ros was ousted in the 1st round by veteran American player Lexi York, immediately ending any thoughts of a back-to-back title for the Texan. York ended up pushing #1 Manilla to five games before falling, but achieved her best singles result here in more than a decade (she finished 3rd in 2014).

Meanwhile, it was a tournament to remember for Michelle (Key) Anderson, who upset #2 Lotts and #3 Sanchez to reach the singles final and directly qualify for the US Team in singles for the first time in her career. This won’t be the first time she’s played singles internationally, but it’ll be the first time she’s in a US final.

In the final against her doubles partner, Anderson overcame Manilla’s power and played a better end game at every step to win a 4-game close match and claim her first ever National Singles title.

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Men’s Doubles:

Daniel De La Rosa won his third US National title, this time with a player with whom he had little to no prior playing experience with, dragging along Texas junior DJ Mendoza to the title. DLR and Mendoza, seeded 4th, had to dig deep just to upset the top seeds Carson & Manilla in the semis, then played a very close tactical game against the Bredenbeck brothers in the final, outlasting them 11-7 in the fifth. It’s the 5th time in the last 6 years that the brothers have made the national final but come up short, ending an agonizing day for the Minnesotians.

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Women’s Doubles:

Three teams of ladies battled it out for the US National title. The two 20-somethings Naomi Ros & Annie Sanchez fell in quick succession to the two veteran teams, leaving the defending champs Manilla/Anderson to face off against two long-time Team USA combatants Lexi York & Sheryl Lotts for the title. After two games of shot making split the teams, Manilla & Anderson pulled away and claimed their 2nd title in a row. It’s Manilla’s 4th Women’s doubles national title, Key’s second.

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Mixed Doubles:

The Mixed Doubles competition was the first to finish, with the finals played late Thursday before many had even arrived at the event. The first National champions crowned were the brother/sister duo of Adam and Erika Manilla, who earned the title with a hard-fought 5-game thriller over Jake Bredenbeck and Michelle (Key) Anderson.

With the win, Manilla earns his 3rd career National Team appointment and his second career Mixed Doubles title with his sister. Meanwhile, Erika earns her 3rd career Mixed US National title and ensures her 7th straight US National team appointment.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMM

There’s an IRT satellite in Portland honoring the late John Pelham, a long-running IRT-affiliated event. Mexico has their National championships next weekend as well, always one of my favorite tourneys to cover. Then we get into a very busy March on the calendar, with a slew of major events across pro, international, and outdoor disciplines.