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
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.
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:
– 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.
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.
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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 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.
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Here were the winners of the Mixed Doubles competitions:
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The players will remain in the DR for a couple more days playing a Team event before heading home.
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.
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:
– 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).
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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:
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
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
Adam Manilla is back after a year’s absence and ready to compete for US titles.
Photographer Kevin Savory
This weekend, the top players from around the country descend on Arizona State University in Tempe for the National Indoor Championships. This is the 58th year of National Singles in this country; every year save for 2020 since 1968, the absolute longest running single event in the sport. We combined National Singles and Doubles a few years back into the “National Indoors” event, so in addition to all the amateur events this tournament will name the participants to the US National Team for the 2026-27 season (2026 Worlds and 2027 PARC).
Here’s quick previews of the five US National team draws
Men’s Singles: defending champion Daniel De La Rosa is here, and faces an interesting career decision. The 3-time IRT pro tour champ left professional racquetball for professional pickleball, but is currently out of contract with the pro pickleball tour. He has not appeared in a pro pickleball event since his contract termination last October, but has been seen on the racquetball courts, so he should be somewhat in-form to defend his title. He’s the #3 seed here; US National team qualifying draws goes straight from the current USAR rankings, and does not “protect” last year’s finalists like we used to do. Jake is #1, Adam Manilla is now #2 ahead of DLR.
DLR has to fend off Charlie Pratt to face Manilla in the semis, while Jake looks set to face the winner of his brother and Thomas Carter in the top semi. I’d guess we’re going to see a rematch of 2025’s final between DLR and Jake, with Jake taking the title over DLR. But I honestly have no idea how rusty or in-form DLR is; Manilla has been playing great lately and absolutely could take him out in the semis. We’ll see.
Women’s Open Singles: In a cryptic message, long-time US National team member Hollie Scott announced on the eve of the event that she was switching countries and would play for Guatemala going forward. This robbed the Women’s Singles draw of its top seed (Scott is currently the #1 ranked American) and elevated 3-time National champ Erika Manilla to the #1 seed. Long-time top US player Kelani Lawrence has stepped back from playing events as well, which thins the field significantly. Manilla projects into the defending US champ Naomi Ros in the semis, meaning someone’s going home off the National team between the two most recent Singles champs. From the bottom half, I could make an argument for any of the four to make a run: Annie Sanchez has been playing great lately, Hall of Famer Rajsich can still get wins, Michelle (Key) Anderson is a threat, and #2 seed Lotts has been getting career wins lately.
I’ll go with Ros over Sanchez in the final, a big youth movement statement for the two current/recently matriculated juniors.
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Men’s Doubles:
Defending doubles champ Rocky Carson is back, this time with lefty Adam Manilla, to form the formidable #1 seed. They’ll have to fend off 2-time champ De La Rosa, playing this year with fellow Texan DJ Mendoza, but should be the favorites in the final against the Bredenbeck brothers.
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Women’s Doubles:
There’s just three teams competing; the top seeds Manilla & Key are probably favorites, but if I just predicted a Sanchez-Ros singles final there’s no reason not to think that Sanchez/Ros as a team couldn’t win this.
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Mixed Doubles:
Last year Erika won the mixed with Erik Garcia (her brother was on the mend); they’re back together this year with a strong chance of repeating their 2024 title together as brother & sister. They’ll likely have to go through the very strong looking Bredenbeck/Key team to do so.
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Look for Carrie Reitmeier, Richard Eisemann, Sandy Rios, and Karen Grisz on the mike streaming off of the USAR’s facebook page all weekend.
Thanks to the Tourney Director Jonathan Greenberg of the USAR staff.
Camila Rivero continues her dominance of World Juniors 21U, winning her third straight title. Photo via deportes de Bolviia
So, I’m a little behind on this one. World Juniors was in mid December in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and to be completely honest the timing of the event along with the timing of other events I cover, as well as a mid-December work trip and then mid-December holiday travel completely conspired against me having any shot of doing the massive amount of work required to enter the data for World Juniors, nor to recap it until now.
However, this is one of the most important events of the year to cover, because it’s often the first time we hear about top-level juniors coming from Bolivia and Mexico who might suddenly start getting wins in the pro tours. It’s also a great way to see how the other leading countries’ juniors are stacking up.
So, with that said, lets recap. We’ll list all the singles winners, then do some quick narrative discussion by division.
Here’s the “matrix reports” of Boys and Girls Junior Worlds champions historically:
– Boys: https://rball.pro/ff5caa
– Girls: https://rball.pro/t6e
Champions were crowned in Singles, Doubles, and Mixed Doubles in six age groups: 21U, 18U, 16U, 14U, 12U, and 10U, as well as a team competition, meaning that in essence this tournament actually held 30 separate competitions. All 30 competitions are now in the database; If you see any typos, or name corrections, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Reminder: as a practice, Pro Racquetball Stats does not capture full draws for any groups younger than 14yr olds; for the 12s, 10s, and younger we just capture the champions for historical reporting. Junior Doubles only has the gold medal match, not the full draws. If you’d like to see more data than this for juniors in the database, reach out and I’ll guide you on doing data entry.
Congratulations to your 2025 World Junior champions:
Boys Singles:
– Boys 21U: Jhonathan Flores, Bolivia
– Boys 18U: Marco Mamani Aguilar, Bolivia
– Boys 16U: Santiago Borja, Bolivia
– Boys 14U: Hanz Vega, Bolivia
– Boys 12U: Max Soto, Mexico
– Boys 10U: Damian Gracia Castro, Mexico
Summary: Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Boys titles. Not one final included a player from outside Bolivia & Mexico. Furthermore, and even more shocking, there was just one player from outside Mexico/Bolivia to even make the SEMIS in any of these draws. The dominance in World Juniors of these two countries is unlike anything we’ve seen since the old days, when every final was a rematch of the USA Junior National finals.
Girls Singles:
– Girls 21U: Camila Rivero, Bolivia
– Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar, Mexico
– Girls 16U: Luciana Illanes Quenta, Bolivia
– Girls 14U: Larissa Faeth, Costa Rica
– Girls 12U: Mary Hinojosa Garcia, Bolivia
– Girls 10U: Briana Ampuero, Bolivia
Summary: Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Girls Singles titles, and we get the first singles titlist from outside the big two countries.
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Boys Doubles:
– Boys 21U: Sebastian Hernandez/Jorge Gutierrez, Mexico
– Boys 18U: Eder Renteria/Diego Romano, Mexico
– Boys 16U: Santiago Borja/Sebastian Terrazas, Bolivia
– Boys 14U: Alejandro Robles Picon/Elias Medrano, Mexico
– Boys 12U: Max Soto/Hermann Gracia, Mexico
– Boys 10U: Juan Ignacio Morales/Benjamin Lino Daza, Bolivia
Summary: Mexico takes 4 of the 6 Boys doubles titles, while Bolivia takes the other two. There’s some penetration from other countries into the back ends of the doubles draws, but it continues to be Mexico/Bolivia dominated.
Summary, as in 2025, Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Girls doubles titles, while Larissa Faeth leads the charge for Costa Rica to break through the Bolivia/Mexico dominance.
Mixed Doubles:
– Mixed 21U: DJ Mendoza/Naomi Ros, USA
– Mixed 18U: Nicolas Galindo / Yanna Salazar, Mexico
– Mixed 16U: Santiago Borja/Suszel Andrea Pairo , Bolivia
– Mixed 12U: Dylan Zambrana / Mary Hinojosa Garcia, Bolivia
– Mixed 10U: Benjamin Lino Daza / Briana Ampuero, Bolivia
Summary: Bolivia takes 4 of the 6 Mixed doubles titles, all of them the youngest of the six. Team USA gets its sole win of 2025, and Costa Rica’s Faeth is robbed of a triple crown by losing in the Mixed 16U final.
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Grand total of Titles won by Country:
– Bolivia: 18 of 30
– Mexico: 9 of 30
– Costa Rica: 2 of 30
– USA: 1 of 30
Bolivia has taken over Junior Racquetball in a strong way.
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Triple Crown Winners:
– Boys 16U: Santiago Borja, Bolivia
– Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar, Mexico
– Girls 12U: Mary Hinojosa Garcia, Bolivia
– Girls 10U: Briana Ampuero, Bolivia
Double Gold Winners:
– Boys 12U: Max Soto, Mexico; Singles and Boys Doubles
– Girls 14U: Larissa Faeth, Costa Rica: Singles and Girls Doubles
– Boys 10U: Benjamin Lino Daza, Bolivia: Boys and Mixed
– Girls 14U: Valentina Villarroel Garzon, Bolivia: Girls and Mixed
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Team Winners of the older competitions (16U and up)
– Boys Team: Bolivia 1, Mexico 2, USA 3, Costa Rica 4
– Combined Team: Bolivia 1, Mexico 2, USA 3, Guatemala 4, just edging out Costa Rica by 6 points for 4th.
Team winners of the Esprit divisions (14U and down)
– Boys Esprit Cup: Bolivia 1, Mexico 2, USA 3
– Girls Espirit Cup: Bolivia 1, Mexico 2, USA 3
– Combined Espirit Cup: Bolivia 1, Mexico 2, USA 3. Ecuador was 4th in all three divisions.
A clean sweep of the Team Cups for Bolivia, to no real surprise.
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Every singles and doubles draw has a match report in the database that you can run: instead of repeating dozens of links we’ll give some examples here. Any Singles age group 14 and up will have the full RR and knockout draws, while any Singles age group 12U and below will just have the finals. All Doubles have just the finals.
Surf to www.proracquetballstats.com, click on either Juniors or “Junior Doubles” database, then at the very top you can pull down a match report. You can also run a number of different reports for singles and doubles.
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Let’s run through the Singles draws and provide some commentary.
Boy’s 21U Singles: After a completely clean round-robin, with basically no upsets of any of the top 10-12 seeds, we got a relatively true knockout phase highlighted with the top four seeds from Bolivia and Mexico. The two team USA players fell in the quarters to the two top seeds. In the semis, the two Bolivian players Flores and Iglesias topped their Mexican rivals, ensuring an all-Bolivia u21 final and a rematch of the Bolivian U21 national championship. There Flores finished off the win, taking the U21 title in his first year of eligibility after winning the last two U18 titles, and doing it without dropping a game. It is Flores’ 5th Junior World title, and he seems set to run the U21 table for the next couple of years as well.
Boy’s 18U Singles: Marco Mamani Aguilar, the 16U world champ two years ago, returned to the top of the podium in his first year of 18U. He and fellow Bolivian Sebastian Terrazas (who won the 16U title last year) both were in the DR for this event, but Terrazas fell to Mexico’s Eder Renteria to prevent an all-Bolivia final. Aguilar finished off another solid World title with a 3-game sweep of Renteria in the final.
Boys 16U Singles: Costa Rica’s Alvaro Guillen became the first from outside Bolivia/Mexico to break through into the semis with an upset of #3 seed Mexican Axel Sanchez in the quarters, but Bolivia’s Alfredo Santiago Borja blew through the draw and took the 16U title after winning the last two 14U World Junior titles. He beat Mexica’s Santiago Castillo in the final, who got there by the skin of his teeth with a 16-14 Game 5 win in the semis over the Bolivia #2 Ruiz Michel.
Boys 14U: 14U and below played Olympic style brackets (Gold, Red, Blue, White) and did not limit participants to 2-per-country, meaning a massive gold draw with 4-5 participants from some countries. This also meant that top seeds gifted to players by virtue of their predecessors performance were exposed early. Both the #2 and #4 seeds from Costa Rica were ousted in the first round, as were the two USA entrants. By the time the semis rolled around, we were back to two Bolivia-Mexico matchups, as has been the pattern in the older boys divisions. Alejandro Robles Picon, American converted to represent Mexico and World 10U champ in 2021, was upset in the semis by Vega in five. The final was (presumably) a rematch of the Bolivian 14U final, taken by newcomer Hanz Vega over his countryman and #1 seed Gustavo Cordova, coming back from 2 games down to win 15-13 in the fifth, an amazing match.
In Boys 12U, it came down to the two top seeds and another Mexico-Bolivia battle. In the final, Mexico’s Max Soto got his first world junior title, beating Bolivian Santiago Cruz Arteaga in three. Arteaga was the 2023 10U world champion. 2024’s 10U world champion was inexplicably seeded 29th in the draw (Bolivia’s Vincent Riveros) and lost first round to Mexico’s Hermann Gracia (the 2022 10U champ). Definitely something to watch, having so many Junior World champs in one age bracket moving forward.
In Boys 10U, Mexico’s Damien Gracia Castro took out the #1 Bolivian Mateo Crespo, then another Bolivian along the way before beating his countryman Daniel Rodriguez in an all-Mexican final
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Girls 21U: Bolivia’s Camila Rivero blew through the draw and won her third straight U21 World Junior Title. Inexplicably, despite being the 2-time defending champ, she was only seeded 2nd in the draw. Make that one make sense. She beat USA’s reigning U21 and reigning National champ Naomi Ros in the quarters, topped the upstart Guatemalan Andrea Gabriela Reyes in the semis, then beat her countrywoman Rebecca Amaya Ardaya in the final to claim the title. She’s still got one year left in U21 and could go for an unprecedented 4-peat in 2026.
Girls 18U: Yanna Salazar repeated as Junior world 18U champ from the #3 seed spot thanks to her loss to Mariafernanda Trujillo in Mexican Junior Nationals last July. Nonetheless, she powered through both Bolivian entrants in the semis and finals to take the crown.
Girls 16U: newcomer Bolivian Luciana Illanes Quenta dominated the draw from start to finish, beating Mexico’s Andrea Perez-Picon in the final. Perez-Picon upset the top seed and favorite, Bolivian Nicol Abril Mansilla in the semis to break up the all-Bolivian final. Of note: Mansilla played in both 16U and 18U, losing in the semis of 16U and the finals of 18U.
Girls 14U: Costa Rican Larissa Faeth, who jsut got her first LPRT tour win at the Arizona Open a couple of weeks ago, repeated as World Junior 14U titleist. She beat Mexico’s best in the semis and Bolivia’s best in the final. For reasons inexplicable, she was only seeded 5th in the draw despite winning last year. Yes, I realize the seeds are done by country, and by last year’s country finish, but not having a repeating champion in the top spot tells me your seeding criteria is wrong. This has been a problem with IRF seeding for decades, nothing new.
Girls 12U: Bolivia’s Mary Hinojosa Garcia repeated as 12U world juniors champion, topping countrymate Sofia Rocabado in the final. All four semi-finalists in this draw were from Bolivia.
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Phew! Ok well if you’ve read this far, here’s some thoughts. Mexico still maintained control of the Junior categories last year for the most part, but Bolivia took a huge step forward this year. Meanwhile, former blue blood countries in the sport USA and Canada were generally nowhere to be found as the sport’s growth continues to concentrate south of the border.
