Jhonathan Flores became the 47th person in the history of the IRT (and its predecessors) to win a Tier 1/full draw event. After doing my recaps and podcasts, I realized that I had some hard coded nuggets of information in the underlying perl code that would make for a great report.
So here it is; this is a breakdown of some key information related to each of the 47 first time winners. Take a look: i’ve got the data sorted from most recent winners to the oldest.
IRT: https://rball.pro/c288b0
Also, here’s the same data for the LPRT: https://rball.pro/e19899
(LPRT has only had 30 winners in its history … crazy).
Anyway, take a look, let me know if there’s other data you’d like to see on this report.
To run it yourself, go to the PRS home page, pick either the IRT or LPRT, then in the lower section of reports select and run the “First Time Tour Winners” report.
Back in 2019, I saw a cool graphic showing the slow change over time of rankings of some IT thing; maybe it was market share of browsers or ranking of cell phone providers. After digging in, I found the site (Flourish.studio) and, what do you know, you can upload your own data. I created visual racing bar charts showing the Men and Women’s top 10s since the beginning of the tours in 1974, and those posts were one of the most popular I ever did.
@JT R Ball reached out this week and asked if I had thought about updating them … and I said, “Hey What a great idea!”
So, without further ado, here’s the two graphics, updated to the current rankings on both tours for the 2025-26 rankings.
Quick data caveats, since, well, this is Racquetball and no good deed goes published on the internet without someone complaining about it:
– These are End of Season top 10 lists. If you are a player who was ranked in the top 10 for a few weeks in a season 20 years ago and don’t see your name … don’t @ to tell me the data is wrong. Nobody captured mid-season top 10 data and I have no way of showing anything other than season ending top 10 ranks.
– In the The first few years of the tours, Basically there wasn’t a rolling ranking. The champions were determined by who won the season-ending Nationals event. That’s why the first few years look weird; i just took the Nationals finish and kind of jury-rigged a top 10.
Some fun facts:
– in 2019, there had only been 79 distinct players in the history of Pro racquetball to finish in the top 10 in any season. That number has now risen to 94 through this season, as we’ve had a ton of new faces make top 10 debuts in the last 5-6 years. Moscoso, Acuna, Jake, Montoya, Natera, Portillo, Adam, Carter, Martell, Trujillo? All new within the last few years, along with a slew of others.
– Same info for the Women: in 2019 there had been 97 women who had a top10 finish … now that number is up to 106. We haven’t really had that many new women debut that high in the last half decade. Gaby, Laime, Manilla, Barrios, Centellas, and this year Lotts is in the top 10.
Happy Friday. As always, if you can think of a cool application of this data that I should do or think about i’m always open to it.
Kane is in the driver’s seat atop the rankings … for now. Can he be caught? Photo via US Open 2019/Kevin Savory
I got a message recently from Felipe Mercado, asking if I could “cover” the IRT title race or explain it in more detail. Great idea. I write a quick points race summary after each IRT event, but it’s worth writing a larger missive to discuss where we are, how the race is going to be decided this year, and what’s at stake in the season’s final few events.
One of the first things the new International Racquetball Tour regime did upon taking over was to pivot back to a fall-to-spring schedule, as was in place for the first 50 years or so of the tour. This immediately led to a conundrum; should the tour award a shortened “2024-25” season just based on the first half of 2025’s events (there were just 3 events in the first six months of 2025), or should they go with a “super season” spanning a year and a half? The team went with Option B.
So, now as we sit in March of 2026, the tour is rolling towards the 6/30/26 official end of the 2025-26 season, and will soon be awarding the next season-ending titlist.
Quick level setting on points: for a regular Tier 1/IRT-700 event, the points awarded are as follows:
– 420 points for first place
– 280 points for second place
– 210 for the semis
– 140 for the quarters
– 70,35,18 for 16s, 32s, 64s.
(Note: the tour has had one IRT-800 level event; Tracktown, which adjusts the above scale slightly upwards. It’s possible one of the 3 remaining events also gets enough money to be an 800 level event, which would slightly alter this analysis).
The points basically follow the prize money: “IRT-700” means $700 for each round advanced. So, if you get to the semis, you’ve advanced 3 rounds and earn $2100. The winner gets a bonus for, you know, winning.
Given that there’s projected to be 12 Tier 1 events in the 18-month season, plus a slew of satellite events, the tour has decided that the best 10 results over the last 18 months for each player will determine their year end ranking. Satellite tournaments count as well; if someone wins a satellite event (worth 75 points) that result can replace a round of 16 loss (worth 70) or a round of 32 loss (worth 35) or even a missed Tier 1 event for the player. These events will absolutely help determine the rankings for players 3rd and below, and may factor into the top 10 race (an arbitrary cut-off but one that I have built reporting around for historical purposes), but the top two players are entirely about the Tier 1s.
The race for #1 is a two-horse race. Kane Waselenchuk currently has the lead with 2515 points, and Conrrado Moscoso is in second place with 2267 points. These two are more than 650 points ahead of the 3rd place @Andres Acuna
and 4th place Jake Bredenbeck ; the only way these two can get back into the race is if Kane & Conrrado both quit the tour tomorrow.
So, lets talk about where we are and what can happen. There’s some salient points to talk about before we play some what-if scenarios:
– The loss of the 2026 planned US Open in June means there’s just three tier 1s remaining: the Papa Nicholas Chicago event in two weeks time, the Player’s Championship in Fountain Valley in April, and Pro Nationals the first weekend of May in Montana.
– There will be exactly 12 Tier 1s included in the 18-month schedule.
– Moscoso got hurt in early 2025; he tweaked his knee in the round of 32 at last year’s Minnesota event and lost: this gave him a 35-point result and knocked him out of the next event.
– Moscoso recovered in time for the Sept 2025 World Singles & Doubles event … but ran into Kane in the round of 16 and lost, giving him a 70-point result.
– So, Moscoso netted just 105 points for these three events. Meanwhile, Waselenchuk won 2025 Minnesota, lost in qtrs of 2025 Chicago, and lost in the finals of World Singles and doubles for a combined 840 points to Moscoso’s 105 for those events. That’s a lot of points that Moscoso can “make up” with an extra six months of events to bolster his top 10 results. However, the loss of the US Open was critical; it took the total # of Tier 1s from 13 to 12, meaning Conrrado will have to “keep” one of these super-low results in his final tally. Even if he went to one of the two remaining satellites and wins it for a 75 point result, it will barely matter; he’s got to replace a 0, 35, and 70 result and at best he’ll only improve his 70-point result by 5 points assuming he advances deep into the 3 remaining Tier 1s.
Now, how about Kane?
– Well, Kane missed last year’s Golden State Open (to attend a wedding), and otherwise his lowest Tier 1 results are a qtrs injury-aided loss at last year’s Chicago event (140 ) and a semis loss in SoCal to Moscoso (210).
– So, Kane can make at least the qtrs in the remaining 3 events and improve upon both his 0 and his 140-point results. If he makes the finals of all three, he’ll replace all three of these results with higher-point totals.
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Ok that’s all fine and dandy, and probably confusing, but is Kane in jeopardy of losing the year end title race? Yes he is … but he’s in the driver’s seat in some respects. Here’s some scenarios:
Scenario 1: Conrrado wins all 3 remaining events and Kane makes the final in all three. Conrrado replaces his 3 lowest scores with 3 wins, while Kane does the same with three 280-point finals. The two players 10 best results will thus look like this:
– Moscoso: 7 wins, 2 semis, 1 round of 16. That would total 3464 per my projections.
– Waselenchuk: 3 wins, 6 finals, 1 semi: That would total 3215.
Scenario 2: Conrrado beats Kane in the final and wins 2 of the three remaining events, but Kane beats Conrrado in the final of the third:
– Waselenchuk: 4 wins, 5 finals, 1 semi: That would total 3355
Just that one flip of a win vs a final would be enough for Kane to secure the title. And, it won’t be close enough for Moscoso to bother going to a Satellite event to gain 5 points; it’ll be game over.
If Kane is upset in any of the 3 remaining events prior to the finals, the pathway for Conrrado to win the title correspondingly becomes easier but not a lock. Same goes for Moscoso: if he loses in an early round, he won’t have the opportunity to “replace” those March 2025 results with anything substantive, and Kane would then roll to the title.
So, the rest of the season is simple: Conrrado needs to win out to guarantee he is in control of his own destiny to get the title. And, if Kane can win one, he’ll almost guarantee his 16th pro tour title.
Here’s what I’m hoping for: Moscoso wins the next two over Kane in the finals, and we head to the Pro Nationals event with a “winner take all” scenario. We’ve had multiple seasons where the race wasn’t decided until the very last tournament, and in some cases the very last final of the very last tournament: Kane over Huczek in 2004 and again in 2006, Cliff in 2002, Sudsy in 1996, Kane over Rocky in 2015 being the most recent examples.
Can’t wait to see how the next couple of events play out, to see if we get that pressure-packed last event.
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I have a per-event rolling points XLS that emulates the IRT official rankings at this Google sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z6eg6NJT6fjGMfRRyKTNLShAiDoz0TzzmQCt1_SbNBo/edit?usp=sharing
Unfortunately, the Microsoft XLS formula I use to find the “best 10 results” doesn’t translate to Google’s formulas, so they’re broken online It’s too bad, because i put in a little “what-if” analysis section for the final three events that you can see online.
The actual running official IRT Rankings are here: https://irttour.com/rankings/
Grant Williams takes his first USAR High School title. Photo via USAR
Last weekend, the 38th annual USA Racquetball High School Nationals were held at the Vetta Sports clubs in St. Louis. Fitting since this is the home of the unique High School racquetball league that is responsible for a bit chunk of the junior development in this country right now. (note: the event generally flips between St. Louis and Portland every year and has for most of the last 2 decades).
Note: the Pro Racquetball Stats database does not store this information, but I do have it in a big XLS that i’ll link to here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1esBFXB4YrQNorKH6peEMJfAmCgenqev9TCyOE3IFlpk/edit?usp=sharing
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Singles Winners:
Boys Singles/#1 Gold: long-time USA Junior National team member and last year’s runner up @Grant Williams took the title, beating Mexican Junior national team member Alejandro Robles Picon in the final.
Girls Singles/#1 Gold: Andrea Perez-Picon, fresh off of a finals appearance at World Juniors 16U, won her third straight High School Nationals title, beating Violet Kennedy in the final.
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Doubles Winners:
– Boys Doubles #1: Ayan Sharma & Geffen Kama from Amador Valley High School, CA took the #1 doubles title, representing the 209 well.
– Girls Doubles #1: Alexis Boyko & Rebecca Christopher from the St. Louis powerhouse Kirkwood took the Girls title as the #1 seed.
– Mixed Doubles #1: The PIcon duo of Alejandro Robles Picon & Andrea Perez-Picon teamed up to cruise to the Mixed Doubles title, giving them both double golds for the weekend.
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Team Winners:
– Overall Team: Kirkwood HS, St. Louis, MO
– Boys Team: Kirkwood HS, St. Louis, MO
– Girls Team: Kirkwood HS, St. Louis, MO
For the third year in a row, Kirkwood has pulled ahead of the entire field to sweep all three team competitions.
The Home page for the Missouri HS league does a great job of record keeping: bookmark their home page here: https://www.mohsrball.com
Congrats to all 311 players and all sponsors/parents/coordinators for another awesome HS nationals event, and thanks to everyone who keeps the Missouri and Portland-area HS leagues so well run. You’re doing a massive part to keeping grass roots racquetball alive in this country.
Joe Kelley with the double on the weekend on his home court. Photo via Ken fife
Last weekend the Kelley Brothers invited out some of the best talent on the East Coast to their home #4 court for the 6th Annual Average Joe’s Tournament. Here’s a quick recap of the action.
I have to admit, I didn’t even know this was going on this year, despite posting recaps on it every year since its inception. I’m lucky to have seen some of the live streams pop up from players I’m friend with on FB.
Singles recap:
The top 8 seeds went (in order): Jeremy Dixon, Cole Sendrey, Ezekiel Subieta, Victor Migliore, Joe Kelley, Dylan Pruitt, Jose Flores, and Sam Kelley. There was a full round of 16 and play-ins to there, meaning there were nearly two dozen players hanging out on the Kelley property this weekend.
In the quarters, top seed Dixon held off the host Sam Kelley, the 2023 champion, enabling Sam to work on hospitality the rest of the way. Host Joe Kelley and 2021 champ upset Ohio-native Migliore, who is a two-time finalist here exiting early. Bolivian U21 star Ezekiel Subieta took out his former Maryland-neighbor Dylan Pruitt, and lastly 2024 champ Sendrey, fresh off a trip to World Juniors last month, took out top NE player Jose Flores to move on.
In the semis, Joe Kelley kept up the upset run, taking out Dixon with a dominant show of drive serving. From the bottom half, Cole took out Subieta to get back to the final. In the final though, Kelley was on fire, bombing more drive serves against his young Texas rival and took the title 10,4. He wins the title on his home court for the second time.
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Doubles recap
Joe Kelley teamed up with Ezequiel Subiata to make it a double on the weekend. From the #3 seed, they upset Jeremy Dizon & Jose Flores in the semis, then took out the top seeds Dylan Pruitt & Cole Sendrey 14,13.
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These champions join the following honor roll of past champs in this event:
Singles:
– 1st Annual 2021: Joe Kelley over Austin Cunningham
– 2nd Annual 2022: Kyle Ulliman over Victor Migliore
– 3rd Annual 2023: Sam Kelley over Victor Migliore
– 4th Annual 2024: Cole Sendrey over Kyle Ulliman
– 5th Annual 2025: Jake Bredenbeck over Sebastian Franco
– 6th Annual 2026: Joe Kelley over Cole Sendrey
Doubles:
– 2021: (no doubles event)
– 2022: (no doubles event)
– 2023: Pruitt/Bleyer
– 2024: Pruitt/Cunningham
– 2025: Bredenbeck/Bredenbeck
– 2026: J.Kelly/Subieta
That’s it for the 2026 Average Joe’s/Kelley Invitational.
Longoria won her 14th title mid 2025. Photo via Fran Davis Racquetball
After last week’s IRT post, here’s the same for the LPRT. I’ll list the original text as I captured it in real-time, then in some cases add my 2 cents.
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– 1/15/25: Former LPRT #1 Christie (Van Hees) Huczek has been elected to the USA Racquetball Hall of Fame. Its the first Ladies pro player elected since Gudinas was selected as part of the class of 2019, and she’s just the 9th ladies pro ever elected to the Hall.
Additional thoughts: She’s also just the second non-US player after Heather McKay to be elected to the USAR Hall of Fame, having grown up in Canada before moving to the US, where she’s lived for 20 years after marrying fellow racquetball Pro Jack Huczek. Her career is an interesting “what-if” case; she was ranked in the top 3 in 2000, then abruptly retired at the age of 24 (the tour decided to completely omit her from the year end rankings for reasons inexplicable). She came back two years later and finished #2 on tour in her first full season back. Then, after winning the year end title for the 2004-5 season, she won the first 3 events of the next season, then summarily stopped playing again (still finishing 3rd that season on the strength of those wins). She had eight top-10 seasons … but it feels like she left a ton on the table.
This is an ironic book-end to the year, since the final news item below is the announcement that we’ve also elected another LPRT legend to the Hall, namely Rhonda Rajsich.
– 1/19/25: Paola Longoria officially regains the #1 ranking spot on tour heading into the January Arizona Open. This sets up a dog-fight for the top spot for the rest of the season, as Longoria, Mejia, and Vargas trade blows all spring. Some thought Longoria may have been “done” after two seasons being supplanted at the top of the tour and taking some losses as her live and career shifted, but she has made it back to the top.
– 6/16/25: Thanks to the results at the Northern Virginia Invitational, Paola Longoria has an insurmountable lead in the 2024-25 tour race and has officially
secured her 14th Pro title. She returns to the summit of the sport after two years away.
– 8/14/25: At the 2025 World Games, while leading 9-7 in the 5th game over Longoria, Angelica Barrios badly injures her knee and has to retire. This
knocks Bolivia out of the Mixed competition as well, and Barrios reportedly needs surgery to repair the damage, which could cost her half a season or more.
Update as of this writing, Barrios has still not returned to action.
– 10/12/25 with a win over Longoria in the final of Golden State, Vargas takes back over #1 on tour. She’s won the last three events (also the first three events of the new season), and is now poised to dominate the LPRT for the time being.
Narrative: Vargas has opened the 2025-26 season with three wins and a final. Longoria is trying to keep pace (she was the losing finalist to all three of Vargas’ wins so far).
– 11/7/25: Former top 4 player Erika Manilla plays her first LPRT pro event since Dec 2024, and just her second pro event since her hip injury in Feb 2024, at her home-town event, where she’s also the tournament director. She wins her round of 32 but loses to the top seed.
Comments: It has taken Erika far, far longer to get back into playing shape than anyone thought. She finished the 2022-23 season ranked #4 and had a couple of finals under her belt, and she had a triple crown at the 2023 USAR Nationals, but now faces a huge up-hill battle to get back to the same lofty heights.
– 11/7/25: #2 Longoria is forced to miss the Denver Open due to her new legislative duties, which will severely hamper her chances of winning the year end title this season. There’s just too few events and Vargas is playing too well to miss out on any chances.
Commentary: For those who don’t know, Longoria was selected by her party to represent her district in the Mexican congress back in Sept 2024. We had not seen these duties interfere with her racquetball career, until now. I don’t believe this absence in and among itself will cost her the title, not with Vargas stepping her game up so much, but it can’t help.
– 11/19/25: LPRT loses access to its Facebook page for unknown reasons, likely inadvertent music copyright issues on a video of a match being played
at a club with ambient music playing. This is a huge dagger for the social media pursuits of the organization, and now a decade of videos and content is gone.
This is a shame really. No two ways about it. Facebook isn’t exactly the easiest tech support organization to deal with either.
– 12/7/25: Some player participation observations at the halfway point of the season: long-time top 10 player Kelani Lawrence has quietly skipped the entire first half of the 2025-26 LPRT season, possibly indicating the decision to step away from active touring (I asked her directly and didn’t get a response). Furthermore, after 3 full seasons away, Rhonda Rajsich is back and intends to play nearly a full slate of events this season. Other former regulars now absent for more than half a season: Angela Barrios (bad injury), Hollie Scott, and Michelle Key.
Thoughts: we’ve suddenly seen a slew of USA players … mostly dropping off the tour. Manilla just getting back, Key hasn’t played since September, same with reigning US National champ Ros (who, to be fair, may be prioritizing school right now), and Hollie seems to be as done with rball as her beau DLR. This has dampened the draw sizes for LPRT events this year unfortunately.
– 12/9/25: Squash and Racquetball legend Heather McKay to be officially inducted into the PSA Squash Hall of Fame in March 2026 in Brisbane.
Thoughts: for anyone who thinks that Kane or Paola were “dominant” in their careers, just check out this link to McKay’s squash career. She went 18 years without losing professionally, and she once won the British Open final with a triple donut (9-0, 9-0, 9-0).
– 12/31/25: 4-time LPRT champion and 20-year legend Rhonda Rajsich is elected to the USA Racquetball hall of Fame. Rajsich’s exploits on the pro game,
in the Amateur game, and in the Outdoor game uniquely qualifier her for the hall across the entire landscape of the sport.
Rajsich became eligible coincidentally after a 3-year pause of playing pro events, which made her seem “retired” as far as Hall of Fame eligibility is concerned. She continues to mount a comeback and intends to play a full slate of pro events this season.
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I may have missed some notable events for the Ladies; feel free to remind me in the comments.
Happy New Year from Pro Racquetball Stats and Todd Boss. It ahs been a tumultuous year for the Men’s Pro tour and the sport in general. Here’s a quick run through the seminal events to this observer of the 2025 year, along with some commentary/Retrospective after the fact.
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– 1/21/25: The World Team Racquetball concept debuted at the 2024 3WB event is officially pulled underneath the IRT umbrella, with the blessing of Mike
Coulter. Mike Kinkin will become the president of the WTR. The group plans WTR events at each of the three outdoor majors in addition to other 2025 spots.
In retrospect, this announcement didn’t have the impact we thought it might at the time. WTR did run an event at the 2025 Warhawk Open, but it was mostly Amateur teams (albeit with fantastic names). That event was overshadowed by fixture congestion that badly impacted the attendance of both the Warhawk Open and the Beach Bash outdoor major, which led to bruised egos amongst the various event directors involved. This problem, coincidentally, returns again in 2026, as the two events will conflict again and will overlap with the first weekend of the Pan Am games. We just have to figure out how to stop this from happening year after year.
– 1/21/25: the new IRT commissioner Dave Negrete wants to revert back to some of the tour rules that were the norm during his time. Most notably, he wants
to return to protected top 8 seeds into the round of 16 and to go back to a fall-to-spring multi-year season. This may end up meaning that the 2025 “season”
is just six months long, comprising just those events that are held between the beginning of the year and the August World Singles and Doubles event.
In retrospect, we have not seen the “top 8 get byes into the 16s” but we have seen the conversion of the schedule to a fall-to-spring. Instead of giving a 2025 half-season champ, they decided to have a super-sized 18-month season to determine the 2025-26 champion this coming June.
– 2/28/25: Dan Jaskier, owner and President of the Glass Door Swim & Fitness club in Lombard, Illinois, announces that the club is closing after 48 years.
The 3/16/25 tournament will be the last major pro stop at the club, ending a decades-long association with both pro tours.
Update: there was a Nov 2025 post on the Glassdoor Facebook page intimating that the club was possibly re-opening. I have no idea if they’ve remodeled the inside, who’s involved, or if there’s the possibility of the return of the Geoff Peters legacy event that was one of the most popular stops on tour. IRT commissioner Negrete lives in the Chicago area, so i’m sure he’s on top of it.
-3/6/25: The IRT introduces the “IRT Club,” a monthly subscription service that gives access to a 2nd stream plus other benefits. https://irttour.com/irt-club/
Notes: this is one of the new ideas from the new IRT ownership group, and is spearheaded by Adam Manilla. They offer fantasy racquetball and a new podcast series hosted by yours truly alongside Brian Pineda. It’s $15/month and also gives access to alternate streaming at IRT events.
– 3/21/25: Months after Swain’s 10/4/24 announcement, the USAR officially announces the 2026 US Open return in June to Missouri State University.
Notes: in the months since, we’ve seen a couple of updates from the organizers, and all organizations are working as if this event is happening. So, make plans to visit Missouri in June 2026.
– 3/23/25: Cliff Swain and Jeff Collins release a new video on the US Open. They’ve confirmed dates (June 10-14th 2026). Details include:
– Portable court is to be used, will be at the Springfield Expo center
– 12 courts at Missouri state University
– all within 5mins of each other; hotel, university, showcourt
– Richard Eisemann onboard as tourney coordinator, Tillbury hospitality/vip liaisons.
– Straight draw; no qualifiers in pros
– going to old-school scoring 3/5 to 11
– Dedicated referee staff on showcase on court; 5 officials planned
– winners ref on amateur side.
– Looking to raise $300k. Gives breakdown of what that revenue goes for: $40k IRT, $40k LPRT purses, $80k court, $50k facility rental
Notes: the transparency and advance planning is refreshing. Putting out these numbers in plain sight for those who have consistently questioned why the portable court isn’t constantly in use should resolve criticism of event planners. It costs a ton to transport, install, configure, tear-down, store, and insure the court.
– 4/18/25: Mike Coulter of 3WB publicly announces that the 3WallBall in Las Vegas has to be “paused” in 2025 due to the drastic rise in costs that the economy has seen in the early parts of 2025. They’re looking for a site in Southern California to host the 2025 version of the event on courts that can be rented, not built.
Retrospect: the writing was on the wall for this announcement for a while; costs and inflation have crushed the country, attendance has dwindled at 3WB for a bit, and it stopped being a viable tournament for Coulter to host. My big worry with something like this is, once Mike loses the spot on the schedule with the hotel, it’s going to be doubly difficult to ever get it back. I hope we haven’t seen the last of 3WB in Vegas, but don’t have high hopes.
– 5/3/25: #5 Alan Natera has a knee operation. Per Natera, he had knee arthroscopy, ACL, and meniscus reconstruction. He had been playing with pain for months and it was time to do it before it got worse. No word on recovery time or how long he’ll be out, but the next scheduled event isn’t until September. Update: Alan plays in the early September 2025 World Singles & Doubles.
This injury/surgery was well timed for Natera, who didn’t miss a ton of events and still is maintaining his top 10 status. He’s taken some tough losses as he’s stuck in the 8/9 seed spot right now, part of which may still be due to him testing out the knee. I’ve had multiple knee operations, and in one case it took me two years to return to the court.
– 5/8/25: Mike Coulter/3WB announces that 2025’s Outdoor Nationals will join forces with 3WB for 2025.
Commentary: for a few weeks this looked like a dagger for the sport’s reputation … but read on for an update in early August.
– 8/7/25: IRT releases its fall/spring slate of events and its massive: there’s nearly 20 full stops and satellites planned, a return to Mexico, and a return to a number of old stops that have lost their sponsors over the years. Great news.
In the months since, the slate has been pared a bit, but there’s still been a ton of IRT-350 satellite events held and the Tier 1 slate is bigger and better than it has been in years. The new ownership group is having a major impact on the tour.
– 8/7/25: Racquetball gets back into the 2027 Pan Am Games! Despite not being included in the original slate of games IRF President Osvaldo Maggi had been working with Pan Am behind the scenes and secured a return of the sport today.
Commentary: initially, the loss of racquetball from the Pan Am games had been predicted for years by insiders, and it would have been a real disappointment for the sport. Peru took over as host from Colombia , and when Lima hosted these same games in 2019 they had Racquetball … but for some reason chose to initially eliminate it this time around. All due credit to Maggi for politicking behind the scenes and making this happen.
This is one of those seminal events that has outsized impact; if we’re out of the Pan Am Games, we as a sport may lose accreditation with our own USOPC, which cuts funding and reduces our legitimacy as a sport. I think we’re well past any pursuit of getting into the Olympics at this point in the sport’s history (and, lets be honest, when the sport was ignored for the 1984 Olympics in LA, and again in 1996 in Atlanta … both big-time racquetball towns and at the absolute height of our sport’s popularity and participation, we should have realized there was never a shot), but the Pan Am games still remained the highest honor we had internationally, and we hold onto participation for one more cycle.
– 8/8/25: Bobby Horn, who attempted a comeback last season, undergoes shoulder surgery
Note: Negrete’s re-involvement brings back a ton of connections he maintained from 20 years ago, and the group is adding new major sponsors like the Black & White and Frank Hotels.
– 10/21/25: Pro Kennex announces that they’re reuniting with long-time PK player Kane Waselenchuk.
Notes: The two parted ways in Sept 2021 when a Pandemic-
afflicted company and Waselenchuk couldn’t come to an agreement on outstanding payments as the tours cancelled events for nearly a year. It bad at the time, but the two sides buried the hatchet and are working together again. Kane was reportedly using a blacked-out Gearbox to compete and now gets his trusty old sticks back.
– 10/29/25: 3-time champ Daniel De la Rosa reportedly has his PPA contract terminated for lack of performance. Will he return to Racquetball?
Notes: this was an ill-kept secret in the pickleball world, but as of this writing we haven’t seen DLR return to any known racquetball stuff. And, in the most recent post on his page he had a ton of hashtags for MLP, so maybe DLR has negotiated his way back to a pay as you go contract with the PPA instead of the salary based one. Either way, he hasn’t played a pro event since Jan 2024, but is the reigning US National singles champion. Will DLR defend his title? Well, there is a PPA event the same weekend as USAR Nationals, so he’d have to skip it … but if he’s not under contract it won’t matter. We’ll see what happens.
– 12/7/25: Erick Trujillo has missed every event for the past 6 months; is he officially stepping back? He’s now a 5.5 DUPR rated pickleball competitive player; could he be making a push towards pro pickleball instead?
comments: Trujillo’s DUPR rating is on the rise, but I don’t see him traveling to any US-based events thus far. It’s also possible that he’s made the very rational decision that losing in the 16s at IRT events isn’t worth the money it takes to get there.
– 12/20/25: Mike Kinkin is named the President of FormulaFlow Racquetball. He joins forces with Mauricio Zelada’s budding racquet manufacturer
Notes: this is an interesting move; FormulaFlow is now one of 3-4 remaining manufacturers in the space. I haven’t had a chance to catch up with Kinkin about the move or what they plan, but it is good to see a brand pushing further into the sport rather than walking away from it.
– 12/29/25: IRT announces that the new ball of the tour is the Formula Flow Blue. This replaces the thicker, slower Gearbox ball.
Notes: no word yet on how the FF ball plays; is it faster, slower, thicker, bouncier? No idea.
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Phew; that’s it. Did I miss any major events worth noting?
We’re constantly adding features and functionality to the database, so here’s a quick review of some of the new stuff that we’ve built. As always, if someone in the racquetball community wants a Report that isn’t readily available, ping me and we’ll see if I can code it up.
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1. Added a slew of Mixed Junior Doubles as a pull down
In the Junior Databases, we have a number of Category-driven reports so you can see (for example) all US 18U singles winners, or all IRF 16U doubles winners. Now that we’re seeing more Mixed Doubles play at US Nationals and at Worlds, I’ve added Mixed as a category where appropriate. We still haven’t seen Mixed junior competitions in Canada or Mexico; so this is just US and IRF for now.
Reminder: we only store the finals of Junior Doubles to capture the winners.
Here’s an example of all Mixed 21U finals across both US and IRF Junior Worlds: https://rball.pro/64091b
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2. Improvements to Ages of Tourney Winners report
There’s a cool report called “Ages of Tourney Winners” that’s existed for years that shows, for all tournament winners on tour, their debut date, the date they first won an event, their last tourney win, and their last tour appearance. I used this report often to show just how frequently Men’s tour players retire right around the age 32-34 range. There’s a slew of examples of top players who stopped playing right at this range, and the reason to me is relatively obvious: physical skills and the athleticism needed to compete generally starts to degrade right in that early 30s range, and suddenly players go from making semis and finals to making the quarters at best and no longer really making enough money to make touring worth it.
Anyway, a conversation with @Timothy Baghurst led to adding some more columns to this report; specifically career W/L, the number of seasons on tour, and the number of tournament wins. These new fields provide great context to the rest of the age-driven data.
Another Baghurst suggestion was to provide all the above information for more than just historical tourney winners, so I took the same logic and now you can see all that information for what I call “Tour regulars,” which is defined as players who have more than 25 pro tour wins in their career. This added at least 35-40 players to each report.
@Adam Manilla asked me just today, “Who has the most appearances since Covid? Or in the last 10 years?” So I adapted a simple report i already had that shows the Most appearances of all time and just added the two above.
The new ownership group decided that they wanted to go back to a Fall to Spring schedule this summer. This means that the “2025” season no longer exists, and it will be rolled into a 1.5 year season starting Jan 1 2025 and running through next year’s US Open in June 30 2026. In order to support this, I had to change the season of all data in the database and do some quick code fixes. This temporarily made it look like the 2025 season was different from teh 2025-26 season in counting reports, but that’s fixed now.
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Anyway, that’s a quick summary of the 2025 code fixes I’ve done. Hope you enjoy this little glimpse into the sausage making of ProRacquetballStats.com .
Erika Manilla faces a long road ahead to get back into the top 4. Photo 2021 US Open via Kevin Savory
In our last recap article, we’re going to selectively discuss players who didn’t make the top 10 but who are notable, we’ll talk about players who dropped off the tour this year, and opine some at the end.
Notables in the 11-20 range on tour:
– #11 @Samantha Salas Solis missed out on #10 by a scant 3 points and thus misses out on a top 10 spot for the fourth year running. She’s now 38 and is finishing up her 22nd year on tour. She made 2 quarters this year, and can still get wins, and is still Paola’s doubles partner getting titles. How much longer will she tour? We only had 7 events this year, so a once-a-month trip to see old friends isn’t too hard to keep up with.
– @Valeria Centellas and Lexi York finished with almost identical results and points this year, coming in at #12 and #13. Both made all seven events, each made the round of 16 five out of seven times.
– #15 @Stephanie Synhorst made all seven events, made the round of 16 three times, and just out-pointed Carla to finish #15.
– @Carla Munoz finished last year inside the top 10, but missed three of the seven events this year to fall to #16. She’s obviously closer to a top 10 player but just couldn’t hang with the ladies ranked above her missing so much time this season.
– #17 Maria Renee RodrÃguez Josey returned to the tour after taking a bit of time away for life, education, etc. She finished #17 with three round of 16 finishes.
– @Michelle Key, who went years without appearing on tour, made four events and just made it into the top 20 this year.
– Former top 10 player @Angela Barrios fell all the way to #21. Barrios is always a tough draw when she does play, whether internationally or professionally, but is like many Bolivian players who struggle financially to make all tour events.
– Naomi Ros, who holds both the USA Racquetball National Adult title and the U21 Junior title right now, finished ranked 22nd.
– @Susana Acosta made it to two events, enough to ensure her 27th season in the rankings.
– Laura Brandt played in two events and finished tied for #28 with a few other ladies, but did so at the age of 57., She became the 3rd oldest player ever to make a round of 16 on tour.
– Two former top 4 players also finished with just enough results to get into the top 30: @Frederique Lambert and Erika Manilla . Lambert’s racquetball career now is mostly limited to Canadian National events, while Manilla’s hip injury has turned out to be far more difficult to recover from than she likely thought. Since exiting the 2024 US Nationals with the injury, she’s played just one LPRT event (in Dec 2024) and then attempted to earn back the US national singles title in May 2025. A healthy Manilla pushes for a top 4 spot on tour, but now she has to work her way all the way back from being ranked well outside the top positions.
– A slew of ladies finished “tied” for #34 with 18.75 points, basically the number of points one earns by making a round of 32 in a singular event. Included in that crew was the @Rhonda Rajsich, who entered her first LPRT pro event in years at the Arizona Open. Also notable in that group is 16U and busy national tournament participant Victoria Rodriguez , former top Mexican Junior @Lucia Gonzalez, and NorCal Outdoor specialist @Erica Williams.
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Some notable names who failed to even log an appearance this year:
– Sunshine Arterburn finished #21 last year; zero appearances this year.
– Argentine lefty @martina Katz showed some promise last year in limited appearances and was missing this season.
– Bolivian veterans @Jenny Daza and Yazmine Sabja Aliss missed out on this season. Former top Bolivian junior Michaela Meneses seems like she’s done with the sport.
– Former Junior legend @Adrienne Fisher Haynes didn’t play this season.
– Irish star Aisling Hickey got some surprise results last season but didn’t log an appearance this year.
– No traveling visits from the Ecuadorian Munoz regulars.
– Masiel Rivera has gone from being a top10 threat to no appearances in just a few years.
– Long-time touring pro @Adriana Riveros may ahve finally called it quits.
– Texan @Linda tyler is usually good for an event or two but hasn’t been seen in a while.
Lots of missing Mexican youngsters as well, who normally help fill out these draws and cause some surprises. The tour depth dropped for the 4th year running; we only had 43 distinct players play this season, down from 60+ a few years ago just after covid. A sign of the times.
That’s it for the season! LPRT kicks off with @jim hiser’s big World Singles and Doubles extravaganza in August.
Longoria is back on top. Photo via 2019 US Open/Kevin Savory
Hello Racquetball fans. This is part 2 of the LPRT 2024-25 season ending recap series. In Part 1 last week, I loaded up the official year end standings for the tour and did the data entry into the www.proracquetballstats.com database to show the rankings properly in various season-wide reports.
Here, we’re going to review the top 10 ladies of the year. In a fun twist, I’ll also refer back to my recap from last season where I made a far-too-early prediction on this year’s finish. The two reports to have up while reading through this report are the Season Summary Report https://rball.pro/84115e and the Season-ending rankings https://rball.pro/5eca5e .
– #1: Paola Longoria .1521.5 points, 22-5 for the year. 2 titles, 4 finals, 1 semi.
Longoria is back on top after a two year hiatus, She was dominant all year, making every final until the last event (where she already had the title wrapped up). She re-took over #1 on tour in December and didn’t look back. This is her 14th career pro title and at age 35 seems to have settled down after a couple of years of life changes (she got married and got elected to the Mexican congress). I predicted last year she’d either finish #1 or retire; clearly not retiring. Now i’m predicting she stays right where she is; at #1, though not nearly as dominantly as in year’s past.
– #2-T Monserrat Mejia: 1218 points, 18-5 for the year. 2 titles, 1 final, 3 semis.
Amazingly, both Vargas and Mejia finished tied for 2nd on tour with the exact same results and record for the season. The two met four times though, with Mejia winning 3 of the 4, but there’s no tiebreaker here. Mejia’s 5 losses on the season were to Longoria three times, Laime, and Vargas. After dominating the 2022-23 season, she fell to zero titles in 23-24, but rebounds this year with 2 wins, bringing her career total to 8 titles. I predicted she’d stay at #3 last year, but she’s stepped up. I’m predicting she returns to #2 next season.
– #2-T @Maria Jose Vargas : 1218 points, 18-5 for the year. 2 titles, 1 final, 3 semis.
Vargas takes a small step back from her dominant 5-win 23-24 season but stays tied for 2nd. Despite tying for 2nd, Vargas is trending downward, having lost 3 of 4 versus Mejia. I thought she would take the title again last year; now i think she’ll finish 3rd next season.
– #4. Ana Gabriela MartÃnez 919 points. 15-5 for year. 1 title, 1 final, 3 semis.
Gaby really put it together this season, getting her 3rd career title and finishing 4th, her highest ever season finish. She only missed one event, which really helped keep her ranking high. She managed to go the entire season w/o facing Mejia and gave Longoria two of her losses this season. I predicted last year she’d continue to languish in the 9-10 range on tour, but clearly she’s part of the upper tier of four players right now, each of whom had a title this year. I think she sticks right in the #4 spot next season again unless she misses too many events. The wildcardd for Gaby finishing top4 will be @Erika Manilla ‘s health and Herrera’s attendance.
– #5 @natalia mendez, 528 points, 9-7 for the season. 7 quarters in 7 events
Mendez was a model of consistency this year, never once getting upset in the 16s and earning exactly a quarter final berth in all seven events. This was enough to let her stick at the #7 seed for most of the season, then jumping the next two rivals for #5 at season’s end. I sense though she was lucky not to get an upset-special round of 16 this year and probably finishes closer to #10 next year, as I predicted last y ear.
Laime remains in the #5-#6 range for the third straight year, but did it with a slightly different pathway than in year’s past. Two years ago she was Jeckyl and Hyde, making 3 finals but also losing in the 16s four times. This year she cut down on early upsets (only one upset in the 16s at the NoVa event) and had more consistency. Had she not missed the Arizona Open she may very well have finished 5th. I think she continues to finish right in this spot until she can get more breakthrough wins.
– #7 Kelani Lawrence 487.5 points, 8-7 for season 6 qtrs and one 16s upset
Lawrence had almost an identical season to Mendez, save for one round of 16 upset to Parrilla in the Xmas classic last December. She continues to be a model of consistency on tour, nearly always advancing into the quarters but falling at that Juncture. She has made just one semifinal in her entire career, but the quarters 20 times. Nonetheless, she’s now finished in this 6-7 range for two years in a row and i think she’ll continue to be right here next season.
Herrera, a mainstay in the top 4 for nearly a decade, missed two events this year that likely cost her enough points to drop from #4 to #8 on tour. Her big rival this year turned out to be Gaby as they met in the 4/5 quarter final spot three times this season. She managed to avoid her doubles partner Mejia, but the two missed events cost her. If she can make all the tournaments, I think she returns to that 4-5 range. however, the #8 spot is a really tough spot to get away from; even if she wins a round of 16 she projects right into the top player on tour, who she’s got wins against but whom has had her number lately. She may be stuck here for a bit.
– #9 Jessica Parrilla , 320.25 points, 6-7 for season, 2 qtrs and 4 round of 16s
There’s a bit of a drop-off from 8 to 9 in the points, defining a bit of separation on tour between the ladies ranked in the 9-11 range versus those ranked in the 6-8 range. Leoni returns to the top 10 after missing out last season, and managed to do it with a couple of solid wins over Lawrence and Laime to earn quarterfinals appearances. She also held off round of 16 upsets to keep this spot. I sense though she may get pushed down a bit going forward, especially in the 9-10 seed spot.
Amaya just pipped Salas for #10 and thus stays in the top 10 for the second season in a row after dropping well out for a few years. This pivot in performance for a lady in her mid 30s is crazy, and well earned for Amaya. Her biggest win of the season was over Munoz in Chicago, which was instrumental in finishing at this spot. Also, kudos and bravo to Amaya for her awesome Racquetball News TV Weekly series: if you’re not following her on Youtube or Facebook you should be.
https://www.facebook.com/racquetballnewstv
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Next up, we’ll cover the rest of the tour notables, talk about some trends in the sport and on tour, and talk about what may happen next year.
