Carson takes over the lead in the Outdoor Cup for 2024. Photo by Rick Bernstein, 2022 Beach Bash
Now that the 50th annual Outdoor Nationals is in the rear-view mirror, here’s an update on the standings for the 2024 Outdoor Cups, brought to you by LPL Financial (for the Women) and KWM Gutterman Inc. for the Men.
For those not familiar, the Outdoor Cup series calculates points earned by players in pro divisions at all three Outdoor “Majors” (Beach Bash, Outdoor Nationals, and 3WallBall in Vegas) and gives awards to the top finishers.
Here’s where we stand after the second major of the 2024 season.
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Men’s Cup Series:
Full Standings xls: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YkLkhbbgY3pNjW5YRb12fXHAI_LnVNFx/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102402795225850924380&rtpof=true&sd=true
1. With a big tournament in Huntington Beach, @Rocky Carson has jumped from #6 after Beach Bash to be in 1st place by a fair margin of the Outdoor cup standings after Outdoor Nationals. He won the pro doubles and made the final of the CPRT. Had he entered singles or mixed, he might be even further ahead.
2. King Kane Waselenchuk vaults up to #2 in the standings after winning Men’s Pro and CPRT doubles in California.
3. Chris McDonald, who did not play Beach Bash despite it being drive-able from his home in Gainesville, jumps to 3rd place in the standings with a stupendous showing in California last weekend. He won CPRT with Kane, won Mixed with @Michelle Key, won a third division with his brother, and made the quarters before an injury to his partner forced his team out of pro doubles. He’s committed already to Vegas and his partnership with Kane looks quite fruitful; it will be interesting to see who Kane chooses to play Pro Doubles with at 3WB.
4. The two leaders post Beach Bash (Robert Sostre and @Benny Goldenberg) remain tied for 4th in the standings. Both are Vegas regulars and could push for the top 3 with good showings, but both are also inarguably one-wall guys which will make things tough.
Notables in the 6-10 range: DJ Mendoza , the Beach Bash winner, had a quiet HB events but remains in 6th place. @Eduardo Portillo , who missed the Beach Bash, took Outdoor Nationals singles and made the semis in both Men’s and Mixed doubles and sits in 7th place. Thomas Gerhardt and Walter Ramos sit 8th and 10th respectively with solid showings across the board at both majors so far. @Josh Tucker lost in the final of Pro Doubles and retains 9th place on the rankings.
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Women’s Cup Series:
Full Standings xls: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gpMyYigsDvwwP5Hk-X3BEiyVZaKjL4X1RhB5UjByXv4/edit?usp=sharing
1. Michelle Key got a win and a final in California and took over #1 in the rankings after doing the same in Beach Bash earlier this year. She has a pretty sizeable lead and probably cannot be caught for the 2024 title unless she misses 3WB.
2. @Carla muñoz had about as good of an event as one could hope for in California, winning two pro titles and making the final of the third. This is enough to vault her into 2nd place despite missing the Beach Bash event altogether.
2. Arizona’s @Katie Neils sits tied for 2nd with Munoz on the strength of a finals appearance in California and the Beach Bash pro title, both earned with fellow Arizona resident Key. She’ll have her work cut out for her to break into the top 2 in Vegas.
4. @Kelani Lawrence , who was in the lead post Beach Bash, has slipped to 4th after having to miss Outdoor Nationals this year.
5. Brenda Laime ‘s strong Outdoor Nats event (a win, a final, and the Mixed semis) was enough to push her to 5th place. She only trails 2nd place by 90 points though, which can be attained with a solid showing in Vegas.
Notables in the 6-10 range: Jessica Parrilla and @Veronica Sotomayor were both in the top 5 post BB but now sit 6th and 7th respectively. Leoni is a Vegas favorite but Vero hasn’t (to my knowledge) ever played Vegas, so we’ll see what happens. Vero and @Sudsy Monchik recently relocated to the Pacific Northwest, which might make a Vegas trip more attainable though. 16-yr old @Victoria Rodriguez got a couple of semis in HB and now sits 8th. Two Floridians who were top10 post Beach Bash (@Delia Silva and @Chanis Leon hold on to their top 10 spots for now.
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We’ll revisit the Outdoor Cup after the year’s last major, that being 3Wall Ball to be held in late September in Vegas.
Maria Renee Rodriguez took a big step back touring this year while completing school. Photo 2022 Outdoor Nats via Steve Fitzsimons
In this last part of the 2023-24 season recap, we will highlight notables outside the top 20 and then wrap up with a list of the notable news items from a historical perspective.
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– #22 Sheryl Lotts missed most of the season’s events after moving to Florida, but was a regular training partner there with Sudsy Monchik and Veronica Sotomayor and is seemingly well positioned to return to the tour and regain her mid-teens expectations.
– #25 @Maria Renee Rodriguez, a mainstay on tour for years, took most of this season off while she finished off a master’s degree at Liberty University. She remains on the Guatemalan national team and earns their stipend, but sources tell me she’s career focused going forward and will continue to be stepped back from the tour.
– #26 Martina Katz, just recently matriculating from the U21 ranks, traveled up from Argentina for a couple pro events this year. She’s held her own against the best of her age groups in international competitions for years and would fare quite well if she could join the Vargas/Mendez travel train up and down the Americas.
– #28 Frederique Lambert made it to two events, not bad for a full-time practicing physician. She continues to own the #1 spot for Canada.
– #30 @Valeria Centellas has completely stepped back from touring after being an incredibly promising junior coming out of Bolivia/Argentina. My sources tell me there might be money issues to fund travel for Centellas. My other sources tell me she’s expected to be back for the beginning of the next season.
– #32 @Veronica Sotomayor recently relocated to the Pacific Northwest, which would make it even tougher for her to commit to touring. Many believe her performance in limited appearances would warrant a return to the top 10 if she toured regularly; odds are we’ll never find out.
– #32 @Maricruz Ortiz has gotten great international wins, but has never really made that big of an impression on the pro tour.
– #32 @Adriana Riveros, a stalwart on tour for a decade, played in just one event this year.
– #32 @Victoria Rodriguez is one of the best US juniors to come up in years. The 16yr old just made the US Junior national team, has been a regular in outdoor events for a couple years now, and will be very interesting to see on tour if/when she can.
– #41 @Susana Acosta got one appearance in this year to extend her season streak to 26. She’s played in a pro event every season for 26 years in a row.
– #42 Annie Roberts , the reigning intercollegiate champ and three-time defending U21 champion, could only get to one pro event while going to college full time and getting married this year.
– #42 Lucia Gonzalez , who always seems to get wins against top 8 players at Mexican Nationals, made just one event t his year.
– #47 @Erica Williams , better known for her outdoor exploits and being one of the leading outdoor programming promotors in the sport in her home area of the Bay Area, entered one pro event.
Players who were unranked this season of note:
– Texan @Linda Tyler usually makes a couple events a year but missed this season.
– As noted above, top-ranked Bolivians @Jenny Daza, @Michele Meneses and @Yazmine Sabja missed this season entirely. All are top 15 quality players.
– @Adrienne Haynes failed to play an event this season for the first time in 23 years.
– Top Mexican Ana Laura Flores is reportedly going to Law School and has curtailed training.
– The #1 in Ireland @Aisling Hickey, who got a couple of solid wins last season while working in the US, did not play any pro events this year.
– It was an off year in general for the whole new generation of top Mexican junior girls coming up: where were the likes of Daniela Rico, Angela Veronica Ortega, Cynthia Gutierrez, Maria Gutierrez, Ximena Gonzalez, or the Aguilara clan?
– Quick follow-up from a previous post: Barrios struggled to make events this year because she’s going to medical school. So, that’s awesome for her personal career, but probably a Lambert-like dagger for her racquetball career.
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Lastly, notable LPRT news items for the season,
– 6/21/23: Just ahead of the 2023 Central American & Caribbean championships, an article comes out that seems to indicate that Paola Longoria’s long-simmering conflict with Conade has reached a conclusion in her favor. She implies that the lawsuit that conade filed against the athletes for back payments has been dismissed.
– 10/18/23: Cristina Amaya releases a video ahead of the Pan Am games that details her struggles with the Colombian olympic committee, revealing that she was cut off
of her government salary in November 2022 and that furthermore even though Amaya and Riquelme had qualified for the Pan Am games that their spots were given away. Amaya still traveled to Chile to referee, but her dreams of competing in the Pan am games were shattered. This situation still infuriates me; clearly someone at the IRF allowed these two players, who do a ton for the game, to miss deadlines to enter the Pan Am games, and gave away their slots to other players from other countries. Someone at the IRF could have dropped a dime here to let Amaya/Riquelme know they had to file paperwork, but didn’t. It’s shameful.
– >12/11/23: With her semi-finals loss at the 2023 Xmas Classic, Paola Longoria will drop to #3 on tour. It is believed to be the first time since roughly October 2008 that
Longoria was not ranked #1 or #2 on tour. Vargas takes the event and moves to #2 ahead of Longoria and is now within strikign distance of #1 Mejia, who she’s beaten twice in the last three LPRT events.
– 1/14/24: Maria Jose Vargas wins her third straight tournament in a row, taking a commanding lead in the season to date points ranking.
– 2/11/24: LPRT #4 and USA #1 Erika Manilla is forced to retire the US National singles final due to what was thought to be a back injury at the time. Subsequent test and MRIs show that Erika suffered a hip labrum tear. She goes in for surgery to correct the issue mid March, but the injury costs her several LPRT stops, and she’ll be laid up for 6 months.
– 3/3/24: Despite losing in the semis, Vargas ascends to #1 on tour for the first time in her career. She now leads both the rolling 365 calendar and the season to date points rank and is the odds-on favorite to take the title. Defending tour champ Mejia drops to 2nd on tour, and now sits a distant 3rd in the season to date points race, having failed to win an event this season after her dominant 2022-23.
– 3/3/24: Paola Longoria announces her candidacy for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies (the US Equivalent of the House of Representatives) from District 5/Nuevo Leon. Elections are in June. Salas apparently is also running in teh same election.
– 3/24/24: Erika Manilla is featured in a full-page story in the <a href=”https://www.denverpost.com/2024/03/24/erika-manilla-pro-racquetball-player/”>Denver Post</a>.
– 4/28/24: Maria Jose Vargas wins her 5th event of the season at the Sweet Caroline grand slam, essentially wrapping up the 2023-24 title. It’s her first title, and
she dominated the tour this year. She topped Paola in the final 11-10.
– 4/28/24: After the 11-10 loss, Longoria’s new husband posted accusations on social media in the aftermath, claiming biased refereeing (one of the line judges was Argentine for the final) as the main reason that Paola lost this event. The issue does highlight the difficulties the tour has in finding “unbiased” refs for a group of women who all travel together to the same events. The IRF solves this by spending thousands of dollars flying in referees from a wide variety of countries, but nearly the entire LPRT tour comes from just a few countries, making it difficult sometimes to find neutral refs.
– 6/5/24: Neither Longoria nor Salas, both of whom were running for the Mexican chamber of Deputies, were directly elected in the National elections. They
can still be selected/appointed by the party.
– 6/9/24: Vargas officially wins her first ever pro title by entering the season’s final event in Chesapeake and advancing past the opening rounds. She had a large enough lead on Longoria to essentially have the title wrapped up after Greenville, so this was a formality to complete her dominant season. She becomes the third
Salas missed out on another top 10 finish. Photo US Open 2019 by Kevin Savory
This is Part 2 of my 2023-24 LPRT season in review. In part 1, we did a deep dive into the top 10 players with commentary on each of their seasons. In this part 2, we’ll cover the players who finished ranked 11th-20th, which will for the most part cover the “touring regulars” plus some interesting names.
Part 3 will cover other notable players plus do a news review for the season.
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(note: there was a tie for 10th on tour this year, so we start with the 12th ranked player).
12. Samantha Salas Solis , age 37, 6-7 for the season, 3 quarter finals, 322.50 points.
This is as good of a time to mention this fact as any, but the gap between the 7th ranked player (Mendez, with 393.50 points), to Salas at #12 with 322.50 is just 71 points. 71 points across an entire season is about the amount of points one would get for reaching the quarterfinals of a grand slam event. In other words, there’s not a whole lot separating all the ladies ranked 7th-12th this year on tour.
Salas missed the Sweet Caroline grand slam this year; had she played that event and made the quarters, she’d have finished 7th instead of 12th. Had she entered and lost in the 16s, she would have finished the season ranked 8th. It was a bad event to miss, and ends up costing Salas her first top 10 finish since 2020-21. As it was this season, Salas had relatively the same performance she’s had for several seasons now, making a few quarters when she wins that 7/10 round of 16 match.
Prediction next year: probably around the same #12-14 range.
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#13 Jessica Parrilla , age 33, 5-7 for the season, 1 quarterfinal. 256 points.
There is a gap from Salas to Parrilla in the ranking points, defining kind of a thin line between the 7-12 ranked players and the 13th ranked player. Parrilla made one quarter final this year (when she got a solid win over Laime in the Chesapeake opener last fall), but otherwise was out in the 16s. After three seasons hanging in the 7-8 range, Parrilla’s season represents a big step backwards, one that may be her new norm. It’s hard to identify players ranked in the set of 5-6 above her that you’d argue she can regularly beat now, especially now that she’s entering that magic age where so many pro pickleball players hang ’em up.
Prediction next season: Same 12-14 range.
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#14 Hollie Scott , age 25, 3-7 on the season, six round of 16s, 214.25.
Hollie’s big success this season was her USA nationals triple crown in February. On tour, she consistently ran into top ranked players in the 16s and mostly hung with them, but had no break through wins. She had losses in the 16s this year to Herrera, Laime, Gaby, Vargas, and Mejia. She had a couple of winnable matches that would have jumped up her ranking not go her way, but still improved on her ranking the last couple of seasons.
prediction next season: #13-14 again.
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#15: Lexi York , age 27, 2-8 on the season, three round of 16s, 199.25 points.
York and Scott had similar seasons, always running into top players in the 16s. Scott just had a couple more of them. York’s three round of 16s this season were her career first three, and #15 is a big step up from the last couple of seasons. Her training with Bredenbeck brothers is paying off.
Prediction next season: #13/14 range again.
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#16: @Maria Paz Riquelme , age 36, 3-8 on the season, 4 round of 16s, 183.75 points
Riquelme, who used to play in the same club as I in Arlington Virginia back in the early 2000s, made it to all 8 events and made a handful of round of 16s. The Chilean turned Colombian frequently ran into the #1 or #2 seed in the 16s by virtue of her ranking most of the season, which makes it hard to move on.
Prediction next season: same general area, in the 16-18 range.
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#17: Stephanie Synhorst , age 31, 1-8 on the season, 2 round of 16s, 165.50 points
Synhorst got her first career LPRT win this season, topping Riquelme in San Antonio in April. The 31yr old only started playing pro a few years ago, but made every event and got a ton of open draw experience on top of the LPRT experience.
Prediction next season: 18-20 range.
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#18: @Naomi Ros , age 18, 4-6 on the season, 4 round of 16s. 162.25 points.
Ros, the Texan junior who converted from Mexico to USA in 2021, won Junior Worlds 16U two years ago and is the current reigning USA 18U national champ. As we speak she’s in Pleasanton defending her national 18U title. She had some success on tour this year, getting a couple of wins over York and playing to players tough (she took a game off of Mejia in Greenville). Assuming she plays the tour full time and doesn’t miss events, she’s primed to be ranked higher.
Prediction next season: #13-14 range
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#19: Angela Barrios , age 24, 4-3 in three events this season, 151 points
Barrios, after three years in the top eight, missed most of this season and fell all the way to #19. Her talent level hasn’t changed: she just won the Bolivian National triple crown, but she had little impact this season one year after making 2 semis and a pro final. She remains a dangerous opponent when she does appear. We can only assume that the financial issues that many Bolivian players encounter are behind her sudden drop in touring appearances. There were practically no appearances from any of the Bolivians this year (Barrios, Meneses, Daza, etc).
It’s unclear if t his is just what we’re to expect from Barrios going forward: a source tells me that she’s not even training regularly anymore. So, unfortunately the pro tour looks like its losing one of its better players.
Prediction for next season: out of the sport.
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#20 Michelle Key , age 35, 3-4 on the season, 3 round of 16s, 112.50 points.
After years of only sporadically entering tour events (it had been since 2015-16 since she toured regularly), Key played half the tour’s events this season and qualified for the US National team in February. She represented the US in an international event for the first time in nearly a decade. On the LPRT she got a couple of good wins (Mendez, York) and seems primed to move up the rankings now that it seems like she’s touring more regularly.
Prediction for next season: #16
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That’s it for part 2; next episode we’ll talk about notables outside the top 20 and wrap it up with a review of the season’s news events.
Vargas is the 2023-24 champ.
Photo US Open 2019 Kevin Savory
Hello fans! We’ve finished another Ladies pro season, the 2023-24 season. This post is to give you some links to rankings data as it flows through the Pro Racquetball Stats system and to be the first of a 3-part wrap-up series.
– Part 1 (this post): Year end links at the site and the The top 10
– Part 2: The 11-20th ranked players
– Part 3: 20+ ranked players plus notables, plus a recap of news items from season
For each of the individual players reviewed, we’ll talk about their season and then give a prediction as to where they end up next year.
– Season Summary Report for 2023-24 season (this is one of my favorite reports, bringing a bunch of data together: rank, season W/L, number of wins/finals/semis, etc). http://rb.gy/7ywv9m
– Season Seed Report; this shows how players’ seeds changed over the course of the season: http://rb.gy/apd1jz
– Obviously the story of the season is Vargas’ first title. However, we certainly saw a “consolidation” of the top players on tour this year. All 8 events were won by either Vargas or Longoria; last year’s champ Mejia was shut out. Just 5 distinct players even made a final this year. There was a massive gap between the top 4 players to even the 5th ranked player, and just 70 points separated the 7th ranked player from the 12th ranked player.
– The total “depth” of players on the tour has dropped for the third season in a row. the LPRT has gone from 61 to 54 to 47 distinct players for the season over the past three years. The tour continues to have about the same number of “regulars,” defined as players who played in 75% of the events (16 this year). 12 players made every event.
– The tour had 8 events this year, down from 10 last year. The tour lost the season opening Paola Longoria championship, the US Open, and the Sept Chesapeake event from the previous season, picking up the every other year World Singles & Doubles. This trend likely will continue, as the IRT is struggling to find pro events as well. It’s an indication of the state of our sport.
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Lets review the top 10.
#1 Maria Jose Vargas ; Age 31, 25-3 on the season, 5 titles, 1,502 points.
Vargas captures her first career pro title in her 11th season of playing professionally. And she did it one season after having a kid, one year after missing half of the 2022-23 season, which meant she had to claw her way back as an under seeded player getting crummy draws for months. Most importantly, she completely got over her mental block against her primary rival this season in Longoria. Prior to the 2022-23 season, Vargas was a career 1-31 against Longoria, often losing by heavy score lines. Since February 2023 (when she returned to the maternity leave): Vargas is 5-2 against Paola. Vargas essentially had the title sewn up before the final event, capping off a dominant season.
Prediction for next season: Well positioned to repeat as #1, based on what we’re about to talk about with the next two ladies
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#2 @Paola Longoria, age 34. 24-5 on the season, 3 titles, 1,409.50 points.
Longoria finishes 2nd for the 2nd season in a row after dominating the LPRT for the better part of the last two decades. She eliminated the shocking early round losses she exhibited last season and made the semis or better in all eight of her events this year. Unfortunately, she suffered four semi-final defeats, which ended up costing her the ability to out-point Vargas in the season’s final grand slam in Chesapeake. Her 3 event wins this year bring her career Tier1/Grand Slam total to 113 titles, which when added to her 7 satellite wins give her 120 total pro titles for her career.
Prediction for Next year: either #2 again or retired. Longoria ran for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies and didn’t win outright but could still be selected, which would make it awfully difficult to tour. She also got married last year, and could be thinking of starting a family. Lots up in the air for Longoria going forward. I’ve heard rumors of a possible retirement, but nothing official yet.
#3 Monserrat Mejia , Age 24. 20-8 on the season, 4 finals and 3 semis. 1,093 points.
One year after completely dominating the tour (she won 5 of the 10 events last season), Mejia took a major step back and failed to even get a tourney win this year. It’s not like she took bad losses: her 8 losses were: 4 to Longoria, 3 to Vargas, and one to Herrera in the quarters in Arizona. She just didn’t have it this year. Perhaps it was a loss of focus after getting to the top, or perhaps it was more about Longoria re-focusing after 2022-23 and Vargas’ big step forward. Either way, Mejia needs to reset and get back her mojo from last season.
Prediction for next season: #3 again
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#4 @Alexandra Herrera , age 29. 18-8 on the season, 2 finals, 4 semis. 896 points.
Herrera has definitely taken a back seat to the top three players on tour since finishing 2nd on tour with her first two tournament wins back in 2021-22. We’re a long ways from February of 2022, when she won two straight events (beating Longoria in the finals of both) and had the racquetball world wondering if we were about to see a changing of the guard. She struggled so much this season that she fell in the rankings all the way to #8 at one point (as the #8 seed she beat Mejia in Arizona), but finished strong to return to the top 4. She’s still clearly in a small group of players separated from the rest of the tour by talent, but has she lost out on her chance to win a title given Vargas’ dominance?
Prediction for next season: #4
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#5 Brenda Laime , age 24. 7-8 for the season, one semi. 467.50 points.
The gulf between #4 and #5 is astounding: Herrera had nearly 440 points more than Laime. 440 points is the equivalent of two full tier1 wins and then some. It will be months before Laime or anyone else lower than the top 4 could even think about moving up that far. Laime’s season was up and down, as evidenced by her 7-8 record. She started out strong, with a win over Manilla to make the semis of World Singles. But from there it was inconsistency; she had three round of 16 losses (to Amaya, Parrilla and Mendez) and never got back to the semis. That’s a far cry from her season last year, where she also finished #5 but made three finals and kind of planted her flag as a top player. For next season she has to get back that fighting spirit that gave her big time wins over the top 4 players.
Prediction for next season: #5 or #6
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#6 @Kelani Lawrence : age 30, 9-8 on the season, 6 quarters. 460.00 points.
Lawrence gets a career high finish at #6, and finished the season with a career high seeding of #5 in her home-town Chesapeake event. She missed out on #5 by just 7 points. She showed pretty good consistency all season, making the quarters in 6 of the 8 events, but never further. This has turned into somewhat of a career tripping point for Kelani; in 43 career pro events she’s made the semis just once. However, 2023-24 is a massive step forward for her; her previous career high was #12 and she finished ranked 14th last year. She’s clearly put herself into top 8 territory and should stay here going forward.
Prediction next season: anywhere in the 6-8 range.
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#7 Natalia Mendez , age 27. 7-8 for the season, four quarters. 393.50 points.
After finishing 4th in 2021-22, Mendez slipped badly in 2023-24, falling to 10th as she had a slew of round of 16 one-and-done losses. It looked like perhaps the tour had passed her by, but she rebounded in the latter half of the season, got a couple of solid wins over fellow top-10 pros Laime and Salas, and finished back in the top 8. Mendez’s challenge is that the top tier of players are now her regular quarter final opponents, and she’s a step behind them. I think she’ll struggle to stay in the top 10.
Prediction next season: #10
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#8: Cristina Amaya , age 35. Season record 6-8, 1 semi and 1 qtr. 353.50 points.
Amaya had a fantastic run in the 2nd half of the season to rise from the mid teens back into the top 8 for the first time in five seasons. She never once advanced past the round of 16 last year, but got a quarter and a semi this year with great wins over the likes of Laime, Gaby, Salas, and Lambert. Is this sustainable? She’s seemingly going to continue touring and is one of the tour’s regular refs.
Prediction next season: #14-15
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#9 Carla Munoz , age 32. 5-8 on the season, 2 quarters. 342.50 points.
Munoz spent almost the entire season in the dreaded #8/#9 seed slot. This is a frequent spot of trouble for pro players, who are faced with a very tough round of 16 match against a player ranked right next to you in the rankings and thus presumably someone who’s quite equally matched with you talent wise, and then if you get past that opponent you’re playing the #1 seed, who you have little chance of beating. Munoz ended up having 6 round of 16 losses this season in that tough 8/9 or 7/10 spot (Mendez twice, Salas, Manilla, and Lawrence twice), none of which are “bad” losses.
Prediction for next season: Probably in the same #8-10 range.
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#10-T: @Erika Manilla, age 26, 7-3 on the season. One final and one semi. 333 points.
Manilla, of course, missed almost the entire 2024 slate of events with a torn hip labrum suffered just ahead of US Nationals in February, which required surgery and is set to sideline her for almost the entirety of 2024. It was a tough blow for the team USA representative, who had to forfeit out of US Nationals early and who was on a solid run of form on tour before getting hurt. She was ranked in the 4-5 range prior to the injury and had gotten to a final in Lombard with her first career win over Longoria. She has career h2h wins over all the elite on tour (Vargas, Mejia, Longoria, Herrera), and one has to think a healthy Erika is pushing for a top 4 spot at least. She should have no lingering effects from the soft tissue injury, but may miss events at the beginning of the 2024-25 season, which will make it tough for her to get back into the top 4.
Prediction next season: #10 due to missing events.
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#10T: Gaby Martinez , age 24, 7-5 this season, 5 quarters, 333 points.
Gaby made it to 5 of the 8 events this season, and lost in the quarters all five times. this is a bit of a step back from her last two seasons, both of which she had Tier 1 wins. Her five QF losses were to Herrera, Amaya, Longoria, Mejia, and Herrera again, so really just one “bad” loss. Most of those losses were with Gaby in the #5 seed spot, so she’s playing #4 in the quarters, always a tough match. Martinez continues to tour part-time, regularly missing big chunks of the season, which will always make it challenging for her to push for the top spot.
Prediction next season: Same #9-#10 spot
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That’s it for the top 10. Next post we’ll cover the 11-20 ranked players.
As team @3Wall Ball has done the last couple of years, 2024 will have an Outdoor Cup series covering all three Outdoor “Majors” (Beach Bash, Outdoor Nationals, and 3WallBall in Vegas).
This post is to cover the results and standings of the Cup series after the first event of the year, the just-finished Beach Bash.
Robert Sostre and @Benny Goldenberg are tied for the lead after the first Outdoor major, having teamed up together to take the Men’s one-wall Pro doubles, then each winning a second event (Sostre Mixed, Benny CPRT). Sitting in third is U18 junior DJ Mendoza, winner of the singles competition. There’s a small gap to 4th place, where Florida’s @Javier Trujillo sits, with an impressive tournament that included making the finals of pro doubles and the semis of singles. 5th place belongs to Marcos Gravier , my broadcast partner in Vegas, who entered and won just the CPRT event with Benny.
Standings after the 2024 Beach Bash discussion: @Kelani Lawrence sits in first place on the strength of winning the biggest pro draw of the weekend Mixed with the Iceman. 2nd place belongs to 2022 cup winner Michelle Key , who took home the Women’s doubles crown in Hollywood. #3 sits outdoor and LPRT vet Jessica Parrilla , who made 2 semis and a final on the weekend. Two ladies are tied for 4th place. The first is Arizona’s @Katherine Neil , winner of the doubles with Key. The next is @Veronica Sotomayor, who defended her one-wall singles title at the Beach Bash event.
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We’ll revisit the outdoor cup after the next major, that being July’s Outdoor Nationals.
In addition to the IRT event and Beach Bash and NMRA last weekend, we also had the 50th annual @USA Racquetball Intercollegiates championship, brought to you by @Team Dovetail and @Mike Kinkin , held in Tempe at Arizona State University (likely for the last time as they’re removing courts later this year).
Congratulations to your Gold #1 individual award winners:
– Men’s Singles: Benjamin Horner , from Des Moines Area CC.
– Women’s Singles: Stein Julia from Baldwin Wallace University.
– Men’s Doubles: Ariel Tito & Samuel Lazcano from Colorado State University – Pueblo
– Women’s Doubles: Julia Stein & Angie Case , Baldwin Wallace University
Horner and Stein are both first-time intercollegiate winners. Stein takes the double for Baldwin Wallace. Horner takes Des Moines CC’s first ever title, while Stein earns the 4th ladies title for BWU, following past winners @Sheryl Lott (2009), Krystal Csuk (2002), and Kristen Walsh (2001). Quite a solid pedigree of touring pros there.
For a history of all 50 individual and team winners, go here:
Men’s Team recap: This is OSU’s 5th Men’s team title, and 2nd in a row. They also won in 2023, 2019, 2015, and 2013. They still trail the two most dominant intercollegiate teams ever, Memphis State (who won 14 straight from 1977 to 1990) and CSU-Pueblo (who won 9 straight from 2004 to 2012).
Note: Memphis State has since been renamed to be the University of Memphis, but during its run it was known by its former moniker. Similarly, CSU-Pueblo used to be known as Southern Colorado; the records retain the original names as competed but aggregate properly for historical title counts.
Women’s Team Recap: BYU earns its 11th Women’s title, and first since 2018. They now hold 11 total, just one behind Memphis State for the lead all time.
Overall Team recap: With this title, Oregon State becomes the all-time leading Overall Team winner, previously held by Memphis State. This is their 13th overall title and their 2nd in a row.
Congrats to all participants, and we look forward to bringing the event to the east coast next year (details forthcoming).
I wrote up a new report that I thought i’d tell you about. Last August, when long-time LPRT #1 Paola Longoria fell out of the #1 seeding, many asked “Hey, when was the last time Paola wasn’t the #1 seed at a LPRT event?”
Well, I thought that was a pretty good question. So I wrote a query to answer it.
In the per-player report section on www.proracquetballstats.com‘s report launch page, there’s now a report called ‘Player Tourney Results Summary with Seeding.” it’s 5-6 reports down. This query shows every tourney a player has entered, their seed, and their result.
Here’s a couple of interesting examples:
– Longoria: https://rball.pro/zlq . The answer to the above question is now answered: November 2011, Longoria fell behind in the then-called WPRO rankings and was a #2 seed to Rhonda Rajsich for a few events.
– Kane Waselenchuk : https://rball.pro/cyd . Despite nine straight titles between 2009 and 2017 Kane would go through stretches where he fell out of #1.
– Rocky Carson: https://rball.pro/fh2 . Amazing to see how long he basically was #1 or #2 seed.
For older players, you’ll note that the seeds basically start in 2009. That’s when I began in earnest capturing them as each event happened. For some select events of interest in the past i’ve tried to figure out the seeds from context or from published brackets, but I have never tried to fully populate seeds for older events as too difficult an endeavor. Of course, if someone wants to give it a try, i’ll take your research for sure.
18U national team member Cole Sendrey topped the solid Average Joe’s singles bracket. Photo via Cole and his gofundme page.
20+ ballers braved 12 inches of snow in Jersey and some electrical issues to finish off the 4th annual Average Joe’s event late last night on 1/7/24, and they were treated to a “passing of the baton” moment of sorts.
Congrats to USA Junior national team 18U member Cole Sendrey (Kim Shipp Sendrey ) for upsetting several veteran players to take the singles title. Also, congrats to the #1 seeded doubles team of Dylan Pruitt and Austin Cunningham for taking the doubles title.
Here’s a recap of both draws.
In singles, seeds mostly held into the quarters; the sole exception being Cunningham taking out Jersey-based David Austin in the 5/12 match. In the quarters, Sendrey shocked Ohio’s #3 seed Victor Migliore to move into the semis, while the other three top seeds held on to advance.
In one semi, defending champ Kyle Ulliman took out #1 seed Pruitt, while Sendrey continued his upset run by outlasting #2 seed and event hose @Sam Kelley. In the final, Sendrey finished off an excellent run by topping Ulliman. Cole as the #6 seed beat the #2, #3 and #4 seeds en route to a well-deserved win.
In doubles, team Ohio (Ulliman and Migliore) took out the Kelley brothers in the semi, but fell in two straight to the #1 seeds Pruitt/Cunningham for the title.
Congrats to all the Average Joes for competing, and hope you all made it home without too much trouble.
Here’s the last in my end of season series, taking a look at the seminal events of the season and then looking forward.
– 1/5/23: IRT and Gearbox officially announce what has been rumored for a few weeks: Gearbox has replaced Head/Penn as the official ball and official equipment manufacturer of the IRT. This ends a nearly 20-year agreement Penn had to provide the official IRT ball. Gearbox’s balls are known to be more “durable” and “more consistent” … but are also known to be noticeably slower than other balls in the sport. How does this end up changing the pro game? For this observer, on panel courts, the portable court, and places not at altitude, the game plays significantly slower, which highlights a need for accuracy and shot making. At altitude and/or on cement, the ball plays more “normally” and power players do not appear affected.
– 1/9/23: Despite losing the Longhorn Open final, #3 Conrrado Moscoso ascends to the #1 spot on tour. This is the first time a player from outside the Big-3 countries of the sport has achieved #1, and is a seminal career moment for the Bolivian.
– 1/20/23: For the 2nd time in three years, Rodrigo Montoya is given the
Teporaca de Oro by his home state of Chihuahua for his accomplishments in the sport. Unfortunately he has to miss the Lewis Drug Pro/Am to get the award, costing him valuable ranking points. By season’s end it doesn’t really impact where he ended up; he finished well behind Jake for #3.
– 1/26/23: #12 Mario Mercado is given the inaugural Mark Griffin Sportsman of the Year Award at the Lewis Drug Pro-Am. Griffin first started the Lewis Drug Pro/Am tournament in 1978, and it is the longest running pro event in the country. The award will be presented annually to the player who most exemplifies the spirit of fair play and outstanding athletic performance of Men’s IRT tour professionals. Ironically, Mercado doesn’t play an event the rest of the season.
– 2/19/2023: the IRT has pivoted away from its tiered qualifying system and is going to a straight draw; no more byes into the 16s for the top 8 pros. Everyone starts in the 32s or the 64s if the draw is large enough. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but this seems to me to be an anti-player move, especially for the top 8 guys. Remember, top 8 players sign an agreement that purposely limits their ability to enter non-IRT sanctioned events, and in return they (for nearly 20 years) got protected seeding in return. Without the protected seeding, why agree to limit your own earning potential? It is also an inarguable fact that tiered qualifying is better for lower ranked players as well, for reasons i’ve covered many times in this space. Uninformed observers are convinced that this is a good thing, but you can count on one hand the number of round of 32 matches top eight players have played this year that were even remotely competitive.
– 2/19/23: #1 Moscoso skips the Williams Accounting Open in Atlanta to be part of the festivities of the celebration of Carnival in his home country. Its the only event he misses all season, but it proves to be a massive absence. De La Rosa wins the event and its valuable 600 ranking points, while Moscoso eventually finishes 2nd by just 226 points at season’s end. A semi’s finish or better in Atlanta would have changed the season ending rankings.
– 3/5/23: Rodrigo Montoya becomes the 45th man to ever win an IRT event, topping his doubles partner Mar in the 16s, then topping the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd ranked players (Portillo, Moscoso, and De La Rosa) to win the title in Minnesota. This is finally enough to catapult Montoya, who has long been one of the best players in the world but was never ranked accordingly, into the top 4 where he belongs.
– 3/16/23: despite being in a nip and tuck battle for #1 on tour, DLR skips the Chicago Open to compete instead in a PPA pickleball event in Austin that happened the same weekend. By season’s end, it becomes clear that DLR’s move here is immaterial, but it was a gamble at the time.
– May 2023: Thanks to the large anticipated 2023 slate of events and the distance we’ve now put ourselves from Covid, the tour will be moving away from the rolling 11 tier 1s and back to a rolling 365-day calendar.
– May 2023: a couple of shots across the bow of the IRT player contract are made, as DLR & Landa play in an “Open” tournament in San Antonio while Portillo skips an IRT event (along with Acuna, who is outside the top to play in the Asian open. Both actions seem to be in violation of the IRT player contract, which stipulates that top 8 players may not play ANY non-IRT event and only a limited number of IRT satellite events per season. A bit later, Portillo takes to Facebook to complain that he had been fined $500 for the action, though the post is later taken down. It does beg a question as to the fairness of the IRT player contract, but the players can’t really do anything until the new year.
– Aug 2023: World singles & Doubles happens in Denver thanks to two years of planning from Jim Hiser, and with the loss of the US Open this is the defacto US Open of the season. It has the biggest draws of the season by far.
– Aug 2023: With the cancellation of the Portland Tourney of Champions as a Tier 1, the tour will have exactly 10 tier 1s/Grand slams by the end of 2023. Per the player
contract, the year end title will be determined by the sum of these 10 events. The 3 competitors for the title (Jake, DLR, Moscoso) each face different challenges in the race to #1: Moscoso missed the Grand Slam, DLR missed Chicago, and Jake has a ton of late 2022 points to defend.
– Sept 2023: Alex Landa announces in a Facebook post that he’ll be retiring as of the last event of the 2023 season from professional racquetball.
– 11/12/2023: Kane Waselenchuk, who had not played professional singles since his Achilles heel tear in September 2022, enters the Boston singles event with little fanfare and advances to the semis, beating #11 Robbie Collins, #6 Adam Manilla, and most notably #3 Conrrado Moscoso with relative ease. He nearly beats #2 Jake Bredenbeck in the semis, but seemed to pick up an injury that hampered his movement, losing in a tiebreaker. Still, its an amazing return to form for the 14-time pro tour champ, and his defeat of Moscoso had huge implications for the year end race.
– 11/13/23: Jake Bredenbeck ascends to #1 ranking on tour for the first time with his finals appearance in Boston.
– 11/20/23: the tour race for #1 is going to be closer than it has been for nearly a decade, so much attention is paid to the machinations of the two remaining events. Thanks to Moscoso’s upset loss in Boston, DLR’s semi final appearance, and Jake’s final’s showing … the end of year race becomes clear. Moscoso cannot win the title. Jake can win the title, but he needs to win Pleasanton and hope that Daniel loses relatively early. DLR can sew up the 2023 title with at least a semis appearance in Pleasanton, or a quarter’s appearance if Jake loses before the final.
– 12/9/23: A Jake Bredenbeck loss in the quarters of the Golden State Open sealed the 2023 title for De La Rosa before he even took the court for his critical quarterfinal against Acuna. Daniel won that match and his semi to resolve any question as to his #1 status, though he ended up losing the finals badly to #2 Moscoso.
– 12/10/23: In the post-game interview after the Golden State Open final, Daniel De La Rosa announced that he will not be “touring full time” in 2024, alluding to his
commitments to “another sport.” There’s little surprise here; he signed an 3-year contract with the Professional Pickleball Association in August which guarantees a salary, benefits, and expense reimbursement to play professional Pickleball. His main sponsor Pro Kennex and Mike Martinez tried to manage the situation on social media by noting that DLR is a “multi sport” sponsored player and has expectations of continuing to play and compete in racquetball, but as they say, we’ll see how it goes.
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Now for some commentary on the state of the IRT at the end of 2023 and heading into 2024.
Despite having 10 tier 1s in 2023, the tour saw a pretty steep decline in overall participation. In 2022, there were 245 players who competed in one of the IRT’s events; that number dropped to just 133 in 2023. That’s more than 100 players who didn’t travel or didn’t enter an event who had a year prior. Draw sizes were way down; at the beginning of 2022 draws were routinely in the 40s; by the end of 2023 the tour was struggling to get 25 players. Denver and the portable court helped bump things up (those two events got 56 and 48 players respectively) but there’s a big gap of players missing.
We’ve definitely seen a changing of the guard as long-time touring pros step back (Carson, Beltran, Landa, Franco, Mercado). We’re also seeing younger players who were touring relatively full time in 2022 stop touring (Fernandez, Keller, Garay). But we’re also seemingly missing a lot of the international guys who frequently traveled to every event, and we’re not seeing the younger Mexican’s coming over the border as much as we have in year’s past. So, that’s a problem.
A bigger problem is the loss of events. Here’s a quick list of IRT tier 1 stops that we seem to have “lost” just in the last couple of years:
– Longhorn Open in Jan
– The Lou Bradley in Feb
– Williams Accounting/Suivant Consulting in Feb
– Where’s the SoCal Open, usually in April?
– The Syosset Open in NY in May
– World Singles/Denver won’t happen in August 2024
– The Capital Classic in Severna Park in Sept.
– The US Open is not likely to happen in 2024
– We used to have an Arizona Open in Oct
– The Sarasota Open/Dovetail in Nov?
– Pelham ToC went down to a satellite this year in Dec.
Not to mention events we used to have regularly in St. Louis or Cincinnati or San Antonio or in Canoga Park. The tour has picked up some new events (Tracktown, Pleasanton, Boston) but not enough to offset all these losses. And it makes me worry about the 2024 season. Will the IRT even get to 6 events this coming year?
I’m not sure what the answer is. But the tour may be in some existential trouble. Many of the tour’s investors were also its regular tourney directors, and they’ve stepped back from sponsoring events. The IRT depends on local tourney directors to raise funds and make these events happen, and the decline of tournaments in general has fed into t his issue. DLR said he’s stepping back from touring … but if there’s just a handful of events, and he manages to make them all while playing the PPA tour full time … he could end up having the best of both worlds.
Lots to sort out in 2024. But I think its fair to say we havn’t seen the men’s tour face this many question marks since the fall of 1988 when it completely collapsed.
Landa hangs them up Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory
Here’s a look at notables who finished outside the top 10 this year, with some thoughts on who could be making a move in 2024.
– #11 Alejandro Landa : Landa retires from full time touring with an impressive career resume. He’s 35, but really didn’t start touring full-time until 2017. From there he ripped off four seasons in the top 3, won four events, made another four finals, and steps away with a career W/L of 158-93. He’ll make for an interesting hall of fame case some day, but for now the tour loses one of its most passionate players. For me he’s always a “what if” he had played the tour full time for his entire 20s, not just the last couple of seasons. I suspect he’d have a career more like what DLR has now in terms of total wins. Could he have won a year end title? Maybe; he has a winning career h2h over DLR (10-8 across all competitions) but would have still been in the Kane era during his own peak. Bigger question; does he play US Nationals in Arizona in February? Or is he “done” done?
– #13 Javier Mar continues to play the tour part time, around his “real job” and periodically wreak havoc on draws. This season he got wins over top 10 players like Parrilla, Landa, and Acuna to shake up draws and played Moscoso tough in a 10,12 semis loss in Austin for his best result. #13 is his career best season ending ranking, but is this as good as we can expect from Mar? He dealt with a hernia injury for a big part of the year as well, meaning he probably could have been even better. If he played the tour full time, I have no doubt he’d be in the #6-7 range. But he never has, so mid-teens seems like what to expect.
– #15 Jaime Martell had his career best showing, finishing #15 on the back of several main draws and one quarter final result. He has a niche reffing the back end of the events and has connections to IRT commissioner @Pablo Fajre from their WRT days. I could see him making more events in 2024 and pushing up a few spots in the rankings.
– #16 Erick Trujillo missed just one event in 2023 but never advanced past the round of 16, which puts his #16 rank exactly where he should be. He’s still in the 21U division, but has losses to his fellow 21u countrymen Ramos, Gastelum, and Nieto lately and didn’t qualify for Junior Worlds this year. And none of those guys are as good as the current Mexican 18U champ Jorge Gutierrez Ortiz. What’s next for him? He seems likely to stay in this general range 15-16.
– #20 Rocky Carson played in just three events this year as he stopped touring full time; he played in the two California events plus Denver. He shook up the Pleasanton draw a bit, taking out Mar and Parrilla before being downed by Montoya. He’s a sure-fire hall of famer, just waiting a couple years to become eligible. I’m guessing he’ll continue to travel to WOR events (where he gets paid) and to California-based events (where his costs are limited) for a while. I could also see him back at Nationals since its in AZ and it’s not a total one and done for him.
– #22 @Kane Waselenchuk returned to the singles court more than a year after blowing out his Achilles heel tendon, and he made an impression for sure. In Boston he waxed #6 Manilla before shocking #3 Moscoso, then ran out of gas in the semis against Jake. Then in Pleasanton different court conditions and an opportunistic Moscoso led to a (10),4,4 defeat. Kane has to be happy though about his status: he’s shown that even at 42, his pinpoint serving accuracy and remaining power can take him past most players on tour without breaking a sweat. The bigger question will be, what happens when he runs into the top 4 regularly? We had too small of a sample size this season to really know (a win over Moscoso, a loss to Jake and a loss to Moscoso). If Kane plays all the events in 2024, I have no doubt he’s finishing in the top 4, but I doubt he can consistently get past Moscoso, DLR, or Jake. But i’ve been wrong about him before, so we’ll see. 2024 prediction: #3 or #4
– #24 @Diego García . Garcia has taken over the title of, “Best player who doesn’t tour full time.” Mar had the belt for a bit, Montoya before him, then Landa for a while, then before Landa it was probably someone like Polo or Mejia. They join a group that included guys like Sweeney and Muller back in the 1990s. As for Garcia now, he beat Portillo twice this year, had a couple other wins over tour regulars when he did show, and took Montoya to a breaker in the quarters of Denver. But Garcia’s problem is money; he doesn’t have enough to travel up here to play full time. If he did, I have no doubt he’d be top 6. But as it is, we’ll see how many events he can get to.
– #25 @Sebastian Franco only played 2 events this year, and after being a mainstay at the back of the top 10 for the better part of the last 10 years seems to have made the understandable decision to focus his efforts on earning a living for his wife and two kids.
– #27 @Mario Mercado , like his fellow Maryland-resident and Colombian teammate Franco, also has stepped way back from touring after 10 years of playing. Mercado’s knee deep in @Formulaflow.
– #33 Carlos Keller Vargas continues to be a force internationally, but after peaking at #12 two seasons ago has stepped back to his prior pattern of traveling up for just one or two events a year. Meanwhile, he continues to dominate internationally, making the finals of PARC and the semis of the Pan Am games, with wins over Garcia twice, Acuna, and Murray. Hope to see more of him.
– #39 @Elias Nieto only played two IRT events, but continues to impress internationally and could push for a mid-teen ranking with enough events given his h2h record against Trujillo. Same for #42 @Diego Gastelum ; both players have big time promise and hope to see them more.
– #40 @Cole Sendry continues to get reps on tour and internationally in the 18U space, and seems like one of the best bets for the next USA player to matriculate out of juniors.
– #45 @Alvaro Beltran has had father time catch up to him w/r/t singles; he’s still out there playing doubles when he can.
– #54 Gerson Miranda is a great 21U junior from Bolivia, the latest in a long -line of Bolivian junior national champs who could make noise. But, as with many of his countrymen, lack of funding makes it hard for him to tour regularly.
– #70 Sebastian Fernandez quietly stopped touring, which is a shame given the promise he showed while hanging around the top 16.
– #72 Jordan Barth certainly had vocal supporters upon his return from pro baseball; the former dominant junior national champ played one event this year.
– Two former touring pro regulars based in Oregon Charlie Pratt and @Tony Carson
played one event in their hometown and finished tied for #100.
– LPRT #4 Erika Manilla finished at #108 after entering a satellite and going a round or two.
– Bringing up the rear of the standings: Scott McClellan , former lead ref on tour, who entered the Longhorn Open in his home town and going one-and done.
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That’s it for the player recaps. Next post will catch up the news from the year and then talk 2024.
to play in the Asian open. Both actions seem to be in violation of the IRT player contract, which stipulates that top 8 players may not play ANY non-IRT event and only a limited number of IRT satellite events per season. A bit later, Portillo takes to Facebook to complain that he had been fined $500 for the action, though the post is later taken down. It does beg a question as to the fairness of the IRT player contract, but the players can’t really do anything until the new year.