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.
De La Rosa captures his 3rd straight year end title. Photo Golden State Open, Ken Fife.
Hello racquetball fans and Happy New Year! We’ve come to the end of the 2023 season, so here’s my regular end of season deep dive into the players and the tour in general.
I’ll do this analysis in three parts: first (today) will be the top 10. Next will be notables from the players ranked 11th and onward. Then I’ll finish up with a recap of the news events from the season along with some editorialization. Along the way I’ll offer predictions for 2024.
Without further ado.
#1: Daniel De la Rosa finished #1 for the third straight season, tying him with Charlie Brumfield on the all time list of pro title winners. DLR played in 9 of the 10 events on the season and showed some pretty good consistency: 3 wins, 4 finals, and 2 semis. Zero early round upset losses; basically he was a lock to make the semis the moment he showed up. He went 30-6 on the season. He now has 12 career tourney wins (12th all time) and his career W/L now sits at 221-98 (15th all time). However, the elephant in the room (like it is for a lot of racquetball fans) is PIckleball. DLR is committed to the PPA tour for 2024 and beyond, with guaranteed salary, stipends for health insurance, and travel expenses. Its too good of a deal to pass up, and if there’s a competing event to a 2024 IRT event, DLR likely misses it. There aren’t too many IRT events on the books yet for 2024, but we know for sure there’s a conflict for March’s Shamrock shootout. Because of this, DLR has already hedged his bets and let people know he’s not going to tour “full time” to manage expectations. I predict he’ll miss enough events to knock him out of the top spot but he stays in the top 4 by season’s end. 2024 prediction: #3 or #4, depending on how many events he makes.
#2: Conrrado Moscoso : Conrrado had an excellent season: 4 wins (1 more than DLR), 2 finals, 1 semi and 2 quarter final losses, but its the one event he missed that crushed him in the end; he skipped the one grand slam event the IRT had in 2023, costing him significant points. He finished 2nd by around 266 points, but a semis finish at a grand slam is worth 330 points. He also suffered two quarter-final losses, which are tough to overcome when your rival for the top spot is essentially unbeatable prior to the semis. Nonetheless, Moscoso is well positioned for 2024. He now sits 5th overall in career W/L percentage at 80-22 (behind only Kane, Marty, Sudsy, and Brumfield) and he now sits tied for 14th ever in Tier1 wins. Both of these figure to be improved upon in 2024, as Moscoso beat #1 DLR in three of their four meetings in 2023 (all finals). Most pundits believe Conrrado is the world’s best player, and I believe he’ll ascend to #1 in 2024 and stay there. 2024 Prediction: #1
– #3 @Jake Bredenbeck had a season for the ages. After grinding out the tour for years at the fringes of the top 10, Jake flipped a switch this year and vaulted himself into the top 4. For nearly the entire season, his only vanquishers were the two men ranked above him, and his consistent results pushed him to the #1 ranking by November. In fact, he still maintained a shot at the year end title going into the season’s final event, something that even Moscoso couldn’t say. Jake may have slipped to #3 on points with the upset loss in the Pleasanton quarters, but he’s now a force to be reckoned with for the time being. Jake’s biggest issue going forward will be his age: he’s now 32, and is entering a critical age for pro racquetball players, especially big guys. I think he’ll hang on for 2024, especially given his commitment to fitness. 2024 prediction: #2.
– #4 Rodrigo Montoya After years and years of being “the guy nobody wanted to run into early,” Montoya finally pushed his way into the tour’s top 4 and seems set to stay there as long as he can. In 2023 he became the 45th man ever to win a Tier 1 and had a consistent set of results: 1 win, 1 final, 4 semi-finals. He has kept his “bad losses” to a minimum, and seems set to stick as a top seed. Montoya is the rare player who’s had success against Moscoso in the past (he’s 5-8 against him across IRT and IRF events, though Moscoso has had the upper hand lately), meaning a weekend matchup between the pair guarantees fireworks. My 2024 prediction for Montoya kind of rests on his schedule: he’s has a full time career that has always made it tough for him to make 100% of the events. I’ll bet he misses one here or there and finishes #3 or #4 again.
– #5: Andree Parrilla took a distinct step back this season, starting it ranked #2 and ending it at #5. Parrilla did get a 3rd career win, but it was an anomaly for him this season. He lost in the 16s or quarters 7 out of 9 events this year, getting a couple of really unlucky round of 16 matches against Carson and Mar. But the real story for Andree was the bugaboo of his quarter final matchups; all season he found himself losing at the QF stage to players who he had previously better success. In this respect, #5 makes perfect sense for his year end ranking, and it seems like a pretty good guess for 2023; he’ll continue to run into top four players at this juncture and there’s now a talent gap between them and the rest of the tour. Parrilla will be “the best of the rest” again in 2024 and finish #5 again.
– #6 Adam Manilla : after years of sitting outside the top 10, Manilla rather quietly put together a really consistent season and launched himself to the #6 spot by year’s end. He did this on the back of 7 quarter final appearances in 10 events, overcoming a few round of 16 upsets and staying the course. Adam’s challenge is, those seven quarter final losses were all to the top 3 players on tour: he lost to Moscoso 3 times, DLR 3 times, and Jake once. In order to move up, Manilla needs to get wins over these top guys, and that doesn’t seem like its in the cards right now. I think #6 was as far as he can get and he may very well slip a bit depending on what the guys ranked 7-10 manage to do next year. 2024 prediction: #7.
– #7 Eduardo Portillo slipped from last season’s #4 ranking down to #7 as he missed several events as he continues to work on his commercial pilot training. He also took a step back this season in terms of his finishes: he’s made at least one tourney final in each of the previous three seasons, but never made it there this year. In this respect, he’s had better finishing than the rest of the guys in the 5-8 range, but his absences keep him back. I don’t know what his work situation will be in 2024, but I suspect a full-time airline pilot is not going to have the same kind of schedule flexibility as a pre-college kid. Without knowing anything else, i’m going to guess he continues to hang around in the 7-8 range due to missed events.
– #8: Andres Acuna just finished his best season ever, making six quarterfinals a season after getting past the quarters just once. However, like Manilla and Parrilla above him, he never got any further. To make matters worse he’s mired in the #8/#9 seed slot, routing him into the #1 seed tourney after tourney and making it tough to move up. However, he’s clearly taken a step up on tour, and seems set to make all the events and continue to compete. I’m going to predict he hangs around in the top 10 and finishes #8 again.
– #9 Alan Natera was basically an unknown on tour a year ago, finishing 25th. Not this year; he played every event, made every satellite, and got himself into two quarter finals to finish in the top 10 for the first time. He’s a hard worker and has been improving, but Its hard to see him getting past the Acuna/Manilla/Portillo bunch ahead of him. I predict he finishes 8 or 9 in 2024.
– #10: Samuel Murray took a distinct step back on tour this year, missing three events (the first he’d missed in years) and slipping from #6 last year to #10 this year. He’s still a threat to make the semis, when he’s on, but now that he’s on the wrong side of 30 one has to wonder if he’s destined to push for the top 10 regularly anymore. He continues to rule in Canada though, ensuring his national team spot for the 11th straight year, so he’ll continue to play. If he doesn’t miss events in 2024, I can see him getting back into the 6-7 range. 2024 prediction: #6.
We’ll review notables outside the top 10 in the next post.
Hello Racquetball fans. A quick note to inform the community that I’ve done the typical year-end data upload into ProRacquetballStats.com for the just ended IRT season. Here’s some links that now show the updated data, along with some of the artifacts I maintain for the sport.
– Season Summary Report: https://rball.pro/zlj . This report has a breakdown of finishes for all players, is sorted by Wins, then Finals, then Semis, etc.
– All the season-level reports are now of course complete for the year. You can get a list of finals, draw sizes,
All the static files of data have also been updated:
– Number of Overall Titles: https://www.proracquetballstats.com/…/number_of_titles… DLR wins his 3rd and moves into a tie with Charlie Brumfield (who won 3 pro and an additional 2 amateur national titles in the early 1970s).
With the completion of the 2023 3Wall Ball Outdoor Championships in Las Vegas two weekends ago, the year-long Outdoor Cup Series have completed. Here’s a recap of the winners and the narrative of how the results changed over the course of the season.
The LPL Financial Women’s Cup and the Kwm Gutterman Men’s Cup both awarded cash prizes and other benefits to the top 2 finishers across the three outdoor majors this year (Beach Bash, Outdoor Nationals, and 3WB).
Scott took the title wire to wire in 2023, winning two titles at Beach Bash (Women’s Doubles and Mixed) along with making the singles final. From there she took another title at Outdoor Nationals, plus two more in Vegas, and won the cup with a commanding lead. 2nd place finisher Mejia missed Beach Bash but took her LPRT #1 talents to outdoor starting in Huntington Beach, where she took the singles title in her first ever outdoor appearance. She followed that up with a singles/doubles double in Vegas to just squeak past 3rd place Munoz for the money position. Carla just missed out on 2nd place for the second year in a row, taking the one-wall Pro doubles in Vegas and the Women’s pro doubles title in California. The only other touring pro to compete in all three majors was 4th place finisher Lawrence, who took the Beach Bash doubles title with Scott and had several other finals in the three wall competitions the rest of the way.
Future Hall of Famer Tisinger-Ledkins missed Beach Bash but took a title in Outdoor Nationals and came in 5th. LPRT #5 Herrera came in 6th, despite missing Outdoor Nationals. She took the Women’s doubles title in Vegas with Mejia and had two other finals along the way. Last year’s winner Key struggled with injuries and missed the first two events, but played well in Vegas and made both Mixed finals with partner Kane Waselenchuk to finish in 7th place. LPRT #6 Manilla made a slew of semi finals but never advanced any deeper, finishing in 8th place. Current LPRT #3 Laime took the one-wall pro title in Vegas, but struggled in the doubles events other wise in Vegas as compared to last year to finish in 9th place. Rounding out the top 10 was USA Racquetball Hall of Famer Roehler, who was a finalist in Florida in March in doubles and had a slew of results in Vegas to finish in 10th place.
Other notable finishers include:
– Teen-ager Victoria Rodriguez , who finished 12th and who competed in all three competitions and took a Paddleball title in Vegas.
– new mom Erica Williams bowed out of pro events in Vegas but played all three majors this year to finish 14th.
– Veronica Sotomayor was in 2nd place after Beach Bash, where she took a title and a final. However she could not travel to either of the subsequent majors to compete for the crown.
——————–
Now lets talk about how the Men finished. Here’s the final top 10 standings:
1. Daniel De La Rosa
2. Rocky Carson
3. Rick “Soda Man” Koll
4. Eduardo Portillo
5. Benny Goldenberg
6. Robert Sostre “Ice Man”
7. Alejandro Landa
8. Greg Solis
9. Alvaro Beltran
10. Kane Waselenchuk
Like his partner Scott, De La Rosa (DLR) went wire-to-wire for this title, winning 7 of the 8 titles he competed in this year. The sole blemish on his outdoor major resume this year was in the Men’s Pro Doubles final in Huntington Beach, where he and Landa lost to @Josh Tucker and newlywed Brandon Davis in the final. Daniel now holds 29 major Outdoor titles to go along with his likely 3rd straight International Racquetball Tour pro title this year. He’s already on the short list for best outdoor player of all time; is he also on the short list for best indoor/outdoor combo player of all time? A player firmly in these same outdoor GOAT conversations is certainly Carson, who finished 2nd in this cup series competition on the back of his excellent CPRT results all year. He won CPRT in Florida with Sudsy Monchik , lost in the semis in California with regular partner @Jesus Ustarroz , and went to the final with Ustarroz in Vegas.
Long-time 3WB sponsor Soda Man came in 3rd in the cup competition this year, powered by a great CPRT win with Beltran over Carson/Ustarroz in Vegas. Portillo, who finished 2nd in last year’s cup, had to miss Outdoor Nationals this year but still took the 1-wall pro doubles final in Vegas to finish 4th. Portillo’s winning doubles partner in Vegas Goldenberg also made the final in Florida and finished 5th in the standings in the end despite focusing primarily on 1-wall competitions.
Benny’s beach bash finalist partner and WOR Hall of Famer Sostre finished right behind Benny in 6th; he and William Rolon were 1-wall pro doubles finalists in Vegas. Landa teamed up with DLR and was able to net enough points playing with the top player to finish 7th nearly on his pro doubles results in two events. Hall of Famer Greg Solis came in 8th; he took the Outdoor Nationals CPRT title with Josh Tucker and made the Vegas 3-wall singles final, losing to Alan Natera . The legendary Alvaro Beltran came in 9th in the Cup standings, taking CPRT in Vegas while missing Beach Bash while recovering from his dislocated elbow suffered last year. Finally, coming in 10th is none other than the 13-time IRT champ Waselenchuk, who has discovered one-wall and is loving it apparently, and powered his team to both Pro Mixed doubles finals in Vegas.
Other notable men:
– Brandon Davis’ wedding took out a ton of top Southern California talent from 3WB, and cost a number of the attendees (including Davis himself) at a higher spot in the standings.
– Josh Tucker stood in 2nd place after two Doubles titles in July; he finished 11th overall by only playing one of the Outdoor majors this year.
– Micah Rich and Jason Geis both sat in the top 10 after Outdoor Nationals, but fell to 16th and 20th overall by missing Vegas.
– Javier Mar was 2nd overall after a great Beach Bash, but fell to 22nd.
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That’s it for the Outdoor Cup Series.
next up? The 2023 Pan Am Games! We’ll do a knockout round preview once the round robins are done.
Hollie Scott continues to hold the top spot in the LPL Financial cup . Photo from 2020 3WB via Steve Fitzsimons
Hello Outdoor fans! Now that Outdoor Nationals is in the books, here’s a look at the updated standings in the 2023 Outdoor Cup Series for both the women (sponsored by LPL Financial ) and the Men (sponsored by KWM Gutterman Inc. ).
As a reminder, the Cup series is a year long competition amongst outdoor professionals, awarding weighted points in Singles, Doubles, Mixed, and CPRT in all three Outdoor “Majors” (meaning, Beach Bash, Outdoor Nationals, and 3WallBall). The winners each year get cash awards and Vegas hotel perks.
Hollie retains the top spot by taking the Mixed Pro title in Huntington Beach, and she holds a sizeable lead by virtue of her three Beach Bash finals performance in March. Munoz jumps from #7 to 2nd place by virtue of her Pro Doubles title and her Singles finalist performance. Lawrence was a doubles finalist in California and slightly improved on her #4 standing post Beach bash. Tisinger-Ledkins and Mejia both had identical finishes in Huntington and are now tied for 4th in the standings. Mejia, playing outdoor for the first time, took the Singles title while future WOR Hall of Famer Janel took the doubles title.
Three players who were top 5 post Beach Bash (Sotomayor, Herrera, and Roehler) fall out of the top 5 by virtue of missing the event, but still have a chance this fall in Vegas to gain ground.
Scott will be difficult to catch in Vegas, especially given her prowess playing one-wall, and looks like a shoe-in for the top prize. Munoz is well positioned for 2nd place, but still can be caught with a strong Vegas showing by Lawrence.
De La Rosa stays on top thanks to his Mixed doubles win and finals appearance in Men’s Doubles. Tucker’s two titles (Pro Doubles and Mixed doubles) power him from unranked to a strong #2. Carson treads water at #3. Rich’s mixed finals appearance jumps him from outside the top 20 after Beach Bash to the top 5 now. Lastly, Solis’ CPRT title with Tucker gives him enough points to sneak into the top 5.
Mar, ranked #2 after Beach Bash, remains in the top 10 but just barely. Several other east-coast or one-wall specialists who skipped Huntington have gotten bumped outside the top 10, but many come to Vegas and will improve on their standings.
Daniel has a nearly insurmountable lead at the top of the Cup series, but the #2 finisher remains well in question. The odds of Tucker traveling to Vegas seem slim (he’s never played 3WB), so Carson, Rich, and Solis have a chance (if they attend in October) to make up ground and finish in the money.
Thanks to the Cup series sponsors, thanks to the tournament directors of these majors, thanks to the individual tournament sponsors of course, and thanks to team 3Wall Ball (Mike Coulter, Peggine Tellez, Jen O’Meara, et al) for all you do for outdoor racquetball.
– https://3wallball.org/…/3wb-world-outdoor-championships/ for the info page for 3WallBall Las Vegas, including logistics, Hotel discount codes and registration links. We’re already over 100 registrants and growing more every day. Do NOT miss out on getting your hotel reservations! Once the discount block is gone, the prices will skyrocket like they did last year as last minute events are announced in Vegas.
Rajsich finishes #47.
Photo 202 USAR Doubles by Kevin Savory
Hello fans! We’ve finished another Ladies pro season, the 2022-23 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 second of a 3-part wrap-up series.
Part 1: The top 10
Part 2: The 11-20th ranked players
Part 3: Notables ranked 21st or higher, plus a recap of news items from season (this post)
Part 3: Notables and News
If one looks at the depth of the tour (see https://rball.pro/s5s for the Tour Depth report), there’s about 15 players who i’d characterize as being “full time” tour players. That’s the number of players who played 75% of the events on the year. 23 distinct players played in at least half the events, so there’s definitely a difference between the top 20 and the rest of the tour. So, lets take a look at some of the notables who finished outside of the top 20, highlighting interesting names and juniors who we may see take on more prevalent roles in the future.
– #22 Stephanie Synhorst appeared out of nowhere in 2021, having never registered any previous junior or amateur national matches. She attended 6 pro events and competed all season, finishing 22nd.
– #25 Susy Acosta finished 25th on tour, making 3 appearances this season. This is the 25th season Acosta has appeared on tour; #25 for 25 seasons! She’s now played in more than 150 pro tournaments in her career.
– #26 Annie Roberts played in four events while balancing school and junior events; she’s the 2-time reigning USA u21 champion, is the reigning Intercollegiate champ, and has not lost a US Junior Nationals match since 2016.
– #27 Martina Katz , a lefty junior from Argentina, made it to four pro events this season, making the long flight up. She was the 18U Junior world finalist in 2021 (losing to Michaela Meneses), and lost in the quarters of 2022 21U worlds to Angelica Barrios . She could be an heir-apparent in Argentina racquetball to the long-standing Vargas/Mendez pairing.
– #28 Maricruz Ortiz from Costa Rica hasn’t had pro tour success yet (0-4 this year), but has been making statements in juniors and internationally for years. She took the 2019 16U world junior title with successive wins over Roberts, Katz, and Meneses. She lost in the semis of 2022 21U to Barrios. She’s now representing Costa Rica on the adult team, and advanced to the semis of 2023’s PARC event with wins over Barrios and Amaya. And she just made the semis of the CAC events in the DR. She’s regularly visiting south Florida to train with Sudsy Monchik and Veronica Sotomayor and is only heading up. https://rball.pro/mzz
– #29 Paula Mansilla hails from Chile and made the semis of 2022 18U junior worlds, and is now joining country-mate Carla Munoz in representing their home country in adult events.
– #33 @Naomi Ros is the reigning 16U world champ and just won the USA Junior Nationals 18U by giving up a combined 8 points in four MATCHES in Pleasanton. She’s had a ton of success since switching the USA from her native Mexico. She’s got limited LPRT experience but took Manilla to a tiebreaker in San Antonio this season. She’ll be one to watch for in the future for sure.
– #33 Yanna Salazar is the reigning Mexican 16U champ, just won the Conade 16U tournament as well, and lost in the finals of 16U worlds to Ros after topping her in the group stage. She’s definitely next in line from the Mexican junior female pipeline of developing talent. She took Parrilla to a tie-breaker in San Antonio in April.
– #35 Shane Diaz has lost in the finals of USA 21U two years in a row to Roberts, made the semis of 21U worlds last fall, and has a number of pro losses to top players where she acquitted herself well.
– #39 Micaela Meneses played just 1 event this season after playing most of the events over the past three years. She was starting to get some solid results on tour, then her performances plummeted out of the blue starting in May of 2022 as she reportedly went through a wholesale mechanical swing overhaul. She recovered by November, where she successfully defended her World Junior 18U title, but she has not been seen on the pro tour since. Per her FB she remains active playing, but perhaps Bolivian state of finances has made it impossible for her to regularly travel.
– #47 Rhonda Rajsich finishes the season ranked 47th, with just one appearance at her home town Arizona event. Pretty safe to say she’s retired, and we’ll be working on a career retrospective for her as one of the most decorated athletes in our sport’s history.
– #48 Lucia Gonzalez remains in that category of, “what would happen if…” she played the tour full time. She has a slew of Mexican and Junior worlds titles to her name, She has six (6!) career wins over Alexandra Herrera (they’re the same junior class), currently #3 on tour. She’s made National adult semis in Mexico. She just has never really made it happen on the pro tour. See https://rball.pro/k04 for her career.
– June 2022: Rajsich quietly retires from the pro tour and from WOR events where she’s been a staple for 20+ years.
– July 2022: Paola Longoria wins the 2022 World Games despite playing on a sprained ankle.
– July 2022: the LPRT names Timothy Baghurst as the Deputy commissioner and a member of the board.
– July 2022: Actor Dane Cook posts to his instagram page a video of him playing Longoria.
– Aug 2022: relations between FMR and Conade deteriorate, with accusations nearing theft of government funds for a number of Mexico’s leading racquetball players, who all post gofundme pages to get to Worlds. This leads to back and forth press releases and lawsuits between the players and the organization.
– Aug 2022: the Colombian racquetball federation disappears, leading their two touring players Amaya and Riquelme to fend for themselves to get to Worlds.
– Oct 2022: Team Dovetail announced a partnership with the LPRT to promote junior clinics.
– Jan 2023: Rajsich confirms her retirement in a podcast interview.
– Mar 2023: @Montse Mejia wins her fourth straight LPRT event, the first time someone not named Longoria has had that level of dominance in nearly 20 years on tour, and the realization that we may have a new tour champ starts to take place.
– May 2023: Mejia misses out on a chance to seal the title with an upset loss in the semis of the Sweet Caroline, meaning that the tour will come down to the final event.
– June 2023: Mejia becomes the first new champion on tour in a decade.
Did I miss any notable events worth capturing? let me know.
This closes the books on the 2022-23 season. We’ll see the LPRT back in action in Denver in August.
Samantha Salas finished just out the top 10 this season. Photo US Open 2019 by Kevin Savory
Hello fans! We’ve finished another Ladies pro season, the 2022-23 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: The top 10
Part 2: The 11-20th ranked players (this post)
Part 3: Notables ranked 21st or higher, plus a recap of notable news items from the season.
In this post we’ll run through the ladies who finished in the 11-20 range, give some thoughts on their season, and then project where they’ll end up next year.
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#11: Samantha Salas Solis : 11-8 on the season, 1 semi, 472 points.
Despite having a better looking seasonal record of 11-8 than the three players immediately ahead of her (including two players ranked ahead of her for the season who had losing records on the season), Salas finished behind them in the standings by a fair amount (more than 90 points). Why? Because she missed two events entirely on the season, and never really could get out of her ranking spot.
She started the year seeded 9th, she finished it seeded 10th, and spent a lot of time running into really tough round of 16 matches against players ranked 7th and 8th. She had to play Munoz in particular no fewer than four times this year; i’m sure those two are sick of seeing each other. She had solid round of 16 wins this season against Munoz, Parrilla, Lawrence, Barrios, and Mendez. (see https://rball.pro/bfs). Her one semi on the year was in San Antonio, where she got a shock win over Mejia to throw the title race back into question. Otherwise Salas’ season was “tough win in the 16s to then lose to a top player in the quarters.”
Projection for next season: #10-11: I think she can hold off the likes of Mendez and Lawrence for this spot, but the 36 old is not getting any younger and most of the tour’s top talent are in the age 23-24 range.
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#12 Gaby Martinez 10-5 on the season, 1 win, 468.5 points.
What to make of Gaby Martinez’s season? She played six of the 10 events. In those 6 events she was generally seeded so low that she had to play a round of 32 match, and then had five round of 16 losses; Longoria twice in a 1 v 16 scenario, Herrera, Mendez, and Barrios in the season capper. But she also had a Grand Slam title, winning the Sweet Caroline and beating, in order, MRR, Longoria, Munoz, Manilla, and Laime in the final, only going to a breaker against her long-time doubles partner in the round of 32 and generally crushing people.
Is she a top 4 player in the world? I think she is, yes. But she’s never played the tour full time, generally good for about half the events historically. If she played full time, i’d expect her to get her fair share of wins and semis, but since she doesn’t, its hard to project her much higher than she already is.
At #12, when she does show up, she likely plays into Brenda or Barrios in the 16s, then into Manilla in the quarters before running into #1 Mejia. Those are generally players she’s shown she can beat to get to the semis…As long as she doesn’t slip down to like #15/16, she’ll avoid a top two player in the opener and can get some traction.
Projection for next season: #10. I’ll guess she plays half the events, gets some success, and keeps a top 10 ranking.
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#13 Valeria Centellas , 12-10 for the season, 4 quarters. 465.5 points.
After a brief turn in the top 10 during the Covid year, Centellas has basically been stuck in the 13-15 seed range, and has not really had that big-time run deep into an event that she needs to move up. In fact, for her career she’s only ever made one semi final (in January of 2020), and continues to knock on the door.
This season, she had several really solid wins; she had an 11-10 win over Manilla in December, over Mendez in Boston in March, and then managed to beat #3 Herrera twice in April and again in June (see https://rball.pro/f5w ). Those are all solid wins, and when she lost generally it was to a top player; her “worst” loss on the season probably was to Kelani in Virginia in September … on Kelani’s home courts.
So, there’s room for improvement for sure, but she needs some big wins.
Projection for next year: #13-14 range again. If you had a little mini tournament
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#14 Kelani Lawrence , 11-9 on the season, 5 quarters, 458.5 points
The draws did not treat Kelani kindly this year; she lost in the 16s four times; those losses were to Laime twice, Salas, and Munoz. She also had a slew of losses to Herrera, Longoria, and Vargas; no shame there.
She also had some superb wins on the year: she beat Laime twice, held serve against Centellas and Munoz, and crushed Manilla on her home court in the season’s final event.
Lawrence needs to get out of the #13-14 spot so she has a more winnable round of 16 match, then hold serve against the group of players ranked right around her more frequently (Salas, Munoz, Centellas, Mendez in particular), and she’ll find her self in the top 10.
Projection for next season: #13-14 range again.
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A note before moving on: the 11th through 14th ranked players had separation of just 13.5 points from Salas to Lawrence; just one more result on the entire season for any of these four players puts them at #11, knocking on the door of the top 10. From 14 to 15 there’s a gap.
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#15 @Cris Amaya , 9-10 on the season, 10-straight round of 16s, 333.5 points.
Amaya did the amazing; she entered 10 events and managed to lose in the same round of all 10. In a somewhat ridiculous happenchance, she had to play her life-partner Maria Paz Riquelme no fewer than four times in the round of 32 at pro stops, but she also managed to get solid wins over the likes of Enriquez at the US Open, and over US up and comer Annie Roberts in Boston.
Amaya’s challenge is that she was almost always the 14, 15, or 16 seed at these events, meaning she played into a top 3 seed in the round of 16. All 10 of her losses were to players ranked in the top 4 at the time, and she had to play Mejia in each of her last three events.
Projection for next season: #17-18 range; i think she’ll get pipped by a couple more players coming up.
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#16 @Hollie scott, 8-7 on season, 2 quarters, 289 points
Scott made her way into a couple of quarter finals this season by virtue of solid wins over Parrilla and Munoz when the seeds worked out to give her a winnable round of 16 match. But most of the season Scott kept running into top 4 players at that juncture. She had losses to Laime, Barrios, Manilla twice, and Herrera in the season ending. She always plays tough; no real blow outs here. Scott needs to play a full slate so she doesn’t miss out on points (she missed three events), and she needs to get wins over the players ranked in the 10-15 range when they present themselves.
Projection for next season: #15-16 range. i think she can slightly improve on her ranking
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#17 Maria Paz Riquelme , 3-9 on the season, 5 round of 16s, 203.75 points.
Riquelme got a handful of wins on the year and advanced into the 16s a few times. She was on the losing end of a couple of heavy losses against Longoria and Gaby, and (as noted above) had to play her partner Amaya 4 different times in 9 events. Riquelme continues to improve, and has gotten some wins internationally as she now represents Colombia.
Projection for next season: #19-20 range; she’ll get pushed down slightly by some rising players.
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#18 Sheryl Lotts, 5-5 on the season, made one quarter final, 198.5 points.
Lotts entered the season’s first five events, got her career best win in Chicago in November, beating Mendez in a breaker to earn a quarter final and match her career best showing … then suddenly stopped playing major events. She missed the remainder of the spring tour schedule, missed US Nationals events, everything. Her results were still enough to keep her in the top 20, but she should have been ranked at least 4 spots higher based on early season results.
We see from social media Lotts has relocated to Florida (perhaps one of the reasons she was MIA) and has been playing with the Monchik/Sotomayor crew, which can only help her game. We hope to see her out on tour again soon.
Projection for next season: #14-15 range if she tours full time.
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#19 Maria Renee Rodriguez , 3-7 for the season, 5 round of 16s, 198.25 points.
Rodriguez (or “MRR” as she’s frequently referred to) uncharacteristically missed some events this year on tour, which led to her slipping from the 16-17 range she’s normally been for the past few seasons to where she finished up this year at #19. She had a couple of unlucky round of 32 matchups against under-seeded players (Daza at the US Open and Gaby in the Sweet Caroline), and got a couple of solid wins (Roberts, Acosta), but otherwise has settled more into a doubles specialist/solid international representative for Guatemala. She’s now married to @JeJerry Josey and living in South Carolina, and she may continue to transition into the next phase of her life and career going forward.
projection for next season: #17-18 range.
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#20 Nancy Enriquez , 4-6 on the year, 1 quarter final, 186 points.
Enriquez first played the pro tour in 2000, and remains a dangerous player when she shows up. She put a shock loss on Manilla in the season opener, and she took Mejia to a tiebreaker in Boston. She finished in the top 10 three straight seasons from 2018-2020, but has settled back to part time it seems. I’d expect her to make about half the events, maybe get a surprise win over an opponents who looks past her, and will remain around this range.
Projection for next season: #19-20 again
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Next up we’ll take a look at notables who finished higher than #20, which include some up-and-coming juniors who might be names to remember in a few years.
Montse celebrates with silly string her first LPRT title. Photo via LPRT
Hello fans! We’ve finished another Ladies pro season, the 2022-23 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): The top 10
Part 2: The 11-20th ranked players
Part 3: Notables ranked 21st or higher, plus a recap of news items from season
– Season Seed Report; this shows how players’ seeds changed over the course of the season: https://rball.pro/5mm
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Some overall tour observations.
– Obviously the story of the season is Mejia dethroning Longoria, but overall the depth of top players on tour seems to have really jumped up this year. As you can see from the Season Summary Report (https://rball.pro/1bw ), the LPRT saw four distinct winners this year on tour (Longoria, Mejia, Herrera, and Martinez), another four players made finals (Laime, Vargas, Manilla, and Barrios), and another four distinct players made semi finals at some point this season (Parrilla, Mendez, Munoz, and Salas). That’s a lot of players who, week-in and week-out, are in the mix for titles.
– The total “depth” of players on the tour has stayed nearly identical to what we saw last year. See https://rball.pro/2vd for a Tour Depth report, but here’s the highlights: the LPRT saw 55 distinct players play an event this year, down slightly from last season’s 61 distinct players. However, the number of players who played 75% of the events was 15 (my general rule of thumb for determining the “depth” of the tour), exactly in line with last season.
– There were exactly 10 events this year (same as last season), and of those 10 events four were considered “Grand Slams.” But last season featured two grand slams that did not repeat this season: the 2021 Worlds skipped 2022, and the TeamRoot super-Max was not held this year. Instead, we got a return of the Paola Longoria Experience kick off event, and a new season-ending Grand Slam in Chesapeake.
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Lets review the top 10.
#1 Montse Mejia ; 27-3 on the season, 5 titles, 1,637.5 points.
Mejia captured the #1 spot on tour for the season thanks to out-pointing #2 Longoria in the season’s final event. She becomes the 14th female pro to ever finish a season #1 or to win the year end title (pre 1980, there wasn’t a “tour” per se, so the winner of DP Nationals or the IRA Amateur nationals is declared the “winner” as we do with the Men). Mejia started the season ranked 10th, but went on a huge run starting in November, winning four straight tournaments and 18 straight matches to really put a stamp on the season. Despite missing the US Open and its valuable major points, Mejia led the “Season to Date” points race for much of the season, but the suspense was left to the final event to determine who would win. Mejia took 5 of the season’s 10 titles and finished the season 27-3,; her only 3 losses were to Longoria in the finals of the opener, to Salas in San Antonio, and to Laime in the semis of the Sweet Caroline. With her win in the Chesapeake event, she will head into next season starting with a 200 point lead at the top of the tour AND a huge hidden benefit; not having to defend US Open points.
Prediction for next season: I think she repeats as #1.
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#2 Paola Longoria. 22-7 on the season, 3 titles. 1,424 points.
After 13 titles (including 11 in a row), Longoria was finally dethroned in 2023, though she fought until the end and nearly made it a “winner take all” pro final in the season’s final event. The story for Longoria though has to be her sudden vulnerability. She lost 7 times on tour this year; that’s more losses than she’d taken in the last seven SEASONS combined (see https://rball.pro/ovv). And it wasn’t just a case where she mostly had losses to the player who just vanquished her for the title: she had losses this year to Vargas (twice), Mejia (twice), Laime, Barrios, and Gaby (see https://rball.pro/pwr ). She lost twice in the round of 16 this season; that hadn’t happened since 2007. Heck, you had to go back to 2008 to even find a tourney where she lost prior to the semis. So, shockwaves across the bow of the tour.
Longoria ends the season at the tail end of her age 33 season (she turns 34 in mid July): is this a turning point for her? She’s been so dominant for so long, that when she does lose its a monumental event (much in the same way we covered Kane for so long). The big question has to be this: has Longoria lost a step at 33, or has the rest of the tour caught up? Likely its a combination of both, and neither situation is going to get any better for Paola. She’s only getting older, and her rivals are for the most part all quite young (each of Mejia, Gaby, Barrios, and Laime are aged 23).
On a personal note (which could also factor in here); Paola got engaged this year and will be entering a new chapter of her life, and the obvious question is out there; is she ready to transition to a different phase of her life, one where she isn’t training full time?
Projected finish next season: #3. I don’t think she can turn around the Mejia train, and I think she’s shown some serious vulnerabilities to one player in particular who I think can pip her for #2 if she plays a full season (ahem – Vargas).
Hey! Who remembers in March of 2022 when Herrera had won two straight events and beaten Longoria in two straight finals and everyone was wondering if Alexandra was the new heir apparent to the ladies throne? I do. Then she lost the next two pro finals to Paola (along with the 2022 Mexican Nationals singles final) and got hurt in the Kansas City season final. She won the first pro event she played last fall, but then started to leak losses left and right. She got knocked out of three straight pro events in the fall to Mejia, her long-time doubles partner and whom she normally had decent success against. Then she spent the entire spring losing to lower-ranked players early in tournaments. She managed to keep the #3 spot on tour, but not by much, and has some question marks heading into the new season. She’s only 28, still in her prime, but there’s several players that seemingly have passed her right now on tour.
Prediction for next season: #5: i think she’s going to lose ground against some of her closest competitors and slip a couple of spots.
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#4 Erika Manilla , 15-10 on the season, 1 final, 838.5 points.
In her second full season of touring, Manilla made incremental improvements upon her first season; she made a tournament final (the US Open), she made the semis or better in half her events, and she improved from a year end ranking of #6 to #4. She’s within shouting distance of #3 on tour (see https://rball.pro/8tg).
Manilla played all 10 events this season, and did something that I find to be rather unique: she lost to a different player in each event. She had losses to 10 different players on the season; Enriquez, Laime, Longoria, Herrera, Centellas, Mendez, Mejia, Vargas, Gaby, and Kelani. See https://rball.pro/fqy . That’s hard to do. And interesting: normally a top player on tour would separate themselves from the rest of the tour and only have losses to a handful of players ranked above them. I’m not sure what this observation “means” for Manilla; perhaps indicating that there’s areas of improvement in terms of consistency against lesser opponents (she took three round of 16 losses this season). She also had a set of very solid wins this season: wins over Herrera, Vargas, and Barrios. She’s beaten Gaby and Montse before. So the capability and expectation is there that Erika will get a tourney win sooner or later, but she needs more consistency to push for higher than #4.
Projected finish next season: #4: i think she’s gonna get passed by Vargas, but will out-point Herrera.
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#5 Brenda Laime . 15-9 on the season, Three finals. 808 points.
Laime had a very weird season. She very quietly made three finals, including two of the last three events, which rocketed her season ranking from #11 in April to its final resting spot of #5, easily her best ever finish. For years she hovered outside the top 10, finishing three different seasons ranked #13, but rocketed into the top 10 this season with some seriously good wins. She finished 5th but had h2h wins over each player ranked above her. She beat #1 Mejia and #3 Herrera at the Sweet Caroline en route to the final, and then #2 Longoria and #4 Manilla in Chesapeake in September en route to the final. https://rball.pro/ndu .
But she also managed to lose in the 16s no less than four times: twice to Kelani, once to Barrios in an 8-9 seed match-up, and to a vastly under-seeded Vargas in the season finale in Chesapeake. Imagine where Laime would be if those round of 16 losses were quarters or semis instead.
Projected finish Next Season: #5-6 range. Maybe she can go higher, but she has to stop the early losses. She has the game to beat anyone as we’ve seen.
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#6 Angelica Barrios 14-8 on the season, 1 pro final. 663.5.
Barrios continues to be an enigma on tour, with enigmatic results to go with it. She made a final in Boston where she beat, in order, Laime, Longoria, and Vargas before losing to Mejia. She also had a win over Gaby in the season’s final event. But she lost in the round of 16 multiple times (to Laime, Salas, and Munoz). She crashed out of PARC in the knockout round of 16 to junior Maricruz Ortiz as the defending champ.
Barrios has always been a difficult player to play, one with unconventional mechanics and slow, plodding tactics. When they’re on, they’re on. She rarely goes down without a fight, with lots of game-losses 15-13 and 15-14.
She’s just 23, so presumably we’ll be seeing her for years. But I wonder if there’s another level in her game to take her above where she is now.
Prediction for next season: #6 – #7 range, same as this season.
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#7 @Maria Jose Vargas , 16-5 on the season, made 2 finals, 634.5 points.
Vargas came back from maternity leave with a vengeance, making two finals, two semis and a quarter-final in her 5 events on the season. Despite missing half the season she still finished 7th, and just doubling her 634 points would have put her projected to finish 3rd. Her 5 losses? Mejia twice (both in finals), a semis loss to Barrios, a semis loss to Longoria, and a quarters loss to Manilla 11-10 the week after she trounced Erika. See https://rball.pro/l4e . All five of these losses? tiebreakers.
Vargas came back in February in Arizona after 8 months off, was seeded 16th to start, running her right into Longoria in her first event back, toppled Paola and then ran to the final. That’s a comeback. She also made the final of PARC in April representing Argentina, where she put another loss on Paola. Clearly, something has clicked with Vargas, who prior to this year had just a 2-41 lifetime against the long-time number one but has beaten her 3 of their last 4 meetings. She’s spent a ton of time in Southern Florida playing and training with Sudsy Monchik , who has worked with her on both the physical and mental side of the game, and it shows.
Projection for next season: #2. So, what happens now? Assuming Vargas plays a full slate of events, I think she’s going to continue pressing upwards and will settle at #2 on tour, ahead of Longoria. What will start to happen is this: Vargas will ascend to #3 on tour probably by mid-season due to having no fall points expiring, she’ll play into Longoria in the semis a lot, and will start to gain ground if she can continue to get h2h wins.
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#8 Jessica Parrilla , 9-10 on the season, 2 semis, 3 quarters, 589.5 points.
So, whenever we see a player come back to touring after a long-layoff, its always a challenge to see the unlucky player who gets to face a former top-4 player in the round of 16 unfairly. This year, that was Parrilla, who spent a good chunk of the season ranked 5th or 6th after grinding her way up all last year … only to run into the #12 seeded Vargas no fewer than three times in the opening round of pro events. This conspired to give Parrilla 5 one-and-done round of 16 exits this season, which finally took their toll at season’s end, dropping her ranking to #8.
Parrilla got some solid wins this year, including three wins over Mendez (twice in the quarters, which gave her the two semis on the season), but was a victim of happenchance on seedings. Unfortunately, now she’s mired in the #8 spot on tour, meaning she’s likely playing a really tough round of 16 against a #9 or #10 seed to start, then playing into Mejia or Longoria. She’s going to need to hold serve and make a bunch of quarters, then look for a career win (she’s 0-19 career against Longoria, and hasn’t beaten Mejia since 2020: see https://rball.pro/lvm).
Projection for next season: #8 again.
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#9 @Carla Munoz 10-10 on the season, one semi, 5 quarters, 571.5 points.
Munoz had a relatively consistent season, going 10-10 and mostly holding serve in terms of her seeding expectations. She made 5 quarter finals on the year, then lost in those 5 quarters to Herrera 2x, Longoria, Mejia, and Gaby. No shame there; a couple of those she took to breakers or 15-12 game losses. This is about what we’d expect from someone who spent most of the season in the 8-11 seed range; a solid, closely matched round of 16, then a quarter against a top 3 seed.
Munoz’s key is to keep the one-and-done round of 16 losses to a minimum; she had first round losses this season to Salas, Kelani, Barrios, and Scott. None of these are really “bad” losses, just indicative of the depth on tour right now. Munoz’s season includes highlight wins over Salas (three times), Mendez, Lawrence, and a great win over Barrios at the Sweet Caroline.
Projection Next season: #9 again; I see a bunch of really tough 8/9 or 7/10 matches for Munoz in the opening rounds then a really tough matchup against Paola or Mejia if she gets through; that makes it tough to move up.
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#10 Natalia Mendez 9-10 on the season, 2 semis, 563.5 points
After several seasons treading water in the 4-6 range on tour, where Natalia quietly ground out expected wins in early rounds before routinely losing to top3 players in the semis … the tour seemed to catch up to her this season, and her ranking plummeted from #3 at the season’s start to #10 by season’s end. (see https://rball.pro/uko). So, what happened?
In the early part of the season, Mendez in the quarters to Parrilla 2x and to Munoz, then took a surprise loss to Lotts in the round of 16 in Chicago. She rebounded a bit and made two straight semis … but then finished off her season with four straight one-and-dones. She lost in the 16s to Centellas, Laime, Salas, and then to Parrilla again to finish off the season. Most of these losses were not really close either, with Parrilla clearly providing some separation in their h2h and with other players getting opportunistic wins.
Mendez needs to spend the summer regrouping.
Projected finish next year: #11 or #12: I think she’ll continue to get pushed down.
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An interesting note: the the separation between 8,9, and 10 on tour was quite slim: 589.5 points to 571.5 to 563.5. That’s just 26 points difference from 10 to 8, about the amount of points a LPRT player gets for making the round of 16 (aka “entering”) an LPRT tier 1. The three players ranked 8-10 each played all 10 events on the season and had records of 10-10, 9-10, and 9-10 on the season. There was almost nothing between them on the year, and their ranking delta came down to tiebreaker losses in the majors versus losing in two games. One more win by any of them on the year and they’re in 8th spot pushing for 7th.
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that’s it for part 1. This is the biggest/longest post. Stay tuned next for Part 2; the 11-20 ranked players.
Hollie Scott takes the lead in the LPL Financial cup series after Beach Bash. Photo from 2020 3WB via Steve Fitzsimons
The Cup Series is back for 2023; this is a year-long competition that captures the best performances in the three Outdoor Majors (Beach Bash in March, Outdoor Nationals in July, and 3WallBall in Vegas in September) and gives out prizes at the end of the season. This year’s prize pool features cash prizes to the top two finishers along with a complementary suite stay at The STRAT hotel in Las Vegas.
The cup series for the Women is sponsored for the second year in a row by LPL Financial ’ Rosco Halsey and Jason Hupp . The cup series for the Men is sponsored for the second year in a row by Kwm Gutterman and Keith Minor . Thanks to both parties for your continued support of outdoor Racquetball.
The first major is in the books, so let’s take a look at who’s in the lead.
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Women’s LPL Financial Cup Series Standings, Post Beach Bash
Here’s the current top 5 after Beach Bash:
1 Scott, Hollie
2 Sotomayor, Veronica
3 Herrera, Alexandra
4 Lawrence, Kelani
5 Roehler, Aimee
Hollie Scott takes a commanding lead of the Cup Series after a dominant performance in Florida, where she took home both Women’s and Mixed doubles titles and finished second in the Pro Singles. Thanks to the size of the Mixed draw, her title there was weighted more heavily and propelled her to the top. Veronica Sotomayor , who had never played outdoor before, had a fantastic debut in Florida, taking the singles title over Scott and finishing runner-up in Women’s doubles. She sits in the second spot. Top ranked LPRT pro Alexandra Herrera made the Mixed final and the pro women’s doubles semi final to secure third place. Rounding out the top five are Women’s pro doubles champ Kelani Lawrence and Hall of Famer Aimee Roehler (pro doubles finalist with Sotomayor).
Expect to see some changes in this top five though, as the second leg in California features spacious three wall courts and has not generally seen east coasters like Roehler and Sotomayor make the trip.
For the full LPL cup standings, go to this Google spreadsheet here: https://rball.pro/0b1
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Men’s KWM Gutterman Cup Series Standings, Post Beach Bash
Here’s the current top 5 after Beach Bash:
1 De La Rosa, Daniel
2 Mar, Javier
3 Carson, Rocky
4 Sostre, Robert
5 Monchik, Sudsy
@Daniel De La Rosa takes a commanding lead and is the favorite to repeat as Cup champion. He entered three and won divisions in Florida, and takes maximum points. Javier Mar sits in second on the back of being DLR’s doubles partner for the win. Rocky Carson surprisingly sits in third place; he did not enter Singles or Mixed in Florida and was upset early doubles, but got the win in the large CPRT division. Hall of FamerRobert Sostre sits in fourth with a final’s appearance in pro doubles and semis in two other divisions. And surprisingly in 5th place is a relative newcomer to Outdoor @Sudsy Monchik , who entered just one division (CPRT) but won it, and now has an outside chance at moving up were he to compete in the next two outdoor events.
For the full LPL cup standings, go to this Google spreadsheet here: https://rball.pro/3×8
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Thanks as always to the team at 3Wall Ball and @Mike Coulter for your commitment to outdoor and your continued support of the pros.
Next leg will be in July at the big daddy of them all, Outdoor Nationals. We’ll have coverage of that event and we’ll follow it up with another recap of the cup series rankings after the Marnia Park event.
(Editor’s note: I published this piece in January 2023, based on a lot of data I have collected over the past decade. More documentation and more information came to light from crowdsourcing in the wake of this, and I’ve post-publishing corrected/edited some of the text. At some point I’ll just have to rewrite this entirely based on new findings).
A post in KRG came up recently that featured the venerable former pro @Egan Inoue , along with the familiar claim that he owns the title of ‘fastest ever recorded racquetball hit” at 191mph.
Except … the “proof” of that claim is basically word-of-mouth lore that has persisted over the years, without anyone providing a place where said MPH was measured or who actually measured it.
Over the years, as I’ve done thousands of hours of research in our sport, reviewed old magazines for results. As i’ve done this, I’ve kept a collection of MPH claims and competitions, and I figured this was as good of a time as any to put these down in a post for reaction in one place.
I’m going to order these claims in order of “highest MPH claimed” down to lowest, and for each claim I’ll list the source and the validity.
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210mph Backhand by Sudsy Monchik :
Source of claim: hyperbole in a Head advertisement.
likelihood of truth: doutbful.
Notes: Sudsy has some verified readings further down, which are 25% lower than a 210mph backhand claim. He had a great backhand, no doubt. 210? no.
200mph serve by Scott Reiff at a pro stop in Atlanta in the early 1990s.
Source of claim: unknown
likelihood of truth: doubtful.
Notes: Reiff is known as a power hitter from back in the day, but is not really in the same class as the other players listed here.
Source of claim: internet lore and a direct quote from Cliff
Likelihood of truth: possible
Notes: I asked Cliff directly and his quote is as follows: “Todd Boss, I saw 192 immediately after hitting a ball at the gun. I don’t believe 100% in the reliability of these guns either. Also it was at my home club so there’s another asterisk but there were many witnesses at this IRT event. “
Egan Inoue: 191mph
Source of claim: this is oft-repeated claim of fastest ever recorded speed is essentially internet lore
Likelihood of truth: doubtful
Notes: Even though this is the number that most people repeat, I have my doubts. We all just saw the link to the Inoue-Doyle 1990 final, where the two players were playing with probably 20″ racquets and, well, anyone who’s seen modern racquetball could see that their serves were nowhere near as fast as what we see today.
Brian Baker; 190mph
Source of claim: Baker himself in a discussion in 2013 on the old 40×20 forum.
Likelihood of truth: pretty likely, based on conversations.
Notes: Baker was pinged on the 40×20 2013 discussion and chimed in with what seemed like credible details. I talked with him personally in Sept 2024 to get some more details: He was at a pro stop in San Jose on a gun and was measured at 190. He also played with Fredenberg a lot in the Dallas area and both believe that Baker is a tick ahead of Fredenberg.
A copy of the discussion is here. Still isn’t really “proof” in as much as we have eyewitnesses or an official event, but this is more believable than the records above it to me right now.
Reliability: Likely, if Swain himself saw higher readings.
Notes: lots of “i heard he hit…” with the guys from the mid 1990s, which is weird because it’s not like radar guns didn’t exist at that time.
John Ellis: 183mph
Source: claim made on FB post Jan 2023
Quote Ellis himself: “I saw a speed gun clock on my serve in Houston in about 1993 or 1994 that read 183mph. However, there’s no proof that it happened and I don’t know if I believe the speed gun anyway. But they did show me the speed gun right after the serve, and back then I hit the absolute shit out of the ball!”
Reliability: based on Ellis’ play and the other speeds, here, highly likely.
Notes: this is significantly higher than a verified, published reading noted further below. seems unreliable.
2003 US Open Speed gun: Fredenberg at 181
Brian Fredeberg: 181
Brent Walters 178
Mitch Williams 175
Kane Waselenchuk 175
Source: Brent Walters, who participated in the contest at the 2003 US Open.
Egan Inoue: during exhibition 170-175 range, 179 in Houston at Nationals in late 1980s
Source: unknown
Reliability: we’re closer to what I think is reasonable for Inoue.
Fredenberg: 171 at the 2002 US Open
Source: 2002 US Open had a gun on players for $1000 (Eddie Meredith running it). Each got 5 hits and here’s how it went:
Fredenberg 171
Walters 170
Mitch 168
Kane 164
Reliability: solid
Notes: These numbers seem light, especially based on the same group of players hitting in 2003. This is from a published competition run by a trusted source. Fredenberg came in on top, followed by two known big-hitters in Walters and Mitch. Kane a tick below, which, if you’ve seen both Mitch and Kane on the court at the same time isn’t out of the realm of possible.
Notes: this seems more in line with what he could do, as opposed to claims of 180+ made above.
Mitch Williams: 160-162 at Arlington regionals event
Source: personally verified by me, Todd Boss. As in, I was holding the radar gun.; hardest ever seen on a radar gun. I measured him myself. (I hit it 133 in the same competition as a point of comparison, a decent figure for a low-open player, but well below the 140-range we generally see pros hit today at a minimum, or the 150 range we generally see harder hitters.
Reliability: 100%
Notes: Mitch was by far and away the crispest, hardest hitter on the east coast during the 2000s. I measured plenty of other hard hitters who were in the low 150s and he was a clear step ahead.
Spalding Power-Serve contest
source: Nov/Dec 1995 Racquetball magazine
1. Sudsy Monchik: 164mph
2. John Ellis: 161mph
3. Tim Doyle: 157mph
4. Andy Roberts: 156mph
5. Cliff Swain: 153mph
6. Luis Vogel: 145mph
6. Woody Clouse: 145mph
8. Tony Jelso: 142mph
Notes: perhaps the best source of comparison for players in the mid 1990s. This was a verified sponsored competition with published results in Racquetball Magazine. 22″ racquets were available by 1995 (the current 22″ max length rule was adopted officially by USAR in 1996 and remains the rule today).
Reliability: Seems pretty accurate … but why are these figures 20mph lower than the top figures that the likes of Sudsy and Ellis have above?
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Conclusions?
So, we seem to have plenty of evidence of mid 180s from a handful of guys from the mid 1990s.
I have two main issues here:
Why are the verified published results from the Spalding study in 1995 20mph lower than the top figures for these players?
I just have to ask: where are the modern players? All these 180 readings are from 25 years ago. Athletes and equipment only progresses … why why havn’t we seen someone who can broach these figures in the modern game? Why aren’t we seeing the power hitters of today (Montoya, Moscoso, Jake, Garay, etc) with these kinds of figures? That’s the only thing about all these stories I have a hard time with.
