The first Outdoor “major” is in the books. Beach Bash was a hit, and was well attended by one-wall specialists from the east coast, outdoor specialists from all-over, and by touring pros on both sides.
This was also the first of the three tournaments that will determine the winner of the 2022 Outdoor Cups. The Ladies cup series is sponsored by LPL Financial and the Men’s is sponsored by Kwm Gutterman , both companies run by huge racquetball enthusiasts and we thank them for their patronage.
Here’s the Cup standings after Beach Bash.
Women’s LPL Financial Cup Standings:
1st: Michelle De La Rosa, 355 pts
2nd: Masiel Rivera, 245 pts
3t. @Katie Neils, 212.5 pts
3t. @Erika Manilla , 212.5 pts
Hollie Scott , 205 pts.
Michelle De La Rosa, who would have won this competition last year if it existed, rightfully takes over the lead on the back of her Mixed Doubles title and finals finish in Pro Doubles. Rivera’s two second place finishes (in Singles and in Mixed) push her to 2nd place. Doubles partners Neils/Manilla, who took the Pro doubles title in an upset, tie for third place. Hollie Scott, despite winning the Singles draw, comes in fifth based on the small draw size in her win.
Also In the running after the first event in 6-10th place include @Kelani Lawrence , @AAnita Maldonado , @Susan Stephen , @KKathy Guinan , and Aimee Roehler .
LPRT full cup standings Worksheet: https://docs.google.com/…/1gUgDx40hqxGPJydLNyUR…/edit…
The Men’s competitions at Beach Bash included more than 50 potential players who competed in one of Singles, Doubles, Mixed, or CPRT. After the first set of competitions, here’s the top 5:
DLR, as expected, takes two titles and opens up a lead at the top. He’ll be tough to beat as long as he continues to dominate Mixed with his wife. But, a chink in the armor on the pro doubles side as he and @Alvaro Beltran took an early upset. Javier Mar had an astounding re-introduction to outdoor, winning pro doubles with 3rd place Mercado and racing to the singles final. Mercado continues to show why he’s one of the best doubles players in the land and may be kicking himself for not entering mixed (where he always does well). Faro and Iggy may not be long for this leader board once Outdoor Nationals rolls around as one-wall Florida-based specialists, but they had a solid weekend, taking the CPRT draw. Rounding out the top 10 include Eduardo Portillo , @Robert Sostre, @Andres Acuna , Sebastian Franco , and then a tie for 10th by the CPRT finalists @MaxMax Heyman and @Seran Ramkissoon. So, lots of players lurking who will definitely be at the next two majors.
Men’s Full cup standings Worksheet: https://docs.google.com/…/1HBH6v9KhPIuUkwYjjWlI…/edit…
Next stop, Outdoor Nationals for the second leg of the “Road to Vegas.” the R2site for Outdoor Nationals is live now and signups have begun! @World Outdoor Racquetball @3WallBall Outdoor World Championships @3Wall Ball @Mino Keith @MC Vegas
Acuna got two solid wins against top 10 opponents to take the Minnesota Hall of Fame event. Photo US Open 2019 Kevin Savory
In addition to the LPRT Boston Open, there were a slew of other events this past weekend worthy of mention. Here’s a quick run through of what was a very busy weekend globally for racquetball.
US High School Nationals.
r2sports site: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=38151 One of the biggest tournaments of the year (by pure attendance) was held last weekend: the 2022 @USA Racquetball High School Nationals event, held at the Vetta Sports clubs in St. Louis.
Nearly 350 High School players from around the country were in St. Louis to compete for singles, doubles, and team competitions. Here’s a recap of the #1/Gold competitions on the weekend…
Boys #1 Gold Singles: #1 @Josh Shea from New York topped #2 @AnAndrew Gleason from Iowa. In a likely precursor to the 18U Junior Nationals final later this year, Shea won the first HS title for a New Yorker since … @sSudsy Monchik won in 1991.
Girls #1 Gold Singles: #2 @Naomi Ros from San Antonio upset #1 seed @Heather Mahoney. Ros recently relocated from Mexico and topped Mahoney in the 2021 Junior Nationals, setting up a rivalry that is set to run for a couple more years on the US junior national scene. She becomes the first ever titlist from a Texas HS on the girl’s side.
Boys #1 Doubles: Jacob Schmidt / Gabe Collins from Christian Brothers College High School in St Louis cruised to the title as the #1 seed.
Girls #1 Doubles: Heather Mahoney / Ava Naworski from Casa Grande High School outside of Santa Rosa HS took the title as the #3 seeds.
Mixed #1 Doubles: Ros teamed with DJ Mendoza (the #4 seed in Boys #1 gold) to cruise to the Mixed doubles title. The team competition was dominated by Missouri/St Louis area high schools:
Boys’ Team: St. Louis University HS
Girl’s Team: Lafayette HS
Overall Team: Kirkwood HS
Congrats to everyone who played, organized and participated. Thanks to @LLeo Vasque ‘s tireless work on the stream all weekend.
LPRT Boston Open Draws r2sports site: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=38579
Connecticut’s top player @Jose Flores upset the #1 seeded @John Behm to take the 24-man Open draw from Boston this weekend.
Women’s Open: as noted in the LPRT wrap-up, Micaela Meneses had a great women’s Open tournament, topping LPRT regulars Lotts, Lawrence and Munoz to take the title.
PAC Pueblo Athletic Shootout IRT recap r2sports: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=38852 Several IRT touring regulars traveled to Colorado to compete in the PAC shootout. The four IRT regulars all advanced to the singles semis as expected. From there, #1 Andree Parrilla topped #4 @NNick Riff while @David Horn took out his colleague @Adam Manilla in the other semi to setup an All-WRT alumni final. In that final, Parrilla cruised to the title, topping Horn 2,5.
In doubles, Horn and Manilla were unstoppable, cruising to the pro doubles title over #2 seeds Riffel and @Mike O’Brien in the final.
Minnesota Hall of Fame IRT Tier 3 r2sports: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=38807 A solid mid-western flair draw of top players descended to Fridley over the weekend for the Hall of Fame tournament. This included the IRT broadcast team of @DeDDean Baer and @PFPablo Fajre , who made friends with a local kangaroo and called some matches. r2sports site: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=38807 Congrats to local open amateurs @John Goth , Blake Hansen , and Lee Meinerz , who joined the 5 touring pros in the pro quarters. From there, Canadian #1 @Samuel Murray topped #5 Jordy Alonso in one semi, while #3 @Andres Acuña upset home-town favorite @Jake Bredenbeck in the other semi. In the singles final…Acuna played solid ball to top Murray 10,7 to take the singles title.
In the Doubles draw, the Bredenbeck brothers took out Murray playing with Canadian Ledu Michael in the final.
Lastly, several countries have been holding Nationals events or National team selection events ahead of next month’s Pan American Racquetball Championships. Results are a little hard to come by since no international countries use r2sports outside of the “big 3” … but here’s what we’ve been able to glean from various Facebook Posts:
Costa Rica held their men’s championships last weekend; in the men’s final: Andres Acuna d Gabriel Garcia 6,7,5. This is somewhat of a changing of the guard, as @FelipFelipe Camacho has represented the country for many, many years.
Colombia held a Men’s Selection event in Pereia, COL over the weekend.
Guatemala held their Men’s Selection event this past week and weekend (Women’s will be next weekend). The 4 semi finalists competed (presumably) in a RR draw; here was the results:
@EdwEdwin Galicia
@Juan Jose Salvatierra
Christian Wer
Geovani Mendoza
The top 3 will represent Guatemala, with Mendoza as the alternate.
Herrera celebrating her first LPRT win. Photo screen capture from LPRT Facebook video of awards ceremony
I thought it would be illuminating to break down the LPRT final between Paola Longoria and Alexandra Herrera, looking for some trends and interesting data points.
Using my standard detailed Match Tracker, I filled in match stats for the first game of the final, a nail-biting 15-14 win for Herrera.
Here’s a link to the match tracker detailed data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t8GgzPppq4dZvZwkS3yITkZAlKGSRQAGROM6woq-0G4/edit?usp=sharing and here’s a link to the video on Facebook for the match: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=372683864314937
Here’s some breakdowns.
Duration Stats
Game start in Video
6:45 in video
Game end
43:23 in video
Game duration
36mins 38 seconds
Avg time per rally
36.6 secs
So, this was a long game. 36 minutes overall. Both players took both their time-outs, both players took a brief equipment time-out, and there were a couple of appeals. All told, including the time-outs the average time per rally was 36.6 seconds. This is slightly longer than the average rally time for the last match I did this for; the Parrilla-Waselenchuk Atlanta final tie-breaker.
Serving Breakdown:
Serving
# of svc attempts
# of Aces
Serves Good
1st Serve %
1st Drive Serves
1st Drive serve %
1st Lob Serves
1st Lob Serve %
AH Serves
30
2
22 of 30
73.33%
30 of 30
100%
0 of 30
0%
PL Serves
30
3
25 of 30
83.33%
30 of 30
100%
0 of 30
0%
Both players served exactly 30 times. Both players drove serve on every first serve, and Paola actually ended up with a higher first serve percentage than Alexandra on the day.
Serve Selection
% 1st to F
% 1st to B
% 2nd to F
% 2nd to B
AH
33.33%
66.67%
25.00%
75.00%
PL
53.33%
46.67%
0.00%
100.00%
Paola basically split her drives between Alexandra’s forehand and backhand on the day, hitting 16 drives to the left side, 14 to the right. Meanwhile, as a lefty Herrera has grown up accustomed to primarily serving to right handers, and thus focused mostly on hitting drives to Paola’s backhand. Both hit mostly simple lobs to the backhand as 2nd serves; there was almost no variation on the lob serves used: no nick lob attempt, no wall paper; just half-height lobs meant to solicit a ceiling ball in return.
Serve Breakdown and Success rates
Serve Type Selection
Serve selection
how often used
Pct Used
How often point?
Pct points
AH #1 1st Serve Selection
Drive to Backhand
19 of 30
63.33%
10 of 16
62.50%
AH #2 1st Serve Selection
Drive to Forehand
10 of 30
33.33%
4 of 5
80.00%
AH #3 1st Serve selection
Hard Z-Serve to Backhand
1 of 30
3.33%
0 of 1
0.00%
AH Most frequent 2nd serve selection
Lob Serve to Backhand
6 of 8
75.00%
1 of 6
16.67%
Here’s where we get some interesting information. Alexandra hit 19 of her 30 serves as drives to the backhand, and got points on 10 of the 16 successful first serves she made. That’s a 62% rate, pretty good. Furthermore, she tried 10 drives to Paola’s forehand, missed half of them, but got points on 4 of the 5 successful serves. She only varied away from these two straightforward serves once; a z-ball to Paola’s backhand that did not work.
Serve Type Selection
Serve selection
how often used
Pct Used
How often point?
Pct points
PL #1 1st Serve Selection
Drive to Forehand
16 of 30
53.33%
9 of 12
75.00%
PL #2 1st Serve Selection
Hard Z-Serve to Backhand
9 of 30
30.00%
3 of 9
33.33%
PL #3 1st Serve selection
Drive to Backhand
5 of 30
16.67%
1 of 4
25.00%
PL Most frequent 2nd serve selection
Lob Serve to Backhand
5 of 5
100.00%
1 of 5
20.00%
Meanwhile, Paola had a ton of success when driving to Alexandra’s forehand, getting 9 of her 14 points that way and having a huge success rate when she got that serve in. It was clear during the match that she started with the hard-Z to the backhand with little success, then got some points on the forehand drive, and the stuck with it the rest of the way.
Serves leading to points
pct
AH 1st Serve good
14 points out of 22
63.64%
AH 1st Serve bad
1 point out of 8
12.50%
PL 1st Serve good
13 points out of 25
52.00%
PL 1st Serve bad
1 point out of 5
20.00%
This chart basically shows why you need to get your first serves in. The two players combined to score exactly 2 points on their second serves all game.
Rallies
Rallies Won
Pct of Rallies
AH Rallies won
31 of 60
51.67%
PL Rallies won
29 of 60
48.33%
Replays
0 of 60
0.00%
This shows just how even the match was: out of 60 rallies, they nearly split them 50/50. Alexandra won two more rallies than Paola b/c Paola served first and then Alexandra scored the last point. There was not a single replay in the entire first game.
Rally Winner/Error Stats
(not including serves)
Ttl
FH
BH
Pass
Pinch
AH Rally Winners
20
13
7
11
9
AH Rally ending Errors
3
2
1
PL Rally Winners
22
11
11
18
4
PL Rally Ending Errors
9
7
2
So, this shows some interesting information. Alexandra hit 13 of her 20 winners on the forehand, and pretty evenly split all her winners between passes and pinches. Meanwhile, Paola really does not shoot for the corners, getting 18 of her 22 winners as passing/kill shots. Paola also shows
The story of this game though is right here: 9 errors for Longoria versus 3 for Herrera. And of those three errors, one was an “off the back wall’ attempt that fell short and a second was a ball that bounced weird off the back wall and jammed her. In other words, Alexandra had just one skip this entire game. Longoria had 9 skips, 7 on her forehand.
Ratio of Winners to Errors
Ratio
Ratio
AH
20 to 3
6.6 winners for every error
PL
22 to 9
2.44 winners for every error
Further illumination of the shotmaking in this game: 20 winners to 3 errors for Herrera.
(these figures not including serve)
Rally Stats
Average # of shots per rally , entire game
3.95
Average # shots in AH-won rallys
4.25
Average # of shots in PL-won rallys:
3.62
Average # of shots in replay rallies
n/a
longest Rally of game
17 and 16: both ended with PL error
The average number of shots per rally (not including the serve) was 3.95 in this game, but much shorter in Paola won rallies. The 3.95 figure compares to the average rally length for the Parrilla-Kane match, which was just 2.24. Women’s rallies tend to be longer.
Short Rally Stats
total
% of rallies
# of Aces
5
8.33%
# of 2 shot rallies (serve, return)
8
13.33%
# of 3 shot rallies (serve, return, end)
4
6.67%
A decent percentage of the 60 rallies were “short” rallies: 1,2 or 3 shots including the serve.
Game points Saved
by AH
4
by PL
3
The players managed to save seven game points between them; that’s a heck of an accomplishment by both.
Lastly, since Rally scoring has now been introduced by the IRF, I thought i’d show you what this game would have looked like if it was rally scoring:
(all these times include Tos)
Rally Scoring Stats
Game end if rally
21:46 in video
Game duration if rally
15mins 1 sec
Game score at Rally finish
8-4 for AH
If playing rally scoring, the game would have been over in 15mins with the score 8-4 for Alexandra. Instead, we got a 36 minute barn-burner that saw Longoria rally from an 11-4 deficit and nearly take the game. What problem exactly are we attempting to solve with rally scoring? Because every time I do this analysis we’d basically neuter an excellent game.
Here’s some interesting statistics from the tiebreaker;
Game time: 28minutes, which included 1 tiebreaker and one appeal Average clock time per rally: 34 seconds (We’ll comeback to this later when we talk about rally scoring what-if scenario)
Total Rallies: 49 – AP Rallies won: 23 of 49 – KW Rallies won: 22 of 49 – Replays: 4 of 49 – Points: 21 of 49 – Side-Outs: 24 of 49
So, no surprise here in an 11-10 game; the number of rallies won was one more for Andree than Kane.
Serving Details: – AP service attempts: 23 – KW service attempts: 26. Kane had more service attempts b/c of replays more often occurring on his serve.
First Serve Percentage: – AP: 14 of 23 60.87% – KW: 13 of 26 50.00%
Neither player really served well, but a 50% first serve percentage by Kane is really bad at the pro level. By way of comparison, when I tracked this data in the one-serve era for Cliff, he made more than 90% of his first serves, all of which were drives.
First Serve direction (Forehand or Backhand) – AP hit 19/23 first serves to Kane’s forehand, and 9/9 second serves. – KW Evenly split his first serves; 13 drives to AP’s forehand, 13 to his backhand. All 13 of Kane’s 2nd serves were lobs to AP’s backhand.
Its pretty amazing how much AP picked on Kane’s forehand in this match.
First Serve selection: – AP hit 10/23 first serves: Hard Z-Serve to Forehand – AP hit 8/23 first serves: Drive to Forehand – KW hit exactly 13 Drive to Backhand first serves and 13 Drive to Forehand first serves.
Second serve selection: – AP hit the exact same 2nd serve the entire match: Nick-Lob to Forehand. 9/9 times – KW hit the exact same 2nd serve 12 of 13 times: Nick-Lob to Backhand. The one time he didn’t, he tried a lob Z that Andree cut off and killed easily.
Winners and Errors: here’s some fun stuff: – AP Rally Winners: 12. 6 on the forehand, 6 on the backhand. 5 were passes, 7 were pinches. Pretty even distribution. – KW Rally Winners: 16. 13 on the forehand, 3 on the backhand. 10 were passes, 6 were pinches.
So, this may just tell us what we already knew from the serving stats, but Kane spent most of his match hitting forehands.
– AP Rally ending Errors: just 3 the entire breaker. all three on the backhand – KW Rally Ending Errors; 10. 10 skips! 8 on the forehand, 2 on the backhand.
Now I do not have career stats on how many skips Kane averages per game. But i’m pretty sure it isn’t 10.
AP 12/3 ratio of Winners/Errors KW 16/10 ratio of Winners/Errors
Pretty interesting ratios here. Given these stats, its kind of amazing the game was 11-10.
Average # of shots per rally data (none of these figures include the serve):
Average # of shots per rally , entire game 2.249 Average # shots in AP-won rallys 1.91 Average # of shots in KW-won rallys: 2.89 Average # of shots in replay rallies 3.25 longest Rally of game 7 shots (three times; all three AP serves and KW side-outs)
Miscellaneous Stats # of Aces in game 4 total: 3 for KW, 1 for AP # of Dives in game 6 total: 2 for KW, 4 for AP # of Rollouts in game 12 total: 8 for KW, 4 for AP
Note: my “rollout” stat is an opinion based stat; was the shot a complete rollout/kill shot that would have been a point even if the opponent was standing right there? This is less important in singles than it is in doubles, where oftentimes yes there is an opponent standing there and you really have to roll balls out to get winners. This game featured a ton of “winners” and you could probably argue that many/most were “rollouts” … so maybe in the future I avoid this stat.
Game start in Video 51:51:00 Game end 1:19:00 Game duration 28 mins Avg time per rally (including Tos) 34 secs
IRF Rally scoring scenario: Game end if rally 1:03:44 Game duration if rally 12mins 45secs
Lastly, since the IRF is going to Rally scoring, I have a column that tracks the score as if we were using rally scoring. Kane wins this game 15-10 if using rally scoring at a point in the game where the actual score was 6-3. The game would have been over in 12mins 45seconds.
I’m pretty clearly on record disagreeing with the rally scoring decision by the IRF, and this match is a great example. Why do we need to change the scoring method that’s been in place for more than 50 years so as to neuter a fantastic game and force it into a premature end at 12minutes? What value does that serve?
Can Portillo continue his climb in the rankings? Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory
We published the LPRT” version of this post earlier this week. Now here’s the same post for the MEn’s pros.
Lets take a look forward at what may come on the pro tour in 2022.
Top 10 players right now:
#1 Daniel De La Rosa had a 2022 to remember; he won his first US Open, and he secured his first pro year end title. He ends the season with a massive lead atop the rankings (more than 900 points), thanks to winning three of the year’s six events and making the final of another. He finishes the season 20-3; all 3 losses were in tiebreakers. In fact, the last time he lost in two was all the way back in January of 2020, a 9 & 10 loss to Kane in the final of the 2020 Longhorn Open. He’s playing consistent, thoughtful racquetball, controlling the power players he faces and out-playing the tacticians on tour. It seems like we’re entering a new era on tour, given that DLR is 28 and many of his long-time rivals are in their mid 30s or older. Unless a certain Texan returns to tour, I see no one in the immediate horizon who can challenge DLR for the top.
#2 Alex Landa somehow remains ranked #2 on tour despite an (for his standards) awful 2021 on tour. He failed to make a single final this season, and took uncharacteristic losses to players like Bredenbeck, Acuna, and Mercado. No offense to these players, but they’re not multi-time tournament winners. 2022 will see Landa’s ranking dip and quickly, but he just had a career win at the Worlds, where he looked like his old dominant self, so perhaps he can build on that victory and rebound. Working in his favor will be the points expiration battle; he’ll be defending lesser points and has a great opportunity to replace poor 2021 results with better 2022 results as the year moves on. His biggest issue is health; he’s been battling a back issue for months and needs to get healthy.
#3 Samuel Murray started 2021 with an unbelievable win in Atlanta, taking out four players who I believe ranked him in the world pecking order to win his first title. He’s been hit or miss since, with a couple of curious losses (twice to Keller, once to Franco), and then the even more curious decision not to play singles at Worlds. He sits at #3 now, but his points lead is perilous and he’ll lose a ton of points once his January 2021 grand slam expires. He may quickly slip in to the 5-8 range and will have to fight to get back to the top 4.
#4 Andree Parrilla has completely rebounded from his awful spell in early 2020, where he lost in the round of 16 in four straight tournaments before Covid shut things down. He has been a model of consistency on tour this year, with 3 semis and 3 quarters to his name. His big challenge will be to fend off the players right behind him on tour (specifically his former doubles partner Portillo) to maintain the status quo while trying to get big wins to make more finals.
#5 Lalo Portillo is the busiest player on the planet, somehow fitting in 18 tournaments in the last two years with some players struggled to do half that. It has led him to ascend to #5 on tour, and he seems set to move forward. He’s done a great job of holding serve against lower-ranked players (with the exception of a 16s loss to Manilla in Arizona), and has gotten a ton of wins over higher ranked players (he’s topped Landa, Parrilla and De La Rosa this year). By the end of next year he may be DLR’s main challenger to the title.
#6 Kane Waselenchuk is, of course, the biggest question mark on tour. He has played just one singles draw since March of 2020, and in that one tournament he inexplicably retired due to a “disagreement” with the tour that, frankly, should have been dealt with after the tournament was completed. In his long-winded interview to explain what happened, he stated he was taking some time off. How much time off? Will he play again? Will he only play the US Open, a title he most covets? Whatever happens, he’s set to plummet in the rankings, and by the end of March may be buried in the 20s unless he plays more events.
#7 Conrrado Moscoso remains an interesting player to predict. He entered four pro events this year; he made the final of three of them, winning in Sarasota to finish the season. But he’s lost his edge; DLR has topped him the last two times they’ve played and he took an inexplicable loss to Keller at the US Open (paving the way for Carlos’ run to the finals). He continues, amazingly, to foot fault about every third drive serve attempt, a maddening mechanics flaw that a world class player should have addressed two years ago. Where does he go from here? Well, he needs to play every event if he wants to be #1. But traveling from Bolivia for every event is a tall order. Does he (and his home country) covet international titles more than pro titles? Perhaps. Whenever he enters an event, he’s a favorite to make the final, and if he can keep his focus he’s got a great chance to win.
#8 and #11 Rocky Carson and Alvaro Beltran are now 42 and 43 respectively, and their rankings have shown that gradual slip for a couple years now. Carson made one semi final in six tries this year; two seasons ago he made the semis in all 9 of the events on tour. Beltran made the quarters or better in 9 of 10 events in the 2019-20 season; he lost in the 16s in every tournament he entered this year. Beltran readily admits he’s more interested in Doubles play right now, and we may see him cut back on touring to only play events where doubles is offered. Carson is a couple early round upsets from getting bumped from the top 8, which means one additional qualifier and an even longer road to profitability. 2022 may finally be the year these two stalwarts step back from touring.
#9 and #10 Jake Bredenbeck and Mario Mercado are worth talking about together, because they’ve played each other frequently as of late, trading wins at Worlds and at the LPRT Xmas event in Maryland. Both are players on the rise and are getting good wins lately. In 2021, Jake has topped Landa, Parrilla, Montoya, Mercado, Franco and Keller, all players he would have struggled with a couple years ago. Meanwhile, Mercado had an astounding Arizona Open for his first title, topping Beltran, Landa, Carson and DLR in order. Both players will look to stay consistent and push their way into the top 8 by mid-2022.
—————- Notables in the Teens
#12 Carlos Keller Vargas toured for the entire season 2019-20, losing in the 16s seven times and the 32s twice. I figured, well that’s about as good of an indicator of talent level as any, and I figured that’d be the end of his full time touring. But I was wrong; in 2021 he made a quarter, a semi and a final (at the US Open), getting solid wins against players like Murray (twice), Mercado, and Moscoso.
#13 @Sebastian Franco just had a surgical procedure done in his home country of Colombia and is set to miss some time, further dropping him in the rankings. Can he get back to the top 10 or is his days of full time touring complete?
#14 Adam Manilla remains an enigma on tour, getting amazing wins but then following them up with curious losses. He has wins over the likes of Parrilla, Mercado, Mar, and Portillo. But he’s struggled to dominate against his fellow mid-teens ranked players, splitting recently with the likes of Acuna (whom he played three events in a row in the 16/17 round). He needs to consistently make more quarters to have a shot at the top 10.
#16 Andres Acuña, in this observer’s opinion, has added some serious velocity as of late. He looked like he was really hitting for power in Guatemala, and the results show it. He made the finals of Worlds, with wins over Montoya and Mercado along the way. In the last pro stop, he vanquished his long-time rival Landa to advance to the quarters. I feel he’s on the rise, and will push for the top 10 by the end of 2022. His biggest issue is his seeding: #16 means he’s playing into a top 2-3 seed at every event, and advancing means a huge upset is required.
#17 Rodrigo Montoya Solis and #20 Javier Mar are now, together, inarguably the best doubles team in the world. They’ve topped DLR/Beltran in the last two Mexican Nationals finals, they’re the reigning World and Pan Am Games champions, and they’re getting to the point where they may simply choose to focus on doubles moreso than singles. In the last pro event, Mar did not even bother to enter singles. Montoya, despite all his power and skill on the court, cannot seem to put it all together consistently enough to make a legitimate top 10 push. But, he’s also been nursing some injuries lately; he forfeited out of the US Open and didn’t play for two months until Worlds. So, maybe we’ll see what happens next. When healthy and focused, Montoya is one of the best 5-6 players in the world.
—————- Notables in the 20s and beyond
– #21 and #22 Alan Natera Chavez and Javier Estrada, the Chihuahua pair of hard hitters, remain wild cards on tour. Estrada has shown he has what it takes to win, taking out a slew of top players to win the Black Gold cup on home soil two years ago. But he has not parlayed that into any success on tour for some reason.
– #28 MoMo Zelada is becoming more of a fixture on tour, thanks to his promotion of his new brand Formulaflow. Look for him to move up in the rankings since he’ll be a constant presence at events and he has the ability to make main draws.
#32 Erick Trujillo has blown onto the scene with an impressive tournament in Chicago (where he beat Martinez, Mar and Collins), and then played Landa tough in Minneapolis. He then cruised through the Worlds 18U draw, winning the gold medal. He can play on tour, right now, and if he plays a full 2022 i have no doubt he’d be in the mid teens by year’s end.
#52 Rodrigo Rodriguez is a recent Juniors grad who got some impressive wins in 2021. At the US Open he topped Pruitt and Zelada, then in Arizona he handled Diaz and Camacho . In his eventual losses to top8 pros, he pressed both Parrilla and Franco before losing. Like Trujillo above him, this is a player who could easily push his way into the high 20s or low teens with a full year on tour.
Mejia is an enigma for 2022. Photo Kevin Savory US Open 2019
Inspired by an idle question from Steve Castleberry on a post a few weeks ago, I’m writing up a couple of forward looking missives to talk about the movers and shakers on the LPRT, looking forward at 2022. I’ll post the IRT version tomorrow or Friday.
The LPRT uses a split-year schedule, so we’re basically at the halfway point of the 2021-22 season. So, looking at the standings now we’ll do some proclamations and talk about players to watch.
We start at the top: #1 Paola Longoria has a 1200 point lead at the top of the tour rankings as we speak. Players earn 200 points for a Tier 1 win, 300-320 for a Grand slam win. So, basically, Longoria already has this season’s title sewn up, unless we get an influx of tournaments and Longoria suddenly fails to enter any of them.
Have we seen chinks in the armor of the long-time #1? Not really; after a couple of less-than-sporting incidents at the US Open and Mexican Nationals, she was on her best behavior in a dominant run to the 2021 Worlds title and the subsequent pro event. It is hard to envision the sport without her at this point, nor envisioning someone pressing her at the top. #2 Vargas is a career 2-41 against Longoria, and the player who i thought would most press Longoria going forward (Mejia) is scuffling.
– #2 and #3 Maria Jose Vargas Parada and Alexandra Herrera might be starting to show something of a rivalry at the 2/3 spot, which is great for the sport. Vargas holds a dominant h2h lead over Herrera (9-1) for their careers, but that one loss was recent and their matches are getting closer. Can Herrera make a push for #2 the rest of the way? She’ll have to continue to hold serve in the quarters against challengers and continue to look for ways to beat Vargas in the Semis.
– #4 Ana Gabriela Martínez had a disappointing Worlds event on home soil, and suffered an upset loss to Manilla at the US Open. Her win against Longoria in the 2018 Worlds looks like a fluke win; in all competitions Gaby is now just 1-18 against the world #1. But, she’s playing the tour regularly and seems a lock to stay in the top 8.
– #5 Natalia Mendez Erlwein sits tight at #5 and has a couple of key wins against Martinez this year. But, she’s had little success against the top 3 players on tour (a combined 1-23 lifetime against the current 1-3rd ranked players) and seems like she’s plateaued a bit. She does a good job beating players who she “should” beat, but needs to get some success against her fellow top 4 players.
– #6 Angelica Barrios made the semis of the US Open, taking advantage of some upsets on her side of the bracket, but took an early loss at Worlds to Lawrence. She’s spent the last 2 years on tour generally only losing to players who she “should” be losing to, and has some notable wins. She’s a lock to stick in the top 8 and could move up to #4 with the right results.
#7 Montse Mejia continues to be an enigma on tour. She had an amazing run to win Kansas City, topping Centellas, Herrera, Gaby and then Paola to win the title, never dropping a game. But in her 3 tournaments since she has losses to Laime and two losses to Manilla. She went a number of tournaments basically winning until she ran into Paola (whether that was in the 16s, quarters, semis or the final), but has scuffled as of late. Can she right the ship?
#8 Samantha Salas Solis and #10 Rhonda Rajsich both have the same questions facing them: are they done being forces on the pro tour at this point? Salas went from making 9 finals in the 2018-19 season to her current struggle to get past the opening rounds. Same with Rhonda, who hasn’t made a pro semi since Jan 2020 and has nearly fallen out of the top 10. Both played well at worlds, with Salas losing to eventual champion Longoria at the quarterfinal stage and Rhonda putting a loss on Vargas before losing to her teammate Lawrence, so they can still play. But the realities of aging on tour face them both.
#9 Jessica Parrilla just cannot get back to where she once was on tour. She finished #3 in the 2017-18 season, then badly injured her knee … and she’s has not made even a pro semifinal since. Her tripwire is the quarterfinals; she’s made 9 of them in the past three seasons but has gone no further.
————
Thoughts on Players ranked 11-20 range of Note
– #11 Valeria Centellas is too young to be having a mid-life career crisis, but she’s seemingly at a cross roads right now. She made a pro semi in Jan 2020, but has struggled since then, taking a number of losses against players she should be beating if she wants to maintain a top 10 finish. She has lost in the 16s in 5 of the last 6 pro events, and seems to have lost her way on the court.
#12 Brenda Laime Jalil is now part of Team Zurek Construction, LLC, which is great news for her career and the supportability of her aspirations. And she’s had some really promising results in 2021, with wins over Mejia, Herrera, and Vargas. She seems like a lock to be in the top 10 if she can play full-time. She curiously missed the most recent LPRT event (basically held at her home court), an opportunity missed with the thin field.
#13 Carla Muñoz Montesinos has had a very busy year, lots of travel, lots of court time. She’s had some up and down results on tour, with solid wins against the likes of Centellas and Salas, but losses to Lawrence and Scott. She needs a couple more marquee wins in the 16s and to challenge in the quarters to eke her way back to the top 10.
#16 Kelani Lawrence had a dream run to the finals of Worlds, but is stuck in a very dangerous ranking position on tour that guarantees a very difficult opening round match. She’s got several round of 16 losses to players ranked in the top 4, which makes it hard for her to move up. She had a great win against Barrios at Worlds, and has played the likes of Vargas and Herrera tough, but needs a marquee win to get herself into the 12-14 range that makes for an easier first round matchup.
#18 Erika Manilla might be the biggest dark-horse on tour right now. She blew it up at the US Open, with wins over Mejia and Gaby before a controversial close loss to Longoria. She followed that up with another convincing win over Mejia at the Xmas classic before falling for the third time this year to Mendez. She she’s put herself on the map as a player who can beat some of the best on tour. I see no reason why she can’t get to the top 10 … perhaps not by the end of this season, but sometime in the fall of 2022.
————– Players to watch for in the 20s and beyond
– #22 Micaela Meneses Cuellar just won Junior Worlds, and if I have her birthday right still has another year of juniors to go. She’s getting plenty of LPRT experience, and already has some solid wins against regular touring pros like Enriquez and MRR. When she’s faced off against the tour elite she’s generally held her own, taking games off of Vargas and Barrios. Assuming she can get back to the US during the school year, she’s one to watch for.
– #23 Ana Laura Flores has some solid wins on her resume (Mendez, Hollie Scott), but has gone one-and-done in her last four tournaments, which can be pretty discouraging, especially for a traveling international player. Lets hope she gets some results going forward and continues to play.
– #29 Montserrat Pérez plays part time and presents as a tough lefty out; is she more of a doubles specialist going forward?
#31 Lucia Gonzalez remains the darkest of the dark horses on the LPRT. When she gets the right draw, she’s dangerous (in the last two Mexican nationals she’s beaten Herrera twice and Enriquez), but she’s lost in the 32s in the last four pro events she’s entered (to stiff competition, but still). Without results you can’t get seeding, and without seeding you’re playing into the top seeds, so she has kind of a chicken or egg thing going on, but she has the talent to compete. Will she going forward?
#38 Vero Sotomayor; who is now living in Florida and is back on the pro tour after a 4 year absence, is ready to make waves. She’s clearly the “player who nobody wants to face in qualifying” right now, and has shown she’s easily got top 8 talent. How far can she move up in the second half of the season? It remains to be seen, but the next scheduled stop is at her home club.
#43 Aisling Hickey, Ireland’s #1, has now relocated to California and should be playing more tour events. She raised some eyebrows at the US Open, defeating a couple of solid players in Pazita Munoz and Rivera, and though she went winless at Worlds she played four tough LPRT vets and will be in Birmingham for the 2022 World Games. I could see her moving into the 20s soon and pushing for a higher ranking.
Merry Xmas and Happy Holidays to all racquetball fans!
So, when i’m writing previews or doing commentary, i’m often asking myself, “what is this player’s career best win?” To do that, I’ve generally fired up a player’s comprehensive match history and then tried to eyeball who i thought was their best win. But that’s difficult to do accurately and subject to some opinion, so i’ve often wanted some way to create a report that attempts to do just this.
I’ve just created a new way to try to answer the question: a new report called “Best Career Win.” This report sorts all wins in the database for the player by the vanquished player’s seeding, from highest seed to lowest. The report isn’t perfect (it doesn’t really work for players like Kane Waselenchuk or Paola Longoria , who have spent huge portions of their career at #1 and for whom the question of “best career win” doesn’t really apply), and since it is based on seeding data doesn’t really work for older players, but it does work pretty well for lower ranked players and especially non-regular tour players.
An interesting side-effect of the report answers a fun trivia question: how many times has PlayerX defeated a #1 seed in a tournament?
Reminder: seeding data is only accurate from 2009 forward, so this is also a query that generally only works for the modern player.
To find the query, go to www.proracquetballstats.com, select the tour, pick your player from the pulldowns, then select the button next to “Career Best Win” from the report options.
Here’s a couple of players that i’ve used as examples during testing:
– Daniel De La Rosa: http://rball.pro/E53B2E . Six times he’s defeated the #1 seeded player (every time it was @Rocky Carson).
– @Carla Munoz: http://rball.pro/9282AC . Did you know Carla defeated @Rhonda Rajsich when Rhonda was ranked #1 on tour?
Hello Racquetball fans! The 25th annual US Open is upon us.
Before we start previewing, I wanted to do a quick run-through of all the US Open-specific reports and information available at the PRS website. Over the years we have created a bunch of specific reports for just this event; here’s a quick run through: Go to www.proracquetballstats.com, click on either one of the pro tours (IRT or LPRT), and then from there you can run all the following reports:
For any player:
Complete player match history, US Open Only
Player W-L in US Open
Then for each tour:
US Open Participation Summary (my favorite US Open Report)
US Open Draw Sizes
US Open Tourney Qtrs/Semis/Finals historically
US Open Results Summary (another cool report)
Ages of all US Open Winners
And lastly, a list of all historical IRT Major championship winners including the previous 24 US Opens. https://www.proracquetballstats.com/irt/major_titles.html for IRT, as always, if you have any questions how to run these reports or how to get data out of Pro Racquetball Stats, i’m always available to help.
International Racquetball Tour LPRT UnitedHealthcare US OPEN Racquetball Championships
This past weekend, LPRT commissioner Tj Baumbaugh asked me about trends in the international flavor of the LPRT as it has evolved over the years from being primarily a US-based tour to being the international tour it has now become. I thought the idea of creating reports out of the data to depict this was a great idea, so i created a bunch of country-based reports over the weekend.
Here they are:
Player per-country breakdown Report per event: http://rball.pro/521321 : This lists the countries represented per event as a pulldown (this direct link uses the Dec Kansas City event as an example)
Player per-country breakdown Report per season: http://rball.pro/71EC6A : this is for the 2019-20 season as an example.
Player per-country report season by season (counts of players per country): http://rball.pro/1E0D49 (about 60 seconds to render)
Player per-country report season by season (percentages of players per country): http://rball.pro/84A282 (takes 60 seconds to render)
All Tournament Quarters/Semis/Finals listed by country of origin for history of tour: http://rball.pro/1F1181 (takes 1-2mins to render)
The first query appears in the per-Event section, the second in the per-season section, then the other 4 reports are in the generic section all together.
Enjoy, hope you have some fun looking at the data. You’ll note that the earlier years feature many players who do not have profiles in the database; they appear as “unknown” in the country list.
Hawkes had 20 career Outdoor Nationals singles titles. Photo IRB cover shot
In Jan 2019, after years of research, WOR Hall of Fame chair Brett Elkins revealed a the initial results of his attempts to find all the past winners and semi-finalists of the Outdoor national championships singles events. PRS helped a little bit, finding old WOR nationals review articles in the magazines … but there’s not a ton of coverage even in the publications of the time, so kudos to Elkins for reaching out to the players from each era to test their memories on each event.
This note is to tell you that we’ve updated the PRS database to put in all the results of Elkin’s singles research so that All Finals and All Quarter/Semis/Finals reports work and display as much data as we have available. Furthermore I’ve added in some category queries so you can quickly run just the finals for Outdoor 3-wall and isolate that long-running event from the other major outdoor championships in Vegas and Florida.
Here’s some example queries for you, now live with “better” data than we had before:
All Men’s Outdoor Nats singles finals: http://rball.pro/946EC1 Current Record Holders for Outdoor Nats singles titles: – Brian Hawkes with 20 – Rocky Carson with 12 – Several players with 2: Alvaro Beltran, Dan Southern, and Charlie Brumfield – 8 players with 1 title each.
Once you run the Quarters/Semis/Finals report, you can see the dilemma we face; prior to the R2 era starting in 2006, there’s almost no documented history of the event other than the stellar memory of the likes of Greg Solis, Mike Peters and others.
—-
The Women’s singles data isn’t as well populated: that’s one of Elkins’ todo items. We have the winners going back to 2006, nothing for most of the 1990s and 2000s, then some early history documenting the great rivalry between Lynn Adams and Martha McDonald.
Of course, there’s also a separate WOR Doubles database, with Men’s, Women’s and Mixed pro doubles reports for all three major WOR events; we published a major update for the Doubles Outdoor Nationals data last week.
—
Lastly a quick note that i’ve changed the “seasons” in WOR to be just the year in which the tourneys occurred, instead of assigning a “season” that crossed the Dec/Jan time-frame (which is what the pro tours do). This was an anachronism that I just never fixed, until now.
