Huge double gold weekend for Iwaasa.
Photo 2015 Portland IRT event by Kevin Savory
This past weekend, Racquetball Canada held its all-encompassing National championships in Burlington, Ontario. National titles and National team spots were handed in in Singles, Doubles, and Juniors. Here’s a quick summary of the winners and a recap of the surprising results in the Adults.
Congrats to your 2025 Canada National Open Singles winners on the weekend:
– Men’s Singles: Coby Iwaasa
– Women’s Singles: Frederique Lambert
Congrats to your 2025 Canada National Open Doubles winners on the weekend:
Congrats to Iwaasa in particular, getting the double Gold at Nationals for the first time ever. Also props to double-gold winner Lambert, who continues her run atop Canada racquetball despite a full time Medical career.
(Reminder: Canada doesn’t separately compete Mixed Doubles as US & Mexico does, instead selecting the international Mixed partners from the qualified pool)
Congrats to your 2025 Canadian Junior National Singles Champions:
– Boys 21U: Nathan Jauvin
– Boys 18U: Leyton Gouldie
– Boys 16U: Kyrylo Tkach
– Boys 14U: Oren Gouldie
– Girls 21U: Ofelia Wilscam
– Girls 18U: Chloe Jauvin
– Girls 16U: Kaitlyn Couckuyt
– Girls 14U: Talia King
We’ll do some commentary for each of the groups down below.
Trackie Sports App home page for event: https://secure.racquetballcanada.ca/entry-list/matches/1014510/4625/0/F/
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Men’s Open Singles
PRS report: https://rball.pro/a74e99
We had a relatively huge upset in the Men’s Open finals, with long-time #2 @Coby Iwaasa topping #1 Samuel Murray in four games for the title. This is the first time Sam has been dethroned as Canada’s national singles champion since 2017, and its Coby’s first title since 2015. These two have met in the finals of the last 18 straight national-level events in Canada (qualifiers and nationals), and this is just the second time Iwaasa has taken a match from Big Sam in that span (Iwaasa topped Murray for his 2015 title).
Webb & Cullen made the semis as #3 and #5 seeds.
See https://rball.pro/879898 for a list of all Men’s Canada National finals.
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Women’s Open Singles
PRS report: https://rball.pro/5deb35
Dr. Frederique Lambert won her 5th straight Canadian National title, and her 7th overall dating back to 2015, by beating 3-time runner up @Juliette Parent in the final. The women’s field was a bit thin this year, missing a couple of perennial competitors in Keay and Richardson who are normally semis/finals competitors.
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Men’s Doubles:
PRS Report: https://rball.pro/7254d9
The Men’s draw was opened up early by an injury to #1 seeds and 2024 champs Trevor Webb & Christian Pocsai, which opened a pathway for the 2023 champs Iwaasa & Cullen to the throne. This is Iwaasa’s 5th National doubles title and Cullen’s 2nd. They topped 3-time champions the Murray brothers Sam & Tommy in the semis to earn their spot in the final, where they defeated the newbies @Leyton Gouldie and @Asher Pocsai.
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Women’s Doubles:
PRS Report: https://rball.pro/d603c8
Lambert and @Michele Morissette combined to take their fourth straight National title together. Each now owns 6 titles overall (Lambert won two others earlier in her career, and Morissette won two in the late 2010s with Keay. They topped a small round robin group for the title.
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Boys Junior Results.
Matrix report of all Canadian Junior boys champs: https://rball.pro/ny4
Nathan Jauvin took the 21U title, his 8th career Junior title in Canada. He wins 21U in his last year of eligibility to compete a sweep of the five main age groups in his career. Leyton Gouldie tacked on a gold in 18U to his silver in Adult doubles, repeating as champ. Kyrylo Tkach got his first 16U title after winning twice at the 14U level. Lastly. a younger member of the Gouldie family Oren Gouldie repeated as 14U champ.
The Boys 14U draw was, by far, the largest draw at this event, with nearly 20 competitors as compared to the handful of juniors in most other draws. I’m not sure if there was a wave of middle schoolers picking up the sport in Canada or not, but it’s great to see and I hope that class continues.
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Girls Junior Results.
Matrix report of all Canadian Junior boys champs: https://rball.pro/5zu
The 21U awarded a champ for the first time in several years, with Ofelia Wilscam moving up from last year’s 18U title to claim the 21U title over Mercy Coughey. Canada definitely had a weird “gap” in their Girls Junior ranks, skipping 18U and 21U for a couple of years, but they seem “back” now. Chloe Jauvin won her 7th Junior title and she’s won in every age group available so far during her career. Kaitlyn Couckuyt repeated as 16U champ and has now won 3 straight Junior national titles. Talia King is a first-time junior national champ in 14U.
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That’s a wrap for Racquetball Canada Nationals for 2025. We’ll be back next fall with their qualifier.
There’s an IRT satellite in New Mexico next weekend, then the LPRT has a spot at an old stoping ground of mine in Herndon, VA. Later this month is Outdoor Nationals, which has teamed up with @3wallball this year.
Exec Summary: Erika Manilla double-qualifies. DLR retains his US National singles title. Michelle Key returns to the team with her doubles win. Horn returns to the time for the first time since 2019, while both Garcia and Ros secure their first ever National team spots.
Lastly, Carson qualifies for what I believe is his 22nd US National team, returning to the team after a three year hiatus. He qualified for his first team in 2000, then was a near annual member for the entirety of the 21st century before semi-retiring from competing two years ago.
The 2025-26 US National team is now set. The winners above along with the singles finalists have first right of refusal for the next set of international events: The World Games in August 2025 in China and the annual PARC tournament next spring in a site TBD (usually Guatemala City).
Former IRT touring pro and now pickleball professional returned to racquetball for the first time since Worlds last August to repeat as US National singles champion. Despite being the defending titlist, he was for some reason seeded third here, but eased his way through Ayan Sharma, Sam Bredenbeck, Bobby Horn, and then beating Jake Bredenbeck in a rematch of the 2024 championship.
It was great to see long-time US National team member Rhonda Rajsich competing; we havn’t seen her since an LPRT stop in Arizona a couple years ago. She fell to Hollie early. A last minute withdrawal of four-time Nationals finalist Lawrence opened up the bottom half of the draw, and Texan Naomi Ros took full advantage, topping her fellow recently-matriculated junior Annie Sanchez in the semis to secure her first spot on the Adult national team. She didn’t stop there, beating defending national champ Scott in the final to give her both the 18U national title and the Adult team national title simultaneously, something that has only been done twice in the history of the sport (Michelle Gould in 1989 and Jack Huczek in 2001).
Grizzled veteran Rocky Carson teamed with Bobby Horn (playing in his home club) to shock the defending US National doubles champions De La Rosa/Fernandez in the semis, then finished off their title-run by beating the Bredenbeck brothers in the final. It’s the fourth time in the last five years Jake & Sam have been losing national finalists. Horn returns to the team for the first time in 6 years, while Carson makes the team just a few days before he turns 46, a level we havn’t seen on the team since the Ruben Gonzalez glory years.
Just three teams entered this year’s Women’s US team qualifying, and 2023 champions Manilla & Key held firm to re-qualify for 2025 by beating their two rivals. They certainly had to work for it, with the “final” going 5 games against Scott & York.
As has become tradition, the Mixed Doubles event was the first to play to completion, and it started off with a huge upset. Defending Mixed National champs De La Rosa & Scott were upended by #5 @Robbie Collins and Annie Sanchez (nee Roberts) in the semis in four games. Perhaps DLR’s time away from the sport showed in his play, but they went one-and done. Collins & Sanchez couldn’t complete the deed, falling in the finals to #3 seeds Erika Manilla & Erik Garcia for the title. Manilla recaptures her Mixed title won in 2023 with her brother, while Garcia qualifies for his first ever National team.
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Other notable draws:
– Men’s Open: @Ty Hedalen repeated as Men’s Open champ, beating the visa-less Veronica Sotomayor in the final.
– Women’s Open: 15-yr old Andrea Perez-Picon, who switched to compete in Mexico for the 2024 season, swept through the Women’s Open RR group, defeating her sister Estefania in the final. In case you’re wondering, non-US citizens can compete in non-US Team qualifying at US Nationals … as well as dual citizens.
– Men’s Open Doubles: Rocky didn’t get enough doubles work winning the National title, so he competed in Open Doubles with Charles George and took that title too.
– Women’s Open Doubles: Hometown favorites Angela Grisar and Erica Williams took the Women’s Open Doubles title.
– Mixed Open Doubles; The Perez-Pincon brother/sister team of Alejandro and Andrea out-pointed Mark Frank & Veronica Sotomayor to take the Mixed Open title.
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Thanks to the Tourney Directors from @USA Racquetball for putting together 2025’s National event. Congrats to the Hall of Fame inductees, the others recognized at the annual awards, and for those 175 or so players traveling to compete.
Thanks to the Tourney Sponsors this year, which included WIS International, Gearbox/Rafael Filipini, KWM gutterman/Keith Minor, FixmyRacquet.com, RacquetX, and AGE Solutions/Andy Gomer.
The 36th annual Pan American Racquetball Championships tournament (at least the singles and doubles competitions) is in the books. Here’s a recap of the group and knockout action, along with links for the results as entered into the Pro Racquetball Stats database.
Executive Summary: Argentina showed up big this week, making the finals of four of the five competitions. Garcia wins his and Argentina’s first ever Men’s gold in IRF play. Mejia wins her 2nd career IRF singles title. Natera & Munoz win the first gold for Chile since the 2007 South American games.
Pro Racquetball Stats DB match results. Click on these links to see the match results in the DB:
– Men’s Singles: https://rball.pro/2c0b4e
– Women’s Singles: https://rball.pro/a39615
– Men’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/a11b14
– Women’s Doubles: https://rball.pro/f0ea0d
– Mixed Doubles: https://rball.pro/2987af
Team Points Results From Knockouts
PARC now includes a “Team Competition” where the countries compete against each other at the end of the individual competitions, but for decades the “Team Standings” were determined by an algorithm that awarded points based on group stage and knockout performance. I’m unclear whether IRF continues to name “team winners” in this same way, but here’s the team results using the historical methods:
(You can get these “team results” via queries available from the IRF singles page off of proracquetballstats.com for past history)
Combined Team (Overall)
1st – Argentina
2nd – Mexico
3rd – USA
4th — Costa Rica
Summary: four finals will do a lot for your combined team totals, and it was the Women’s Doubles final that made the difference for Argentina’s combined team to finish top. Argentina becomes just the 5th ever country to win a Combined team title at an IRF event.
Men’s Team
1st – Argentina
2nd – Bolivia
3rd – Mexico
4th – USA
Summary: Argentina squeaked past Bolivia for the mens’ title, ironic since both of Argentina’s men were born in Bolivia.
Women’s Team
1st – Mexico
2nd – Argentina
3rd – USA
4th – Chile
Summary: Mexico’s mixed team results made the difference here.
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Let’s run through the individual draws and talk about notable results.
Men’s Singles:
In the group stage, Guatemala’s @Edwin Galicia shocked Argentina’s @Gerson Miranda, which sent the Argentine to the back-draw. Some commentary here: I HATE the splitting of the knockout phase into a “red” and “blue” draw like we do in junior competitions so more kids can get trophies. It eliminates top players who had one bad loss in the group stage like Miranda, and you can see the results: a guy who’s making the quarterfinals of pro events is relegated to a competition with A-players and he just totally bailed, not wanting to waste his energy there. If someone tells me they don’t have “time” to play one more round of a knockout stage, i’ll laugh in your face; these players are in country and onsite for 8 straight days.
Other surprising RR results: Mexico’s #2 @Sebastian Hernandez had an awful event, losing twice in group play to also get relegated to the secondary knockout. Two other interesting group results: Canada’s #1 @Samuel Murray took out Bolivian Carlos Keller; both players are paring down their pro tour schedules lately, but Keller’s always a tough out in international play. Lastly, great win for the DR’s De Leon, beating Ecuadorian veteran Jose Daniel Ugalde to finish second in the group.
In the knockouts, some upsets early as Murray took out Costa Rica’s @Andres Acuna
, who has risen to #2 on tour. The biggest knockout shock was Argentina’s @Diego Garcia , Bolivian born but converted for $$ and opportunity, beating both USA’s #1 @jake Bredenbeck and then Bolivia’s @Conrrado Moscoso to make the singles final. I’ve long espoused about Garcia’s capabilities and he showed up in this event.
In the final, #1 seed Mar had no answer for Garcia’s quickness and power and fell in three close games.
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Women’s Singles:
The shocker of the RR stage was the play of USA #2 @Lexi York, who beat both Lambert and MRR to top her group. Chile’s Carla Munoz held firm against Argentinian Valeria Centellas to claim the top spot, and a great s howing by CRC’s Larissa Faeth to top Canada’s #2 @Juliette Parent.
In the knockouts, former tour champ Mejia ousted Munoz in the quarters, and York continued her run by beating her teammate Michelle Key to make the semis. #1 Mendez got a great win over Mexico’s #1 Herrera to make the final, facing off against Mejia.
In the final, Mejia outclassed her fellow LPRT pro in three games for the gold.
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Men’s Doubles.
Notable group stage results: team USA the Bredenbeck brothers beat Team Mexico (Trujillo/Hernandez) to take the top spot in a solid win. Nothing else notable in the group stage.
In the knockouts, Bolivia beat USA in the semis in an upset, while Argentina’s young guns ousted the top seed Costa Rica to setup an all-Bolivian born final between Garcia/Miranda and Moscoso/Carrasco. In said final, Moscoso (who took a serious injury on the IRT a month ago) salvaged the event and took gold with veteran partner Carrasco by holding off the strong Argentinian team.
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Women’s Doubles:
The two four-team group stage pools went as expected; Mexico, USA, and Argentina were clearly a step ahead of the rest of the field. Curiously Team Guatemala did not feature Gaby & MRR, which severely thinned this field.
In the knockouts, USA (Key & York) couldn’t overcome Argentina (Mendez & Centellas) from the top half, while Mexico (Herrera and Salas) dominated into the final from the bottom half. In the final, the Argentines shocked team Mexico with a dominant 3 game win to defend this title from last year.
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Mixed Doubles
Defending champs Team USA (Sam Bredenbeck & Michelle Key) cruised into the knockouts as the #1 seed. Chile’s husband/wife team of Natera & Munoz shocked team Canada to take the #2 seed, while a group of death saw team Argentina shockingly lose to CRC and head into the knockouts seeded 9th of 9. This proved to be fateful, as Mendez/Miranda took the opener, then shocked team USA in the quarters to send the defending champs home early.
In the bottom half, team Chile did not take their foot off the gas, shocking the presumed top Mixed team in the world Montoya/Salas in the semis to make the final.
In the final, Natera & Munoz held firm against the solid Guatemalan team and outlasted them 11-9 in the fifth for a well-deserved gold.
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Commentary on the State of the PARC and International competitions
2025’s PARC event saw yet more evidence of the changing of financials and the changing of the guard in this sport. Bolivia didn’t bother to send females. Some of the countries didn’t send enough players to field doubles teams. Some teams sent teenagers to compete in the Adult competitions. Many countries didn’t send their top players, so the event was missing the likes of defending World champions DLR, Longoria, Vargas, Scott, etc. Canada’s top doubles team was missing, and its best player didn’t play singles, a continuing trend from Murray & Lambert. Colombia’s Amaya now plays for Italy since her home federation collapsed in corruption. Team USA had to self-fund with gofundme campaigns because USAR has no money.
At least we have places like Guatemala, which has hosted four major IRF events this decade already, willing to fork over the fees to run these events. And, I love how we’re getting golds from outside the top three countries now; that’s great for the development of the game.
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Congrats to the International Racquetball Federation for another successful event. Thanks to the IRT streaming crew, and thanks to @Gary Mazaroff and all his co-announcers for their hard work all week.
Next up on the Racquetball Calendar: USA Nationals at the end of May. Zero pro events for months.
– Women’s Intercollegiate Singles Champ: @Ella Boaz, University of Missouri.
Missouri gets its third Intercollegiates champion, following @John Dowell’s title in 2023 and Hall of Famer @Jerry Hilecher , who won the very first intercollegiate title held in 1973. Sendrey wins Texas A&M’s first ever individual title, defeating 2024’s champion @Benjamin Horner in the final. Chicago legend @Tim Sweeney remains the sole 4-time Intercollegiate champion in the history of the sport, though we’ve had several 3-time winners (Andy Roberts, Jack Huczek, Ben Croft, Barb Faulkenberry, Tammy Brockbank, Kristen Walsh, and most recently @Carla Muñoz .
Memphis State (now the University of Memphis) remains the leader in individual singles titles, with 12 on the Men’s side and 7 on the Women’s side, having dominated the collegiate level of the sport for much of the 70s and 80s.
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In the team competition, Oregon State swept all three team events (Men’s, Women’s, and Combined). This is the first team sweep since Missouri did it in 2022, and is Oregon State’s 2nd such team sweep (they first did the deed in 2013).
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I maintain a list of all the individual and team champs at this Google xls, now updated for 2025:
Dylan Pruitt took the singles title and played well in the team events. Photo 2022 Beach Bash via Rick Bernstein
The Louisiana crew in Monroe held their annual Warhawk Open last wekeend, a well-attended event that draws from all over the southeast every year and continues to host IRT touring pros annually. This year, in a fun twist, the organizing group got with World Team Racquetball’s head Mike Kinkin to host an the 2nd iteration of the WTR team racquetball competition with some dignitaries on hand to watch and participate.
Two of the alumni teams from last year’s inaugural event were on hand: the Dovetail Thunderbolts and the KWM Gutterman Kingz, and they were joined by four new teams with increasingly awesome logos: the Texas Outlaws, the Culligan Waterboys, the Louisiana Lasers, and the Mississippi River Hogs. There were two competitions: a Pro version and an Amateur version.
Here were the team rosters (pulled from https://www.worldteamracquetball.com/ along with Kinkin’s help)
4 Pro teams:
KWM:
– Jaime Martell Racquetball
– Austin Cunningham
– @Naomi Ros
Coach: Kane Waselenchuk
Dovetail:
– Eduardo Portillo Rendon (hurt)
– @Maria Renee Rodríguez
– @jordan Walters
Culligan Waterboys
– Robby Collins
– Dylan Pruitt
– Annie Sanchez (last minute replacement for Erika)
Louisiana Lasers
– Cristina Amaya Cassino
– Maurice Miller
– Troy Warigon
Additionally, 6 amateur teams competed:
Texas Outlaws (amateur)
– Marcus Zuniga
– David Mendoza
– DJ Mendoza (coach)
– William J. Craig
Mississippi River Hogs (amateur)
– @Tim Risler (coach)
– Bradnado Turnquest
– Bob Jackson
– Michael Yourell
Culligan Waterboys (amateur)
– David Kerr Jr.
– @Blake Lockwood
– Craig Clement
Kings (amateur)
– @David Anastasio (coach)
– Raymond Flowers
– Chris Kendrick
– Matt Ray
Dovetail (amateur)
– Mike Kinkin
– David Graves
– Joey Limocello
– Steve Semones (coach)
Lasers (amateur)
– Brian Acuna (coach)
– Al Schof
– Kip Atwell
– Shawn Dedebant
(apologies for any typos here)
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Lets recap the Team events and then the conventional divisions.
Pro Team event:
– In the top semi, #1 seed Dovetail took down the Louisiana Lasers, while the #2 seeds KWM ousted the pink-clad Culligan Waterboys.
In the final, KWM took advantage of a hobbled Portillo (nursing an arm injury he got in Chicago) to take the title.
Amateur Team Event:
– The Texas Outlaws squeaked by the Waterboys 11-10 to earn the final from the top-side, while KWM’s amateur team tried to emulate their pro counterparts with a solid win over Dovetail’s amateur side in the other semi.
– In the final, KWM made it two for two on the weekend with an 10,10 win over Texas.
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Men’s Open/Pro Singles:
– #1 seed Pruitt held serve, topping USA Junior national DJ Mendoza in one semi.
– #2 Robbie Collins took out former IRT touring pro Maurice Miller in the other semi.
In the final, Pruitt got a very solid win over the #15 ranked IRT pro Collins, winning an 11-9 tiebreaker thriller for the singles title.
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Men’s Open Doubles:
– Mendoza teamed with his junior national coach Collins to form a solid lefty/righty pair, and delivered the title. In the final they beat the top amateur team of Pruitt & Austin Cunningham in a breaker.
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Bravo to all the team owners and those who participated. Can’t wait to see the next iteration, and I can only hope we get the same quality team names and logos as we got here.
HoFamer Sostre takes home 3 golds. Photo Steve Fitzsimons 3WB 2020
Hello Racquetball fans. The first Outdoor “Major” of the 2025 season just finished up on the sunny courts of Garfield Street in Hollywood, Florida, and here’s a recap.
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Men’s Pro Doubles: McDonald/Sostre
– Women’s Pro Doubles: Key/Maldonado
– Mixed Pro Doubles: Sostre/Maldonado
– Men’s Pro Singles: No event this year.
– Women’s Pro Singles: Michelle Key
Executive Summary: A great showing for NY this weekend, with double pro golds for Sostre & Maldonado. Michelle Key also took home two titles, and Floridian Chris McDonald won his first ever Beach Bash title.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=46008
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Reports on ProRacquetballStats.com:
Match reports for 2025 Beach Bash:
– Men’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/fd1c7d
– Women’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/04cc18
– Mixed Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/c8e4bf
– Men’s Pro Singles: No event this year
– Women’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/e55d02
Triple Crown Reports for all past WOR major champions:
– Men’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/3lj
– Women’s Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/zoa
– Mixed Pro Doubles: https://rball.pro/obz
– Men’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/9ey
– Women’s Pro Singles: https://rball.pro/h27
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Lets run through the draws, recapping the action.
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Men’s Pro Doubles:
So, I’m part of the 3WB seeding team and have helped in the past. Seeding outdoor events is really difficult. There’s practically no points you can really depend on, pros flow in and out year by year, top players who miss an event one year suddenly aren’t ranked at all, while players who happen to live in areas where there’s plenty of sanctioned one-wall events get over-seeded just by virtue of being able to play events. Often times we seed a team 11th, knowing that they’re better than the 11th best team and knowing they’re likely to beat the 6th seeded team, and that ends up being the fairest way to do a draw. Sometimes we tweak seeds slightly so that four players who flew a 1000 miles who are from the same club don’t play in the first round. It isn’t ideal to do these manipulations, and every year it leads to arguments, but there’s too many factors that just can’t be worked around.
Unfortunately, a confluence of events in this draw led to the final being competed by the #7 and #9 seeds. I’m sure some will look at this and talk about how incompetent the TDs are. Well, i’m sure they gave it a lot more thought than you might think, so cut them some slack.
Blatt & Rolon (the 2018 winners and constant presences at the back-end of one-wall major events) were seeded 9th, and, true to form, when they met the #1 seeds Montoya & Mar … not only did we get a quality match, we got an upset in what probably should have been at worst the semi final in the pro draw. Rolon & Blatt then cruised past Morales & Heymann to get to the final.
In the final, The #7 seeds Chris Mcdonald and Robert Sostre (who should have probably been seeded higher but likely placed at #7 knowing that they’d be the favorites over the #2 seeds anyway) ended up topping the #9 seeds in a breaker for the title. It’s McDonald’s first ever one-wall pro title, while Sostre wins his 6th career Beach Bash pro doubles title (fun fact: Sostre has made the final here in 11 of the 15 pro doubles events ever held).
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Women’s Pro Doubles:
Michelle Key and outdoor legend @Anita Maldonado were not threatened as the #1 seeds, cruising to a title. In the final, they topped outdoor specialists Katie Neils and Aimee Roehler.
With the win, Key gets her fourth career Women’s Doubles title here, and extends her amazing collection of Pro Doubles outdoor major titles to 19.
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Mixed Pro Doubles:
Taking advantage of a last minute withdrawal that cost the Mixed draw its #1 seeds, New Yorkers Erika Tinalli & Brian Romero cruised into the final with solid wins over Arizona’s Key/Anderson and fellow NYers Blatt/Guinan. However, they fell in the final to the experienced Sostre/Maldonado team
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Men’s Pro Singles:
There was no Singles event on the men’s side this year, the first time since 2014 that the draw didn’t field enough players to be held. Both of last year’s finalists and the 2023 finalist attended the competing Warhawk Open, 4-time champion DLR is out of the sport, 3-time champ Sostre is north of 50 and saves his body for the four doubles divisions he generally enters. Lets hope we don’t have fixture congestion and can get a full draw in 2026.
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Women’s Pro Singles:
Just three women entered the Pro singles here, with the draw missing a slew of names who typically play here. Munoz, Parrilla, Scott, Laime, Lawrence: all past finalists or semi-finalists.
In the end, @Michelle Key took her first Beach Bash singles title, improving on her finalist finish last year, topping Miami’s @Chanis Leon in the final.
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Other Notable draws:
– CPRT 40+ Doubles: Sostre/Harmon took out McDonald/Miller for the title, Sostre’s 3rd on the weekend.
– Men’s 75+: Rodrigo Montoya teamed with San Antonio’s Phillip Beverly to take the 75+ combined, beating Mar & Perez in the final.
– Men’s 100+: Stratton Woods in the house! Northern Virginia residents Allan Small and Suresh Vemulapalli beat teams that included legends Rocky and Beltran to take the 100+ combined title.
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Some additional commentary here.
Unfortunately, for the second year in a row Beach Bash ended up caught in a bit of a fixture congestion issue with too many racquetball events in March. Last year’s early Easter date pushed up PARC, which caused Beach Bash to be held on the same weekend as the IRT pro stop Shamrock Shootout, which caused all sorts of angst in the industry.
This year the Warhawk Open in Louisiana fell on the exact same date, and then when the new World Team Racquetball concept was added, players who have historically played BB instead flocked to ULM. Beach Bash’ attendance was just 125 players at R2, which is shocking for an event that usually sells out well in advance and pushes past a player cap. A slew of regular ladies tour players were missing, and the draws suffered. It’s unclear why so many of the regular outdoor ladies pros were missing this weekend, but the ladies and mixed draws really suffered for it.
The WTR event’s presence led to some nasty back and forth on social media between major sponsors, stuff that’s becoming all to common in our sport, and stuff that we just can’t afford to happen. Inevitably one guy gets pissed and pulls funding, then suddenly we’re out events and the sport continues to decline.
Could someone have moved their event? Maybe, but remember everyone has to work within the parameters of their host sites. Warhawk is on a college campus with availability set months in advance; Beach Bash is on public courts that have to be arranged with permits months in advance. It’s just a shame that the sport has a bunch of major events inside of a few weeks in March (two IRT events, and LPRT event, HS Nationals, Beach Bash, and Warhawk Open) but basically two events in the next two months (PARC in April, Nationals in May).
We do talk about a fixture scheduling call in the sport, but in the end we always work around what the IRF and USAR does as a default. But, maybe we can try to work together in the future to avoid this stuff.
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Thanks to the Tourney Directors Peggine Tellez , Jen O’Meara , @Mike Coulter, @vic Vic Leibofsky and the entire 3Wall Ball crew for putting this event on and ensuring the legacy of outdoor majors.
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Next up?
Per our handy master racquetball calendar https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6OTid6rZ356voXVkoV2sN7KMMbIP9SZd0MssH_nPGU/edit?usp=sharing
Intercollegiates is next weekend at NC State. Then, PARC in April, USA Nationals (and Canada Nationals) in May. Not much else going on at this stage.
Hello fans. My good friend Sudsy Monchik and I talk racquetball all the time. Maybe not as much lately, but we frequently catch up on important events, the state of the sport, pro tours, USAR, etc etc.
Sudsy suggested, hey, why don’t we frigging tape these conversations? We’re often talking about topics that cut to the heart of where our sport is right now, and we try to mix in stats and opinion from one of the most decorated and involved names in the sport. So lets see if you guys like to listen in to the kinds of stuff we talk about on the regular.
So, here’s the first cut.
You can listen in (the first one was a zoom audio, though we could try saving video for subsequent ones) here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgKwHYFO-Wg
For those of you want to read instead of watch, here’s a transcript (lightly edited for clarity).
Sudsy & Todd discussion –
International Youth movement in Racquetball at the IRT Shamrock Shootout
⏰Tue, 03/18 13:00PM · 24mins
Transcript
Todd Boss
All right, you ready?
Sudsy Monchik
Ready.
Todd Boss
Sudsy, how are you doing?
Sudsy Monchik
Doing good, doing good, Todd. Driving to my real job.
Todd Boss
Yeah, I’m on lunch break for my real job. So this works out for both of us.
Sudsy Monchik
But we both love racquetball so much that we can’t help it
Todd Boss
That’s right. So here’s the context of today’s conversation.
Are we seeing the next generation of pros, and does it matter based on the state of our sport?
For some Background, when I did the recap of last weekend’s Shamrock Shootout, I noted that a ton of U21 or junior world champions were in Chicago competing. Just to run through them really quickly:
– We had reigning U21 champion Joel Alexis Acha
– You had the world U21 semifinalist Trujillo and Barrios.
– You had the USA U21 champion Benjamin Horner.
– You had the reigning U18 champ and Jonathan Flores, who made a huge impact. We’re going to talk about him in a sec.
– You also had the likes of Sendrey, Mendoza and Herrera Jr., who are top junior national players in the U.S.
– You had top Mexicans like Gastelum here
– And, you had a couple of a little bit older recent Junior World champions, former Bolivians now turned Argentinians, Miranda and Garcia.
Well, that’s a lot of U21 players, and many are starting to get real results on tour.
So the question I have for you, Sudsy is this: Is this the next generation of talent on tour?
Sudsy Monchik
I think clearly you just named a bunch of really talented players, but the thing that jumps out at me is that you didn’t name nearly as many Americans. It’s clear that the level of play of these South American and Mexican Central Americans is so much greater right now than what we have to offer, and that’s that’s something that really bugs me. You know that that hurts my soul, but it is what it is.
When you say next generation, I think that’s connected to the age, right? You said 21 but historically we’ve seen that at like 18 and 19 years old, right?
Sudsy Monchik
When players get into their 20s it’s kind of like, ‘well we’re not really seeing much different now,’ so like I’m looking at who’s 17,18,19 and who is out there, traveling to play tournaments. You have to be playing events and you can’t do it in your hometown, home city, or home country.
The first thing I did when I got to Ecuador; I said, ‘let me see the budget you guys have to get out of here and play internationally.’ You have to get out, you have to play other players, you have to deal with other game styles, and you have to experience adversity and uncomfortableness.
There’s no doubt it’s the “next generation” but how would you define “next generation?”
Todd Boss
Well, if you look at the players who have been ranked in the top 10 as of late,
I’ll just run through them quickly. At the end of last season:
– Kane was 43
– Conrado was 29
– Adam Manilla 29
– Sam Murray’s 31
– Rodrigo 28
– Andres Acuna 29
– Jake’s 33
– Natara is 29
– Martel is 32
– Thomas Carter is 28.
These are the players that you see day in and day out reaching the quarters and semis. Where are the young guns?
Even someone who we think is kind of young is Eduardo Portillo, he was 25 at the end of last season and he’s already turned 26. You know, these are not the young kids. These are not 22 year olds flowing through. So the tour has been dominated by players in that are kind of getting old.
That’s what I thought was notable about the total volume of young players in Chicago.
Sudsy Monchik
Yeah, it was great. I would counsel the young guys to take advantage of it while they can now, because those older guys and players need to really start considering how they are going to parlay their racquetball career into what’s next, right? Like, is it sustainable for a 33 year old to continue to travel around trying to be a professional racquetball player?
I think it’s turning into a young man’s game. Now that seems a little opposite of what you just said, right? I think that the younger generation certainly need to focus and kind of maximize the time they have now because it goes fast. It doesn’t last a long time.
I think the bigger question is, when do you really start seeing those guys you just mentioned, the mid twenties and up, say, it’s time for me to look at what’s next.
Todd Boss
I think you already see it. We know Montoya has an engineering degree. Same with Javier Mar. They’ve been top players for a while, but full-time.
Sudsy Monchik
But there’s not enough stops right now for them to “tour full time.”
If the IRT is successful the first thing they’re gonna do is release like double digit tour stops If we see that happen then that’s a great start especially for the younger generation but when you say “they don’t tour” I mean how many stops were there last year?
Todd Boss
That’s a good point. There were only six stops last year.
Sudsy Monchik
Yeah, I mean, Mark Frank and I, we played more local events.
Todd Boss
No, it’s a good point. Pivoting a little bit, almost every one of these top U21 players we mentioned is from South America. So for them to get to the United States is tough. You lived in Ecuador so you tell me, how long of a flight is it from Buenos Aires or from in or from the middle of Bolivia to get up here so they can even compete?
Sudsy Monchik
Yeah, it’s a full day, it’s a full day of travel. You said Argentina; just to get to Miami and then from Miami go wherever, that’s eight or nine hours. From Bolivia, same thing, seven or eight hours. Not to mention, depending on the city you’re from within that South American country, you might have to make a connection. It’s a full day of travel.
I did it from Ecuador for seven years. And we were actually a lot closer where it was easier for me from Ecuador because one of the major airports went right to Miami. That was wheels up, wheels down in about four hours. But within the country, I still had a three hour drive to get to that airport. So it’s a full day.
The biggest benefit that these players have, Todd, is that their governments financially support them.
Now, I don’t know how many people know this: the tour is actually used as a training/practice platform for these players. All these international countries are more interested in the medals at the international events. Pan American Championships, World Championships, Pan Am Games, World Games. That is more valuable to them in the country and they use the tour, both IRT and LPRT, as training mechanisms to prepare them for those.
Todd Boss
What you just said is absolutely consistent with the conversations I’ve had with the previous commissioner, Pablo Fajre. I won’t name names, but a couple of seasons ago, we were looking at the end of the season rankings and it was going to be really close as to who won, right? And there was an international player who was prominently involved in the race, if that person did really well, they could have finished number one.
Pablo told me that, not only did that player have no idea where he stood in the rankings, but he couldn’t have cared less whether he is number one on tour, because of exactly what you just said. His country, his federation, and his priorities were in order, Winning worlds, Winning the Pan Am games, winning PARC, and then winning whatever other regional competition there was. Then if he happened to come up and take home four grand for winning a pro tour event, great. Four grand is the equivalent of like three months wages in Bolivia, which is obviously a lot. But that’s kind of an interesting mindset for people in this country to consider.
Sudsy Monchik
It’s a fact. I mean, you know, me, I played my whole career, it was all about professional titles, right? It was about that. In fact, the era of the Cliff, Sudsy, Ellis, Mannino; We didn’t do the international thing. Rocky was the only one that did it, and he openly admits he did it for the health insurance.
The US open title was less valuable to these countries than a bronze medal at one of the international events, because that’s how their government funds the team, entirely based on results at the international events.
Todd Boss
So that puts a different spin or a different color on why you see international participation in some of these tournaments. Another side note, oftentimes you’ll see a pro event, whether it’s an IRT or an LPRT event, and you’ll see like the entire Guatemala national team there suddenly, right? This weekend in Chicago, you didn’t see a single Guatemalan player there that I can remember. And it’s because their federation chooses to send the team to get practice for an upcoming international.
Sudsy Monchik
Correct, exactly how it works. So when I had the Ecuadorian Racquetball budget, we get a budget at the beginning of the year from the Olympic Committee, and then we pick and choose the events we’re going to go to to use as training platforms. That’s it, period. Yeah. So Guatemala just didn’t choose to fund this one.
Todd Boss
I’m going to ask you a different, more difficult question. If the next generation is predominantly Bolivian and Mexican, how can they flourish if there’s no pro events in Bolivia or Mexico?
Sudsy Monchik
That’s their biggest obstacle. They need to be able to get out. But here’s the thing, Todd, getting out used to be coming to the US or Canada because we were the best. They don’t have to do that now. They can go around South America, Mexico, Central America and deal with better players.
The travel and getting out is what will help them to be more well-rounded to have to deal with being uncomfortable, right? Like take Conrado. Conrado is a rock star superstar in his little country and little city in Bolivia. And like he’s in his comfort zone. But when he gets out and comes out here, it’s very different. So if they don’t have enough travel events (and I do think rumor has it there might be a planned international professional event or not. I don’t know yet, we’ll wait and see. Hopefully the IRT is making that happen), they still will do that internally. So they’ll pick and choose where to go, when to go and how to go.
But still, yeah, I think it’d be great if there were more events. I think it’d be great for the IRT, for the LPRT and they’re working behind the scenes to do that. But who it really hurts is our players, our next generation of players here in the States.
Todd Boss
We talked about our new generation. There were four good examples playing in Chicago. That was Cole Sendry, DJ Mendoza, who were both on the 18U national championship team that played in the last worlds. Plus you had U21 champ, reigning champ, Benjamin Horner. And we also had a lesser known player who played in 18Us in high schools this year, Juan Herrera Jr.
No, they’re not the only top juniors that get out and about. There’s other names out there, especially in the NorCal area where you have like Prasad and Chauhan and players like that who are winning junior national titles, but almost never travel.
But, What is their impact? We’re not talking about those American players right now as pushing for top 10 spots. We’re talking about Trujillo, who’s ranked in the top 10. We’re talking about Gastelum and Miranda, who show up and get wins. And then there’s the kid we’re going talk about in a moment, Jonathan Flores, who looks like he might be the next big thing. What’s going on with U.S. juniors here?
Sudsy Monchik
Yeah, we’re well behind and I think it started years ago and Todd, I mean, you followed my career, and of course Kane’s results speak for themselves. When you go to international junior tournaments, you have to win gold medals.
Are USA juniors winning gold medals and championships and matches? No they’re not. I think we’re a little bit too much of, “Oh, you’re doing great.” Like kind of mediocrity and like, that’s acceptable. But who’s winning? That’s what I want to see. Who are the gold medalists? Those are the next best players, and those are the players doing everything in their power to be the best they can be or the next best player in the world.
It goes back to, well, what’s their motivation? USA isn’t funding them, right? What if the U S Olympic committee said, “Hey, Cole and DJ, if you guys go win a gold medal at the junior worlds, we’re going to pay you a couple of thousand a month and give you health insurance” for being on team USA, maybe they would be more inclined or have the ability, the resources to do everything in their power to wake up every day with that goal in mind.
Or, maybe they’re doing that anyway and we just have a talent gap right now. Because of the years of these other countries doing it, right?
Todd Boss
Yeah. A hundred percent agree.
All right, one more player I want to talk about is Jonathan Flores, Bolivian, two-time 18U Junior world defending champion. I’m just going to read you a couple, some of his recent exploits. He’s now played a handful of pro events. I’m going to start a year ago in Minneapolis.
– In March of 2024, he flies in, and he plays the Hall of Fame event in Minnesota, loses in 32s to Jake Bredenbeck.
– Two weeks later he enters the Lombard event, beats Jake 5,7, turns around and beats Robbie Collins and then in the 16s takes a game off of Kane before he loses 11-7 in the tiebreaker
We don’t see him again in the states, and he wins Junior Worlds 18U without too much trouble.
He shows back up here a couple weeks ago in Minnesota.
– He beats Javier Mar,
– Then he loses 11-10 to Andree Parrilla in the 16s
– A week later he’s in Chicago he beats Diego Gastelum easily
– then in the 16s he trashes the number four seed Alan Natera 9,6
– He faces Andree Parrilla, beats him 15-4 in the first game and then had the match on his racket and loses another 11-10.
The Parrilla match we just saw was a match that, as I wrote and I think that you believe, he really should won to put himself in the semis.
So, what do you make of Jonathan Flores?
Sudsy Monchik
How old is he?
Todd Boss
He’s just finished his 18 year season so he’s playing in his age 19 year.
Sudsy Monchik
Yeah, so one other time in the history of my career, did I ever look at a player and say, that’s different. And that was about Kane Waselenchuk. It was when Kane was 18 or 9 in Chicago. And Cliff said, “hey, take a look at this kid, what do you see?”
I watched about five points of Kane. And I said, “that’s different. He reminds me of us.” That was my exact quote, Todd. And I’ve never said that about any player in the history of the sport, except Kane.
Today, Flores, from what I see with my eye and experience right now, after a healthy Kane and a healthy Conrrado, is the most talented, best all-around player in the sport, period. Now, does that mean he’s the third ranked player in the world? No. I think that all things being equal, weapons, tools, ability, he’s got it. What I don’t know, does he have a dog in him? Is he a fighter? Is he tenacious? Does he have balls? As far as skill, ability, talent, he’s on a different level. Let’s not forget Daniel, too right? But Daniel just isn’t playing right now.
Once he learns how to play, how to win and close those matches out, He’s the most talented player in the world after the first two guys. I just said, I just don’t know if his DNA is made up to now go put it all together.
Todd Boss
I agree. And, then going back, of course, to the first part of this conversation, he lives in Bolivia. So he’s facing a day long flight every time just to get up here, you know, those flights are not cheap. And is he going to have the same kind of priorities as Moscoso?
Is it more important for Flores to win Pan American Racquetball Championship versus come up here every time there’s a pro event and try to win? I guess it remains to be seen, but what I worry about is exactly what I worry about with all these all these Bolivians. I’ll throw the likes of Garcia and Miranda in there as well, even though they are now represent Argentina.
Sudsy Monchik
Can I represent Poland? I’m going to go represent Poland, playing a tournament. I’m Polish. Filipino too.
Todd Boss
I mean, who was it that Woody Clouse represented in one year? A small country in Africa. Eritrea?
Sudsy Monchik
You’re a better speller and much smarter than me, you tell me.
Todd Boss
Yeah, well anyway, so that’s what I wanted to talk about today. Sudsy, any parting words before you crash your car?
Sudsy Monchik
I think there’s a ton of great talent and players out there. Hopefully, the IRT keeps doing what they need to do. To really showcase these players, you know, and see truly who is or who will be the next best player in the world, because until Kane Waselenchuk hangs up his sneakers, it’s still not close.
So I would love to see what’s next. And I would tell a lot of these young guys that, you know, if that’s what they want, they need to do everything in their power to make sure that they can reach that goal and I know these countries support them. If that’s training and coaching and getting out and playing, do that.
But again, Todd, you and I both know, we don’t know what what they’re made of. It’s easy to “hit a ball, get a ball, see ball,” but like, what are you made of when the dust settles and you know you got to go to a dark place to try to get to that finish line? I’m telling you when I saw Flores, I was watching, you know, one of the top three players in the world in the moment, and he didn’t even win that match so whatever that tells you.
Todd Boss
Sounds good. All right, thanks, Sudsy. Drive safe.
Jake wins his third.
Photo Kevin Savory 2020 USAR national doubles
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Jake Bredenbeck
– Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya Racquetball & Javier Mar
Jake comes out on top of a weird, upset-filled event to win his 3rd career Tier 1 title and to retire the Glass Court club in style. Montoya & Mar cruise to the doubles title despite Montoya’s shoulder injury limitations.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=47136
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/ac96ab
Before we get started, A quick comment: there were a TON of top U18 and U21 internationals in this draw, and if I wasn’t bearish on the future of pro racquetball I’d be pointing at this event as a sign of the future. Competing in Chicago included:
– 2024 U21 World Champ Acha
– 2024 U21 semi finalists Trujillo and Barrios
– 2024 U21 USA Junior National titlist Horner
– 2024 U18 World Champion Flores
– 2024 U18 USA National team members Sendrey and Mendoza
– 2024 U18 USA Junior Nats quarter finalist Herrera II
– 2023 U21 World Champion Gastelum
– 2019 U18 World champ Miranda
– 2022 U21 World champ Garcia
That’s a lot of players who are all in their early 20s or younger, and they should represent the next big wave of players in this sport. Unfortunately a huge chunk of them are South Americans who can’t just hop a flight to get up here to compete, so I wonder what will come of them in their quest to move up the pro ranks. Perhaps we’ll see more of the likes of Flores, Miranda, Garcia, and Acha given the taste of success they’re having. I hope so.
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In the 64s:
– @Sam Murray kicked off his return to pro racquetball with a pretty dominant win over a tough Bolivian junior opponent in @hector Barrios 5,3
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In the 32s:
– Reigning u21 champ @Jhoel Alexis Acha got the match of a lifetime, playing King Kane and losing 4,6.
– @Sam Bredenbeck let 18U junior Cole Sendrey know just how far he has to go to compete, overpowering the Texan 13,6 to move on.
– Old WRT rivals Martel & Horn had a battle for the ages, with Horn running out of gas in the breaker.
– Thomas Carter destroyed @Kadim Carrasco 2,0 to move into the next round.
– Reigning 18U champ @Jhonathan Flores made a statement in his win over u21 international Diego Gastelum 7,6. I thought this would be closer, and it does not bode well for the collective U21 international crew, many of whom were here this weekend. Flores seems primed to destroy that competition for the next three years.
– Murray cruised past Montoya 11,6. We had a tip from a tour official that Montoya may not even play singles here, so this is not a surprising result necessarily. I did not get a chance to see him this weekend, but his competing through the doubles finals is a good sign.
– Trujillo made fast work of Mendoza, not giving the USA junior national a chance.
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Lastly, My friends at the IRT are not going to like this this take.
Argentine Diego Garcia was forfeited out of this draw because he showed up 12 minutes late to his match. You see, the tour changed the draw Wednesday night to accommodate one more player’s last minute entry, despite a registration deadline days before and most international players’ plans settled weeks before, a change that forced me to re-write much of my preview and to re-do all the match seeds. But this change also changed a bunch of published start times for players, including Garcias from 5pm to 3pm, a change relayed to him via a group text message that he missed. By the time someone told him … he rushed to the club but got there 12 minutes late.
So, to restate this; you have one of the most exciting junior players in the world who flew halfway around the world to play in one of the 7-8 pro racquetball events that will even happen this year, and you forfeit him because he’s sitting in his hotel room 10 minutes away from the club unaware that you’ve changed the draw on him with 12 hours notice. How dumb is that? What if Garcia stops coming up here because of this? You think the tour is better off not having one of the best players in the world investing the time and money to compete? This was an absolutely terrible decision, one that seems like it could have been worked around for the sake of the sport. Its not like there’s another event next week and its no big deal that he got forfeited; it probably cost a month’s wages for him to fly up here and compete.
We can’t afford to lose top players right now because someone was obstinate and refused to be flexible. Not over a hundred dollars of prize money for the winner. Have a player liaison, someone who speaks Spanish and who can help these guys navigate the situation. I thought Garcia had a real solid chance of getting to the quarters here; instead he’s dumbfounded by getting forfeited out of an event because he didn’t get a text message for a draw change that shouldn’t have happened.
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In the 16s:
– Jake solidly got past Martell
– Flores destroyed #4 Natera 9,6. Tough draw for Natera his first time in the top 4, but Flores is the real deal.
– Murray crushed Miranda 5,8 in a match I thought could go the other way due to Murray’s rust. I guess not.
– Mar was in control of his match of Alonso when he retired at the very end of game two. Mar looks dangerous this weekend for sure.
– Portillo made fast work of Trujillo 5,6. Portillo sure looks solid since he started flight school, and he’s now a danger for the semis or better every time he plays.
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In the Quarters
– Jake got a game one win over Kane, then the #1 seed retired. He tweaked something last week, and it was still bugging him, and in the post-game interview Kane said he knew he was going to have to forfeit at some point, and played until he figured he couldn’t go any further without injuring himself more significantly. During the match, Kane definitely seemed to take some awkward lunges at balls that Jake was hitting, as I looked for evidence of a point in time that led to the injury. His mobility was off for sure, and the last couple of points he mailed in before withdrawing.
– Parrilla survived a game against the Bolivian junior phenom Flores 11-10, a match he frankly should not have won. Flores blew him out in game one, then the two played neck and neck racquetball for the rest of game 2 and 3. Flores had match point on his serve and blew a wide-open forehand into the ground to give the ball to Andree, who converted and advanced.
– Mar crushed Murray 5,1 who finally showed some rust and fatigue.
– So much for being #2: Acuna was whitewashed by Portillo 3,0 in a beatdown.
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In the Semis
– Jake and Andree played their typical dogfight, with jake advancing 11,12
– Lalo pulled a rabbit out of his hat, coming back from a deep hole in the tiebreaker to beat Mar 11-9 and move into the final.
In the Finals, I would have put money on Lalo to continue his dominance, but it was jake who blew off the doors of the Mexican, winning 11,3 for his third career pro win.
Jake joins a small group of 3-time winners on tour that includes Parrilla, Strandemo, Ed Andrews, and Alvaro Beltran.
With the win, Jake will catapult himself up to #3 on tour, still behind Kane and Acuna. Lalo has moved up to #7, and Alonso up to #9. Mar now sits at #10 which may be a career high for him as he never plays a full schedule.
Meanwhile, Manilla’s injury costs him; he’s down to #8. But Moscoso is getting crushed; the knee injury that caused him to miss this week now has him all the way down at #14.
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Doubles review
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/3d9832
Montoya & Mar didn’t drop a game en route to their 9th pro doubles title together.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– Gastelum beat Barrios in the Open singles final. Sendry & S.Bredenbeck semis
– Team Argentina Miranda & Garcia took Open Doubles, beating the Lazenby brothers form St. Louis in the final.
– Ava Kaiser took the women’s Open RR singles, then teamed with Jake Wilkins to take the Mixed Open Doubles.
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Richard Eisemann and Carrie Reitmeire.
Thanks to everyone at the Glass Court facility for the decades of support for Pro Racquetball. This was your swansong, and we will miss you.
Next week we get the first Outdoor Major of 2025, the Beach Bash in Hollywood Fl. We also get the WTR doing an event at the Warhawk Open, and the Bolivians will compete in the 2nd leg of their two-leg event series to determine its national champions and international representatives.
Murray returns to the IRT after more than a year away. Photo via us2019 Kevin Savory
Welcome to the 40th annual iteration of this event, and unfortunately the last iteration, as the Jaskier family has made the difficult decision to close the famed Glass Court Fitness club in Lombard after decades of ownership and operation. The unique “fishbowl court that is surrounded on all sides by viewing areas and sports equipment will host its final pro event, and the tour will lose a mainstay in its schedule. This club closing was followed just this morning with news that Recreation Atlanta will also be closing, another dagger for independent court ownership in our sport.
This is the 40th iteration of the tournament, now sponsored by Papa NIcholas coffee, and for the last 11 it has been associated with the IRT. Chicago as a town has been a major player in the Men’s pro racquetball world, thanks to the likes of Dan Jaskier , Dave Negrete , @Geoff Peters , and the Klimaitis family, who have donated time, money, and attention to the sport for decades. Chicago was the long-time host of the Halloween Classic, held the Motorola Pro Nationals in the mid 2000s, and held a bunch of NRC and Catalina nationals back in the hey dey of the sport late 70s/early 80s.
There’s something in the water specific to the Lombard club too, as we’ve seen all sorts of crazy results here in the last decade on tour. Here’s a sampling:
– in 2024, Jhonathan Flores went on a tear, beating a ton of top pros to make the quarters out of nowhere.
– in 2022, @Rocky Carson went on his last big run, making his last final as a #8 seed by beating then-#1 DLR before falling to Kane.
– in 2021, Jake beat then #1 Landa for one of his best career wins and got to the final.
– in 2018, a crazy tournament resulted in a final between Parrilla and Horn, each vying for their first title. Parrilla won, and it remains the only final Horn ever made on tour.
– in 2017, Parrilla made his first career final as a #14 seed, beating DLR, Landa and Carson along the way.
Despite all these great runs from players not named Waselenchuk, Kane has won 7 of the 10 titles competed here since 2015, and enters its last event as the dominant #1 seed this season and clear favorite to win another title, especially given that his two biggest rivals on tour (Moscoso and Montoya) both took major injuries last week in Minnesota. Moscoso is completely out of the Lombard event with his knee issue, as he hopes it heals up for his Bolivian Nationals later this month and then for PARC in mid April. Meanwhile, Montoya may just go through the motions in Chicago, depending on just how bad he injured his shoulder.
There’s 37 entered into the singles draw this weekend (one last minute entry that forced a draw-redo at the final hour and which forced some rewrites of this preview at the last second): having these back-to-back IRT events makes for great draws, as internationals can get two events in for the price of one flight.
Top 20 players missing: #5 Manilla still out with a shoulder tweak from earlier this year, #6 Moscoso as discussed above. The rest of the top 20 is here and playing, and the round of 16 will be stacked. Also returning here for the first time in more than a year is Samuel Murray, who has zero points and gets the #35 seed, and plays right into #3 Montoya .. who may or may not be too hurt to play. Read on.
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Let’s preview the draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that i’m looking forward to:
In the round of 64, there’s 5 matches with some of them involving our own Jr National team members.
– U21 champ Acha has a winnable match against Mexican De Alba
– US National team member Grant Williams gets a good test against Bolivian @esteban Reque.
– USA juniors Horner and Herrera II meet for a spot in the 32s.
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– Lastly, long-time touring vet Sam Murray is back on tour after more than a year away. Murray WON his last IRT appearance, thus breaking a number of the queries on the website which assume that a player lost their last match on tour. HE’s back, he has zero points, and is seeded 35th so he gets an opener. He gets the tough junior bolivian Hector Barrios, but should advance.
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In the Round of 32:
– Kane should get his start against reigning U21 champion Acha, a nice touch.
– In the 16/17 matchup, a fun on between the younger Bredenbeck brother Sam and prolific tournament player Cole Sendrey. This should be an interesting test for both players. They’ve never met in a pro or national setting. Sam has more firepower, but Sendrey has the game to beat him.
– Martell-Horn. Wow, is it 2015 on the WRT? These two players met in 2010 in Martell’s IRT debut in San Diego, and the last time of their 10 meetings was in 2019 at the US Open. They’re 5-5 against each other lifetime, but Martell has been more active on tour lately, so advantage Jaime.
– Carter- Carrasco is an interesting matchup of long-time touring pros who don’t get to play that often. Thomas has won their last 3 meetings and should advance here.
– Gastelum vs Flores: wow, this is a potential U21 World final. These two amazingly met last year in this exact same event (in Open, not Pros), a Gastelum win, but Flores has come a long way since, and has significantly better wins. A reminder: Flores made the quarters here last year and took a game off of Kane. Flores might be one of the best 10 players in the world, if only he toured full time.
– Murray-Montoya. If Montoya isn’t 100% (as I suspect he is not), then this is an upset in the making. Does Rodrigo even finish the match? He could barely swing a racquet on Saturday, and now he’s forced to face a Tier1 winner and long-time top 10 player in Murray? I think Sam advances here, and Montoya doesn’t finish the match.
– Trujillo-Mendoza. Well, this is a statement match. Trujillo may be in the top 10 now on the IRT and rising fast, but he keeps taking losses to players in his age group. Lost to Miranda last week, lost to Acha in U21 in December, Lost to Sanchez at Mexican Jr Nats in 2024, lost to Hernandez at MexNats24. But on the flip side, Trujillo has some great adult wins that bolster his current #9 ranking. Meanwhile, Mendoza has not been able to break through in US Junior Nationals, but got a very solid win over Acha last week. Is Mendoza taking a leap forward, or is Trujillo going to plaster him here?
– Acuna vs Castillo: this was set to be Acuna vs Murray until a last minute draw change: now Acuna gets a far, far easier path into this draw as the #2 seed for the first time.
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round of 16:
– Sendrey may get a first meeting against the King, for the wonderful opportunity of losing 2,4.
– Martell vs Jake: Jaime goes from one all-WRT meeting (Horn) to another one with Jake. These two played nearly 10 times on the old pro circuit, with Jake winning nearly all of them (career 10-1 on WRT And IRT). Last time they met was in 2023, a 1,4 beatdown by Jake. However, these two players are going in opposite directions right now. I still think Jake wins, but don’t be surprised if Jaime pulls an upset here.
– For his troubles of getting a career high ranking and seeding at #4, @alan Natera
likely faces off against one of the best Juniors in the world in Flores. And I think he is in jeopardy of losing to Flores, who has the hot hand right now and can get this win.
– Thanks to the presumed inj-fft of Montoya, the #3-#14 matchup opens up and turns into an interesting youth versus veteran matchup of Murray vs Miranda. I think Miranda is hot and can beat Murray, but Sam is also one of the best tacticians on tour. I’ll go with youth over rust and predict the Argentine (who should have been in the semis last week) to advance.
– Mar vs Alonso, a great matchup of tactical experts from Mexico. Both took unexpected upset losses to early 20s South Americans last week and will be looking to rebound. Alonso seems like the fairer bet to move on here. I have no record of these two meeting in a pro or nationals event, but its likely they’ve played at some local tournament over the many years they’ve been competing.
– Portillo-Trujillo; Lalo is the most dangerous 10 seed we’ve seen in a while. If Trujillo gets here, Lalo is just too good.
– Acuna – Garcia: another difficult matchup for the new #2 seed. Garcia beat him at Worlds last year in the group stage, and took a game off him at the Pleasanton pro stop. Garcia is hot, with comprehensive wins over Alonso and Jake last week, and I can see an upset here.
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Projected Qtrs:
– Kane over Martell
– Parrilla over Flores: Andree always plays well at this club and has some sentimentality for the area.
– Miranda over Alonso: playing a hunch
– Lalo over Garcia; Lalo may only be the #10 seed but he’s playing far better than it.
Semis:
– Kane d Parrilla in a rematch of a final here years ago.
– Lalo ends Miranda’s run.
Finals; Kane beats Portillo in a rematch of the Lewis Drug Pro Am. Scores are like 7,10.
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Doubles review
If, as I suspect, Montoya drops out, the #1 Montoya/Mar pair will open up the top-side, likely for last week’s WBF-benefactors Trujillo & Alonso, who are seeded fourth and could cruise into the final from the topside.
From the bottom half, the best matchup may be in the quarters as Parrilla/Portillo have to face Miranda/Garcia, a great Mexico vs Argentina matchup. I like the winner of that to the final, and to eventually win. Lalo is too good on the doubles court and I favor him and Andree to win the title.
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Hope you tune in this weekend, join the new IRT Club to support the tour and get access to more courts, and generally support what looks like it could be a great event with some fresh new faces making noise.
Annie (Roberts) Sanchez with her best career pro result.
Photo 2019 Junior Nationals, photographer Kevin Savory
Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Paola Longoria
– Doubles: Montse Mejia and Alexandra Herrrera
Longoria pulls a rabbit out of her hat to win the singles final, and in doing so wins her 115th career Tier1 title. Mejia and Herrera take advantage of a Longoria-less doubles draw to cruise to another title.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=47428
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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.
Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/9b76dc
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In the 32s:
– Bolivian Junior national champion Camila Rivero provided the biggest upset of the first round, topping #9 Carla Muñoz in three close games. Rivero has dominated World Juniors the last two years, winning both 18U and 21U in 2023 and then following it up with another win in Guatemala last December. She’s also now representing the country in Adults, though she either missed or didn’t place in the Feb 2025 qualifier in Auroro.
– Hollie Scott cruised past Lexi York in an upset by seed
– Annie Sanchez got the best win of her career with a toppling of long-time tour veteran Jessica Parrilla in three.
– Canadian #2 Juliette Parent pressed Amaya to three games but fell.
– Lastly, another great win for @Sheryl Lotts, downing Valeria Centellas 11,11.
In the 16s:
– Longoria had to face the tricky Barrios to move on, and was stretched 13,11. Not the round of 16 she wanted, but she got the job done.
– Rivero couldn’t follow up her big win and got crushed by fellow Bolivian (at least by birth) @Natalia Mendez 4,7
– Sanchez continued playing well and pushed #6 Lawrence to 14,12 before falling. Is Annie taking a step forward professionally?
– Lotts took a game off of #2 Vargas before falling, testament to how well she’s been playing lately.
Lots of great results out of unexpected places this event. Great to see the mid-teen players who have been putting in the work get results.
In the Quarters:
– Longoria cruised past Natalia 1,10
– Herrera got a great win over Gaby 11-6 in the breaker to give her some solid confidence heading into the rest of the season. After getting wins a few seasons ago she’s been passed by Vargas in terms of player interest, but she’s still out there.
– Mejia cruised past Lawrence 5,4
– Vargas held firm against Laime, winning two close ones 14,13.
In the semis:
– Longoria blitzed Herrera 9,0 to make a statement.
– Mejia wasn’t terribly troubled by Vargas, winning 8,9
In the final, we got a rematch of the last event in Arizona, which was a close Longoria win. Mejia had other ideas this weekend, fighting back after a first game 15-12 loss to win 15-8 and took firm control of the tiebreaker. She was up 10-5, missed a sitter, then…. the mental game kicked in. Longoria got the serve back, ground out points after points … suddenly it was an 11-10 win. A complete collapse from Mejia here to give Longoria the title.
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Points Implications of results
The big movement in the rankings should be Gaby taking over #4 on tour. Alexandra, despite beating her h2h here, will fall below her and continue to play her in the quarters. Mendez’ great run of form pushes her back up to #7.
A bit further down: Riquelme up to #14, Lotts up to #16, Centellas up to #19.
Here’s a link to my Rolling 2year Calendar XLS, which I use to approximate the points after each event. It is not exact but it’s usually close enough to the actual rankings, which the tour does a couple days after each event. Sometimes I have to go back and adjust points b/c a Tier 1 turns out to be a Tier1+ or a “mini grand slam” based on points. But, it goes back years if you’re interested.
Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/470ca2
Eventual winners Mejia & Herrera had their toughest match in their opener, playing Team Guatemala and winning 14,13. From there, smooth sailing, including a 12,5 win in the final over team Argentina.
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Open Singles, other notable draws
– Ros defeated Sanchez in an all-USA Jr national team final.
– The Kelley brothers ended up playing for the Men’s Open final; JKelley d SKelley.
– Sam Kelley made it a double with a win in Open Doubles with Flores
– Jolene_Sullivan_/_Tony_Prater took the Mixed Open title
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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from the regular LPRT broadcasters
The IRT is right back in action with all the traveling internationals in what will be the last pro event at the Glass Door facility. Preview coming on Thursday.
