Congrats to your winners: – Men’s Singles: Javier Mar – Men’s Doubles: Javier Mar & Eduardo Garay
here’s notable matches by round.
In the 16s, the seeds held but there were a couple of notable matches: – #7 Eduardo Garay Rodriguez beat #10 Jaime Martell Neri in two 14,3. I thought this would be a close match, and game one was before Garay ran away in game 2. – Just one tiebreaker: #3 Javier Estrada dropped the middle game to junior Erick Trujillo before advancing.
In the Quarters: – #1 Javier Mar lost game one to rising star #8 Sebastian Fernandez before advancing 11-4 in the breaker. – #4 Alex Cardona split the first two games against fellow rising star #5 Lalo Portillo before winning a close breaker 11-7. – #3 Javier Estrada held serve and got a solid win over #6 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez, who I favored to make the final. – #2 Ernesto Ochoa had the closest match of them all, winning 11-10 over #7 Eduardo Garay.
Still chalk through the quarters, but 3 tiebreakers to get there.
In the semis: – #1 Mar split two close games with #4 Cardona 13 and 14 before running away with the tiebreaker 11-4 to advance to the final. – #3 Estrada got a walk-over win against #2 Ochoa in the other semi. Unclear what happened here; these two were doubles partners here and competed in the doubles event later on that evening .. so i doubt this was injury related.
In the final, Mar made short work of Estrada, taking the title 4,7.
————- In doubles:
In one semi, #1 seeds Ochoa/Estrada lost in a breaker to #4 seeded Cardona/Martell, while the #2 seeds Garay/Mar trounced the upset-minded youngster team of Trujillo and Mauricio Delgadillo in the other.
In the final: Mar became the double winner on the weekend by teaming with Garay to beat Cardona/Martell 11-9 in the breaker.
Lets review the 16-man Open singles draw, which is comprised almost entirely of Mexican traveling pros.
In the round of 16: – #1 seed Javier Mar gets a straight forward opener against infrequent top-level player Alan Marquez. – #8 Sebastian Fernandez, fresh off his victory in the Mexican Olympiad two weeks ago, takes on Daniel Herrera. – #5 Lalo Portillo, who lost to Fernandez in that final two weeks ago, takes on newly graduated junior Mauricio Delgadillo. – #4 Alex Cardona makes a rare appearance to face Daniel Rodriguez. – #3 Javier Estrada takes on #14 Erick Trujillo, who is playing in his age 16 season and is a favorite in the upcoming Mexican Jr. Nationals. – #6 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez, who finished the IRT season ranked 17th, takes on youngster #11 Daniel Herrera Maldonado. – #7 Eduardo Garay, recently repatriated to represent Colombia, takes on #10 Jaime Martell Neri in probably the best match of the opening round. They met in the semis of the 2019 Longhorn Open, before that in 2017 both Garay wins. – #2 Ernesto Ochoa has never appeared in an IRT event but has serious wins on his resume (Beltran, Parrilla, Mar, Mercado just in the last 2 years), faces Alejandro Chavez.
I don’t see any upsets by seed in the opening round; the 8/9 and 7/10 especially could be close but expect chalk to advance.
In the qtrs: – I like #1 Mar over #8 Fernandez, but Patata can make it a bit closer than Mar may like. He’s really improving fast and could be a dark-horse IRT top 10 player next season. – #4 Cardona over #5 Portillo; despite how well Lalo has been playing, Cardona is a tough out. Portillo does have some really impressive wins (Murray, Jake in the last few months), but I don’t think he can take out Cardona yet. – #3 Estrada vs #6 Franco: the last time they faced off, it was an 11-10 win for Franco in Mexican Nationals earlier this year. So its paper-thin between them. I think i slightly favor Franco, who has been playing more and better competition and may have the edge now. – #2 Ochoa vs #7 Garay: another match-up where I think the difference between the players is paper-thin; they met in 2018 Mexican Nats, an 11-7 win for Ochoa. They both have impressive wins over top 10 players in the last year, including Ochoa beating Mercado in Costa Rica last month. I like Ochoa here in a tiebreaker.
Possible semis: – #1 Mar over #4 Cardona: Mar’s one of the top 6-8 players in the world, while Cardona is basically a part-time player (albeit a good one). Mar advances here. – #6 Franco over #2 Ochoa: they met at 2019 Mexican Nationals, a closer 13,10 2-game win for Franco. I think Franco wins again here.
Projected final: Mar over Franco.
——————- They’re also playing doubles this weekend, with 6 pretty solid teams competing. #1 seeds Ochoa/Estrada and #2 seeds Mar/Garay will have to work to get to the final.
Follow FMR or RKT on facebook for possible streaming from the event.
Rocky Carson makes the US team and a shot to defend is 2x Pan Am Games titles.
Thanks to our team’s results at the 2019 Pan American Racquetball Championships in April, which also served as a qualifier for the 2019 Pan Am games, the US delegation gets 3 Men and 2 Women.
Rocky gets a chance to defend his two straight running Pan Am games titles; he was the 2011 and 2015 singles champion.
This limited number of players on the US team leads to some interesting decisions: – Thanks to 3 Men players … one player is pulling double duty playing both Singles and Doubles, while one player only gets to play doubles. Looking at this delegation, i’ll guess that its Rocky & Jake who play singles, and Jake/Pratt who play doubles. – Thanks to just 2 Women; they both have to play both singles and doubles … and they are a “forced” doubles team who may very well have never played before. I have no record of Rhonda and Kelani playing doubles together … so they’ll have to get some practice in.
———— Now for some discussion, because the selection of Rocky may be a bit controversial.
After the 2019 National singles results, the official US National team standings sat as follows on this page:
Rocky Carsondid not enter National Singles, and dropped to 4th in the standings … enough to keep him in the team discussions, and thus enough to make him eligible for his eventual selection. The US committed has selected Carson over Horn, which seems unfair given Horn’s pedigree and participation. Of course, this writer doesn’t know if Horn had a conflict and had to bow out, or if the committee made a judgement that Carson (who is inarguably the better player) was a better selection to bring back a medal in Peru.
This decision is also interesting to me because: – Pratt as a singles player has made the finals of the last two international events he’s entered. – Jake and Horn are frequent doubles partners, and represented the US in two recent Pan American Championships. – Carson is the 2x defending singles champ and still the 2nd best player in the world.
So it’d make sense to have Jake and Horn play doubles together, and it’d make sense to have both Carson and Pratt play singles. But … the team only got 3 spots, costing the team its preferred/full delegation. It will be interesting to see how the men’s team lines up.
are 1-2, with Hollie Rae Scottclose behind. Then there’s a size-able gap to the 4th ranked US player at current. But, only two players can go. Lawrence had to miss out the last time she qualified to represent the US internationally due to prior commitments (she got married the same weekend as the event) and isn’t missing out again.
In the end though, the selection of Rhonda and Kelani are supported by results on the court and are the best two US female players right now.
POST PUBLISHING UPDATE: the roles of the players were announced just ahead of the event, and Rocky is only playing doubles. That means no chance for him to defend his 2x title. An odd choice Rocky has made, not to attempt to compete for the Singles team spot.
In addition to all the other stuff going on with USA and Canada this past weekend, Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol held its Olimpiada Nacional de Raquetbol for 2019.
Official Mexican Junior Nationals are later on this summer, so this seemed to be a junior-focused tournament. As a result, this is a “fan only” posting and no database loading of results will occur.
Congrats to your winners: Boys 20U: Sebastian Fernandez over Eduardo Lalo Portillo, a rematch of last year’s Mexican 18U AND World 18U championship final. Boys 16U: Erick Trujillo over Sebastian Longoria Boys 14U: Christian Sanchez over Luis Renteria.
Girls 20U: Montse Mejia over Ana Kristin Rivera Girls 16U: Guadalupe Griffin over Daniela Rico Girls 14U: Naomi Ros over Ivanna Balderrama
note: the draws actually were “20 and under,” so that’s not a mis-print.
Participation: notably, this event drew more than 200 players … more than the participation of USA National singles. And it was just for basically three age divisions (14, 16, and “20”) in a non-national event. There were 36 in 20 and Under boys, 41 players in boys 14 and under, 27-30 in each of the three girls divisions.
Contrast this to the last USA junior national events, which featured 24, 20 and 19 in the three top boys events, and just 9, 11 and 9 girls in each of the three top girls age groups. And it’s even fewer in Canada, where some of the junior age groups end up being combined into round robin events just to give everyone more than a couple of matches.
For everyone who complains about participation in our sport in the US … look no further than the junior pipeline south of the border. What is going on in Mexico that we can leverage in the US?
Men’s Open: Samuel Murray Women’s Open: Jen Saunders
They take big steps towards putting themselves onto the plane to represent Canada at this August’s 2019 International Racquetball Federation – IRF Pan American Games, the biggest event in our sport. Based on the 2019 PARC qualifying Team Canada will get two players each in Men’s and Women’s, and based on the qualifying as of late it definitely seems like the two singles finalists in each draw will form the teams for Peru later this year, but we’ll wait to hear official word of attendance.
No Surprises in the round of 16, with all seeds advancing in 2 games. Closest match was #13 Ian Frattinger pushing #4 Pedro Castro to 13,10 in their match.
In the quarters: – One upset by seed: #5 Trevor Webb took out #4 Castro in two. – Both #2 and #3 seeds were taken to tiebreakers but advanced. – Coby Iwaasa came from a game down to advance past #7 Lee Connell.
In the semis: – #1 Samuel Murray made quick work of Webb 3,2. – #2 Iwaasa played a close game 1 then took off to win game 2 going away over #3 Tim Landeryou 13,2.
The Final was a rematch of the 2015 and 2018 Canadian finals, as well as a rematch of the last three running qualifier events. Murray and Iwaasa split the last two finals rematches, but this one was a Murray win going away 3,6. Murray captures his 2nd Canadian National title.
In the play-in round of 16, Cassie Prentice won in a slight upset by seeding, taking out the #8 Murielle Boivin 9,4. Meanwhile, the younger Parent sister Juliette beat her older sister Marjolaine 4,10 to advance.
In the Semis: – #1 Jen Saunders won a solid match over #4 Danielle Drury 13,8 – #2 Christine Richardson advanced over #3 Morissette in two close games.
In the Final, a rematch of last year’s Canadian National championship, Saunders won going away 4,1 to claim her 11th National Title. Saunders has now made at least the Canadian National singles final in NINTEEN consecutive years; every year since 2001. You have to go back to the 2000 national tournament to find a Women’s Canadian singles final that didn’t include Saunders (that year, Jackchristie Huczek beat Lori-Jane Powell for the title). Its a pretty amazing run for Saunders, who shows no sign of slowing down.
Men’s Open: Jake Bredenbeck Women’s Open: Kelani Lawrence
They take big steps towards putting themselves onto the plane to represent the USA at this August’s 2019 International Racquetball Federation – IRFPan American Games, the biggest event in our sport. See this link: https://www.teamusa.org/…/2018-19-US-National-Team-Qualific… for the current Men’s and Women’s team standings. USA Racquetball plans on making an announcement soon on the official team delegation to Peru.
In the 16s: – In the 8/9 game, Robert Collins got a solid win over Luis R Avila in a tie-breaker. – #5Adam Manilla took out hometown veteran favorite Woody Clouse and has a streamlined shot at the National Semis thanks to … – #4 seed Jose Diaz, who I thought could win this event, was a no-show, giving Utahian Anthony Martin a walk-over into the quarters. – Two IRT regulars met in Thomas Carter and Nicholas Nick Riffel, with Carter coming out on top in a tie-breaker.
In the Qtrs: – #1 Jake Bredenbeck cruised past fellow IRT top 20 player Collins 4,2 – #5 Manilla similarly cruised past Utahian Anthony Martin 3,2 – #3 David Horn was stretched by #6 Carter, going 11-7 in the breaker. Another solid result for Carter, but a good step towards keeping his National team spot for Horn. – #2 Charlie Pratt took out his local playing rival Dylan Reid 14,5.
In the Semis: – #5 Manilla played lights out for stretches, but not enough of them to take out #1 Bredenbeck, falling in an 11-5 tiebreaker. – #3 Horn got a great win over #2 Pratt, 11-7 in the breaker, to advance to the final and attempt to repeat as US Champion. Pratt has made the finals of the last two international events in which he’s represented the US … but a national title continues to elude him.
In the Final … Jake could do no wrong, and Bobby couldn’t do much to stop him. In an amazingly compete performance, Bredenbeck beat Horn 1,1 to take the US title. Its his third overall and he returns to the podium after a 3 year absence. Horn finishes runner-up for the 4th time.
There was just one play-in/round of 16 match: – Annie Roberts, the current 16U National champ and who still has 3 years remaining in the junior ranks, took on regular LPRT touring pro Cassie Leein the 8/9 match and came out on top in a tie-breaker.
In the qtrs: – #1 Rhonda Rajsich took out the precocious Roberts 6,2 – #5 Kelani Lawrence, drastically underseeded in this event, made a statement with an 11,1 win over #4 Sheryl Lotts – #3 Hollie Rae Scott took out LPRT touring vet Adrienne Fisher Haynes 7,10 – #2 Seed Erika Manilla was a no-show, depriving the draw of one of its top players and making the lopsidedness of the seeding errors involving Lawrence even more severe.
In the Semis: – #5 Lawrence got a career win, beating the 8-time defending US national champ Rajsich in an a tiebreaker. These two had met in the singles finals of the last three major US national team qualifying events, and Lawrence got this breakthrough win on the same weekend that her mother Malia Kamahoahoa Bailey was inducted into the US Racquetball hall of Fame. – #3 Scott downed the legendary LPRT pro Cheryl Gudinas in two. Scott is going for a rather rare double: Intercollegiates and National titles in the same year. It’s only happened once before … in 1976, when Memphis State University’s Sarah Green won both events in the same year.
(side note: the 3rd place game, which we often don’t mention, thus is Rajsich vs Gudinas. Holy cow. That’s a combined 19 (!) US National titles between them to go along with 8 pro titles. In case you’re wondering … they’ve played no less than 50 times across pro, US nationals and IRF events now, with Rajsich leading 32-18. See http://rball.pro/A7470B).
In the Finals, Lawrence came from a game down and saved match point against to take the title 11-10 over Scott by running off two points at the end of the tie-breaker.
—————- Congrats to all who played. Later this week we’ll review the Canadian singles and Mexican Junior events form last week.
Next up on the rball schedule? There’s some lower tier IRT events in early June, one last LPRT Grand Slam in mid-june in Kansas, then the US Junior Olympics in late June in Portland.
Sam Murray goes for another Men’s singles title. (photo via Rball Canada)
Just like their southern neighbors, Racquetball Canada uses the last weekend in May to host their National Singles events. They also host their National doubles (which ended yesterday and which we’ll wrap-up later this week)
This is the 45th iteration of Canada National Singles, as far as I can tell. First held in Winnipeg in 1975, the first Men’s champ was Wayne Bowes. Mike Green (who recently announced his retirement officially from competition) is tied with Canadian legend Sherman Greenfeld for the most singles titles in Canada with 10 each. Samuel Murray is your defending champ and is the #1 seed this weekend.
On the Women’s side, they also have records dating to 1975, with Monique Parent being the first ever Women’s singles champ. Jennifer Jen Saunders hholds the record for most ever Canadian singles titles with 10, and as the defending champ and #1 seed has a chance to take the outright lead and tie American Rhonda Rajsich for the most ever country national titles (with the caveat that we don’t have full records for Mexico and other countries).
click here for a full list of all Canada National Men’s Singles finals: http://rball.pro/DEA1C6
click here for a full list of all Canada National Women’s singles finals; http://rball.pro/D48335
————————– Here’s a preview of the singles events.
Men’s Singles:There’s 15 in the draw. Here’s some round of 16 matches to look for: – in the 8/9 game, Tommy Murray takes on Tanner Prentice for a shot at #1. If Murray wins, he gets to go against his brother. If Prentice wins, it would be his first ever win at Adult nationals. – In the 7/10 game, Lee Connell (who’s been playing in National events for more than 15 years) gets a match against current Canadian 18U champ Sean Sauve in his adult debut.
Projecting the quarters: – #1 Murray vs #8 Prentice; Sam moves on. – #4 Pedro Castro vs #5 Trevor Webb; they met in 2017, a Castro win, and Pedro will be looking to return to the semis for the 2nd year running. – #3 Tim Landeryou vs #6 Nicolas Bousquet; they met at this juncture in Nationals last year, a tie-breaker win for Tim. – #2 Coby Iwaasa vs #7 Connell: also a rematch of 2018 National quarters, an easy 5,5 win. Can Connell push it closer?
Semis: Murray over Castro, Iwaasa over Landeryou. These are the exact same semis from 2018, and i’m predicting the same chalk results.
Final: Murray over Iwaasa in a tie-breaker. These two met in the 2018 National finals, and in the finals of both Canadian qualifiers leading up to this event, and have clearly separated themselves from the rest of the Canadian field.
————————- Women’s Singles: there’s 10 ladies in the draw, and no Frederique Lambert, which opens up the field significantly. Lets preview the draw.
In the 16s: – Reigning Canadian 18U Junior champ Cassie Prentice takes on #8 seeded Murielle Boivin for a shot at the #1 seed. – Sisters Juliette and Marjolaine Parent have to face off in the 7/10 match. Juliette is the reigning 16U Canadian champ, while Marjolaine just graduated 18Us and represented Canada at Junior Worlds last year. Tough matchup for the parents; who do you root for? 🙂
Projecting the Quarters: – #1 Saunders over #9 Prentice, marching towards a record-setting title. – #4 Danielle Drury vs #5 Erin Geeraert: Geeraert is fresh off of representing Canada at the 2019 PARCs and will look to get back on the team for the Pan Am Games later this year. – #3 Michèle Morissette takes on the legend Linda Marie Ellerington, whose first entry in the database is the 1987 Canadian National singles competition. Linda hasn’t competed in this event since 2015 …when she was eliminated by Morissette. – #2 Christine Richardson faces a Parent … i’m not sure which one, but think Richardson will be favored to advance either way.
Possible Semis: Saunders over Geeraert, Richardson over Morissette.
Final: Saunders over Richardson, a rematch of the 2018 final and the 2017 semis.
———————- Look for streaming notifications over the weekend. Follow Racquetball Canada for sure to get notifications. I know that Timothy Baghurst is in Canada leading the announcing, so tune in and follow along
This year’s version of event is the 52nd iteration of the event, and is as far as I know the longest running racquetball tournament in existence. It was first held in 1968 in Milwaukee, where two legends competed in the final (Bill Schultz defeated Hall of Famer Bill Schmidtke in the final).
Record holders for Most National Titles? –Rocky Carson holds 7 National titles, winning his first in 2000 and his most recent in 2017. Interestingly, despite still being ranked #2 on the pro tour, Rocky did not compete in the 2018 version, nor is he in this weekend’s draw.
– Rhonda Rajsich holds 11 National titles, winning her first in 2004. She’s also the defending champ, the #1 seed this weekend and has won the last eight National events.
Your defending champs are David Horn and Rajsich. I’m not entirely sure how Horn drops to the #3 seed behind Jake in particular (who he has bested round for round in the last few national qualifying events)., but would have had to play Pratt in the semis regardless so its a minor seeding nit.
————– Men’s Singles:
Lets preview some of the match-ups i’ll be looking for: In the 16s: – #8 Luis R Avila vs #9 Robert Collins; 8/9 match-ups are always tough, and this should be no different. Lefty touring pro Collins versus the defending outdoor 3-wall champ Avila, who periodically comes indoors and has some good wins on his resume. This is a good test for both. – #5 Adam Manilla vs #12 Woody Clouse; Woody Clouse back in action competing for the National team … for the first time since 2006. Clouse qualified for the team in 2005 and represented the US in the Pan American Games in April 2006, losing in the final to Canadian Kris Odegard 11-9. He also had several top 10 pro tour finishes during the deep mid 90s tour days. Now he’s back at age 53, playing in his home town. He faces off against fellow lefty Manilla, fresh off of a second top 20 season on tour with some good results. I think Manilla moves on but it’ll be a fun L vs L match. – #6 Thomas Carter vs #11 Nicholas Nick Riffel; two IRT regulars meet up; they faced each other 3 times in 3 months in early 2018, with Carter taking 2 of 3. Riffel had a tough end to his 2018-19 tour, forfeiting out of Syosset with an injury. Meanwhile Carter had a nice run at the end of the season, getting a couple of solid wins and making the main draw in both Florida and NY. Advantage Carter here. – #7 Dylan Reid vs #10 Jeff Stark; two West Coasters who have played more than a few times meet up in the first round. I think the podcasting Reid is favored here but they know each other’s game.
Man, lots of Lefties in action. At least four, maybe more. Something in the water in Denver maybe.
Projecting the Qtrs: – #1 Jake Bredenbeck vs Avila: Jake struggled with upsets all season … then blew it out in NY, taking out Pratt, Daniel De La Rosa and nearly beating Andree Parrilla. So which Jake shows up? – #4 Jose Diaz vs #5 Manilla: they’ve only played a couple times, but both matches were 3- or 5-game tiebreakers. I like Diaz here … in a tiebreaker. – #3 Horn vs #6 Carter: I don’t think they’ve ever played in a top-level event … so a first for everyone. Horn should win this one in two closer games. – #2 Charlie Pratt vs #7 Dylan Reid: another match-up of two upper northwestern guys, both hailing from Portland. Fly all the way to Denver … have a repeat of your tuesday night game. Pratt’s solid and advances here.
So i’m predicting Chalk to the semis … and then for some upsets to happen.
Semis: – #4 Diaz over #1 Jake: they’re pretty even career-wise h2h, but havn’t played in a year and a half. I like Diaz here. Diaz had the better season, nearly slipping into the top 10 and jumping Jake in the rankings. – #2 Pratt over Horn: They played in December in Portland, a close 2-game win for Pratt, and I like the year Pratt is having so far.
Final: – #2 Pratt over Diaz. head to head, Diaz has never lost to Pratt. But something tells me Pratt is on a mission this year.
—————- Women’s Singles: just 9 in this draw, but some good match-ups towards the back and one incredibly poor seeding job:
In the Quarters: – #1 Rajsich over #8 Cassandra Cassi Lee – #5 Kelani Lawrence over #4 Sheryl Lotts; here’s a seeding question. Lawrence made the Women’s singles final of the 2018 qualifier at Nat’l doubles, made the finals at 2018 Nationals, and made the finals at the 2019 Qualifier at Nat’l Doubles. So that’s basically the last three major National events…. how exactly is she seeded 5th in this event?? What more does she have to do to demonstrate that she’s basically the 2nd best American woman player right now? – #3 Hollie Rae Scott over #6 Adrienne Fisher Haynes – #2 Erika Manilla holds off retired LPRT legend Cheryl Gudinas
In the semis: – #1 Rajsich takes out Lawrence in a rematch of the last three major US national team final, instead of in the final like it should be – #3 Scott takes out #2 Manilla in a rematch of this year’s Intercollegiates semis.
In the final: Rajsich takes her 9th straight US title over Scott.
———————- Lastly, a note on attendance. There’s some separate conversations about the # of participants this weekend going on. Here’s a list of the participation numbers for the last 14 National Singles events (these are the “# of participants” from the r2sports page and should indicate unique players, not # of draw entrants):
The event held steady in the low 500s its last five years in H ouston, then spiked during its Fullerton years thanks to simultaneous IRT and LPRT events (some of the pro draws from those years were amazing; 70+ mens pros competing). But we’ve seen a precipitous drop in attendance over the last few years, including a 100+ attendee drop from 2015 to 2016, now not even able to clear 200 players this year. 191 players isn’t even close to what National Doubles got this year (306) and that number is basically halved from the beginning of the century.
I know there’s some fundamental industry issues that are driving down these numbers. But this is the NGB’s marquee event. You can’t turn back time and make it the mid 2000s again (to say nothing of the mid 1990s), but you can strategize other aspects of the event to make it more appealing to a larger audience, and I hope to see some turn around in the coming years.
Congrats to Andree Parrilla, who wins the Costa Rica Open on the weekend. He took both the Pro and the Open draw, defeating a slew of touring players along the way.
It may have only been a tier 2, but there were a slew of great matches in San Jose this past weekend.
————— Lets recap the Pro Singles draw, highlight key match-ups.
In the play-ins: – Cuban #1 Maikel Mollet beat #12 Alan Natera Chavez 11-8 in the breaker, a signature win for the Cuban.
In the 16s: – #9 Andres Acuña crushed doubles partner and country-man #8 Felipe Camacho 3,3. He’s had a great season and will get a great test going against #1 seed and #2 ranked Carson next. – #11 Ernesto Ochoa got a great win over #6 Mario Mercado 11-9. Ochoa has multiple wins over IRT top 10 players in the last year and probably has moved into the world top 20 at this point. – #10 Javier Mar beat #7 David Horn 13,7 to advance to face Landa in a juicy quarter final.
In the Qtrs: – #1 seed Rocky Carson made fast work over Acuna 6,4 in his opener. – #4 Alvaro Beltran got his first win over #5 Rodrigo Montoya Solís since Mexicali 2017 … and just like in 2017 he won 11-10. Montoya still has a career winning h2h record over Alvaro but missed an opportunity here. – #3 Andree Parrilla was stretched to a tiebreaker but took out #11 Ochoa 11-7. Hope to see more of Ochoa on tour going forward. – #2 Alex Landatook out #10 Mar in two close games 14,13. Definitely an indication of just how close these two guys are despite their seeds.
So, we’re chalk into the semis, top four seeds competing, despite some really close matches in the quarters.
In the Semis … we had two upsets. – #4 Beltran topped #1 Carson in a tie-breaker, continuing their current back-and-forth rivalry. The two veterans have played more than 50 times and have split their last 6 meetings. – #3 Parrilla beat #2 Landa in two game 8,11 to advance to the final, where he’s likely favored, having beaten Beltran their last three times on the court.
In the final, Parrilla came from a game down to trounce Beltran 11-2 in the tie-breaker for the win.
—————- There was an even larger Men’s Open draw, with essentially the full Pro draw of participants but with completely different seeding, resulting in semis-quality early round match-ups. Here’s a review of the notable matches in Men’s Open singles.
In the 16s: – Parrilla took out Montoya in two close games 14,12. These two have been playing forever; they’re the same year in juniors and traded back and forth junior Mexico and World titles. This is the first time they’ve met since Mexico Nationals in 2018, and it had been more than 2 years since Andree got a win over Rodrigo. – Camacho got wiped out by Ochoa 5,4. – Mollet got a rematch against Natera and lost in two 12,8. – Mercado beat Landa 11-8 in a match that I wonder how seriously Landa was playing (given that he’s into the pro semis, the doubles semis and was coming off a draining match over Mar).
In the Quarters: – #1 Parrilla advanced easily over #25 Felipe Alonso – #4 Horn beat #21 Ochoa by the slimmest of margins 14,14. – #6 Mercado took out upset-minded #19 Natera in a tie-breaker – #2 Acuna got a walkover from #7 Costa Rican Gabriel Garcia.
In the semis: – Parrilla beat Horn handily to make the final … putting him in both singles finals Pro and Open. – Mercado had a come-back tiebreaker win over Acuna to advance to the final.
In the final, Parrilla cruised past Mercado 8,7 for the double win.
—————- Lastly, they did play doubles, with some good pro teams playing. The draw went chalk to the semis, with 4 good teams of tour regulars playing. – Mar/Montoya topped #1 seeds Beltran/Landa in the top semi. – the CRC national doubles team of Camacho/Acuna beat two IRT vets Horn/Mercado in the other.
In what looked like an awesome final, the home-town team came from a game down and saved match points against to win 11-10 over the Mexican team of Mar/Montoya for the win.
—————- Points Implications of the Event: very little.
Here’s a quick points impact summary of these results: – top 14 remain unchanged. – Parrilla and Beltran each replaced missed results/0 point weekends with 120 and 90 points respectively, moving them up slightly but not enough to overtake Landa. – Carson and Landa did not earn enough points to replace any lower result weekends, so their seasonal point totals remain the same. – There was some slight movement up/down in the 15-20 range, as some players lost and gained points thanks to expiring/gained points on the weekend, but nothing major.
—————- If you missed any of the matches, they streamed on youtube all weekend. Go to Youtube.com and search for “10a edición Costa Rica Open Racquetball” to find the streams.
Next up: All the major countries are holding National events this coming weekend: USA Adult National singles, Canada national singles and doubles, and Mexican Junior Nationals. I believe Ecuador has some nationals next weekend as well. We’ll do previews of all events in what should be a busy weekend.
Next up for IRT: another lower tier event in Garden City, KS in two weeks time.
Acuna welcomes a solid pro draw to his home country.
The IRT Tier 1 slate may be done for the 2018-19 season, but a bunch of lower tier events are on the schedule still, including the 2019 Costa Rica Open, being held at the Costa Rica Country Club in San Jose, CRC.
There’s a solid Pro draw of 22 players, including 5 of the current top 10 players on the IRT, another 6-7 regular IRT touring pros, plus a number of internationals we normally only see at IRF events. We also get the #1 and #2 players from Cuba playing this event, which is a treat.
Lets preview the draw and predict the singles competition:
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In the Round of 32/Play-ins, some interesting match-ups; – In the 16/17 two Guatemalan Internationals face off: Hanzel Martinez Perez versus Edwin Galicia – #12 Alan Natera Chavez faces off against Cuban #1 Maykel Mollet; Natera should advance, but Mollet is a tough player. – #11 Ernesto Ochoa takes on Cubvan #2 Enier Chacon, another relative unknown but who plays well in International events.
Projecting the 16s; here’s some fun round of 16 matches: – #8 Felipe Camacho vs #9 Andres Andres Acuña; doubles partners in this event, they met in the IRT season opener, an Acuna 2-game win. Since then Acuna has had a magical run to the semis of PARC. They’re both on home ground; both players hailing from Costa Rica, so this could be a spirited match. – #5 Rodrigo Montoya Solís vs #12 Natera: they just met in Syosset; a 2,2 Montoya crushing … which was kind of the reverse of 2019 Mexican Nationals, when Natera beat him in the quarters. I’m guessing Montoya advances here. – #6 Mario Mercado vs #11 Ochoa: Here’s an interesting point: Ochoa has never entered a Tier 1 IRT event. But he’s got a ton of solid wins in Mexican Nationals (including a win over Beltran in 2018) and on WRT events close enough to his home in Chihuahua. Now he’s flown to Costa Rica and ends up facing an IRT top 10 player. Should be an interesting match. I suspect Ochoa can win this. – #7 David Horn vs #10 Javier Mar; tough opener for Horn, having to face Mar, fresh off a Qtr final appearance in Syosset. Mar beat Garay, Montoya and Sebastian Franco in NY before falling to Kane; Horn has his work cut out for him here.
Possible Quarters: – #1 Rocky Carson vs #9 Acuna; they last played at the 2017 US Open; Rocky is 3-0 lifetime over Acuna on tour. Somehow these frequent international players have avoided each other in IRF events. Carson cruises here despite Acuna having the home crowd rooting for him. – #4 Alvaro Beltran vs #5 Montoya: they’ve already met twice on tour this year; both two game easy wins for Montoya. I think Montoya’s game is a bad match-up for Beltran right now, who can shoot and put balls away but not under pressure like he gets when Montoya’s power serve is on. – #3 Andree Parrilla vs #6 Mercado; Assuming Mercado gets past Ochoa, he runs into Parrilla, who drastically improved his ranking this year to finish 4th on tour. But, the last time they played it was Mercado dumping Parrilla out of the Bolivian Grand Slam on home soil. Look for Parrilla to junkball his way to a win here. – #2 Alex Landavs #10 Mar: wow, great match. Mar beat Landa in the 2017 FMR finals … and then Landa returned the favor beating Mar in the quarters of the 2019 event en route to the title. These are two very good players, very close in talent, and if Mar is on Landa will not be able to beat him. Any given sunday; this is a coinflip.
Projecting the Semis: – Carson over Montoya; a rematch of Chicago semis, where Rocky won 11,2 and gave Montoya a lesson in the second game on match control. – Landa over Parrilla: another tough match for Landa; if he gets to the finals here he’ll have more than earned it. If Landa gets by Mar though, I think he’s in jeopardy of losing here. Parrilla’s beaten him twice on tour this year and could do it again.
Final prediction: Carson over Parrilla. The last two times they’ve played, it was a Parrilla 11-8 win in Chicago 2018 … and a Laurel Carson 11-10 win where Parrilla blew a simple cross court pass on match-point to lose. I expect another close one but Rocky’s hard to beat.
———————- They’re also playing doubles in San Jose. The Mar/Montoya team is only seeded 4th somehow; they’ll likely face Beltran/Landa in one semi, while the Costa Rican national doubles team of Camacho/Acuna likely faces two IRT regulars paired together in Mercado/Horn.
I like Mar/Montoya over Camacho/Acuna in a loud final.
