Category: Singles

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IRT 2020 Longhorn Open Preview

Moscoso is back in the States. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

One of the sports biggest amateur events has added the IRT men to its slate of competitors, making for a massive tournament in Austin this coming weekend. No less than 457 players are entered into this weekend’s Longhorn Open, with a healthy 39-man pro draw.

The IRT returns to the state of Texas for the first time since March of 2018 … and to Austin for the first time since Feb 2003. Its also the first time the tour’s #1 player Kane Waselenchuk has been able to play a “home” event since Oct 2015.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=31338

In the 39 man singles draw, we have the hoped-for strong Mexican player contingent, which is going to make for some *great* preliminary rounds and some fascinating match-ups. We are missing some key names though from the draw:
– #3 Rocky Carson announced on FB last week that he’s decided to skip this event to give his surgically repaired knee a bit more time to heal. He had a small knee op done in mid-Dec and isn’t quite ready to go yet.
– #9 Rodrigo Montoya Solís also missing.

These two absences jump #10 Lalo Portillo into the top 8 … and then thanks to the flip seeding this event he secures a lofty #6 seed. FYI, in case you’re wondering why the 5-8 seeds look odd, the flip seeding has resulted in slightly altered seedings versus rankings this event:
– #5 seeded Samuel Murray is ranked 8th at current
– #6 seeded Portillo is ranked 10th as noted above
– #7 seeded Daniel De La Rosa is ranked 6th at current
– #8 seeded Conrrado Moscoso is ranked 7th at current.

The more apparent and obvious implication of the flip is the possible Moscoso-Waselenchuk match-up in the quarters.

Other top 30 players missing in this event are #18 Sebastian ‘Patata’ Fernandez, #27 Sam Bredenbeck and #29 Jansen Allen, the longtime touring pro who misses an event that’s drive-able from his home outside of Dallas.

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Lets preview the draw. Here’s some notable qualifying matches that i’m looking forward to:

In the round of 128:
– #32 vs #33: Christian Longoria vs Andres Gomez; tough first rounder for the Colombian; Longoria is sneaky good and could be pressing for a main draw spot.
– #28 Justus Benson vs #37 Diana-Shai Manzuri; Manzuri continues to represent Argentina internationally well into his 40s, and will be a tough out for the regular tour player Benson. A home-state match-up for two Texas residents.
– #26 Kadim Carrasco vs #39 Edson Martinez: Martinez is seeded 39th of 39 players here, but he’s not the 39th best player in this draw. He’s made the quarters of this event twice in the last three years (albeit, when it was an WRT event). This could be a close match.

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In the round of 64:
– #33 Longoria vs #17 Robert Collins; Collins just misses out on the bye into the 32s, and may run into a player who can top him in Longoria.
– #20 Javier Mar vs #29 Alejandro Cardona; what a brutal match for these two. Mar is one of the top 6-7 players in the world, and Cardona isn’t far behind him. This is a quarter-final quality match happening way too early. I like Mar to move on and make a deep run here, as he frequently does during his rare IRT appearances.
– #19 Adam Manilla versus #30 Ernesto Ochoa; a great “show me” match-up between an IRT touring regular and an up and coming Mexican player with a ton of impressive wins on his resume. I like Ochoa for the upset.
– #23 Javier Estrada versus the Carrasco/Martinez winner; Estrada had a number of quality wins in the latter part of 2019, including two wins over Javier Mar. But he’s proven to be inconsistent. His last IRT appearance featured a win over Horn to make the main draw. Can he repeat here?

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Projecting the 32s: here’s some possible matchups, though the depth of this draw could make for some upsets and make these predictions moot:
– #9 Jake Bredenbeck vs #24 Alan Natera Chavez; Natera is another wild-card; he’s made the semis of Mexican Nationals two years running and has a ton of high-level wins, but he also can take curious losses. Which Natera will show up here? He can handle Jake’s power for sure; will that be enough? Jake looks to build on a solid pro season so far, which features no main draws missed and a semis appearance in Portland.
– #12 David ” Bobby” Horn vs #21 Jose Diaz; fly all the way to Texas to play the guy who lives down the road. Horn/Diaz know each other’s game pretty well, both being NorCal players frequenting the “209.” Who will have the upper hand on the day? I’m going to flip a coin and go with Diaz.
– #13 Carlos Keller Vargas vs #20 Mar: tough one for Keller; these two met at the US Open and Mar advanced. I think Keller’s streak of making the round of 16 ends here.
– #30 Ochoa vs #14 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez; Ochao downed Franco the last time they played last year in an RKT event; i think he wins again.
– #10 Sebastian Franco vs #23 Estrada: This could be a great match-up; I think these two are pretty close talent wise and if both are on their games, expect a dog-fight. I’ll go with Estrada here.
– #15 Thomas Carter vs #18 Eduardo Garay: Garay if he’s on his game can overpower Carter here, despite the Ohioan’s good play as of late.

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round of 16:
– #1 Kane over Acuna
– #8 Moscoso over #9 Jake
– #5 Samuel Murray over #21 Diaz
– #20 Mar over #4 Alvaro Beltran; Beltran gets one of the few qualifiers who I think can beat him. Mar pipped Beltran in the 2016 Mexican nationals to take a natioanl team spot from him, and since then Mar has continued to exude class.
– #3 Andree Parrilla over #30 Ochao; Ochoa has beaten Parrilla in the past (San Luis Potosi in 2018), but Parrilla needs to take advantage of his seeding to try to make a run to the final. i think he’ll move on here.
– #11 Mario Mercado over #6 Portillo: Portillo has run into talented players and one-and-dones the last two tournaments at this stage, and he runs into another one in Mercado. Mercado has the patience to beat the youngster Portillo and will move on with a tactical approach.
– #23 Estrada over #7 Daniel De La Rosa: I don’t think DLR’s heart is in it right now; i think he’s vulnerable to upset and a fired up guy like Estrada, who beat DLR the last time they played, could spell a one-and-done for the pickleball pro.
– #2 Alex Landa vs #18 Garay: Garay’s power won’t phase Landa, who’s putting together his best season and has shown little in the way of cracks in the armor.

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Projected Qtrs:
– #1 Kane vs #8 Moscoso: the US Open final rematch, a scintillating match on the sport’s biggest stage that showed the world what we could be in store for, if only the Bolivian played the tour full time. They met a few weeks later in teh semis of Arizona and Kane issued a schooling 10,2. What may happy here? Has Conrrado fixed his foot fault issues? Can he press the King?
– #20 Mar over #5 Murray; they’ve played a few times, and I don’t think Mar has ever lost to the Canadian #1.
– #3 Parrilla over #11 Mercado
– #2 Landa over #23 Estrada; Estrada’s magic runs out, though notably i don’t have a meeting between these two in the database. Would love to see these two face off.

Semis and Finals:
– Kane over Mar
– Landa over Parrilla

Finals; Kane over Landa.

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No pro doubles this event, but the Men’s Open is a full 32 strong, headlined by a slew of touring players. Since Portillo is ranked outside the top 10, he’s “allowed” to enter the Men’s Open draw despite being the 6th pro seed, and he’s the favorite in that draw. But there’s a slew of top local and Mexican players also in that draw, making it as compelling to the neutrals as the pro draw.

I also wanted to point out that there’s 52 players in the Men’s A draw. 52. There weren’t 52 combined men in Open, Elite AND A at the 2019 US Nationals event. Its no wonder the USAR is moving its Nationals event to this part of the country.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; can’t wait for this event!

International Racquetball Tour
USA Racquetball
Racquetball Canada
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
Federación Boliviana De Raquetbol – Febora
Federación Boliviana de Racquetball
Racquetball Colombia
Federacion Colombiana de Racquetball
Federación Costarricense de Racquetball

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Florida LPRT Pro/Am Wrap-Up

Longoria the double winner on the weekend. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Paola Longoria
– Doubles; Paola Longoria/Alexandra Herrera

A double win on the weekend for Longoria, who takes her 96th Tier-1 singles tournament win along with her 43rd pro doubles title since the fall of 2013.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=31860

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Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Singles Match report on www.proracquetballstats.com: http://rball.pro/D163E1

In the 16s, a couple of upsets:
-#12 seeded junior Valeria Centellas took out veteran #5 Rhonda Rajsich in a tie-breaker. Centellas won a topsy turvy match where she dropped the middle game 15-2 but held on in the breaker, keeping the pressure on Rhonda with a lot of pace and great getting ability.

– #13 fellow Bolivian junior Micaela Meneses Cuellar fared well against #3 Natalia Mendez, losing 6,8. Its worth noting that Meneses just finished her age-15 year.

– #11 Kelani Lawrence finally got a pro win over a top 8 touring player, downing #6 seeded Nancy Enriquez in a tight 13,14 match. She achieves her first pro quarterfinal appearance with a great showing.

– #7 Amaya Cris held on to down #10 @Maria Maria Renee Rodríguez 11-8 in the breaker.

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In the Quarters, the top 3 players advanced and we got another big upset.
– #1 Paola Longoria handled #8 Jessica Parrilla 6,9 to move into the semis.
– #2 Maria Jose Vargas took two closer games against #7 Amaya to move on.
– #3 Alexandra Herrera held off upset-minded #11 Lawrence 6,13.
– But the big result of the round was another upset at the hands of the Bolivian junior Centellas. #12 Centellas took out #4 Natalia Mendez Erlwein in two games 5,12 to move on to the semis. This is just her 5th pro tournament and she’s got a match-up with #1 Longoria.

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In the Semis and finals, the draw went chalk.
– #1 Longoria showed Centellas what it means to be #1 in the world, advancing 5,8. A great showing for Centellas on the weekend, as she also won the Women’s open RR draw.

– #2 Vargas advanced over #3 Herrera in two, but it almost went tiebreaker 5.14.

In the final Longoria raced to a game 1 win, then held on for the title 6,12 over Vargas.

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: http://rball.pro/54B7D4

In the final it was #1 versus #2, but it was as close a final as fans could ask for. Longoria and Herrera, who are now 13-0 together as a pro doubles team, took out the #2 Argentinians Vargas/Mendez by the razor thin scoreline of 14,14.

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Next up? The Men are back in action next weekend in Austin, then the subsequent weekend is the Sweet Caroline Grand Slam event in Greenville, SC.

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LPRT
USA Racquetball
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
Federación Boliviana De Raquetbol – Febora
Federación Boliviana de Racquetball
Asociación Argentina de Racquetball
Federación Chilena Racquetballacquetball
Federacion Colombiana de Racquetball
Jugadores Racquetbol Guatemala

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Pro Racquetball Stats/Top 5 predictions for the rest of the 2019-20 IRT season.

Can Landa hold off Carson for the #2 spot on tour? Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

Note: this was published with some slightly modified text updates on 1/13/20 here:
https://www.irttour.com/pro-racquetball-stats-top-5-predictions-for-the-remainder-of-the-2019-20-season/?fbclid=IwAR1_n9O2dL0EYcGelNDNqjd3_2gVB1-iE9jZwDP3bkVvoG2JpmJ7gCu70ak

Welcome to the 2nd half of the 2019-20 IRT season, racquetball fans! We’ve already seen six Tier 1/Grand Slams in the books this season, and we have at least another six Tier 1/Grand Slams on the slate for the spring, perhaps more to be announced. Here’s five predictions on what will happen the rest of the way out this season:

(Reminder: these are in the opinion of Todd Boss, not the IRT. This is for entertainment purposes only).

Prediction #1. Kane will win his 14th title … but will lose a match between now and the end of the season.

The first prediction probably isn’t that ground breaking, considering that Kane Waselenchuk has yet to be beaten on the court this year. But he’s going to have to work a bit to get the title; he has about the same amount of points to defend in the spring as Rocky Carson, but he’s slightly behind Alejandro Landa in YTD points right now.

But I’m predicting that Kane drops another match on the court at some point this year. Its hard to stay 100% healthy deep into your 30s, and I’m guessing that somewhere along the line Kane runs into a nagging injury that costs him a match. The schedule in Jan-Feb is tough: three straight weeks of Tier 1s, including the Tier 1 “plus” Lewis Drug Pro-Am in Sioux Falls that generally gets the best and biggest draws outside of the US Open. I wonder if we’ll see “load management” out of some of the IRT’s veterans to get through this section of the season. I hope not; the Sioux Falls event is great, and the Lou Bradley Memorial deserves a great showing since its a Tier 1 for the first time. But if it does, more opportunities for upsets and surprise runs from younger players.

Prediction #2: Landa will pip Carson for #2 at year end…. but Carson holds off Parrilla for #3

Carson dropped out of the top 2 on tour at the end of the Portland ToC event for the first time (save a brief period in 2016) in nearly a decade. After making the semis or better in all nine tournaments last season, he’s been upset in the quarters or earlier in 3 of the first 6 events this season. This has enabled Landa to take over #2 this season at the half way point. But the news doesn’t get much better for Rocky the rest of the way: Rocky has 400 more points to defend from the 2nd half of last season as compared to Landa, and Landa already has 300 more earned points this season.

A better question might be this: can Andree Parrilla overtake Rocky for #3 by season’s end? Rocky has a sizeable current lead in the rolling-12 month points standings over Parrilla for #3 … but like Landa has significantly more points to defend in the season’s second half. Rocky earned roughly 1,770 points from Jan 2019-season’s end, as compared to ~1,365 for Landa and ~1305 for Parrilla. Parrilla’s big problem now is his #4 ranking; he’s set every tourney for a tough 4/5 quarter, then feeds into Kane in the semis … making it really hard for him to make a final (or win the event) unless there’s a significant upset or Kane skips an event. Parrilla may need a tourney win to eclipse Carson for #3 this season.

Nonetheless, some interesting battles to watch for at the top.

Prediction #3: Eduardo Portillo will finish top 10 … but not top 8.

One of the big risers this season has been the young Mexican Portillo, who won Junior Worlds 18U in 2018 and is making a full time push on the pro tour. Playing half time last season, he finished 17th on tour, making the main draws in all five events he entered. He’s continued that streak of making main draw in ever event he enters this season, throwing in a couple of solid wins over top players to make the Semis in Arizona.

Portillo currently sits 10th in the rankings, 9th in season-to-date. But he’s gone one-and-done in the last two pro events at the hands of his direct competitors for the last top 10 spots (Franco and Montoya respectively) and needs to gain success in these matches to take the next step.

Prediction #4: Moscoso will make the Bolivian Open final again

The Bolivian Grand slam is set to occur in mid May 2020, a month and a half later than it was held in 2019. Right now Moscoso sits 7th in the rolling 12-month rankings and 7th in season-to-date rankings, but he’ll lose a significant chunk of his ranking points in early April when the points from his 2019 Bolivian GS event expire. This will send his ranking down significantly, probably into the 13-14 range, but it shouldn’t stop him from making a similar run to the final.

Who will he play there? Will we see Kane make the trip this year? I certainly hope so: I think the Bolivian crowd would love to see a rematch of the US Open Final between Kane and Conrrado. But, coming from a 13-14 range seed will make it that much tougher for Moscoso to advance through.

Prediction #5: The end of the season will see a number of “Retirements” of long-time touring players

I can’t read minds, and I won’t name names, but fans of the sport can already see a number of long-time touring players taking significant steps back already this season. In some cases sponsorship changes have forced players to make hard choices about the costs of touring. In other cases the realities of the current state of the game have exposed their true talent levels and they find themselves dropped well out of even a top 16 seed.

Bonus prediction: 2nd half should see more Mexican players playing Tier 1s.

The locations of the 6 tourneys on the schedule for the spring of 2020 are: Austin, Sioux Falls, Sun Prairie WI, Chicago, Bolivia and Denver. We also had a couple of additional stops on the schedule (New York and Chihuahua). The nice part about these stops? A lot of them are in easy airline hubs or close to/in Mexico, making it a lot easier from a cost perspective for the up and coming Mexican contingent of players to attend.

So here’s hoping that guys like Mar, Estrada, Natera, Martell, Cardona, Garay, Ochoa, Alonso, Longoria and the like play more this spring.

Happy New Year and here’s to an exciting 2nd half of racquetball!

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Florida LPRT Pro/AM Preview

Bolivian junior Valeria Centellas makes a rare state-side appearance. Photo via Deportivo Boliviana

Welcome to the first pro event of the 2020 calendar year!

https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=31860 for the R2 Sports App home page for the event.

The LPRT returns to the Miami area for the first time since 2014, and what a great place to have an event in the dead of winter (as I scrape ice off my windshield this morning)…

Perhaps because of the proximity to the new year, the pro draw is a bit small; just 16 players in the event. Missing are top 10 players #3 Samantha Salas Solis, #7 Montse Mejia and #10 Masiel Rivera Oporto. Its pretty rare for Salis to miss and event; the only one she missed last season was due to travel problems; perhaps she’s taking a mental break after getting some upset losses early this season. Traveling to his event is a trio of top Bolivian players, which should make for some great round of 16 match-ups; read on.

Thanks to missing players in the 11-14 range, Jessica Parrilla gets elevated all the way from her #14 ranking to the 8th seed here.

Lets preview the draw.

Matches to watch for in the 16s:
– 8/9 Carla Muñoz Montesinos vs Jessica Parrilla; 8th vs 9th always seem tough, and this one is no exception. Both players have notched wins over Salas this season, and both seem to be on the upswing. I’ve only got two career meetings in the database, one in 2013 and on in 2017 (they’re 1-1). Expect this to go tie-breaker, and I’m leaning towards the former top 4 pro Parrilla to end up on top.

– #5 Rhonda Rajsich vs #12 Valeria Centellas; If ever there was a “youth versus experience” match, this is it. Centellas was born in 2001; in the year 2001 Rhonda was busy finishing 3rd on the pro tour. Centellas is perhaps the most promising junior in the world today; as a 17yr old she finished runner-up to her country-woman at World Juniors and is already a regular representative of Bolivia in international events. So what may happen here? Based on her results against LPRT pros, i’m guessing Centellas takes this to the breaker but Rhonda prevails.

– #4 Natalia Mendez vs #13 Micaela Meneses Cuellar; well if you thought Centellas was precocious … Meneses just lost in the 16U world junior final 11-10, playing in her age 15 year season. She has just one LPRT appearance; last year’s Bolivian grand slam, where she took a game off of #1 seeded Salas in the 16s. She could trouble Mendez but I expect the Argentinia veteran to move on.

– #6 Nancy Enriquez vs #11 Kelani Lawrence; no prior meetings between these two players, but I suspect that Lawrence might keep this pretty close. Kelani has a couple of closer losses to Vargas this year, one of the few players on tour with power that rival’s Enriquez.

– #7 Cristina Amaya Cassino vs #10 Maria Renee Rodríguez; these two are frequent international competitors, given that they’re both frequent representatives of their home countries of Colombia and Guatemala respectively. Amaya holds a 6-1 career h2h, but the games are often close.

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Projecting the quarters:

– #1 Paola Longoria over #8 Parrilla: Jessica is 0-9 versus Paola in the database, but they havn’t met in more than two years.

– #5 Rajsich vs #4 Mendez: last meeting was an interesting game; Rhonda won 14,1. In 2018 worlds, Natalia beat Rhonda by the scores of 1,13. What may happen here? I like Rhonda in this one.

– #3 Alexandra Herrera over #6 Enriquez. Herrera is 5-2 over Enriquez, but Nancy beat her in last year’s SC event in a 5-game marathon after losing the first two games. I think the shorter match format favors Herrera, and I expect a two game win.

– #2 Maria Jose Vargas vs #7 Amaya: Another international tinged matchup; they’ve met 9 times with a lot of IRF meetings; Vargas is 7-2, but those two losses were years ago. Expect a Vargas win.

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Possible semis:

– Longoria over Rajsich: this would extend the most populous head to head matchup in the tour’s history: these two have met 66 times on the pro tour and quite a few other times internationally. After a shock upset at the 2018 Pan Ams, Longoria has regained control of their rivalry.

– Vargas over Herrera: Vargas is 6-0 lifetime over Herrera, but none of them really have been blowouts.

Projected Final: Longoria over Vargas.

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Doubles preview:

A 6-team doubles draw is scheduled; Salas’ absence robs the top team of one of its partners, and Mejia’s absence robs the 2nd best team of one of its partners … so it only made sense for Longoria to team with Herrera here. They’ll likely run into either the Enriquez/Parrilla team (which has been playing well together), or the #2 seeded Argentinian national team of Vargas/Mendez).

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Great to be back in action!

LPRT
USA Racquetball
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
Federación Boliviana De Raquetbol – Febora
Asociación Argentina de Racquetball
Federacion Colombiana de Racquetball
Racquetball Colombia
Federación Chilena Racquetball

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Davey Bledsoe 3/7/51 – 12/29/19

Hall of Famer Bledsoe was 68. Photo via USRA Hall of Fame

The Racquetball world got sad news over the holiday weekend; former Men’s pro champ and Hall of Famer Davey Bledsoe has passed away.

Bledsoe was born in 1951 in Kingsport, TN. He was one of the earliest racquetball pros in the sport, playing half the events in the first pro season on record (1974-5), then was a full time touring pro until the 1980-1 season.

Here’s a link to Bledsoe’s Player Profile at ProracquetballStats.com, summarizing his pro singles career:
http://rball.pro/7E09C5

Bledsoe’s best pro season was the 1976-77 season, where he made the semis or better in 6 of the season’s 12 sanctioned events and finished the season ranked #2 on tour. More importantly, he won the 1977 DP/Leach National Championships over #1 Marty Hogan​, giving Hogan his sole loss on the season in a 21-20, 21-19 match. Pundits from the era called the match either the greatest match in history, the biggest upset in history … or both. See https://www.proracquetballstats.com/irt/greatest_upsets.html for a fun list of some of the biggest upsets in pro tour history. This win gave Bledsoe the year-end Pro title and he is in a rather exclusive club; only 15 men have ever won a pro title in the sport’s history and he’s one of them.

The PRS match report for this 1977 Nationals tourney is here http://rball.pro/9EC830 . And, If you want to see a fun recap of that 1977 Nationals event … surf to this youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaI-NgBK5Q4&t=4s . Feel free to mute the 70s disco music :-).

As you can see from the video, Bledsoe was tall and lanky, lots of court coverage and lots of emotion in his play. He survived a furious comeback in game two to take the National title over Hogan, who went on to win the next four National titles.

In his prime, Bledsoe also competed in the Outdoor Championships in California, taking the singles title in 1978 (also over Hogan in the final) and making the semis or finals in several other years in the 70s and early 80s.

Bledsoe was part of an interesting group in racquetball lore: the “Memphis Mafia,” a group of top players in the Memphis area who played with Elvis Presley at his Graceland home. In case you didn’t know … Presley was an avid racquetball enthusiast and had two courts constructed on the grounds of his home, where he played along with some of the top players in the game at the time. Bo Keeley wrote about the group well here: http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=8674 . Its a fun side-note in American history.

Bledsoe retired from the pro tour after the 1980-81 season. He continued to play Amateur tournaments for years and claims 13 National amateur titles. He was inducted into the USAR Hall of Fame in 2010.

After his playing career ended, he began a career in Network Operations, working for major Telecom firms and for some Defense contractors in the DC area before retiring in Atlanta.

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Visual Depiction of Women’s Top 10 over time.

Well, everyone loved the IRT bar chart we did earlier this week, so here’s the same thing for the women.

Some interesting observations in this chart:
– 97 women have appeared in a top 10 since 1975. This is a bit more than the men; we see a lot of players who reached the top 10 for short periods of time, then dropped off quickly.
– The depth of the tour early on was very thin; the early parts of the graphic may look odd as it shows the early legends of the sport like Peggy Stedding and Jean Saucer lingering at the bottom of the bar chart before the tour begins to fill out.
– I think its amazing how many players debuted at #2 or #1 on tour; Heather McKay finished #1 in her first pro season, won four titles in five years, then basically disappeared. Lynn Adams debuted at #2 her first full season touring, as did Michelle Gould. Marci Drexler, who may be the most underrated player in the tour’s history, debuted at #3 in 1986 … then retired at #3 13 years later.
– Also interesting how so many players retired at or near the top. Gould ran off seven straight #1 titles … then never played again. Shannon Wright played seven events in 1983-84 season, made the semis in all of them … then quit and never played another pro event. In this graphic you’ll see these players’ bar charts just plummet off the screen, showing their ranking diving from a top 4 level to non-existent.

Enjoy! LPRT

ps: again, thanks to Jessica Swartz Amezcua for the great idea.

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Visual depiction of Men’s top 10 rankings historically

Fun stuff; Visual depiction of Men’s top 10 rankings historically

Have any of you seen those cool “Racing Bar Charts” that show stuff like population growth over time per country?

Well, thanks to a great suggestion from Jessica Swartz Amezcua, I found a site that lets you create these visualizations for free and created some one-off data spreadsheets and came up with this cool graphic:

Take a look, it shows the ebb and flow of all players ranked in the top 10 over time. It starts in the 1974-5 season, the first official “pro” tour season, and leverages results at the DP/Leach Nationals for the first few seasons to determine the top 10. In 1981-82, we had a points race for the top 10 for the first time, and have had it ever since.

Here’s a fun fact: in the entire history of the pro tour, now covering more than 45 years … there’s only been a grand total of 79 distinct players who have finished in the top 10 in a given season on tour.

Anyway, take a look at the visualization; its pretty cool. I’ll do something similar for the Ladies next.

International Racquetball Tour

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Xmas Classic IRT Tier 5 Singles wrap-up

Maurice Miller the triple-winner on the weekend. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

There was a 14-man IRT Tier 5 event at the LPRT Xmas classic; here’s a recap of that and some of the other amateur events that went on.

A ton of the LPRT pros played Mixed Open, there was a solid Women’s Open draw, and a few Men’s Open teams as well.

In the IRT Singles draw:
– #1 Maurice Miller took out top VA amateur #4 Thomas Gerhardt in one semi, and then #3 Troy Warigon defeated #2 Mauricio Zelada in the other. The 2/3 match was pretty special; the two home-court players played the perfect match: 14,(14),10.
– In the final, MIller overcame a game-1 loss to defeat Warigon for the title.

In Men’s Open, the two singles finalists teamed up to take the Open Doubles title over #3 seeds Dylan Pruitt and Jersey native David Austin.

In Women’s Open: Carla Muñoz Montesinos made up for her quarters loss in pros to take the singles Open title over Lexi York.

In Mixed Open, the two Mens singles finalists advanced again to the finals, and there Miller teamed up with Natalia Mendez Erlwein to take the title over #2 Warigon, who played with Virginia native Kelani Lawrence.

This made Miller the rare triple-winner on the weekend.

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LPRT Xmas Classic wrap-up

Longoria wins again. Photo US Open 2019, Photographer Kevin Savory

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:
– LPRT singles: Paola Longoria
– LPRT Doubles: Paola Longoria and Samantha Salas

Longoria the double winner on the weekend, but she definitely had to work for it (both finals went breaker). With the win, Longoria takes her 95th Tier1 or higher pro title and continues her dominance over the rest of the tour.

@ [275417952877375:274:R2 Sports App] link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=31661

Here’s the notable matches (to me) by round in pro singles:

PRS singles match report: http://rball.pro/8743AB

In the 32s:
– #16 @ [1537006408:2048:Kelani Lawrence] stretched the reigning world champ #17 seed @ [967286746619683:274:Ana Gabriela Martínez] to a tie-breaker but fell.
– #18 reigning intercollegiate champ Hollie Scott dropped the first game but rallied to advance past #15 Maria Renee Rodríguez.

In the 16s:
– #1 Paola Longoria blasted #17 Martinez 2,5. More and more, the upset at 2018 worlds seems like a one off as Longoria improves to 16-1 lifetime against the Guatemalan across all competitions.
– #8 Amaya Cris took out home-town favorite Masiel Rivera Oporto 7,9 to move on. This match-up continues to be one sided, and this match wasn’t nearly as close as their last one.
– Continuing to prove me to be an awful prognosticator, #4 @ [775189319225691:274:Alexandra Herrera] recovered from a 15-14 game one loss to take out #13 @ [459203580867542:274:Jessica Parrilla] in a tie-breaker to move on.
– #14 Carla Muñoz Montesinos got perhaps the best win of her career, topping #3 @ [189216717815799:274:Samantha Salas Solis] in a tiebreaker. After a come-back win in game one and a closer game two Salas win, Munoz ran away in the tiebreaker by forcing the action with lob Zs to Salas’ backhand and a patient approach waiting for a mistake. Salas continues her frustrating season; she’s now failed to reach the finals in the season’s first 6 events, often getting bounced well before them … after reaching all 9 of the finals she played in last year.
– #10 @ [500057236758842:274:Sheryl Lotts] nearly pulled off a career win over a top8 player, but ended up losing by the slimmest of margins 11-10 in the breaker to #7 Nancy Enriquez.

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In the Qtrs:
– #1 Longoria advanced over #8 Amaya in two straight.
– #4 Herrera got a rare win over #5 Rhonda Rajsich.
– #6 Mendez took advantage of #14 Munoz and advanced to just her 3rd ever pro semi. Munoz misses a great opportunity after her career win over Salas to make her first semi in several years.
– #2 Vargas dominated #7 Enriquez to make the semis.

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In the semis: #1 and #2 Longoria and Vargas demonstrated the gulf in class by each advancing in two quick games.

In the final, Longoria and Vargas met for the fourth time in five tourneys this season … and it was a barn burner. Longoria won the first game 3, then Vargas found some new approach midway through the second to push to a tie-breaker. There, she raced to a dominant lead and it looked like she’d get the upset … but Longoria found another gear and took the match 11-8.

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Doubles recap

PRS doubles match report:

It was a lot of chalk in the women’s pro doubles, but the final is where the fireworks were. In the end, Longoria and Salas won their 32nd pro doubles title since we began tracking pro doubles data, but needed a come-back win over the Argentines Vargas/Mendez to do it.

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Next up on the schedule: a @ [447961672301858:274:RKT] event in Juarez next weekend, then we get a holiday break until the LPRT returns to action 1/12/20 weekend in Ft. Lauderdale.

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@ [477520325593928:274:LPRT]

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28th Annual LPRT Christmas Classic Preview

World Champ Ana Gabriela Martinez makes a rare LPRT appearance.

Here we are; its the last domestic pro tournament of the calendar year. And the LPRT is back at a frequent location, the Sportfit Laurel club in Laurel MD for 28th annual running of this event.

R2 Sports App link for the event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=31661

The brackets are up (for the Pro events) as of this writing.

20 LPRT pros entered into the draw, a step down from the 28 who played the Chicago event a few weeks back. Missing from the top 10 this time around is #8 Montse Mejia, which bumps #9 Amaya Cris into the 8th seed.

Missing from the 11-20 range of regular touring pros include Adriana Riveros, Brenda Laime Jalil, Ana Laura Flores and Erin Rivera, which will bump up a lot of regulars into seeds in the upper teens and will give us some intriguing round of 16 matches (as we’ll see in a moment).

The draw also sees a rare appearance by 2018 World Champion Guatemalan Ana Gabriela Martínez, perhaps taking geographical advantage of an East coast tour stop to her home country.

Lets preview the draw:
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In the play-ins:
– #16/#17 is always fun, and this time is no different. Reigning World Champ Martinez as the #17 seed faces off against reigning US National champ and Virginia native Kelani Lawrence. Lawrence has been trying to make some traction on the pro tour this year, and has played some top 4 players tough in early round matches, and now has quite a challenge on her hands to even get to the round of 16.

– #13 Jessica Parrilla vs #20 Graci Wargo: 18U junior Wargo makes her pro tour debut, coming off of a quarterfinals result in Junior Worlds in November in her last event as a junior. She runs up against a resurgent Parrilla, who got a solid win in Chicago to advance to the Quarters.

– #14 Carla Muñoz Montesinos vs #19 Lexi York; a fun match that we would have seen last year possibly in Intercollegiates; now we see York making the cross-country trip to compete. This could be a closer match than Munoz may like.

– #15 Maria Renee Rodriguez vs #18 Hollie Rae Scott: a tough match-up for MRR, who runs into Scott, who won Intercollegiates, made the finals of USA Nationals in June and who just topped Rajsich at the Portland LPRT exhibit. I like Scott to move on here.

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Round of 16 matches of note:
– #1 Paola Longoria vs the Martinez/Lawrence winner: either opponent will make for an interesting show. Martinez of course topped Longoria at Worlds but otherwise has generally been dominated by the #1 (1-15 lifetime across pro and IRF events). Lawrence has played here a handful of times, including in this event last year.

– #8 Amaya vs #9 Masiel Rivera Oporto; 8/9s are always fun, and this should be no different. Amaya is 4-0 lifetime over Rivera … but the last time they played it was 11-10 (in Chicago a few weeks ago), and … this is basically Rivera’s home court, living just a few miles away. Will a strong rooting interest spur her to victory? Look for another tiebreaker here.

– #4 Alexandra Herrera vs #13 Parrilla: they met in the first event of the season, an 11-9 win for the lefty. Since, Parrilla has gained more of her game back. I like Parrilla’s chances here of an upset.

– #2 Maria Jose Vargas vs #18 Scott: I think Scott can hang with Vargas, make it a bit close, but still expect Vargas to advance.

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Projecting the Quarters:
– #1 Longoria over #9 Rivera
– #13 Parrilla over #5 Rhonda Rajsich: these two haven’t played since before her knee injury, and in the 2017 timeframe they were neck and neck, with a bunch of 5-game marathons. I think Parrilla continues her run.
– #3 Samantha Salas Solis over #6 Natalia Mendez; because of their relative seedings over the past few years … they have relatively few meetings on tour. Just two LPRT meetings and none since Apr of 2018. Salas has never lost to Mendez, and I expect her to advance here.
– #2 Vargas over #7 Nancy Enriquez; they met for the first time in September, an easy Vargas win. I expect the same here.

Projected Semis: Longoria over Parrilla, Vargas over Salas.

Projected final: Longoria over Vargas.

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Quick doubles preview:

The top team of Longoria/Salas looks set to run through the draw and face the #2 team of Mendez/Vargas, who will not have to deal with the power of the Herrera/Mejia team this time around. I like the #1 team to win.

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Reminder, there’s also a nice little IRT Tier 5 at the same time, with a solid east coast draw. We’ll recap that at the end of the weekend.

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LPRT
Jugadores Racquetbol Guatemala
USA Racquetball
Racquetball Canada
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
Asociación Argentina de Racquetball
Federacion Colombiana de Racquetball
International Racquetball Federation – IRF