Category: USA

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Andres Acuña

The Costa Rican takes advantage of a slew of upsets to come out on top and win his second career Tier 1 title.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54042

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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/760e6e

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In the 32s:

– LA-based former touring pro John Wolfe got an 11-9 win in the 16/17 seed match against Chicago’s Base Zera.

– DJ Mendoza needed a tiebreaker to beat his junior national doubles partner Cole Sendrey to move on.

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In the 16s:

– #8 Portillo got an injury walkover against Alonso in his 8/9 match to move on and save some effort on the court.

– #5 Montoya blasted Gastelum, who had upset him in the previous event, to move on.

– #4 Flores cruised past upset-minded Trujillo 5,4 after having been stretched to a breaker against him earlier this season

– #6 Parrilla had to go breaker to beat countryman Martell.

– #7 Manilla took out fellow American lefty #10 Carter to move on.

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In the Quarters

– #8 Portillo took out a somewhat disinterested Kane Waselenchuk in a breaker 9,(11),5. Kane often found himself slightly out of position on these very slow panel courts, hitting a number of balls between his legs or going for circus shots as the pace of play seemed to be throwing him off. Meanwhile, the slow courts and slow ball seemed better suited to Lalo’s game, as he cruised to a game 1 win and a lead in Game 2. At that point, a frustrated Kane, who the previous point had wanted an avoidable on a jam serve he was aiming at the right corner, blasted a full force forehand into Portillo’s leg, attempting again to hit that reverse pinch and again demanding an avoidable. To many, it seemed like an intentional shot meant to inflict pain, or intimidation. Lalo worked through the blast without comment or complaint, and eventually took the match, but the resulting bruise nearly covered his entire quad. Nonetheless, it ended Kane’s title-winning season early, and gave Portillo his second ever win over Kane (Lalo was on the court when Kane tore his Achilles back in Sept 2022).

– Montoya took out Flores 12,14 in a tight match of hard hitters.

– Acuna eased past Parrilla 8,5 and seems “on” this weekend for sure.

– Manilla beats his second US National teammate in a row, topping Jake 9,13 to make the semis.

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In the Semis, a wide-open field now missing both top seeds meant a title was there for the taking.

– #8 Portillo continued his run, beating #5 Montoya to make his 3rd final of the season.

– #3 Acuna beat #7 Manilla in a tactical battle 8,13 to move into just his second career final.

In the Finals, Acuna topped Portillo 7,12 to win his second ever Tier 1 title.

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Points Implications of results

Neither #1 Kane or #2 Moscoso changed their overall best 10 results, and finish the year 1-2 easily. Acuna’s title moves him to #3, jumping over Jake for 4th. Montoya’s h2h win over Flores seals 5th place for him over the Bolivian, while Portillo’s run to the title secures 7th place.

Mar’s last minute absence drops him to 10th, while Natera’s absence costs him a season top 10 finish; he drops to #11.

We’ll do our annual season-ending deep dive into the players once the season points are finalized.

Here’s a link to my IRT Rolling 2year Calendar XLS..

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Open Singles, other notable draws

– There was no pro doubles, but the Open Doubles was stacked. It was taken by #3 seed Mexican youngsters Erick Trujillo / Alvaro Guillen.

– Guatemalan Juan Jose Salvatierra took the Open singles title, beating Mexican Miguel Angel Arteaga Guzman in the final.

– StL High school league grads Kyla Davis / Ella Boaz took the Women’s Open doubles title.

– Kelly Gremley / Blase Zera took the Mixed Open doubles title.

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Carrie Reitmeier, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre, and the entire IRTLive crew.

Thanks to the Tourney Director @dan whitley for putting this event on!

Thanks to the Tourney Sponsors KWM Gutterman, Downey Ethics, St. Louis Redbirds, Wood Phillips Patent/Trademark/Copywright attorneys, and

Thurman Brooks – TLBJ CPA Firm.

Reminder to Players! Please like and follow this page so that when I tag you, you see it. Facebook will only retain tags of people that like/follow a page, which means lots of you are not getting the notoriety of getting tagged and noticed on Facebook. If your name is here and it isn’t tagged … it probably means I attempted to tag you but Facebook stripped it.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

In two weeks, we have US Junior Nationals, to determine the players eligible for the 2026 World Juniors later this year. That will then take us to the end of the 2025-26 season officially. July features Outdoor Nationals, NMRA Nationals. August will feature Mexican Junior Nationals, an IRF regional competition in the DR, and a lower tier IRT event in Costa Rica to kick off the 2026-27 season.

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tags

Welcome to the final event of the 2025-26 IRT season, the 2026 Gateway City Pro am, being held at the Vetta Sports clubs in the St. Louis area. This event takes the place of the postponed US Open, which was initially set to fall on this date but has been pushed a year due to unforeseen circumstances.

St. Louis holds an important spot in the history of our sport. It hosted a number of the early IRA Nationals events (in 1969, 1970, 1973, and 1975). It also was home to a slew of the sport’s early stars, including Marty Hogan, Jerry Hilecher, Steve Serot, Benny Koltun, Doug Cohen, Kenny Wong, Jerry Zuckerman, and the Gross brothers. More recently, StL hosted a decade-long event annually, named the IrtNetwork.com open initially, then Party with the Pros and Winter Rollout.

St. Louis’ High School league remains unique in the country, and the area still churns out hundreds of tournament players per year.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=54042

There are 33 players in the Men’s Pro singles draw, including four St Louis-area top high school players, the entire Guatemalan men’s national team and the entire Costa Rican men’s national team, who make up a bulk of the players seeded 20 and above. This event is the last pro event prior to this summer’s Central America and Caribbean Games event, which every north American country not called USA or Canada is playing.

top20 players missing; unfortunately we got word earlier this week that civil unrest in Bolivia made it impossible for #2 Conrrado Moscoso to get his visa processed in time to make the flight up here. This robs Moscoso of one final pay day for the season, and thins the draw considerably. He and Kane met 8 times this season, but we won’t get a 9th. I suppose i’m thankful that the tour race didn’t get decided by this event, in that Kane’s win a month ago in Montana sewed up the title for the season.

– #2 Moscoso (visa issues)

– #10 Natera

– #17: Carrasco (presumably also visa issues)

– #18, #20: Miranda and Garcia: funding, possibly visa issues (both still live in Bolivia as well)

– #19 Sam Bredenbeck: stepping back

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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 32:

– Wolfe-Zera in the 16/17 should be close

– US Junior national team member Grant Williams faces down the always tough Jordy Alonso in the first round

– Sneaky good Costa Rican player Gabriel Garcia faces Montoya.

– We get an all-USA Junior U21 matchup between DJ Mendoza and Cole Sendrey, who have together won two straight US Junior national doubles titles together.

– Evan Whitley, son of the tournament director, gets to face #2 Jake Bredenbeck in his pro debut.

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round of 16:

– I like the 8/9 Portillo-Alonso match; that could go either way depending on who’s hot or who is rusty.

– Montoya has to play Gastelum again; last time they played, Diego beat him.

– The red-hot Trujillo plays into the similarly red-hot Jhonathan Flores; this is too early to see this matchup, which on form is at least a quarterfinal match.

– Parrilla faces Martell in a throwback to a decade-old WRT matchup

– An all USA lefty showdown between Manilla and Carter in the bottom half of the draw.

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Projected Qtrs:

– #1 Kane will face the Portillo/Alonso winner. Both have wins over him, but neither will be favored.

– In the 4/5, assuming seeds hold, we get a banger between Flores and Montoya. Two of the hardest hitters on tour could be awesome. Or, we could get a shocker rematch between Gastelum and Trujillo if things don’t fall the way the top seeds want.

– I’m projecting an upset in the 3/6 Acuna-Parrilla match; Parrilla owns a dominant 7-2 h2h lead in my database over Acuna, dating all the way back to a 10U world juniors matchup 20 years ago.

– Another all-USA matchup awaits Jake Bredenbeck, who will face either Manilla or Carter for a semis spot.

Semis:

– Kane vs Flores/Montoya winner; love this match, hope its Kane-Flores, who have met twice in their careers, both being relatively interesting matches to watch.

– Recently married Parrilla shocks the tour with his second upset in a row, beats jake to make the final of the event.

Finals; Kane over Parrilla in a fun contrast in styles.

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Doubles review: There are no Pro doubles this weekend, as the tour is focusing on driving more prize money to the singles draw, making this an IRT-800 event. There will be some solid teams in the Open Doubles draw, which we’ll recap on Monday.

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Look for Streaming in the regular places; follow the IRT on Facebook and sign up to get notifications when they go Live. Look for Carrie Reitmeier, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre, @JTRball, and the IRTLive crew all weekend on the microphone, calling the shots!

Thanks to the Tourney Director @dan whitley for putting this event on!

Thanks to the event sponsors: KWM Gutterman, Downey Ethics, St. Louis Redbirds, Wood Phillips Patent/Trademark/Copywright attorney, and Thurman Brooks – TLBJ CPA Firm.

Thanks to tour sponsors: KWM Gutterman, Papa Nicholas coffee, Black & White Energy drinks, Reignstorm Group; tax and wealth management, Frank Hotels

Gearbox , and Formula Flow.

IRT Club Fantasy: If you’re in the IRT Club, sign up to play Fantasy Racquetball along with myself, Brian Pineda, and other club members. Also, be sure to tune into our Fantasy Fast Break podcast, which we do before and after every IRT Tier 1 event!

Associations

International Racquetball Tour

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Kane Waselenchuk

TL/DR Executive Summary: Kane wins the event, his 5th of the season, his 133rd of all time, but more importantly clinches the 2025-26 season ending title for his 16th career pro title. If there was a Mount Rushmore of Racquetball, it would be Kane, Cliff, Sudsy, and Hogan … and Kane now has as many year end titles as the other three legends combined.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=51565

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Let’s review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/08ee66

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In the 16s, a couple of monumental upsets

– Diego Gastelum, who has been slowly creeping up the rankings, got a career best win over #5 Rodrigo Montoya, who this pundit had pegged for the semis. (12),12,6 for his first ever win over a top 8 pro.

– Also in this same quadrant, Erick Trujillo continues his rise back up the rankings with a heart-stopping 11-10 win over #4 Andres Acuna. Acuna had match point at 10-4 in the breaker … but skipped a return for the win and then watched as Trujillo came all the way back for the win.

– Mar needed a breaker to over take Thomas Carter, then an ankle injury took him out of the quarters.

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In the Quarters

– #1 Kane handled #9 Manilla 3,9, about what you’d expect at this juncture. Adam is crafty enough to get points but not enough to really press Waselenchuk.

– Trujillo put down Gastelum 11-7 in the third to earn his first career pro semi.

– Flores has to go deep into the breaker to beat Jake 11-8 to advance to his third straight semi-final. Flores is establishing himself as the 3rd best player in the world behind the two top seeds on tour.

– Moscoso got a walkover against Mar … saving some wear and tear on his body for the eventual final against kane.

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In the Semis

– Kane obliterated Trujillo 0,4 in a match that looked for a bit like it may be a double donut in a pro semi.

– Moscoso topped Flores once again, but was pushed as hard as his younger countryman has done so far with an 11-7 breaker.

In the Finals

– Kane wasn’t really troubled throughout, opening up a 12-0 lead in game one. Moscoso, as he normally does, seems to start slow then wake up and pulled the match back to 14-9, but it was too much of a deficit. In game 2, led throughout the early portion of the game, then at the mid way point down 6-8, Kane took over, blitzing Conrrado for a handful of points to take the lead, one which he’d never relinquish. At match point, Kane put away an easy cross court winner for the game, the match, the tournament, and the season title.

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Points Implications of results

As mentioned at the top, and in the previews, Conrrado had to win out to win the title. With this win, Kane has an uncatchable lead … even if he didn’t even show up for the last event of the season. He wins his 16th career pro title at the age of 44, a pretty amazing feat.

Here’s a link to my IRT Rolling 2year Calendar XLS, which I use to approximate the points after each event. In the interests of the race, I have been keeping this artifact exactly matching the top 20-25 players for the season.

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Open Singles, other notable draws

– Subieta beat Veronica Sotomayor in the Men’s Open final.

– Montoya/George topped Natera/Frank in the Men’s Open doubles final.

– Centurian Doubles: Monchik and Frank blitzed the draw for the win.

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Carrie Reitmeier, Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre, and the entire IRTLive crew.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

No pro events the rest of the month, but we do have Canadian Nationals on Memorial Day weekend. Then in June, each of the IRT and LPRT have season ending events, along with USA Junior Nationals. I’d imagine we’ll ahve Mexican Junior Nationals announced soon (Canada does its Jr. Nats at its May overall national championships).

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tags

International Racquetball Tour