Category: USA

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Jake Bredenbeck

– Doubles: @Daniel De La Rosa and @Alejandro Landa

Bredenbeck beats #1 and #2 to claim his second career IRT title. Landa and DLR win their first title together since claiming the US National crown in February.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=41100

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Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/fz9

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In the 32s: the move to a non-qualifying draw continues to show its impact. Of the nine round of 32 matches competed, four of them could only be described as complete blow outs, finishing with score-lines of 2&0, 2&1, 5&1, and 0&1. Even those which didn’t finish in 15 minutes were generally not competitive, featuring single game scores in the low single digits. Only one tiebreaker in the entire play-in round, when #11 Jaime Martell was pushed to a breaker by #22 @Oscar Elias Nieto.

Lower-ranked players: are you still sure you want a non-protected draw?

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In the 16s, just one upset by seed and really only a couple of competitive matches as the IRT starts to get really chalky.

– #11 Martell upset #6 @Alejandro Landa 14,12. Landa was recovering from a couple of simultaneous injuries suffered in an IRT match earlier this season and the Opportunistic Martell took advantage.

– The only other close match in the 16s was #2 Daniel De La Rosa grinding past #15 Sam Bredenbeck 7,12.

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In the Quarters, we saw some solid ball.

– #1 @Conrrado Moscoso , who could not lose #1 unless he lost in the first round, cruised past the #8 seed Alan Natera .

– #5 Rodrigo Montoya continues his recent dominance over #4 Andree Parrilla , beats him for the 5th straight time in all competitions to move into the semis. With this win, Montoya should ascend into the top 4 on the IRT for the first time.

– #3 Jake Bredenbeck raced past the upset-minded Martell 11,2 to move into the semis for the 5th time in six tournaments this season, after having made a grand total of 5 pro semis in his entire career prior.

– #2 De La Rosa moved past the lefty Adam Manilla 12,6 to setup a critical meeting against Jake that has significant ramifications both for the pro tour and for USA national rankings as we approach National singles.

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In the Semis

– Moscoso and Montoya had their customary “nothing between them” first two games, splitting it 14 one way and 13 the other, before Conrrado ran away with the tiebreaker to move into the final.

– In the bottom half, pundits (ahem, me) thought DLR would advance into the final like he normally does over Jake (he’s 13-2 lifetime against Bredenbeck and has owned him this whole season). Jake had other plans, taking game 1, getting a huge lead in the breaker and holding off a comeback attempt to take the semi and advance into the final.

In the Finals, another upset as Jake took out Moscoso in two straightforward games to get his first ever win over the Bolivian and claim his second title after taking Portland in December. Jake played solid, calm, tactical power racquetball to take out the world #1. A well earned win.

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Points Implications of results:

We’ve alluded to the expected changes above, but we’re seeing some major movement with these results:

– Thanks to Jake’s replacing last year’s round of 16 loss in SoCal with a win here, he will supplant De La Rosa easily for #2 on tour. What a great achievement for Jake, who many thought would be mired in the 7-10 range as a peak for his career.

– Montoya will jump over both Parrilla and the missing Eduardo Portillo and moves into the coveted #4 spot. He’ll continue to project into Moscoso in the semis, and may very well continue to face his long-time nemesis Parrilla in the 4/5 spot in the quarters, but he’s now in position to put some points on the board.

– Manilla should move up to #8 spot.

– Murray drops to #9 and with his latest injury is in serious jeopardy of dropping out of the top 10 for the first time since 2016.

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/zc9

This tournament marked the triumphant return of Alvaro Beltran to the tour after months away, and also marks a new pathway forward for Beltran. For a while, he has been hinting at retiring from playing singles but still wanted to play doubles. However, his long-time doubles partner De La Rosa has been forced to find new partnerships in his absence.

Since Alvaro’s injury, DLR has played with @Kadim Carrasco (semis loss in Florida), Sebastian Fernandez (semis loss in Austin), @javier Mar (a win in the Lewis Drug), Landa ( a win at US nationals, then a Finals loss in Atlanta before this weekend), and then with Moscoso (a loss in Minnesota). Suffice it to say, DLR needs a regular partner. Has he found one in Landa? Maybe so; he and Landa eased into the final by topping Chicago’s champs Parrilla and Manilla in the semis.

There, they met … DLR’s old partner Beltran, who teamed with Montoya this week in Mar’s absence and got a very solid win over the PARC finalists from Bolivia Moscoso & Carrasco to get t here.

In the final, the former partners showed little good will towards each other in a tight, testy match that belied the existence of some tension between the long-time partners. In the end, DLR and Landa took the title, their first since taking US Nationals in February, though Beltran made his normal array of fantastic shots.

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Other notable draws.

In the Men’s Open, Trujillo (who curiously forfeited his pro match) took out for fellow Mexicans in a row (Sanchez, Nieto, Ortega, and Longoria) to take the Men’s Singles Open title.

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew . thanks to Brian pineda for coming out of broadcasting retirement to make it happen this weekend.

Thanks to the Tourney Director @Favio Soto and for Keith Minor as always for your continued support of the sport. I’m not sure we have pro racquetball right now without KWM Gutterman and Minor.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

Next weekend the LPRT is back in action for the first of two back to backs, in San Antonio and then their Grand Slam in Greenvile, SC. The IRT has had several events fall through and now doesn’t have a tier 1 again until the big event in Denver, which may very well feature the return of Kane Waselenchuk .

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tags

@kwKwm Gutterman

International Racquetball Tour

Welcome back! It’s been a month since the last IRT event, but it seems like forever since the Men’s pro’s were in action. But they’re back, in Southern California.

r2sports home page: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=41100

Perhaps its a hangover effect from the PARC, but this event is missing a ton of regulars. #4 Lalo, #8 Murray (who got injured in Guatemala), #10 Acuna are not here; these guys rarely miss an event. Plus a big chunk of the 11-14 ranked guys conspires to give Natera a #8 seed here, by far his highest ever pro seed. (note: post publishing JTRBall tells us that both Lalo and Acuna are at the Asia championhships).

A total of 28 players here, down from 42 players at this same event this same weekend last year. This continues a troubling trend on the IRT, which seems to have lost a third of its players in the last year.

Daniel De La Rosa won this event last year, so he’s defending full winner’s points. Meanwhile Moscoso lost in the quarters and will likely gain ground on his top rival DLR for the #1 spot after the weekend.

Lets go through the draw, see what may happen with so many top players out.

round of 32:

– @Rocky Carson is back, playing on tour for the first time in months in his home town. He faces local junior Cody Elkins in a round of 32.

– Jaime Martell takes on fellow Mexican Neito Oscar.

– #6 Alejandro Landa , fresh off not going to PARC, gets to play a name we havn’t heard in a while, former Japanese international Hiroshi Shimizu . Shimizu has pro results dating back to 2001-2, nearly as long as Rocky.

– in the 15/18 match, Sam Bredenbeck takes on Mexican youngster Jesus Guillermo Ortega in a match that could be closer than expected.

In the 16s, the top 4 seeds join the action. Matches of note for me:

– Rodrigo Montoya projects to face Carson and probably ends his return to the tour early.

– Landa projects to face his old WRT rival Martell.

– #7 Adam Manilla versus #10 Erick Trujillo is probably the most interesting match of the round. A good test for Trujillo to see if he can get by the crafty lefty.

Projected qtrs:

– #1 Conrrado Moscoso takes out Natera

– #4 Andree Parrilla faces his nemesis #5 Montoya, who has taken over their h2h lately. Montoya wins again and moves on.

– #3 Jake Bredenbeck projects to face #6 Landa in an intriguing match. Last time they played, Landa cruised past Jake at the 2022 USA National singles event to take the qualifier spot. But, since then Jake has really turned things around. What happens here? This is likely a preview of a match that happens in May with a spot on the US team on the line.

– #2 DLR projects to face Manilla, another possible May USA nationals match. DLR moves on.

Semis:

– Moscoso may be #1, but he has the harder semi against Montoya, a player who has proven time and again he can beat the Bolivian. These two met at this juncture in Chicago and it was a 14,14 win for Conrrado. What happens here? Coin flip, but i think Moscoso is on a roll after dominating the PARC event.

– DLR vs Jake. they keep running into each other at this juncture … and Jake keeps pressing the action but falling short. I see an other DLR TB win.

Final: DLR tops Moscoso. I think the jet setting catches up to Moscoso and DLR defends his title.

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Doubles preview:

The big news, as announced on Sudsy Monchik ‘s show last Sunday, is the return of Alvaro Beltran to the court. He has not played professionally since injuring his elbow in the Vegas 3WB tournament last October.

He’s paired with Montoya, whose regular partner @javier Mar is not here. They’re the #1 seeds; can they run the table?

They’ll face stiff competition from the top half of the draw, which features PARC champs Moscoso & Carrasco, who will have to get by the Bredenbeck brothers before taking on the Mexicans for a spot in the final. We’ll see how Beltran is doing quickly, as their opponents will be testing Alvi’s stamina.

From the bottom half, the #2 seeds Parrilla and Manilla have had some fast success together, but will have to get by the newly crowned USA national team pairing of DLR/Landa.

I’m looking at Team Bolivia versus team USA in the final, with DLR/Landa getting the win

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Look for Streaming starting at 7pmEST/4pmPST on the regular channels

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

– Singles: @Conrrado Moscoso

– Doubles: @Andree Parrilla and Adam Manilla

Moscoso secures his 6th career win, tying him for 16th all time. He now has as many tier 1 victories as @Jerry Hilecher , Ruben Gonzalez and Drew Kachtik each had in their careers.

On the doubles side, Parrilla wins his 4th career pro title and Manilla his 2nd.

see https://rball.pro/vhp for a list of all Tourney winners.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=40557

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Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

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

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In the 64s and 32s, absolutely no surprises.

The only upset by seed was in the 16/17 game between Carrasco and Cuevas, and no one was surprised by the 6,8 victory by the 17th seed. All sixteen round of 32 matches were two-game wins, zero tiebreakers, zero upsets. Lots of blow outs, and even those games that appeared like they were closer probably weren’t; if a player wins the first game 15-1 and then wins the second game 15-11 …. it’s not like the losing player suddenly “figured things out” as much as its likely “the winning player coasted.”

I mention these facts because this is a side-effect of going to a straight draw, which some lower level players have clamored for. Well, congratulations, you’ve gotten what you want. People are convinced that from a competitive level giving top players byes into either the 16s or the 32s was unfair to the rest of the tour; well, what you fail to realize is that these top players are there for a reason. Now instead of getting a more competitive match in the 32s against a player seeded closer to your ability, mid-20s seeds are forced to play IRT top 8 players and get crushed.

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In the 16s, we got nearly chalk, with 7 of the top 8 seeds advancing. Only in the 8/9 match did we get an upset, with Acuna taking out Manilla a week on from a reverse outcome in the same matchup.

– Montoya held serve against an improving Natera in a closer than expected game 9,14

– Moscoso was taken to breaker by his countryman Carrasco.

– Landa dropped the first game and held on for an 11-9 tiebreaker win against Carter

– Murray made a statement against Mar, winning 2,13 to move on in a match I thought would go the other way.

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In the Quarters

– Moscoso crushed Acuna 3,7

– Montoya topped Parrilla yet again, going breaker yet again. These two have been playing each other for so long, dating to Juniors and WRT, and now it looks like they’ll continue to do so on the pro tour.

– Portillo made fast work of Landa 2,9

– Jake crushed Murray 3,7 to continue to prove that he belongs near the top of the IRT.

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In the Semis

– Moscoso won a captivating match 14,14 over Montoya, the player who just topped him at the last event. Great racquetball.

– Jake ground out a come-back win over Portillo to move into another final.

In the Finals…. Jake will be kicking himself for this one. After taking a close first game, Jake had leads of 8-0, 10-5, and 14-10 and could not close out the match, as Moscoso hung around and avoided the mental checkout of game 2. The tiebreaker was neck and neck before Moscoso ran off points at the end to win 11-7, but for me the story was Jake letting a winnable one slip away.

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Points Implications of results

With no DLR, obviously this win puts Moscoso back on top of the tour. He should be about 150 points clear. The next event to expire was a DLR win, so he’ll have 400 points to defend when the tour returns.

No other changes in the top 10.

In the 11-20 range:

– Mar and Carter flip spots at 11 & 12

– Natera up to 14th

– Collins up to 15th

– Martel now in the top 16, which may be a tough spot for him because he’ll continue to run into #1 or #2 in the round of 16.

– Rocky and Kane are now 17 and 18 respectively.

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/vy2

Parrilla & Manilla topped Montoya and Mar 10,10 to win the doubles title here.

@Andree Parrilla wins his 4th career pro title and Adam Manilla his second with an impressive win over the #1 Montoya/Mar team.

Parrilla has bounced around partners for a while on tour: he played most of last season with Portillo, but Lalo seems to have gone with a Team Dovetail connection with Acuna. It was looking like he had paired up with Murray for a bit (as Murray was dropped by Landa for DLR upon Beltran’s injury), but Murray picked up with Jake when Sam took the last few events off. This left Andree needing a partner again.

Manilla has been bouncing around too; he used to play mostly with Riffel, them being college buddies, but when Riffel stopped touring Manilla has needed a partner. In the past few Pro events Adam has played with Murray, Franco, Mercado, Fernandez, Jake, and even Horn going back to 2021. But none of these players are a reliable partner for him, either because of absences/stepping back from touring, or because they’re playing more regularly with someone else.

Maybe Manilla and Parrilla are the new solid pairing, given that they just beat the clear #1 team in the world.

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Men’s Open, other draws

– Natera took out Longoria in the final. Semis Martell and Migliore, who had an excellent win over Trujillo to get there.

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

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

We will recap Intercollegiates tomorrow. The Warhawk IRT satellite is next weekend in Louisiana, then the next week starts the 2023 Pan American Racquetball Championships (PARC). This annual event takes on special importance this year, as it will be a qualifier for the Pan Am Games later this year in Chile.

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tags

International Racquetball Tour

Welcome to Chicago, and the famed “fishbowl” court at the Glass Court Swim & Fitness club in Lombard, IL. Its the 2023 38th Annual Papa Nicholas Coffee Shamrock Shootout Presented by Glass Court Swim & Fitness.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=40557

Two big news items from Chicago:

– #1 De La Rosa is not here. Instead, he’s in Austin playing in the PPA pickleball event. I just got done going on @Sudsy Monchik ‘s show talking about how DLR had a smooth ride to #1 based on his Fall 2022 results expiring … but not if he’s missing events in March. Look, this is probably a calculated decision on Daniel’s part, knowing that the pay at PPA events is better, knowing that he’s now representing Pro Kennex in both sports, and probably knowing full well of his game-plan schedule wise to ensure a year end #1. Just saying.

– This event has no qualifying; its a straight draw. This is the 3rd event in a row where the tiered qualifying has been abandoned, and this is being done at the request of a player suggestion. @Pablo Fajre and I have talked about this in the past; when he ran the WRT, he used straight draws, and there’s decent arguments to go back to a straight draw in the IRT now based on the size of the draws (small) and the concentration of talent at the top.

Top 20 players missing: after DLR, we still don’t have Mercado. Rocky hasn’t played a pro event since November, kane still hurt, and Franco misses another.

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

In the 32s, I don’t see anywhere where i expect an upset by seed, with the exception of the 16/17 match between Cuevas and Carrasco. But even that could go chalk. Longoria may give Montoya a push, or maybe you see Mendoza get points off of Collins, but there’s little chance otherwise for upsets in this round. In fact, I see a ton of absolute blowouts. #1 Moscoso versus a high school kid in the 32s? #2 Bredenbeck against a local amateur?

Not for nothing, this is one of the reasons given for going to protected qualifying to begin with. Lets take the #29 seed in this event: Victor Migliore. Assuming he wins his round of 64 match against Blase Zera, he sets to face #4 Parrilla in the 32s, almost certainly a loss. However, under protected top 8 qualifying we’ve had in place since 1999, Migliore would have played #20 Edwin Galicia in the “round of 64” (a winnable match?), to then play into #13 Trujillo in the “round of 32.” He would have more opportunities to get upset wins, which then lead to improved ran king and more prize money. Instead, with a straight draw? He loses in the 32s and probably gets zero prize money.

I know there’s lots of proponents for straight draws, but realize that straight draws are almost guaranteed to eliminate the kinds of close early round matches that we’ve come to enjoy.

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round of 16:

I don’t see a ton of upsets here: maybe 8/9 Manilla-Acuna will be close. Can Trujillo trouble Parrilla right now in the 4/13? i don’t think so. Unless Landa is still hurt, he should cruise past Carter.

The two best matches in the 16s are at the bottom: Murray-Mar and Jake-Martell. Mar took out Murray at the US Open and is my pick to move on here. Martell can get wins, but probably not against Jake based on the way Jake is playing.

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Projected Qtrs:

– Moscoso over Manilla

– Montoya over Parrilla: Rodrigo has Andree’s number right now.

– Portillo over Landa: Even at 100% this is close, and I’m guessing Landa is still not 100% so i’ll Pick Lalo here.

– Mar over Jake: this is the tough one. Jake has been playing so well, but Mar handled him easily the last time they played (last Sept). This could go either way.

Semis:

– Moscoso over Montoya: Rodrigo got him in Minnesota, i think Conrrado flips the script with the faster courts in Chicago. This is the real “final” for me with DLR in the draw.

– Mar over Portillo; similar game styles, Mar the classier player.

Finals;

– Moscoso over Mar.

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Doubles review

I like chalk to the semis. The “final” again comes early, with Montoya/Mar taking out Moscoso/Landa in the semis. On the bottom, Murray/Bredenbeck power their way over Manilla/Parrilla. In the final #1 team continues to win.

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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 Favio Soto, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew all weekend on the mike, calling the shots!

International Racquetball Tour