——————— Here’s a wrap of the notable matches by round to me:
In the 32s: – Laura Brandt took a game off of #16 seed Guatemalan #1 Maria Renee Rodríguez before losing in four. Notable because Brandt is 56 years old, still competing with players nearly 1/3rd her age. Bravo.
In the 16s: – the #8/#9 match gave us a classic yet again, with doubles partners and Colombian team-mates Amaya Cris and Adriana Riveros going to a 5th game tie-breaker before Amaya pulled it out. – #5 Rhonda Rajsich was stretched to the limit, getting an 11-9 fifth game tiebreaker win over Colombia youngster Brenda Laime Jalil. – #3 seed Maria Jose Vargas Paradaheld on for a 5th game win over Montse Mejia in a semis-quality match-up. Vargas won the first two games, Mejia the next two, and the tie-breaker was 11-8.
In the Qtrs: – #5 Rajsich continued her career dominance over #4 Alexandra Herrera, improving to 9-0 lifetime with a 5-game win. – #3 Vargas beat her country-mate and doubles partner Natalia Mendez for the third time in the last month (after having *never* faced each other).
In the semis: – #1 Paola Longoria took out long-time rival Rajsich in three. Rhonda owns 15 of the 30 career pro losses on Longoria’s resume, but could not beat her on this day. – #2 Samantha Salas Solis held serve against Vargas, advancing in three games to face off against Longoria.
In the final, Longoria improved to 48-3 against her doubles partner Salas on the pro tour, winning in three for the title. There have been 8 LPRT events this season; Longoria and Salas have met in the final of six of them.
——————— With the win, Longoria extends these personal streaks: – She’s now won 33 straight matches, the 5th best such streak known. – She’s still undefeated on the season, now 29-0. – She’s only dropped 4 games this season. – She’s now got 89 wins in the Pro Racquetball Stats database (which, we know, does not match what her media team claims; we’re still working to resolve that issue).
——————— Points implications for the rest of the season:
There’s two more events on the LPRT schedule; this coming w/e in Syosset then a Grand Slam in Overland Park, KS to finish off t he season
https://www.lprtour.com/schedule
Longoria holds a 450 point lead over Salas for 2nd, who then has an even larger lead over Herrera and the rest of the tour. In order for Salas to overtake Longoria, Paola would probably have to miss both the remaining events and Salas would have to win the Grand Slam and make at least the final of the Syosset event to take the title. There’s no way any other player has enough time to catch up.
So, while its mathematically possible for Longoria to lose the title, its likely that she’s basically sewn it up for this season.
In the 32s: – Thomas Carter got his first career win over Felipe Camacho with a pretty solid 6,13 win. He advances into the main draw for just the 2nd time this season. – Eduardo Garay Rodriguez upset 9th seeded Mario Mercado 11-9 in the breaker. A solid win for Garay, which earns him a rematch with Beltran. – #13 Jake Bredenbeck saved game point against Miller in game 1, then cruised to a two game win, avoiding this pitfall and advancing to his 7th main draw in 8 IRT events this season. – Andres Acuña won a hard-fought tiebreaker win over #14 Jansen Allen. Allen’s tough season continues; he’s only qualified for the main draw now in 4 of the 8 events, after cashing in all 11 events last season. – Lalo Portillo got a solid win over tour vet Robert Collins to continue his impressive season.
In the 16s: – David Horn got a solid win over #5 Samuel Murray 11,12. He avenges a bad loss a month ago to Murray and moves on to his second QF of the season. – Alvaro Beltran made quicker work of Eduardo Garay than I thought he would, winning 7,9. – #3 Alejandro Alex Landaabsolutely destroyed Acuna 3,2. Where was this dominance at the Pan Am Games? – #7 Daniel De La Rosa got an easier-than-expected win over Rodrigo Montoya Solís 12,3, the latest in a back-and-forth rivalry with Montoya. #6 Sebastian Franco got a solid win over Jose Diaz to advance.
Nearly 100% chalk into the quarters, with only Horn’s upset of #5 Murray a blemish on the resumes of the top 8 seeds.
In the Quarters: – In a shocking result, #8 Beltran topped #1 seed Kane Waselenchuk in an 11-8 tiebreaker. I’ll do a separate post on this result, which streaks it ends for Kane, and what it means for the title race later on. – #4 Andree Parrilla dominated his former WRT rival #12 Horn 2,6. – #3 Landa took a close one over Franco – #2 Rocky Carson wiped out #7 De La Rosa 7,3.
Semis: – Beltran came back from looking like he’d get wiped off the court to take Parrilla in an 11-10 thriller. – Landa played one of the more complete games of his career, beating Carson 5,7 to advance to the final.
In that final, a rematch of the Mexican National championship, Landa fended off the veteran Beltran to take home his 3rd career title.
——————————- Next up; the Syosset Open, the last Tier 1 of the season!
Post Publishing Editor’s note: the draw was remade completely just prior to the begining of play when Frederique Lambert withdrew. So most of the predicted matchups below are now moot. Apologies; I don’t have time to re-write it and re-analyze it.
Like the IRT, the LPRT is back in action this weekend in San Antonio, the 8th year running for an LPRT component at the Battle at the Alamo event.
22 pros entered here, coming on the heels of a huge PARC event in Colombia, which may have dampened attendance a bit. Nonetheless, the top 10 active pros are here, and a good chunk of the ladies ranked 11-20 are here as well, and it looks like a solid draw.
here’s some of the singles matches to watch for:
Round of 32: – The #16/17 seed match is a good one:Maria Renee Rodríguez taking on Mexican vet Susana Susy Acosta. Rodriguez got a solid win at PARCs representing Guatemala over 6th ranked Mendez but lost in the knockouts early. – #11 Adrienne Fisher Haynes takes on Daniela Rico, the current reigning World 14U junior champion. Haynes was the most accomplished female junior in the sports history, winning 10 World Junior titles. Rico won’t get there, but has four more years to extend her record.
Round of 16: – #8 Frederique Lambert vs #9 Adriana Riveros; Lambert, Canada’s undisputed #1 female, couldn’t commit the time to play in PARC this year, and her training has driven down her ranking to its current #8 spot. She was the #2 ranked player at the end of the last two seasons running, lest anyone forget. Fred should advance here and give Paola an early QF test. – #4 Alexandra Herrera versus #13 Brenda Laime Jalil; nothing like lefty versus lefty to make both players uncomfortable. Laime has challenged a bit lately on tour, perhaps a benefit of playing at CSU-Pueblo with fellow touring pros Munoz and Riveros. – #7 Nancy Enriquez vs #10 Amaya Cris; they’ve met once; in the 16s of this event last year, an Enriquez 3-game win. Amaya is coming back from a long week at PARC, and may struggle to keep up with the tough Enriquez here. – #2 Samantha Salas Solis vs #15 Montse Mejia; wow, what a brutal match-up for a round of 16. I have these two players 2nd and 3rd in my world power rankings right now, and they meet here in the 16s. Mejia is coming off an upset loss early in the PARC knockouts to Mendez, while Salas paired with Longoria to dominate the doubles and win her 16th career IRF doubles title. I suspect that the longer pro format favors Salas here, even though in their last meeting Mejia shocked Salas (and then Longoria) to win the 2019 Mexican national title. Salas comes back to win a 5 game battle.
Projected quarters: – #1 Paola Longoria vs #8 Lambert; an early battle between the top two players over the past 3 seasons. Lambert’s focus hasn’t been on touring, while Paola Longoria just cruised to her 8th PARC title. Longoria runs away with this one. – #4 Herrera vs #5 Rhonda Rajsich; despite fighting through a lingering knee issue that hampered her in both Bolivia and at PARC, Rajsich still made the quarters of both events with tough wins throughout. She’s also never lost to Herrera, 8-0 lifetime on tour. What happens here? Its been a year and a half since they met, and Herrera has consistently made the semis this season (5 of 7 events; semis or better). I think Herrera may break through here. – #3 Maria Jose Vargas vs #6 Natalia Mendez Erlwein; these Argentinian countrymates had never met until this year; now they’re slated to play for the third time in 2 months. Their semi finals meeting at PARC was a tough one, with line judges called in early, eventually won by Vargas in the tiebreaker. I sense Vargas continues to have the upper hand over her doubles partner. – #2 Salas vs #7 Enriquez; Enriquez does have some career wins over Salas … but they were a while ago. Miami 2011, then before than in juniors in 2005. Salas has otherwise held serve, though it took a huge comeback in South Carolina in January for her do to so, winning a5th game tiebreaker. I like Salas here thought.
projected Semis: – Longoria over Herrera: Longoria is 12-0 lifetime over Herrera and in those 12 wins has only dropped a couple of games. Seems likely to be 13-0. – Vargas over Salas: a rematch of the Bolivian Open final, won 11-9 in the 5th by Vargas. Salas leads h2h on the LPRT 5-2, but including international competitions its nearly dead even now. I like Vargas’ trend right now, I think she’s the hot hand, and will head to the final.
Projected final: – Longoria over Vargas, a rematch of last week’s PARC final and what would be their 34th meeting. Longoria is 32-1 through the first 33 meetings, so odds of a Vargas win seem slim.
That’s it: my predictions look pretty chalky, with only one upset by seed from the quarters on. Hopefully i’m wrong and we have some darkhorse upsets on the weekend.
————————- A quick note: this event also is an IRT lower tier event …and because of its proximity to Mexico, a ton of solid IRT regulars opted to play here instead of in Florida. There’s 12-13 guys in Texas this weekend who normally would be at the main event, including a couple of top 30 guys in Gerardo Franco Gonzalez and Nick Riffel (who are the top two seeds). It looks to be a very solid draw and we’ll review it separately later on.
The tour heads to its regular April Florida stop for the penultimate event of the 2018-19 season. This is the 12th straight year this event has been on the schedule and has historically been a solid, important stop on the schedule given its timing. Last year, it was the last event of the season and led to the end of the 9-straight pro title run of Kane Waselenchuk at the hands of Rocky Carson.
This year though, the tables are turned; Kane heads into the Florida event with a solid lead in the rankings (https://www.irt-tour.com/singles-rankings/) despite missing the Bolivian grand slam. Kane would essentially have to miss his flight to Florida in order for Rocky to overtake him for the tour lead this coming weekend. And, with one additional event on the books and a 300+ points lead the odds of Kane missing out on his 13th tour title seem slim.
That being said, there’s lots to play for. Alejandro Alex Landaand David Horn made the semis last year and are defending large amounts of rankings points. meanwhile, Daniel De La Rosa and Andree Parrilla, who are currently sitting 5th and 4th respectively in the rankings, could easily overtake Landa in the rankings with solid results this weekend. DLR missed this event last year so has zero points to defend, while Parrilla was upset in the 16s and could really improve on his rankings heading into the final NY event.
So, that being said, lets preview the draw. 35 players in this draw, another solid pro draw, and some dark horses present. Here’s some good matches to look for in the qualifying.
In the 64s: – Eduardo Garay faces off against tour regular Justus Bensonin the first round, a tough draw for both players. Garay brings a ton of power and has been making waves with solid wins lately and is a name to watch for this weekend. – Maryland native Troy Warigon makes the trip down the coast and gets a solid opener versus Costa Rican international Sergio Acuna. – Andres Acuña, Sergio’s brother, Costa Rican #1 and coming off of a very impressive semi-final showing at the Pan American Racquetball Championships, faces off against the best 50yr old player in the land, long time Japanese veteran Hiroshi Shimizu. – Scott McClellan faces off against Colombian international Set Cubillos Ruiz.
In the 32s: – #16 vs #17: Felipe Camacho versus Thomas Carter; the 16/17 match is always tough and this should be no different. They’ve already met twice this season, both Camacho wins but both 11-8 tiebreakers. Can Carter break through and get on the right side of what projects to be a close match? – #9 Mario Mercado vs Garay: they met at the 2016 US Open and Garay got him 12-10 in the 5th. This could be a similarly close battle here, but I suspect Garay moves forward despite Mercado’s semis appearance in the Bolivian Grand Slam. – #13 Jake Bredenbeck vs #20 Maurice Miller; Miller makes the quick drive down from Atlanta to compete, and heads up against Bredenbeck. These two have met 3 times in the past 4 years, all Jake wins. Miller will need to find a weakness to advance. – Acuna vs #14 Jansen Allen; Allen continues to fall down the rankings after getting as high as the #3 seed in an event in March 2018, and he runs into a guy who just took out Landa in the PARC event. These two play a similar style, solid, tactical, but Acuna has the hot hand. – #10 Rodrigo Montoya Solís vs Kadim Carrasco; an interesting match between two extremely hard hitters. Lots of broken balls in this one, but Montoya should advance with the more complete game. – #15 Robert Collins vs #18 Lalo Portillo; the 15/18 match, like the 16/17 match, always seems intriguing and this is no different. The reigning junior world 18U champ Portillo versus IRT touring regular Collins; this is a good test for Portillo, facing a tough lefty.
Projected 16 matches: – #1 Kane over Camacho; they met in Chicago at this gate, a blow out Kane win. – #8 Alvaro Beltran vs Garay; assuming Garay gets past Mercado, we would get a rematch of the round of 16 match these two played in Bolvia. That was a close, two game win for Beltran. If Mercado wins, we get a rematch of a round of 16 match from last weekend’s PARC championship, a tie-breaker Beltran win. Either way, advantage Beltran, who is having a nice rebound 2nd half to the season. – #5 Samuel Murray vs #12 Horn: Murray crushed him in Chicago in March; both are coming off of the long travel to PARC where Murray logged twice the court time, playing both singles and doubles. I’d still favor Murray here but it could be an upset win. – #4 Parrilla vs #13 Jake Bredenbeck: they met in South Dakota, a tiebreaker win for Parrilla, his first win over Jake in 4 tries across tours. I’d expect another close match here but for Parrilla to eventually move on and continue his fantastic season. – #3 Landa vs Acuna; a rematch of the huge upset from last weekend’s PARC championships, when Landa was the #1 seed and lost in the quarters by Acuna. Can Acuna do it again? Landa sits 3rd in the standings and really has no shot of getting much higher on the season, but should have incentive to stay in the top 4 to avoid “the flip” going forward. I’ll go with Landa holding serve and avenging last week’s loss. – #6 Sebastian Franco vs #11 Jose Diaz; they’ve already met twice this calendar year and split; Diaz won in California when Franco was coming off injury, while Franco won in Chicago in two close games. I’m guessing Franco wins again, and again in two close games here. – #7 Daniel De La Rosa vs #10 Montoya. Thanks to the “flip” seeding, DLR (who was the 3rd seed last event) falls into the 5-8 range and gets a scrambled seed to #7 … and runs into frequent recent nemesis Montoya at this stage. These two go back and forth lately; DLR crushed Rodrigo in Chicago, but got similarly crushed in South Dakota. In 2018, Montoya beat DLR for the Mexican Nat’l title with a solid win, but then got whipped in the Worlds qualifying event later in the summer. So this could go either way. I’m going to flip a coin and go with DLR, who didn’t have to travel and compete for a week straight in the PARC. – #2 Carson faces Portillo. Carson debuted on tour in 1995; Portillo was BORN in 1999 and is less than half his age. No matter; Carson should control this match and advance.
Projected Quarters: – #1 Kane vs #8 Beltran; thanks to the seedings flip, these two have a rare quarterfinals meeting. Ironically, they last met in the quarters in this event last year, a 12,2 Kane win. Notably, 12 points is the most Kane has had scored on him in a single game since the movement to a 3-game format, a feat Beltran repeated in the Portland final in November. Look for another Kane 2 game win, with scores like 8,11. – #4 Parrilla vs #5 Murray: Andree is 3-0 over Murray, and makes it 4-0 here. This is the year of Parrilla, who finished last season ranked 11th and is now in real position to finish ranked 3rd this year. – #3 Landa vs #6 Franco: a rare meeting between these two players; they’ve only met 5 times since 2011, and the only time Franco won was to take his sole tier 1 victory in San Antonio in March of 2018. I’d favor Landa normally, but he’s coming off the brutal travel trip to Colombia for the PARC, so Franco is more rested. – #2 Carson vs #7 De La Rosa. Or maybe Montoya, depending on the coin flip round of 16 event between two of Mexico’s top players. Either match will be compelling. Carson really gave Montoya a lesson when they met in the semis of Chicago. but DLR has topped Rocky the last 3 times they’ve played. So we know who Rocky is rooting for. I’ll go with DLR over Rocky here.
Semis: – Kane over Parrilla, who looks to avoid the 5,2 beating he took the last time they played in Chicago in March. – Landa over DLR: they’re close, but Landa has the edge of late, having won their last 4 meetings across tours.
Finals: Kane over Landa, who keeps the games close as he typically does for about the first half of each game, then loses out as Kane goes on a 5-6 point run to close each game out. Kane wins 8,7.
———————– This is a tough tourney to predict; I’ve got Landa going to the finals … but he very well may lose in the 16s to a guy who just beat him a week ago. I could have DLR in the semis … or be one-and-done to a tough countryman in Montoya. Either way, I see lots of good matches through out the weekend in all the rounds; look forward to Dean DeAngelo Baer broadcasting from Florida and calling out all the “flatties” as they happen.
A reminder: we don’t load this data into the database at current, but we do keep track of past champions for informational purposes. At the bottom i’ve got some school-based factoids including the 2019 champs.
———————- On the Men’s Singles #1 side, a couple of upsets in the 16s but the top 6 seeds all advanced. In the quarters, only one upset with #5 Jacob Matthews of ECU taking out 4th seeded Nick Buring of Oregon State.
In the semis…both top seeds advanced with ease, with #1 Erik Garcia of CSU-Pueblo topping #5 Matthews 3,7 and #2 Alejandro Almada from Texas topping #3 seed Jeremy Dixon from Baldwin-Wallace 2,5 to setup the anticipated final.
In the final, #1 Garcia downed #2 Almada in a tiebreaker to win the title. Garcia repeats as champion, becoming just the 10th male to hold more than one intercollegiate title.
———————– On the Women’s side, the top 8 seeds all advanced to the quarters. There, similarly to the Men’s side just one upset in the #5/#4 match with Costa Rican international Melania Mela Sauma Masis (playing at her home courts at ASU) topping 4th seeded Lexi York from Oregon State in a tiebreaker.
In the semis, #1 seed Carla Muñoz Montesinos of CSU-Pueblo knocked out Sauma in two games, while #3 seeded Hollie Scott (playing out U of Washington), continued her solid form lately and topped 2nd seeded (and my pre-tourney pick) Erika Manilla from N. Arizona in dominant fashion 9,4.
In the final…Scott dominated Munoz for the win 2,8 to deny Munoz a chance at 4 straight intercollegiate titles.
———————— On the doubles side: – Mens doubles went to Garcia/Le from CSU-Pueblo, who downed the Texas pair of Almada and his partner Jerry Yang.
– Women’s doubles went to the CSU-Pueblo team of Riveros/Laime, who downed OSU’s York & Natalie Lorati in the final.
———————— Some quick facts coming out of this event: – Garcia’s Men’s #1 win represents the 8th Men’s #1 title for players from CSU-Pueblo (formerly known as the University of Southern Colorado). They still trail University of Memphis (formerly Memphis State University) which had 12 Men’s #1 winners in their history.
– Half of the now 47 Men’s #1 intercollegiate title winners have come from just three schools: Memphis, CSU-Pueblo and Southwest Missouri state.
– Tim Sweeney remains the sole player in history to win four consecutive intercollegiate titles, a feat Munoz was attempting to match.
– Scott’s victory for University of Washington represents the 25th distinct college to provide a #1 women’s winner. Memphis remains the #1 school for Women as well, providing 7 titlists.
CSU-Pueblo wins its 2nd ever overall title. Oregon State has been the dominant overall team leader here, having won 11 of the 16 overall team titles awarded since 2004.
Oregon State wins its 3rd ever Men’s Title. They have a long way to go to catch CSU-Pueblo & Memphis here, as those two schools combined have won 31 of the 47 ever Men’s team awards given out.
CSU-Pueblo wins its 1st ever Women’s title. Memphis, BYU and Oregon State have dominated here historically, winning 31 of the 45 ever women’s team titles given out.
———————— A side note: I know this tourney runs similarly to a tennis tournament, where schools provide teams seeded 1-6 … but the state of collegiate racquetball right now is such that the top rball colleges (specifically, CSU-Pueblo) are contributing such more dominant talent than other schools that I wonder if there wouldn’t be value in changing the format so that more players from the top schools could compete in the #1 division.
To wit, the #2 female player from CSU-Pueblo was current LPRT #10 ranked player Adriana Riveros and their #3 female player was Brenda Laime Jalil, currently ranked 16th on tour. Both obliterated their respective draws, barely being scored upon (Riveros won the #2 draw giving up a total of 9 points in four matches, and Laime won the #3 final 0,0). It was the same to a lesser extent on the Men’s side, with Lukas Le representing CSU-Pueblo in the Men’s #2 and likely being the 2nd or 3rd best men’s player in Tempe. Perhaps he was the sole example of a player who may very well have made the semis or higher in the Men’s #1, but my point remains. International competitions feature two players from each country; maybe intercollegiates should as well.
Wanted to do a quick preview of the Intercollegiates event going on this weekend. Play started Wednesday 4/3/19 and finishes up Saturday, so they’re already well underway, but wanted to get this out before the back end of the tourney.
In the Mens #1, the defending champ Erik Garcia from CSU Pueblo is back, seeded #1 and seems to be the overwhelming favorite. UTexas player Alejandro Almada is the #2 seed, Jeremy Dixon from BWU #3 and Oregon State’s Nick Buring #4. I’d imagine the draw will go chalk and Garcia will repeat. With all due respect for the rest of the Gold #1 boys draw, the 2nd best player in Tempe very well may be the #2 player out of CSU Pueblo Lukas Le.
In the Womens #1 draw though, we have a dog fight with at least 5 players who have pro or international experience. The #1 seed and defending champ from CSU-Pueblo is Carla Muñoz Montesinos, who represents Chile internationally and finished last year ranked #10 on the LPRT. To repeat though she’ll have to get through a draw that includes: – #2 Seed Erika Manilla of N.Arizona and who beat Munoz last month at the Pueblo shootout and was the 2016 world junior 18U champ – #3 Hollie Scott of UWashington, who beat LPRT top 10 player Amaya at a pro event in January and who was the 2014 US 18U champ. – #4 Lexi York from Oregon State, who was the 2015 USA 18U champ – #5 Melania Sauma, playing on her home courts at ASU and who represents Costa Rica internationally, lost to Manilla in the 2016 18U final and who has been playing in Adult IRF events for years. – #6 Elyse Duffie, who made the quarters of 18U world juniors last fall, losing to eventual champ Montse Mejia.
That’s a lot of good players, and the quarters will be fun. I predict that Munoz will top York in one semi, and Manilla will squeak by Scott in the other semi, and Manilla takes out Munoz in the final in a tiebreaker in a repeat of the PAC Shootout final.
DLR was the big winner on the weekend, taking the singles and mixed doubles titles.
Congrats to the winners on the weekend at the 2019 Beach Bash: – Men’s Singles: Daniel De La Rosa – Women’s Singles: Hollie Scott – Men’s Pro Doubles: Ben Goldberg/Ryan Lopez – Women’s Pro Doubles: Anita Maldonado/Rhonda Rajsich – Mixed Pro Doubles: Daniel & Michelle De La Rosa
Here’s the match reports for each of the 5 pro draws on the weekend:
Top IRT touring pro Daniel De La Rosa took the title, beating defending champ and #1 seeded Robert Sostre in the final. 2018 runner-up Nick Montalbanoand reigning 3-wall outdoor champ Luis Luis R Avila were both upset in the quarters.
————- – Women’s Singles: http://rball.pro/02E1EC Defending champ Hollie Rae Scott defended her 2018 title in this event in a rematch of last year’s final, again downing 2nd seeded Michelle Herbert in the final.
————- – Men’s Pro Doubles: http://rball.pro/9F60DE The Men’s pro doubles draw was the biggest of the weekend and saw some of the bigger upsets. 21 teams battled it out in the round robins to advance to the quarter final round, and along the way #2 overall seed Robert Sostre & Freddy Alfredo Benjamin Ramirez (last year’s runner’s up) were eliminated. Also surprisingly eliminated at the RR stage was Rocky Carsonwith partner Alejandro Barcelo, who somehow ended up in a grouping with both the eventual finalists (talk about a “Group of Death”).
In the quarters, defending champs and #1 seeds William Rolon and David Blatt were upset by the team of Nick Montalbano and Cliff Swain. Montalbano is the defending Vegas 3-wall singles champ and of course Cliff is Cliff, so this was a heck of a quarter final. They however ended up being no match in the semis for DLR, partnered with fellow racquetball legend Marty Hogan, in a semis match that featured a combined 11 pro IRT year end titles and 134 indoor tournament titles.
DLR and Hogan faced a round-robin rematch against Ben Goldberg and Ryan Lopez, who took out outdoor legend Rick Koll and reigning outdoor champion Luis Avila in the semis.
In the final, DLR and 61-yr old Hogan were taken out by Goldberg and Lopez 11,9, and the large traveling NY contingency celebrated together.
In the RR section, #3 seeded Michelle De La Rosa and partner Regina Francotook time off the Pickleball circuit to blitz their way to a 4-0 RR record, securing a spot in the final.
In the semis, defending champs Michelle Herbert & Hollie Scott were ousted by Anita Maldonado and rball legend Rhonda Rajsich.
In the final, Maldonado/Rajsich avenged the RR single-game loss to take out the DLR/Franco pairing in two close games 11,13.
The De La Rosa’s took out defending champs Sostre & Hebert in the final of a heavily competed draw, where 5 of the 7 matches went tie-breaker and the draw featured a who’s who of the outdoor game today. The #2 seeded team and defending Vegas one-wall mixed title team of Koll & Rajsich was upset in the first round.
————- Excellent weekend for the DLRs; two titles and a final for Daniel, a win and a final for Michelle.
Next up: Bolivian Grand Slam! Look for a preview later this week.
In the 128s and 64s … there were a few closer games but no upsets in my mind: – Jansen Allen and Hiroshi Shimizu were both extended to tiebreakers against Alok Mehta and Juan Salvatierra respectively but advanced. – Felipe Camacho won 10,10 over Kyle Ulliman – Troy Warigon played a closer-than-expected match to beat Ferd Samson11,13 – MoMo Zelada made it twice in two months over Georgian Maurice Miller 11,10. Miller subsequently caught fire in the Men’s Open draw, racing to the final with a number of what i’d characterize as “Career Best” wins. – Adam Manilla took out Jordy Alonso 12,10 – David Horn got a solid win over Eduardo Garay 10,11.
The 32s were played Friday morning, with a couple of “upsets” by seeding and a couple of tie-breakers. – #9 Jose Diaz dropped the first game to long-time IRT veteran Hiroshi Shimizu but recovered to take the match. Shimizu looked pretty darn good for someone who is north of 50. – The 16/17 match, as always, was a tight one, with Felipe Camacho coming out on top of Thomas Carter 11-8 in the breaker. A close match. – Eduardo Lalo Portillo blasted Jake Bredenbeck 5,8 to advance in the upset by seedings. We know Portillo is no slouch and this win doesn’t surprise me, but the score does. Jake is definitely in a rut this season. – Rodrigo Montoya blitzed by countryman Gerardo Franco Gonzalez 15-1, then dropped the second game before racing to the tiebreaker win. Final score: 1,(10),3. – In the 15/18 match, Adam Manilla won the lefty-on-lefty crime match, topping Robert Collins in two tight games 13,11.
In the 16s… several matches that surprised me and went against my predictions, but in the end was nearly chalk by seeding: – In the 8/9 match, Sebastian Franco turned the tide on his results lately and took out Jose Diaz in two tight games 12,12. – #4 Alejandro Alex Landatook out the upset-minded Eduardo Portillo 5,12 to eliminate the highest advancing seed out of the 16s. – In the biggest upset of the night, #14 Montoya took out #3 Daniel De La Rosa with relative ease 3,9. While these two are neck and neck in true world power rankings … DLR has had the better of him lately, including a shellacking in Sioux Falls two months ago. Surprising result for me … and opens up the draw for Rodrigo completely. – #7 Samuel Murray dominated #10 David Horn 3,7. I thought this match might have gone the other way … but a 3,7 win is pretty convincing.
So your seeds into the quarters are 1,2,4,5,6,7,8 … and 14. Pretty chalk. But i’m guessing that 14 seed may make some more noise here.
In the Quarters… – #1 Kane Waselenchuk let #8 Sebastian Franco hang with him til about 6-6 in the first, then ran off more than 20 unanswered points, winning the first game 15-7 and donuting the Colombian 15-0 in the second. – #5 Andree Parrilla continues his dominance at this event (his two best career finishes are at this event over the last two seasons), cruising to a win over #4 Alejandro Landa 8,9. Parrilla has beaten Landa now twice in a row, improving his career h2h record against the former #1 to 4-6 across all competitions. – #14 Montoya made it 3-0 against Alvaro Beltran on the IRT tour, taking this match and beating the #6 seed 8,9. Montoya advances to his 3rd career IRT semi final (out of 8 career IRT tourneys) and second this season (he made the Semis in Sioux Falls after beating #1 seed Landa in the 16s). – #2 Rocky Carson dropped a game to #7 Samuel Murray for just the second time ever, but Murray ran out of gas in the tiebreaker and lost a 2+ hour marathon 7,(13),2.
In the Semis… – Kane blitzed by Parrilla 5,2, never really giving Andree a chance to junk ball his way into the match. – Carson took the first ever meeting against Montoya 11,2. The first game was a shot-maker’s paradise, with the players going toe to toe and firing at all cylinders. In the second game, Carson put on a master class of game management, completely controlling the match and bewildering the young Mexican to a crushing 15-2 defeat. Make no mistake; there is still a gulf between the 2nd ranked Carson and his challengers.
In the Finals… – Kane won a match that he really controlled throughout by the not-as-close-as-it-looked scores of 10 and 10. Lots of lob serving from Kane, who put in twice the court time he normally does this weekend and may have been conserving his arm by not drive serving in the title match.
With the win… – Kane captures his 115th career IRT Tier 1/Grand Slam title. – Kane improves to an amazing 75-3 against Rocky, the lions share of which were tournament finals. – Kane raises his current match winning streak to 82 matches, good for 3rd best ever streak. He’s got a long way to go to top his record of 134 straight. – Kane extends his current GAME winning streak to 72 games, and moves into 2nd place all time to his own 113 game winning streak that I previously thought was his career achievement. He’d have to win 21 more matches w/o dropping a game to top it, or probably 6 more tourneys… and there’s no end in sight to his current dominance.
Ranking Implications on the weekend: Using my personal points projections (which aren’t exactly in line with IRT total points but are pretty close), here’s what I think this weekend’s events means for the points race: – Kane now has a nearly 500 point lead … and still has one more tournament to play without defending any points from last season’s injury, which means a win in Bolivia and its double points would lead to a nearly 900 point advantage with just two events left. Which means … if Kane wins in Bolivia he’s clinched the title. – Landa and DLR should switch places with DLR’s early upset. – Beltran should rise to #5. – Franco should rise to #6. – Parrilla drops from 5 to 7 despite making the semis. – Murray drops from 7 to 8. – Horn drops from 10 to 13.
– Montoya rises from 14 to 12, meaning he’s away from the top 3 in terms of a potential round of 16 match-up now. He’d now project to play the 5th seed in a round of 16, which gets him away from the top 4 players and just increases his chances of gaining more rankings points.
No upsets in the full round of 16. In the quarters, in the 4/5 match-up Jake/Diaz got a solid win over Montoya/Parrilla, and the 6th seeded favorites Kane/Croft “upset” the 3rd seeded Colombian pairing of Mercado/Franco.
In the semis, DLR/Alvaro got a solid win over Jake/Diaz, while Kane/Croft got an injury-driven walkover win against #2 seed Landa/Murray to setup the final everyone wanted to see.
In that sat. night final, Kane/Croft recovered from losing the first game to out-shoot DLR/Beltran and improve to 4-1 head-to-head against the reigning World Doubles champions on the pro circuit.
———————- Thats it, thanks for reading!
Next up is the Bolivian Grand Slam. Can’t wait to see this event, since there’s 5-6 really quality Bolivian players who we rarely get to see. Moscoso, the Keller brothers, Ruiz Michel, Gerson, Garcia, Mercado and Carrasco all could be in this draw and make noise. Maybe even the legendary Ricardo Monroy could come out of “retirement” to play; if you’ve never heard of Monroy, he was the first non-North American international player to win a major IRF title, taking the 2010 Pan American Championships. And there’s also a Women’s pro stop, with lots of quality Bolivian female pros too.
(as of this posting, the draws are not yet active but can be gotten from IRT’s facebook page postings…)
There’s a huge draw in Chicago; 43 pros entered into singles. That’s the biggest non-US Open draw since Sept 2014, and this draw is stacked. There’s great representation from the top pros: 19 of the top 20 players are entered (missing only #13 Charlie Pratt, who’s playing Oregon State Singles this weekend instead), and the draw includes reigning World champ Rodrigo Montoya Solis to mix things up. He’ll be seeded 14th, playing into his Mexican national nemesis #3 Daniel De La Rosa for what could be a heck of a round of 16 match (we’ll get to that later)…
Because its Chicago, we get some Midwestern guys entered such as Geoff Goldblatt, Juan Martinez III, Alok Mehta, Ferd Samson and Nadeem Sharifuddin. Some of these guys are long-time players with match histories that go back a ways (Goldblatt’s first pro tourney on record was in 2006), some we havn’t seen since the 2018 Worlds (Mehta represented India at the 2014 and 2018 IRF events), and some are making their pro tour debuts (like Sharifuddin).
Interestingly, what looks like the entire Guatemalan national team is entered, and the qualifying rounds will include Edwin Galicia, Javier Martinez, Hanzel Martinez Perez, Jeovany Mendoza, Juan Salvatierra, and long-time veteran Christian Wer, all hailing from the Central American country. Its great to see so many great internationals in one place.
Lets preview the draw. There’s such a huge draw that they needed three round of 128 matches, one of which features two of the traveling Guatemalans. That’s a bummer: fly all the way up here and have a rematch of every Tuesday night at the home club.
We pick up in the 64s; here’s some matches to watch for: – #9 Jose Diaz is the highest ranked player w/o a bye into the 16s, and for his trouble he has to play twice in qualifying; he’s rewarded at first with a crap-shoot against the winner of the Mendoza-Martinez all-Guatemalan play-in. – #17 Long-time Costa Rican vet Felipe Camacho gets a tough opener against mid-westerner Kyle Ulliman. Ulliman has played a couple of pro stops already this year but doesn’t have a break-through win yet and Camacho is a tough out. – #20 Eduardo Lalo Portillo faces off against long-time Guatemalan #1 Edwin Galicia in a tough opener for both. Galicia has been representing Guatemala at International Racquetball Federation – IRF events for 6 years running, while Lalo (the reigning 18U junior world champ) is coming off a disappointing 1st round exit at Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol Nationals last month. – #12 Jansen Allen (who has now fallen completely out of the top 10), has a tough 1st rounder against regular Guatemala international representative Juan Salvatierra in his quest to get back into the top 10. – #22 Maurice Miller faces off against Mauricio MoMo Zelada, a rematch of the final of the February Open final at the Wintergreen event in Laurel, MD. Zelada won 6,12 then and seems a good bet to advance again. – IRT regular Justus Benson is the unlucky first round match for reigning IRF World Champion Rodrigo Montoya, looking to make a splash and keep his IRT ranking on the rise. – #15 Adam Manilla gets a tough Mexican up and comer Jordy Alonso as his 1st round opponent. – #18 Robbie Robert Collins faces off against long-time Guatemalan international Christian Wer, who I first have playing for his country in 2004 and who was on the Worlds team in 2018. That’s a pretty long int’l career. – #10 David Horn has the unenviable task of facing off against one of the more unheralded Mexican players today in Eduardo Garay Rodriguez. Garay has wins over IRT top 10 players on his resume in the past couple of seasons and has the ability to win here too.
In the 32s…here’s some projections based on potential match-ups:
– the #16/#17 match-up looks solid: Camacho vs Thomas Carter. A great test for both players; I sense the veteran Camacho advances to the main draw and a date with Kane. – #13 Jake Bredenbeck vs #20 Portillo: I like Portillo’s chances here against Bredenbeck, who has yet to get out of the 16s this season after multiple quarter-finals appearances in prior seasons and is coming off an upset loss in Pueblo to a guy who has never played a pro match. – #12 Allen over #21 Troy Warigon; the solid playing Allen should advance over part time IRT player Warigon here. – #11 Mario Mercado over Zelada: the all-DC Metro area match-up, with the two relative neighbors facing off for a chance at the 16s. Mercado has the edge but it wouldn’t surprise me if this went Zelada’s way. – Montoya vs Gerardo Franco Gonzalez; tough break for Franco, who runs into his countryman at this stage for the 2nd time in 3 months. He’s trying to build on the momentum of his run to the Mexican national quarters last month, but Montoya should advance here. – #15 Manilla vs #18 Collins: the very-rare lefty vs lefty match-up, likely a win for the up and coming Manilla.
In the 16s… – #1 Kane Waselenchuk starts off his title quest against the veteran Camacho and cruises to a win. – the #8/#9 looks like a dog-fight: Diaz versus Sebastian Franco. After a solid start to the season, Franco has faltered, with two straight round of 16 exits and having missed Sioux Falls (for his Honeymoon; can’t fault him there). One of those early exits was at the hands of Diaz, who may very well do it again here. – #5 Parrilla vs #12 Allen: Andree has been on a tear, but Allen plays solid, consistent racquetball and may cause Parrilla some troubles here. – #4 Alejando Alex Landavs Portillo: the newly crowned Mexican champ faces off against one of his country’s best young players; Landa should dominate this match based on playing styles. – #3 De La Rosa vs #14 Montoya; this is the match of the round. 3 vs 14 by seeds, but two of the best 5 players in the world by capabilities. They met in Sioux Falls and DLR destroyed Rodrigo 1,4. In fact, Montoya may be the reigning world champ, but DLR has beaten him 3 out of 4 times they’ve played in the past year. I think DLR advances and Montoya misses out on an opportunity to gain valuable IRT ranking points yet again due to the luck of the draw. – #6 Alvaro Beltran vs #11 Mercado; fresh off his surprise National finals appearance, Beltran runs into the mercurial Mercado (alliteration intended), who has beaten Alvaro in the past, but seems to be in a bit of a rut this season. Mercado has three one-and-done events this season and will have his work cut out for him to make it to this point. Alvaro advances. – #7 Samuel Murray vs #10 Horn; tough match for Murray here. Bobby beat Sam in April of 2018, but has three one-and-dones on the season and missed Sioux Falls b/c of injury. Horn did make the final of the Pueblo Shootout before getting waxed by Kane and seems to be healthy; can he outlast Murray here and put himself back on the winning ways? If he’s healthy, I think so. – #2 Rocky Carson vs #15 Manilla: these two havn’t played in years on the pro tour, and while Adam can put up a fight against top players he should fall at this gate.
In the Quarters… – #1 Kane over #9 Diaz. I’ll bet the versatile Diaz conjurs up some 209-magic and stays in rallies longer than expected, but Kane advances. – #4 Landa over #5 Parrilla: I like Landa here, despite the fact that Parrilla took him in their last meeting (2018 US Open). Landa played so solidly at Mexican Nationals, its hard to envision him losing to Parrilla’s game-style. – #6 Beltran takes out his doubles partner #3 DLR in a classic let-down game after DLR’s tough win over Montoya. They played in Portland in December, and Alvaro trounced him in two there, and I’m betting on a similar result here. Beltran is on a career renaissance this season and continues his stretch of solid play. – #2 Carson defeats Horn in a battle of contrasting pace of play styles. Carson will slow it down, while Horn tries to speed it up. Neither are happy with the referee at the end of the match.
In the semis… – #1 Kane defeats former #1 Landa, but Landa puts up a fight and makes the scores 15-11, 15-9 or so. If Landa is on and making shots, Kane needs to find a slightly higher gear to beat him, which he eventually does since he’s such a master at the end-game of matches. – #6 Beltran goes up against his long time rival #2 Carson for the third time this season and makes it 2 out of 3 with an upset win.
In the final, Kane takes out Beltran with ease, but not before Alvaro plays his typical shooter’s delight game plan and makes Kane sweat for a while. Its worth noting that Alvaro is the last player to take a game off of Kane (the 2017 US Open) and still has the capability to run off a game even against a guy who is currently working on a streak of 64 straight games won in competition.
——————– There’s also a massive Pro doubles draw; a full 16 team draw. The #1 team is, as normal, DLR/Beltran, who just got upset at Mexico Nationals and will not have the opportunity to compete for 2019 IRF crowns. They’ll have to possibly work their way through 1/2 of the team that dethroned them in Montoya, playing here with Parrilla, who themselves have to get by the Columbian National #1 doubles team of Mercado & Franco.
On the other side of the draw, the other “best doubles team in the world” in Kane & Ben Croft makes a rare appearance, seeded 6th. They likely face #3 seeds of Jake/Diaz for an excellent quarter final match before likely facing the excellent #2 seeded pairing of Landa & Murray in the semis. However, Landa/Murray may have to get past Rocky Carson, who plays pro doubles for the first time since Sept 2017 (!). He’s playing with Manilla for a nice little lefty-righty combo, perhaps a nod by Carson to help get ready for the upcoming WOR championships (where doubles is king).
I like Kane/Croft over DLR/Beltran in the final, a slight reversal of how this match-up has gone the last couple of times … but also an indicator that DLR/Beltran may have some cracks in the armor after their upset in Chihuahua last month.
Kane drops into a non-Tier 1 and is the double winner.
In addition to Mexican Nationals and High School Nationals, there were a couple of lower-tier IRT events this past weekend. This is a wrap-up of the best of them, the Pueblo Athletic Club Shoot out, a Tier 4 held in Pueblo, CO that featured a few familiar names and a couple of surprising results.
Reminder: we don’t load non-tier 1 or higher events into the PRS database; this post is just a wrap-up as a fan of the game. I’ll pick up the draw reviews at the latter stages when the familiar pro names start playing each other.
———– Men’s Pro Singles:
The draw featured 30 players, and its top 4 seeds were tour regulars that included #1 Kane Waselenchuk. David Horn, defending champ Jake Bredenbeckand Nick Riffel formed the top four seeds. This is notable to me because I can’t recall seeing Kane play in a non Tier-1 IRT tournament in .. well a long time. It may be b/c I don’t generally track non-Tier1 events.
The 5th seed is the dangerous Erik Garcia, who beat touring pro Robert Collins before taking a game off of eventual champ Rocky Carson at the US Singles qualifier event in Tempe last month. The rest of the draw featured mostly local players, with a sprinkling of traveling players w/ enough IRT points to rate a seeding.
In the Quarters. a couple of surprises: – Erik Garcia got a solid win over touring pro Nick Riffel in a tiebreaker in the 4/5 match. He earns a match against the King in the semis. I’d like to see Garcia play more pro events; he’s got some good results lately and I think he could make some noise on tour. – Complete unknown (to me) Ruben Baez ousted #3 seed Jake Bredenbeck 10,(5),5. I can’t find Baez playing any match in any format that the PRS database tracks, and he was seeded 27th in this event, traveling up from El Paso to play it. I saw bits and pieces of this match: Baez plays a control game, has a very effective lob serve, and was completely non-plussed by Jake’s power, re-killing power DTL shots and anticipating power-pinches. He earns a match-up against #2 seeded Horn in the semis for his efforts.
In the Semis: – Waselenchuk took out Garcia 8,3. Garcia kept up with the champ briefly, but eventually fell in typical Kane dominance. – Horn took out the upstart Baez by the close scores of 13,14. Thanks to Matt Melster for streaming this one real-time; I watched part of this match as well to see how Baez matched-up with the different playing style of Horn, one which was much closer seemingly to his own … and as expected this was a very back-and-forth close match throughout.
In the Final, Kane turned up the heat and cruised by Horn 7,0, showing his typical dominance that the rest of the IRT tour sees on a regular basis.
———– My take-away here: it isn’t often that a player just shows up without any prior pro experience and plays so well against two of the top 20 players in the world. I hope to see more of Baez in the future.
———–
Men’s Pro Doubles:
The Pueblo supporters were also blessed to have with them one of the two best doubles teams in the world. Kane teamed up with Ben Croft, and they’ve won more than a few major doubles titles in their day. They were the #1 seed, with Jake & Horn teaming up to be the #2 seeds and Riffel/Garcia being the #3 seeds.
In the semis, Bredenbeck/Horn took out Riffel/Garcia 11-9, while Kane/Ben took out the team with the surprising Baez teamed with Daniel Bautista.
In the Saturday night final, the #1 team did not disappoint and won in two 10,5 over the #2 seeds.
In the semis, Manilla took out #1 seeded Munoz in two solid games 11,12, while Riveros advanced past Laime 6,13.
In the Finals, Manilla made it two upsets in a row, downing Riveros 12,13. Great results for Manilla on the weekend, and I hope to see more of her on the pro tour going forward.
