Category: USA

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: Samuel Murray

– Doubles: Eduardo Portillo and @Andree Parrilla

Murray runs a pretty amazing gauntlet of matches to claim his second ever Tier 1 title. Lalo and Andree save match points against to claim the doubles title.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=41883

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

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

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There were three trivial round of 64 play-ins that had no real shocks.

In the 32s…

– #1 @Daniel De la Rosa was pushed to the limit by #32 Coby Iwaasa, winning in three 10,(14),8. Of course, Iwaasa is not your typical 30-something pro seed, the clear-cut #2 player in Canada and a past winner on the WRT who just doesn’t tour regularly.

I harp on this point often, when it comes to having the top 8 seeds play the 32s, but here’s a fun fact; Pablo and the IRT changed the competition structure in February 2023. just ahead of Minnesota, to abolish “top 8 seeds get byes into the 32s,” a structure that had been in place for regular Tier1s since August 1991. Since the return to full 32s, not only have the top 8 seeds won every round of 32 match played so far… DLR’s was the first time a top 8 seed was even stretched to a tiebreaker. Most of these 1v32, 2v31, etc matches are complete blow outs in the 15-4, 15-2 variety where the top pro is just going through the motions.

I continue to maintain that lower seeded players are far better served by the prior structure. Instead of Iwaasa playing DLR in the 32s, under the old structure, he would have played #33 in the 64s (Roman Haller), to then play #16 seed in the 32s (Sam Bredenbeck) to play into DLR in the round of 16s/aka the money round. Instead, Iwaasa goes home with no prize money. You have to think Iwaasa would have liked his chances under the old structure, a match against Sam versus straight to DLR. Anyway, it is what it is, and unless the lower level players figure this out instead of maintaining the illogical belief that its somehow more “fair” to get blasted by a top seed in the 32s on Thursday afternoon to eliminate any chance of prize money, we’ll continue to see this situation on tour.

– #17 Kane Waselenchuk took out #16 @Sam Bredenbeck 10,10 in a streaky match that looked like it was going a different way in each game. Both players ran off long streaks of points at times, but neither player stayed consistent long enough to put the game away fast. Kane is #20 ranked but #17 seeded by virtue of three players ranked above him pulling out last minute (Cuevas, Carson, and Landa), so he plays right into #1 DLR.

– #3 Conrrado Moscoso got pushed a bit by fellow Bolivian Mauricio Zelada before advancing 5,11

– #14 Kadim Carrasco got taken to a breaker by #19 @Carlos Ramirez before advancing.

– #11 Thomas Carter held on against Junior national team member Cole Sendrey 12,9. Sendrey had an impressive win in the Kelley tournament earlier this month, but playing a top 15 IRT pro is a little different than playing a top east coast amateur.

– #15 @Erick Trujillo got a very solid win over Mexican veteran Javier Mar 12,13 in the 15-18 seed matchup. I routinely believe Mar is one of the top 8 players in the world … but he’s struggled for two years now to maintain that lofty status. This is the turning point for me.

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In the 16s, we got a slew of upsets.

– #17 Kane took out #1 DLR 8,9 in a match that probably was not as close as the score line indicated. I watched the match closely and my analysis is pretty simple: DLR could not get his drive serve working. I’ve never seen him serve so badly. I did a quick count of drive serve effectiveness in game 1 to illustrate this point: Kane drove 26 times, making 19 of them (73%) while DLR drove 17 times and only made 9 of them (52%). The ineffectiveness of a solid first serve cannot be understated: When I’ve done detailed match tracking in the past, a first serve in led directly to points 66% of the time, whereas that point ratio dropped to just 33% when hitting a second serve. It isn’t a coincidence that DLR got 9 drives in and scored 9 points in the game, while Kane got 17 drives in and scored 15.

The key to beating Kane right now is to limit how often he can shoot while setting his feet. And the definition of a second serve lob is allowing Kane to stand there and shoot with his feet set. Meanwhile, Kane served his typical 70%+ effective drive serves where he wanted them, getting aces and 3-shot rallies as expected, and that was that. By the end of the second game DLR had completely abandoned the drive serve and was lobbing on first serve … amazing to think about when playing the best player of all time. I also think DLR was rather devoid of ideas; when his drives failed, he didn’t think about hard Zs or any variation; he just nicked lob serves to Kane’s forehand, which he buried over and over. DLR remains winless for his career against Kane, takes a round of 16 loss (which probably buries his chances at the 2024 title already)

Now, all this being said, Kane played lights out. He executed his typical game plan, wasn’t making errors, kept the pressure on, and generally got the rallies he wanted here. It was vintage Kane, reminiscent of a match from 10 years ago. All credit to him. Kane improves to 19-1 all-time against DLR … and that 1 loss was a forfeit.

– #6 and #11 @Adam Manilla and Thomas Carter had an all lefty battle, which went to the death 11-9 for Adam.

– #7 Samuel Murray took out #10 Eduardo Portillo in a breaker in a match that was not an upset by seed, but probably and upset by talent. Lalo’s time away from the court continues to take its toll and I wonder how long he’ll remain a factor on tour.

– Lastly, the other big news of the round: #15 Erick Trujillo , who already got one career win in this event, got easily the best result of his career with an 11-10 win over #2 Jake Bredenbeck . The end of this game featured multiple turns by each player at 10-10, a questionable/argued hinder call, and a no-doubt buried winner for Trujillo to take it. As with DLR, this round of 16 loss is a dagger for Jake’s chances to take the year end title, given the headwinds that the competitors to the throne are starting to show (more on that later).

– The other top 8 seeds each advanced without really breaking a sweat; Acuna over Natera, Parrilla over Collins, Montoya over Martell, Moscoso over Carrasco. Each in two games, each game of the single digit variety.

So, both #1 and #2 out in the 16s. How often does that happen? Uh, not very often. Since seeds started being hyper tracked in 2009, I can’t find a single instance where both #1 and #2 lost in the 16s. I feel like it’s happened recently but I can’t find it. Perhaps someone’s memory is better than mine.

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In the Quarters, more interesting machinations.

– Done with the #1 seed, one would have expected Kane to blow past #8 Acuna, but that’s not what happened. Acuna (unlike DLR) made a high percentage of his drive first serves and ground out a game one win 15-13. Kane rebounded and was more or less controlling game 2 when he took an awkward step to his right to retrieve a serve and crumpled to the ground. It did not look good on the stream but he rebounded to take the game and the tiebreaker hobbling around to advance to the semis.

– #4 Montoya renewed his frequent rivalry with #5 Parrilla, winning this round 11-9 breaker.

– #3 Moscoso destroyed #6 Manilla 1,5 and seems like he’s on a freight train towards another matchup with Kane in the final now that both #1 and #2 are out.

– #7 Murray came from a game down to top the upset-minded Trujillo in three. Erick’s career tournament was cut short when he seemed to run out of gas in the breaker.

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In the Semis

– Kane’s injury proved too much for him to test, so he gave #4 Montoya a walk-over into the final. Kane did hang around to do commentary on the other semi, which was fortuitous because it turned out to be an amazing match.

– #7 Murray improved to 6-4 lifetime against Moscoso, stunning the Bolivian in a match that will be remembered for a while. After Conrrado ground out a game one victory 15-13, he raced to a massive lead in game two and had match point on his racquet at 14-3. Murray saved that match point against, then ran off 12 unanswered points to stun the Bolivian 15-14 in game two. In the breaker, Conrrado scored a couple of quick points … but then Big Canada ran off 11 straight unanswered points to win 11-2. Just an amazing match from Murray.

In the Finals … I thought “Advantage Montoya” for sure. Montoya was fresher and had the career H2H advantage. Well, that’s why you play the matches. Murray stuck to his game plan, played smart, patient shots, waiting out Montoya’s go-for-broke game style, and took game one. Montoya bounced back in game two, but Murray bided his time and took a massive lead in the tiebreaker. Sitting at 10-6 with match point, Montoya saved multiple match points-against with fantastic diving gets and great shots. Multiple rallies at the end featured questionable calls, hinders, arguments for avoidables that went for naught, arguments about down balls, etc … so it was only fitting that a chaotic rally ended with an avoidable hinder against Rodrigo to give Murray the match 11-10.

This unexpected tourney win for Murray reminds me of his first win, an out-of-nowhere Jan 2021 win in Atlanta, the first coming back from Covid, where Murray reportedly wasn’t even going to attend b/c he has so little playing time. I thought Murray would struggle to beat Portillo in the 16s, let along run off four straight tiebreaker wins over Portillo, Trujillo, Moscoso, and Montoya. Bravo to Big Sam for your second career tier 1 title.

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Points Implications of results on the Singles rankings

There will be some interesting point machinations that will happen in the short term on the IRT. Despite losing in the 16s, Jake will return to #1. That’s because there was no Longhorn Open in 2024 (which DLR won in 2023) and DLR had more points to defend from last year’s Lewis Drug. Montoya meanwhile will rise to #2, a career high … and if he had won that last point he’d be the new #1. DLR will drop to #3 and Moscoso will drop all the way to #4. Murray bumps up from 9 to 6. Kane will improve slightly, from #20 to #17 with his semi finals appearance, and will continue to be a thorn in the side of a top 4 opponent heading into the 16s until he can get himself into the upper teens.

So, when the points were published, the lack of 10 tier 1s in the last 365 days led to some different machinations to the IRT points than my private worksheet supports. The latest rankings “seem” to follow the formula of, “all Tier1s in the last 365 days without satellites and without dropping events,” except that this formula doesn’t support the totals of Moscoso, Parrilla, or Natera in particular. So i dunno. It’s early in the season so it doesn’t really matter, but later on we’ll reconcile our working document so we don’t report the wrong information.

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Doubles review

Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/a40

Well, lets just say my prognosticating on the doubles draw was … a little off. I thought for sure that the presence of the Canadian National team (Murray & Iwaasa), who won 2022 PARC and made the final of 2023 Pan Am Games would make a difference here. Nope: they got beat in the 16s by Collins and Trujillo, not exactly household names on the international doubles scene. This cleared the way for the presumptive #1 doubles team in the world Montoya & Mar to cruise into the final.

From the bottom half, the surprise team of Beltran & Manilla had themselves quite a barn burner against #2 DLR and Landa, in a match filled with undertones. DLR and Beltran of course were long-time partners and friends who had a falling out in late 2022, while Beltran and Landa are good buddies. Landa is notoriously passionate on the court, while Beltran is notoriously a cut-up. These two immoveable forces ran right into each other towards the end of the tiebreaker of their quarter, when Beltran got an avoidable call at 6-10 down against Landa that Alex disagreed with. To me, it was a pretty easy avoidable call; Landa hit a ball right back at himself that Beltran didn’t really even have to move towards to take a shot. He held up and the point was given. Landa went ballistic, surprisingly not getting a technical for his antics … but when Beltran lampooned Landa’s reaction the two got face to face, and not for a short while. IRT Commissioner Pablo Fajre had to separate them on the court, and they went right back towards each other again, having to be separated again. Both teams were assessed a technical, so now the score was 6-9 … and wouldn’t you know it, Beltran and Manilla ran off 5 more points to take the match 11-9. DLR was knocked out of both draws by Friday mid-afternoon. The last time i saw Beltran and Landa … they were eating dinner together in Vegas, and Beltran basically said this was just boys being boys on social media the next day, so much ado about nothing.

Despite their solid win, Beltran & Manilla couldn’t get past the strong partnership of Portillo & Parrilla though, so we got an all-Mexican final. Montoya took the court for the doubles final about 10 minutes after a completely demoralizing 11-10 singles loss and for a big chunk of the match seemed to just be going through the motions … but still led his team to a game one win and a match point in game two. Lalo and Andree saved it, took the second game, then took the tiebreaker for the doubles win.

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Open Singles, other notable draws

– Cardona shows he’s still got it, beating Gastelum, then Iwaasa and Martell for the Men’s Open title.

– Natera and Mark frank took the Men’s Open Doubles.

– Meadow Barth and Vallana Perrault took the Women’s Open doubles RR.

– Meadow and brother Jordan Barth took the Mixed Open doubles (bummer not to see Jordan playing singles this weekend).

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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 the Tourney Director Mark Gibbs for putting this event on!

Thanks to the Tourney Sponsor Lewis Drug . Without you, we do not have a pro sport.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

After a weekend off, the first weekend of February features USA Nationals and the Canadian Winter selection event.

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tags

International Racquetball Tour

@Racquetball Canada

USA Racquetball

Welcome to one of the IRT’s main-stays, the 44th annual Lewis Drug Pro-Am, hosted by one of the IRT’s co-owners and long-time tourney sponsor Mark Gibbs at the Sioux Falls YMCA (and a couple other clubs) in sunny Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

This event has been a fixture on the IRT calendar in January for years, and has held a special place in the players’ hearts for years. There has often been supplemental prize money offered, travel expense assistance, and an annual banquet at this event.

From a competitive stand point, this tourney has given the tour all sorts of surprises over the years. In 2017, Current #1 @Daniel De La Rosa got the win here, only his 2nd ever on tour, but one that propelled him into the top 4 of the tour, where he’s stayed ever since. In 2018, @Alejandro Landa got his first career win here, a thrilling 11-10 win over DLR. In 2023, after taking two years off, the tourney saw a fantastic final between the tour’s two top players @Conrrado Moscoso and DLR, with Moscoso taking the first shot of the new season across DLR’s bow, winning 9,12.

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=41883

There’s 35 players in the draw, a very solid draw from a top 20 perspective, with 17 of the top 20 players here.

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

There’s just a couple of play-ins to get to the full round of 32 where everyone is starting these days. One of the things I like about Sioux Falls is that the Canadian National team members usually show up, meaning all sorts of top Canada players pouring into the draw.

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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:

– #1 DLR versus Coby Iwaasa : just about as tough a round of 32 as the #1 player could want, the #2 Canadian player who has gotten all sorts of random wins over name brand players over the years.

– #9 Alan Natera versus John Goth : Natera should advance here, but Goth has always been a dangerous player who can surprise if you look past him.

– #8 Andres Acuna versus #25 Diego Gastelum: Upset watch here. Gastelum is right behind Acuna on my personal world rankings list and for good reason; he’s one of the best Mexican Juniors out there.

– #5 Andree Parrilla vs #28 Alex Cardona : well, if it was 2016 this might be a WRT final, but here on the IRT its a round of 32.

– #22 Cole Sendrey gets a great test of his current status against touring regular #11 Thomas Carter .

– IRT legend Alvaro Beltran has entered singles for the first time since September but runs into #10 Eduardo Portillo , who has seen his seed slip as he splits time between the tour and flight school.

– the 15/18 match is two Mexicans at different stages of their career, @Javier Mar and Erick Trujillo . On paper this should be Mar, but Trujillo could surprise.

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round of 16:

– Well, you couldn’t ask for a better, more intriguing round of 16 match than #1 DLR versus #16 seeded @Kane Waselenchuk . Kane, ranked 20th, got bumped up a couple spots in the last week thanks to a couple of withdrawals, and now suddenly he’s looking at #1 DLR in the round of 16.

What to make of this matchup? Well, its early enough in the draw that Kane won’t be fatigued by too many matches, which is advantage Kane. He may be 42 but he can still fire in aces with pinpoint accuracy, which most players would struggle with. How much has DLR been focusing on racquetball based on his new PPA pickleball contract? Is he rusty? If so, then this is a huge red flag for his chances of becoming a 4-time tour champ. A loss in the 16s would be devastating given the fact that he’ll be missing events and since his competitors will be advancing further.

We saw a very focused DLR go up against Kane in Vegas, playing very lights out in the two mixed doubles finals where they went head to head, as if DLR was making a point about who was the better player on the court. But outdoor is outdoors, and indoors is Kane’s territory. So, I expect a close game, and I expect DLR to grind out a win.

– In the 8/9, Acuna and Natera projected to play for the 3rd straight event, and Acuna still holds the upper hand.

– #2/#15 Jake Bredenbeck gets a possibly tough Javier Mar who can catch top players off-guard.

– The rest of the draw looks relatively predictable; I do like Montoya-Martell and Portillo-Murray as close matches.

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Projected Qtrs:

– DLR over Acuna without much trouble

– Montoya takes back control of his rivalry with Parrilla

– Moscoso over Manilla with ease

– Jake takes out Lalo but it goes tiebreaker.

Semis:

– I think DLR owns Montoya right now.

– Moscoso is better than Jake right now, even if seeded behind him.

Finals: another Moscoso over DLR final like we saw in Pleasanton. I think 2024 is Moscoso’s year and he’s going to take another step towards the title here.

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Doubles review

The presence of Iwaasa here means the Canadian #1 Doubles team of Murray/Iwaasa can play doubles … and since they never play pro they’re set to play into the #1 seeds Montoya/Mar. So, basically the final of most international tourneys lately will be buried in the pro quarters here in Sioux Falls on 2pm Friday afternoon. A great match nonetheless. The winner of this should play Landa/DLR in the final for the title.

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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 and guest hosts all weekend on the mike, calling the shots!

Associations

International Racquetball Tour

Congrats to your Pro winners on the weekend:

– Singles: @conrramoscosoortiz

– Doubles: Rodrigo Montoya and Javier Mar

Moscoso secures the last event of the 2023 season, his 8th career title. This moves him into a tie for 14th overall with none other than @John Ellis , who was recognized this weekend for his induction into the USA Racquetball hall of fame. See https://rball.pro/2fg for a full list of title winners in the history of the tour.

However, the story line of the weekend was @DaDaniel De la Rosa , losing finalist but who wrapped up his 3rd year end title in a row. The other story line, of course, was the return of the Glass Court to the pro sport. Congrats to tournament organizers Adam Manilla and Bobby Horn for securing the funding and expending the effort to make this happen. The IRT draw was one of the largest we’ve seen since the last time the court was in use, and it looked awesome. Thanks as always to @Keith Minor and Kwm Gutterman for your ongoing support of the sport, and for housing the court.

R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=41282

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Lets review the notable matches in the Singles draw.

Singles Match report in the PRS database: https://rball.pro/l2k

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In the qualifiers, some interesting/surprising results:

– Up and coming Mexican 18U Cristhian Sanchez took out top amateur Martin Anthony to move into the main draw.

– Former WRT #1 Alejandro Cardoza topped Guatemalan international Edwin Galicia to get into the main draw.

– 13-time title winner @Kane Waselenchuk moved into the main draw as expected, topping fellow Texan Craig Clements .

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In the 32s:

– @Sam Bredenbeck got a nice win over Bolivian vet Kadim Carrasco to force his way into the 16s.

– 2-time IRT champ Rocky Carson reminded current tour players that he can still ball, topping #12 @Javier Mar in a breaker to move on.

– Guatemalan #1 @JuJuan Salvatiera surprised #13 Robert Collins to move on.

– Kane, seeded 19th in this event, cruised past Mexican 21U @Erick Trujillo 7,7 to get into the 16s and setup a rematch of Boston’s showdown with Moscoso.

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In the 16s:

– @Andres Acuna dominated Alan Natera in the 8/9 match 6,10, setting up the expected quarter final battle with DLR.

– Rocky shocked #5 Andree Parrilla 11,9 to move into the quarters.

– In a very highly anticipated match, #3 Moscoso faced off against Waselenchuk. To this observer, Kane wasn’t looking nearly as sharp in Pleasanton as he did in Boston, as evidenced by Trujillo’s ability to get points on him in the earlier round. The glass court plays slow as well, which contributes (along with the slower ball) to balls being up and gettable to an extent that wasn’t the case on Boston’s cement walls. Kane controlled game one for long stretches, but Moscoso kept it close and ended up losing 15-10. I was critical of Moscoso’s lack of serving diversity and his game plan being exposed by the tactical genius of Kane ahead of this match, but all credit to Conrrado here; he came out firing in game two and blitzed Kane 15-4 in a one-way traffic game that continued into the tiebreaker. Final score: (10),4,4. I believe we saw the Bolivian get over a mental hurdle and just gain confidence as the match wore on, freeing him to go for his typical “shoot with abandon” mentality and, once he started hitting those shots, there was nothing anyone could do.

– @Eduardo Portillo topped @Alejandro Landa 10,3 in what was Landa’s final pro singles match as a full time touring pro. We’ll do a career retrospective of Landa in this space at a later date.

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In the Quarters, we got some match results with historical implications.

– #1 Daniel DE LA Rosa , who went into this event knowing that a semi finals appearance would seal the 2023 title, took the court knowing that the results before him already sealed the deal (more on that later). Perhaps distracted, he dropped a game to #8 Acuna but ground back to take a close breaker 11-8.

– #4 Rodrigo Montoya blitzed Carson 15-1 in the first and then held on 15-13 for the two game win to send the veteran Cinderella home.

– #3 Moscoso sent home your host on the weekend Manilla 6,11

– #2 @Jake Bredenbeck , who went into this event knowing that he needed a tourney win plus some help, was shocked by #7 Portillo 10,13 to end his season. This result ended up officially sealing the 2023 title for DLR and sent Jake home with a bitter taste.

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In the Semis

– DLR made fast work of Montoya 8,7

– Moscoso blasted Lalo 6,2 to setup an entertaining final.

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In the Finals, Moscoso played a comprehensive lights out match, crushing the new #1 DLR 4,3 to take the title. Daniel had little response to Moscoso’s dominance, and the Bolivian made a bit of a statement with the win. Despite finishing #2, Moscoso actually out-titled Daniel this year 4-3 (though Daniel made 4 other finals to Moscoso’s two, demonstrating a bit more consistency throughout the year).

In the post-game interview, Daniel announced that he will not be “touring full time” in 2024, alluding to his commitments to “another sport.” There’s little surprise here; he signed an exclusive 3-year contract with the Professional Pickleball Association in August which guarantees a salary, benefits, and expense reimbursement to an extent where DLR could not say no. His main sponsor Pro Kennex and Mike Martinez tried to manage the situation on social media by noting that DLR is a “multi sport” sponsored player and has expectations of continuing to play and compete in racquetball, but as they say, we’ll see how it goes.

A quick glance at the 2024 known schedules for Racquetball and Pickleball right now shows that

– DLR is free to play the Lewis Drug (no conflicts)

– may have a conflict for USA Nationals on 2/11/24 weekend if he plays the MLP,

– would have a MLP conflict for Minnesota HoF tourney

– Definitely has a PPA conflict with 3/17 Papa Nicholas event (which is also Beach Bash in 2024)

So we’ll see. The biggest question may just be how many tier1s can the IRT get in 2024. We’ve lost the Longhorn Open, I’ve seen no word from the Atlanta guys (Suivant and Williams) about their regular February event, the SoCal Open isn’t on the books for April, Denver is not happening this year, Tracktown & Boston were first time events in 2023 that may or may not return, there’s no guarantee of a US Open in 2024, we’ve seemingly lost the Sarasota/Dovetail open, the organizers of the DC-area Capital Classic have pulled back. NY Open is gone along with its sponsor from the sport, and the Pelham TOC downgraded to a satellite. So, DLR may not have to “tour full time” to play a full slate of 2024 events if there’s only a handful.

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Points Implications of results

As noted above, DLR sealed the year end title (his 3rd) with Jake’s quarter final loss. More interestingly is that Moscoso’s win coupled with Jake’s early loss has jumped Conrrado up to #2 for the season. The only other last minute moves in the top 10 saw Acuna bump up to #8, pushing the absent Murray back to #10 for the year. Landa’s final season ends with him just getting pushed out of the top 10.

We’ll do a full comprehensive recap of the season later on this month.

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Doubles review

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

Montoya and Mar captured another doubles title as a team. Its their 3rd pro doubles title this season and their 7th together professionally. This is on top of their 2023 Pan Am games gold, their 2022 Worlds, and their 2019 Pan Am gold medals as a partnership.

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Open Singles, other notable draws

– @Diego Gastelum took an all Mexican U21 final against Rico. Both players got walkovers from Guatemalans in the semis, possibly due to travel issues.

– Alan Natera / Victor Koliczew got a win in the Open Doubles final when NorCal duo Torres and Reynolds withdrew.

– Christie Noler took the 4-player Women’s Open RR

– Sonya_Shetty_/_Victoria_Rodriguez took the women’s Open draw

– Shane Diaz / Will Reynolds: took Mixed Open

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Thanks for all the streaming on the weekend, especially from broadcasters Favio Soto, Steve Schulze, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew . Thanks to guest broadcasters all weeked like @Brian Pineda and @Sudsy Monchik , who make it great to watch along from home.

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Next up?

Per our handy master racquetball calendar …

We’ll cover the LPRT and WOR events later this week, then that’s a wrap for 2023!

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tags

Welcome to the 10th and last IRT Tier 1 event of the 2023 season. For the first time since 2015, the season-ending title race comes down to this event. We’ll talk about that at more herein.

I just did a guest spot on Sudsy Monchik ‘s show talking about a bunch of these issues. I’ve got a surprise time crunch for the rest of this week so this will be abbreviated.

Short answer on the title race: if DLR makes the semis, he’s got the title sewn up. If he gets upset early, then Jake has to advance 3 rounds further to win (i.e., Jake wins, DLR loses in qtrs = jake title. Jake finals and DLR loss in 16s = Jake title. Jake semis and Daniel loss in 32s won’t be enough).

R2 Sports App link:https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=41282

There’s a massive 48 player draw here, which is awesome and by far the biggest draw since Denver or the last US Open.

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

In the round of 64, there’s a couple of matches i think will be competitive. Bredenbeck – Jennings, Riffel-gomez, Cardona-Galicia, Sendrey-Wolfe, and Horn-Gatica could all be fun. the best match though of the round is @wWayne Antone versus Diego Gastelum , fresh of a win at U21 worlds. Two solid players and this should be a great match.

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Projecting the 32s: keep an eye on:

– Natera-Martin; Martin can make top player sweat. Parrilla-Cardona; two old WRT foes take off and Cardona can play with Andree. Rocky Carson faces @Javier Mar in a fantastic round of 32. King Kane plays into @Erick Trujillo , against whom he once got a 1,1 win. Lastly Thomas Carter likely faces co-host bobby Horn in a tough one (if bobby’s been playing racquetball instead of pickelball that is).

– DLR likely faces N ick Riffel, not the easest first rounder but one that DLR should handle

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round of 16:

– DLR title watch: he likely faces Carrasco or Sam Bredenbeck; he should advance over both

– Acuna-Natera in 8/9 should be a great match. Acuna has the edge

– Mar-Parrilla or Carson-Parrilla; expect a tactical showdown

– for the 2nd event in a row Kane Waselenchuk plays into Moscoso, and for reasons I expounded on in Sudsy’s show, Kane wins again.

– Portillo faces Landa in wh at might be Landa’s final regular touring match

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Projected Qtrs:

– DLR over Acuna; these two met in Boston and it was a nailbiter: 14,14. Can Acuna play spoiler here? DLR is 5-0 lifetime vs Acuna, 2-0 versus Natera so the odds are with him to advance and capture the title.

– Montoya vs the winner of Mar/Carson/Parrilla; advantage Rodrigo whoever it is. I have a soft spot for Mar, but he’s better on the doubles court

– Kane plays into Manilla for the 2nd event in a row, and i can’t see any different of a result than in Boston.

– Jake plays Lalo; Jake s hould move on, knowing what’s at stake.

Semis:

– A distracted DLR, knowing this result wins him the title, loses to MOntoya

– Jake faces Kane again, and wins another nail biter after Kane runs out of gas.

Finals;

– Montoya over Jake; they’ve met a bunch of times going back to WRT and Montoya holds a slight 5-4 career advantage.

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Doubles review

Always project Montoya and Mar to win in doubles. DLR and Landa are 2nd seed but i could see a shocker like Acuna/Portillo from the bottom half.

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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, Samuel Schulze, Pablo Fajre and the IRTLive crew all weekend on the mike, calling the shots!

Thanks to the Tourney Directors Adam Manilla and Bobby Horn for putting this event on and getting the funds to bring back the portable court for the first time on tour since the 2021 US Open. Thanks to all the event sponsors; it goes without saying that without you and your support, we don’t have a sport.

Associations

International Racquetball Tour