Tag: daniela rico

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Paola Longoria Experience Wrap-up

Longoria wins her namesake tournament to kick off the new season.

Congrats to your winners on the weekend:

Singles: Paola Longoria
Doubles: Monserrat Mejia & Alexandra Herrera

R2 Sports App link: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=31123

Here’s a wrap of the Singles matches of note by round:

Match report in the database: http://rball.pro/624927

In the 32s:
– #19 Denisse Maldonado took out #14 Sheryl Lotts in a tie-breaker for a career win.
– #11 Ana Laura Flores Saavedra was stretched to a tie-breaker by 15yr old Daniela Rico before advancing.

In the 16s:
– #8 Amaya Cris dominated #9 Masiel Rivera Oporto 3,9 to advance. This should be an interesting season for Amaya with her renewed training regiment.
– #12 Montse Mejia got a solid 2-game win over #5 Rhonda Rajsich, reversing the result from their meeting in Lima a few weeks ago.
– #4 Alexandra Herrera barely held off #13 Jessica Parrilla 11-9 in the breaker. Its the third straight defeat in the 16s for Parrilla at the hands of Herrera, but she keeps getting closer. 
– #19 Maldonado fared well against #3 Maria Jose Vargas Parada losing in two 9,10. A good showing for the 20-yr old.
– #11 Flores got the biggest (only) upset of the round, topping #6 Natalia Mendez Erlwein in two. Its the 2nd year in a row they’ve met in this event … and the 2nd year in a row Flores upset the Argentinian.
– #7 Nancy Enriquez was stretched to a tiebreaker by #10 Brenda Laime Jalil before advancing. Laime continues to make main events, solidifying her ranking in the 12-16 range, but she has yet to have a break through win.

In the quarters:
– #1 Paola Longoria took out #8 Amaya 8,9 to advance.
– #12 Mejia continued her upsetting ways, taking out #4 Herrera in two games and perhaps making a statement about the current heirarchy on the tour.
– #3 Vargas advanced in two straight over 18U champ Flores.
– #2 Samantha Salas Solis blitzed past #7 Enriquez 1,6.

In the semis; two heavyweight battles and two interesting matches:
– #1 Longoria and #12 Mejia were neck and neck in game one, with Longoria pulling out a close one, then she broke away in game two to advance 13,5. 
– #3 Vargas got just her 3rd pro win over Salas in a tense, back and forth 11-9 tiebreaker win.

In the final, Vargas mounted a furious comeback in Game 1 but fell slightly short, then Longoria took over in game 2 to win her namesake title 13,6.

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Doubles review:

Match report in the database: http://rball.pro/A430D7

The two top Mexican teams advanced to the final as #1 and #3 seeds. #3 Mejia/Herrera downed the #2 Argentinian national team of Vargas/Mendez 12,13 to advance.

The final was a rematch of several major events in the last couple of years (these are all Finals);
– 2016 US Open
– 2017 Chihuahua Pro stop
– 2018 Battle at the Alamo
– 2018 World Doubles
– 2018 Mexican Worlds selection
– 2018 Paola Longoria Experience
– 2018 US Open
– 2019 Mexican Nationals
– 2019 Kansas City pro stop.

The #1 team had won every one of these finals matchups save for the 2018 Worlds selection event.

On this day though, the younger team of Herrera/Mejia stuck with the hard-hitting veteran team, mounted a solid comeback in game 2 after letting game 1 slip away, then just out-shot the #1 team behind really solid serving from Herrera and took the title.

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Next up: IRF 35th Annual World Seniors is next week in Albequerque, then there’s three major tourneys the following weekend: IRT kicks off in Atlanta, the LPRT visits my home state of Virginia for the LPRT By the Beach or LPRT Chesapeake event, and the 20th annual European championships kick off in Germany.
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LPRT
International Racquetball Tour
International Racquetball Federation – IRF
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol

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LPRT Paola Longoria Experience preview

After an incredibly busy summer of events, the pro racquetball season is back. Welcome to the 2019-20 season; first up; the LPRT kicks off with a Grand Slam event; the Paola Longoria Experience in her home town of San Luis Potosi, SL, Mexico1

R2 Sports App link for the event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=31123.

22 pros are in SLP for this event; lets take a look at the draws.

The top 8 players are here, setting up some frequently seen possible quarter finals from last season. We’re missing the 9th, 10th, and 11th ranked players ( Frederique Lambert Adriana Riveros and Gaby Martinez), which has elevated Masiel Rivera Oporto all the way to a 9th seed. Its an odd absence for Riveros, who only missed three events in the last two seasons.

Lets preview the draw;

Interesting play-in/round of 32 matches:
– #16/#17 Mexican lefty youngster Monserrat Perez Hellman takes on Guatemalan international Maria Renee Rodriguez, who is fresh off of a solid Pan Am Games showing (she and Martinez made the women’s doubles final). I like MRR here.
– #12 Montse Mejia gets a chance to avoid the #1 seed in a pro event for the first time in a while, and starts out playing country-woman Carolina Rivera in the opener.
– #14 Sheryl Lotts made the trip and gets an early test against another young Mexican player Denisse Maldonado.
– #11 Ana Laura Flores , the reigning Mexican 18U champ, takes on the 2018 Mexican 14U champ Daniela Rico in a generational junior battle.
– #15 Veteran Susy Acosta takes on a player nearly half her age in #18 Erin Rivera.

Possible Round of 16 matches of note:
– #8 Amaya Cris vs #9 Rivera: these two played at the final LPRT stop of last season, a 4-game win for Amaya, who has not stopped traveling or playing this summer. I like Amaya here to advance.
– #5 Rhonda Rajsich vs #12 Mejia: they just played each other in LIma, a beat-down by Rajsich. But this is a great opportunity for Mejia (who has the talent to challenge for the top) to make a run. Will she learn from her Pan Am Games early exit?
– #4 Alexandra Herrera vs #13 Jessica Parrilla: Herrera has knocked Parrilla out in the round of 16 in both her top-level tournaments back so far, and likely does it again here. Despite it being more than a year removed from her knee injury, Parrilla still is not back to top form.

Projecting the Quarters: i like the top 8 seeds to advance with a lot of chalk here on out.
– #1 Paola Longoria vs #8 Amaya: Longoria will be looking to win her namesake tournament as she did last year to kick off the season.
– #4 Herrera vs #5 Rajsich: Alexandra finally broke her losing streak to Rajsich at the end of last pro season, while Rajsich is coming off a long two week period in Lima (where, to be fair, Herrera also was … but was merely on the Mexican team and did not play). I like Herrera here.
– #3 Maria Jose Vargas Parada vs #6 Natalia Mendez; as I frequently noted last spring, these two long-time Argentinian team-mates and doubles partners had not never met, now cannot stop facing each other. Vargas has never lost to Mendez, and I don’t see that starting here.
– #2 Samantha Salas Solis vs #7 Nancy Enriquez: If Enriquez does not slip up against up-and-comer Brenda Laime Jalil, she’ll fall at this stage. Salas was shut out of the Mexican singles team at the Pan Ams, but raced to the doubles gold with Longoria.

Semis and Finals: Longoria over Herrera, Salas over Vargas, and Longoria over Salas, This was the semis and finals of the final LPRT event from last season, and I think they pick right back up where they left off.

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Doubles preview:

10 teams here; I like the top two Mexican teams of Longoria/Salas and Mejia/Herrera to meet in the final, with the Pan Am Gold medalists to take another title.

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Reminder: LPRT has a new scoring system, and i’ll put up a post this weekend with a look back at the scoring systems used by the ladies pro tour over the years.

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Mexican Junior Nationals Wrap-up

Ana Laura Flores wins Girls 18U.

The Campeonato Nacional de Raquetbol Infantil y Juvenil 2019 event was this past weekend, with the Junior National teams named for this coming November’s World Juniors.

r2sports link:https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30780

Congrats to the top finishers by division:

Boys 18U: Sebastian Fernandez, Emir Martinez
Boys 16U: Sebastian Longoria, Erick Trujillo
Boys 14U: Luis Renteria, Jorge Gutierrez Ortiz
Boys 12U: Eder Renteria, Ricardo Velarde
Boys 10U: Luis Carlos Ochoa, Santiago Castillo
Boys 8U: Rene Palomino, Arturo Gonzalez

Girls 18U: Ana Laura Flores, Maria Gutierrez
Girls 16U: Guadalupe Griffen, Ximena Martinez
Girls 14U: Ivanna Balderrama, Angela Veronica Ortega
Girls 12U: Mariafernanda Trujillo, Yanna Salazar
Girls 10U: Ximena Barraza, Mariajose Franco
Girls 8U: Maria Malo uncontested

I *believe* this list is also the Mexican Junior team for Junior Worlds in November. However, some of the younger divisions saw different players advancing out of the loser’s bracket and may be the actual 2nd place finishers. The results above show the finals of the winner’s bracket throughout.

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Here’s the updated Mexican Junior Nationals Matrix of all winners, now that we’ve updated the 2019 winners:

Mexican Boy’s Winner Matrix: http://rball.pro/E1C550

Mexican Girls Winner Matrix: http://rball.pro/A267D1

These results are very sparse when compared to USA, Canada and Worlds. I have some past r2sports links and will do an update, but any results prior to 2013 will require help from the Mexican National organization.

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Here’s some wrap-ups of the divisions. From a database perspective, I have put in just the winner’s bracket matches from the 14U, 16U and 18U divisions on both sides. i’ve just put in winners for younger divisions.

Boys 18U: PRS match report: http://rball.pro/F11B26

In the 18U, #1 seed Sebastian Fernandez dominated the weekend, dropping just one game en route to a repeat 18U title. He beat #11 seeded Emir Martinez 1,3 in the final, who came out of a lower-side of the bracket clearly seeded poorly (the #2, #3 and #6 seeds all lost in the first round). The winner of the loser’s bracket/3rd place winner turned out to be #9 seeded Jose Ramos, who topped #4 seed Manuel Moncada (the only person to take a game off of Fernandez).

Boys 16U: PRS match report: http://rball.pro/B9A6AB

In the 16U, the seeds held to the final, where #2 Sebastian Longoria took out #1 Erick Trujillo 12,6. #12 seed Aldo Caraveo recovered from his semi finals loss to win the loser’s bracket/take 3rd place.

Boys 14U: PRS match report: http://rball.pro/68878C

In the 14U, #2 seed Luis Renteria took out #4 seeded Jorge Gutierrez Ortiz in the final. #1 seed Christhian Sanchez recovered to take 3rd.

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Girls 18U: PRS match report: http://rball.pro/81EC3C

In the 18U, #2 seed Ana Laura Flores Saavedra blitzed her way to the title, winning the final 1,1 over 9th seeded Maria Gutierrez. #1 seed Ana Kristin Rivera recovered to take the loser’s bracket final and 3rd place, keeping her in play for a Junior World spot.

Girls 16U: PRS match report: http://rball.pro/533E1D

In the 16U, #1 seed Guadalupe Griffen topped #6 seed Ximena Martinez in the final 6,8. #2 seed Daniela Rico recovered from an upset qtrs loss to take the losers’s bracket and 3rd place.

Girls 14U: PRS match report: http://rball.pro/25A4A2

In the 14U, #2 Ivanna Balderrama topped #4 Angela Veronica Ortega in the final 13,8. #1 seed Naomi Ros recovered to take 3rd.

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That’s a wrap.

The next major tournament is Pan Ams in early-to-mid August. I’ll do a reaction piece to the ridiculousness of the Mexican Adult national team selection this week. I’ll also post some IRT season wrap-up content that i’ve had ready to go for a few weeks.

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Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
International Racquetball Federation – IRF

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Mexican Junior Nationals Preview

Sebastian Fernandez looks to cap off a very decorated junior career with his last 18U Junior tournament.

This coming week and weekend is Campeonat Nacional de Raquetbol Infantil y Juvenil 2019. This tournament should determine the representatives Mexico sends to World Juniors, being held later this year in November in San Jose, Costa Rica.

r2 site: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30780

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Our records for Mexican Nationals events aren’t nearly as complete as for the USA and Canada: for the juniors, we only have records going back to 2013, and only for the older groups in the database. here’s some links to Mexican past junior champs:

Boys Junior champs: http://rball.pro/E1C550

Girls Junior champs: http://rball.pro/A267D1

There are a few defending champs entered into the draws. On the boys side:
– defending Mexican 18U champ Sebastian Fernandez is here to defend his title. 
– defending 16U champ Elias Nieto has graduated to the 18U ranks.
– defending 14U champ Omar Gonzalez has graduated to the 16U draw.

On the girls side:
– 2x defending 18U champ Montse Mejia has matriculated, so we’ll have a new champion. 
– defending 16U champ Delia Aguilar is not at the event.
– defending 14U champ Daniela Rico has graduated to the 16Us and will take on a group that includes some players already playing in the LPRT ranks.

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Lets preview the 18U and 16U draws, the ones with the players who followers of the pro game may have heard of or seen entered into draws.

Boys 18U: the seedings frequently confound me in these events (for example, last year the final was certainly predictable by observers of the draw, but the two finalist seeds were #12 and #23). This year Fernandez is the clear #1 seed, but the #2 seed Saul Rivero was topped by the guy seeded 14th in this draw Adrian Fernandez. Furthermore, Fernandez has to go against the 3rd seeded Nieto, the reigning 16U champ despite making it to the qtrs last year. I don’t get it.

I like Fernandez to repeat, irrespective of who comes out of the bottom. I’ll predict semis of #1 Fernandez, #4 Manuel Moncada, #3 Nieto and #15 Cuevas Fernandez, with Nieto losing in the final to the repeating Fernandez.

Boys 16U: #1 Erick Trujillo and #2 Sebastian Longoria would be my favorites to make the final, but there’s already been a slew of upsets of other seeded players, so it may be a wide-open draw.

Girls 18U: The two top seeds are the two Anas who I would have expected to be there. Ana Laura Flores Saavedra and Ana Kristin Rivera were both semi-finalists from 2018’s 18U competition are in the draw and should be the favorites to meet in the final.

Girls 16U: #1 seed Guadalupe Griffin and #2 seed Daniela Rico have pro experience, but so do a few others in the draw despite it being a 16U draw. It should be competitive.

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International Racquetball Federation – IRF
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol

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Mexican Junior Olympics Wrap-Up

Fernandez takes another Jr Title.

In addition to all the other stuff going on with USA and Canada this past weekend, Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol held its Olimpiada Nacional de Raquetbol for 2019.

Official Mexican Junior Nationals are later on this summer, so this seemed to be a junior-focused tournament. As a result, this is a “fan only” posting and no database loading of results will occur.

Congrats to your winners:
Boys 20U: Sebastian Fernandez over Eduardo Lalo Portillo, a rematch of last year’s Mexican 18U AND World 18U championship final.
Boys 16U: Erick Trujillo over Sebastian Longoria
Boys 14U: Christian Sanchez over Luis Renteria.

Girls 20U: Montse Mejia over Ana Kristin Rivera
Girls 16U: Guadalupe Griffin over Daniela Rico 
Girls 14U: Naomi Ros over Ivanna Balderrama

r2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30779

note: the draws actually were “20 and under,” so that’s not a mis-print.

Participation: notably, this event drew more than 200 players … more than the participation of USA National singles. And it was just for basically three age divisions (14, 16, and “20”) in a non-national event. There were 36 in 20 and Under boys, 41 players in boys 14 and under, 27-30 in each of the three girls divisions.

Contrast this to the last USA junior national events, which featured 24, 20 and 19 in the three top boys events, and just 9, 11 and 9 girls in each of the three top girls age groups. And it’s even fewer in Canada, where some of the junior age groups end up being combined into round robin events just to give everyone more than a couple of matches.

For everyone who complains about participation in our sport in the US … look no further than the junior pipeline south of the border. What is going on in Mexico that we can leverage in the US?

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2019 LPRT Battle at the Alamo Preview

Draws: https://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=30301

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.

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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.