Tag: javier estrada

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Canel’s 2019 Preview

Mejia is the #1 women’s seed at a strong Canel’s event in San Luis Potosi

One of the better non-sanctioned events of the year is this coming week; the 2019 Canel’s event in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

r2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30943

here’s a quick preview of the Men’s and Women’s “open” draw, which are basically pro draws. They’re using RKT seedings here, which will result in some wonky seeding as we’ll see below.

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Men’s Singles:

30 players, headlined by a number of the top Mexican players. Also, what looks like the projected Pan Am teams from Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Guatemala are entered to make for a solid draw.

Here’s a preview of what we may look for round by round:

In the 32s:
– #9 Ecuadorian Fernando Rios takes on #24 Dominican Ramon de Leon in an IRF-worthy first rounder.
– #3 Colombian Mario Mercado takes on #30 Guatemalan Javier Martinez in a tough first rounder for the top-10 IRT pro.
– #23 David Ortega takes on #10 Christian Longoria in an interesting first rounder between two former Mexican junior phenoms.

In the 16s:
– #8 Ernesto Ochoa likely takes on Rios in a great 8/9 seed match-up
– #5 Alan Natera Chavez takes on #12 Lalo Portillo in a great match-up. Natera is a very dangerous player (he beat both Charlie Pratt and Sebastian Franco in Chihuahua earlier this summer), while Portillo has been steadily rising in the pro ranks. Could be a statement win for Portillo if he can handle Natera.
– #3 Mercado likely takes on Dominica #1 Luis Perez, who had some really solid results earlier this year at the PARCs (beating Camacho, Murray and Ugalde). Might be a trip-up match for Mercado.

Projecting the quarters:
– #1 Andree Parrilla vs #8 Ochoa: ignore the seeds; this is no easy match for Parrilla, who has lost to Ochoa twice in the last calendar year. Ochoa was upset in the 32s last event, but has the talent to beat anyone in this draw, and I think he has Parrilla’s number. Parrilla was down to Keller in the Black Gold cup before advancing and may be vulnerable.
– #5 Natera vs #4 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez. they met in the Open draw in the last IRT event in Syosset, a Franco win. But I think Natera is the better player right now and is coming off a solid Chihuahua event. 
– #3 Mercado vs #6 Javier Mar; if Mercado can survive the gauntlet of early round opponents, he likely ends his run here at the hands of Mar, the most talented player in the draw irrespective of seeding.
– #2 Rodrigo Montoya Solis vs #7 Javier Estrada. A rematch of the final of the stacked Black Gold event two weekends ago, won by Estrada in a tiebreaker as he achieved a career win. Can he follow up his performance in another city, against another stacked draw? I’m going to go with Estrada again; he’s got the hot hand.

Predicting the semis:
– Natera over Ochoa ; they’ve played twice in the last couple of years, both Natera wins. 
– Mar over Estrada; I think Mar can handle Estrada’s power and advances, but this will be an excellent test for Estrada, as Mar can hang with anyone in the world.

Final: Mar over Natera, a rematch from 2018’s Mexican Nationals where Natera upset Mar … so this match-up if it happens could go eithe rway.

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Women’s Singles

17 players in this draw, with a slew of top LPRT players and a very international look and feel. I count 6 different countries represented here, with a number of players clearly looking for competition ahead of the Pan Am games. Here’s a quick preview:

In the 16s:
– #8 Marie Gomar, fresh off of an appearance at National Masters, takes on the recovering former top-4 pro Jessica Parrilla in the opener.
– #5 Amaya Cris takes on #12 Maria Renee Rodríguez, I have the Colombian 6-1 over the Guatemalan here career across pro and int’l events, and even though they’re neck and neck in the pro ranks Amaya should advance.
– #6 Chilean Carla Muñoz Montesinos takes on dangerous Dominican int’l #11 Mery Nanyely Ortiz in an IRF-flavored match.

Projected quarters:
– #1 Montse Mejia vs #9 Parrilla; this will be an excellent test for Mejia, who has the talent to beat any of her country-mates but who generally doesn’t face a player of the calibre of Parrilla. 
– #4 Alexandra Herrera vs #5 Amaya: two LPRT pros who rarely meet; they’ve played four times … but none since May of 2016. Herrera should advance.
– #3 Samantha Salas Solis vs #6 Munoz: they’ve met 8 times between IRF and LPRT events … and Salas has won all 8. 
– #2 Paola Longoria vs #7 Pazita Muñoz Albornoz; the Ecuadorian #1 has a long history against the Mexican #1; they’ve played 10 times dating to 2006 between IRF and LPRT events. Longoria is 10-0 in those match-ups.

Projecting the Semis:
– Mejia over Herrera; they havn’t played since 2017. I think Mejia can outlast Herrera in a game-to-3 format.
– Longoria over Salas: in what normally is the tourney final, these two face off in the semis. Longoria holds a 58-3 career record over her doubles partner … so its hard not to predict anything but a Paola win.

Predicted final: Longoria over Mejia. Mejia shocked the world topping Longoria at Mexican Nationals earlier this year, but Longoria handled their late pro season meetings and will stay focused to take this title.

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Doubles

15 teams in the Men’s Doubles: I like the experienced #1 Mar/Montoya over #5 Natera/Mercado in one semi, the solid #2 Ochoa/Estrada over the youngster team of Parrilla/Portillo in the other semi, and for #1 over #2 in the final.

8 teams in the Women’s doubles, highlighted by the #1 Longoria/Salas team, which is essentially unbeatable. Look for Longora/Salas to take out the Ecuadorian National team of Munoz/Munoz in one semi, and for the former Mexican champion team of Herrera/Mejia to take out Amaya/Munuz in the other semi. Hard to predict a Longoria/Salas loss in the final, but its happened before to the lefty/righty combo of Herrera/Mejia.

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Looks like a great event; hopefully we see some streaming. The host club in SLP has a great side-wall glass court for streaming options.

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International Racquetball Tour RKT Federación Mexicana de RaquetbolInternational Racquetball Federation – IRF LPRT

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2019 Int’l Black Gold Cup Wrap-Up

Huge statement win for Estrada this weekend.

Congrats to the winners on the weekend:
– Singles: Javier Estrada
– Doubles: Javier Mar & Rodrigo Montoya

r2sports link for brackets: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30578

No database links at www.proracquetballstats.com; we don’t load up non Tier 1 events, despite how amazing the draw was. We’re reporting as fans of the pro game. And, what a tournament it was.

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Wrap up of the singles event, with notable matches:

In the opening round 64:
– doubles specialist Roland Keller got a solid win over regular touring pro Jaime Martell Neri 14,11.
– Erik Garcia beat Mexican Jr legend David Ortega 12,11.
– Javier Moreno‘s break from pro racquetball retirement ended quickly at the hands of youngster Erick Cuevas 12,6.
– Jose Daniel Ugalde Albornoz was given a pass into the 32s and a match-up with Moscoso when Alex Cardona withdrew. This is a bummer; I thought the Cardona-Ugalde match would be great … and that a possible Moscoso-Cardona 32 match-up would be fantastic.

In the 32s:
– Carlos Keller Vargas took out IRT touring regular Justus Benson 1,14. Good come-back by Benson to make game 2 competitive.
– #5 Rodrigo Montoya Solis got a walk-over win over Roland Keller, who had to take injury time-out time in his earlier victory and may have been preserving himself for doubles.
– #12 Javier Mar got stretched by American youngster Garcia to a tie-breaker before advancing.
– Giant killer Alan Natera Chavez took out #13 Charlie Pratt in a tiebreaker. I thought Pratt had a solid run to the qtrs or semis here; will that now be Natera?
– #19 Javier Estrada trounced #14 Sebastian Fernandez 2,6. In my personal world rankings I have these two literally one after the other but this was a pretty dominant win.
– #7 Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo took out long-time Ecuadorian veteran Jose Daniel Ugalde 5,10 to get his tourney started with a solid win.
– #15 Eduardo Garay Rodriguez got revenge for last week’s loss by topping #18 Ernesto Ochoa in two close games.
– #2 Alvaro Beltran was taken to the limit by long time Ecuadorian vet Fernando Rios, saving match point against and advancing 11-10.

In the 16s, we started to see some serious upsets
– #1 Andree Parrilla lost game one 15-8, then got an injury walkover to advance over two-time defending PARC champ Keller. Carlos looked like he was in discomfort from the latter portions of game one and didn’t event take the court for game 2. A shame, because I’d have liked to see if Keller could make a run to the semis or finals here.
– #9 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez took an 11-9 close win over Lalo Portillo in the latest iteration of their rivalry (they were one year apart in Juniors and faced each other often growing up).
– #5 Montoya downed doubles partner Mar 13,6, in a reverse of their match-up in Syosset. 
– Natera kept up his upsetting ways, this time topping IRT top8 player Sebastian Franco 11-9.
– #19 Estrada continued to dominate, this time taking out top IRT pro Daniel De La Rosa 11-9 in the breaker. Estrada is another example of a dominant Mexican player who rarely plays the IRT: his sole IRT appearance was in 2010, as a 14yr old, when the tour made a stop in Chihuahua (his home town)
– #6 Mario Mercado beat Costa Rican #1 Andres Acuña for the 2nd time in as many weeks to advance.
– #7 Moscoso wiped out Costa Rican #2 Felipe Camacho to advance.
– #2 Beltran recovered from his earlier match to take out the upset-minded Garay 11,1.

So your quarter final seeds are: 1,9,5,20,19,7,2. 
– #1 Parrilla advanced eily over #9 Franco 9,6
– #5 Montoya dropped the first game but came back to beat Natera in a breaker.
– Hard hitting #19 Estrada came from 7-10 down in the breaker to score four unanswered and top IRT top 10 player and #6 seed Mercado 11-10.
– #7 Moscoso took a close first game in controversial fashion over #2 Beltran, who then hobbled off the court midway through the second in an injury fft.

Semis: 1,5,19 and 7 seeds.

In the semis:
– #5 Montoya trounced #1 Parrilla 6,3. This was technically their first IRT meeting; they’d met 8 times previously that I could track in the database (and likely more, since they’re the exact same age and were frequent competitors on the junior circuit). 
– #19 Estrada, if he hadn’t already made a statement in this tournament, made an even larger one in taking out #7 Moscoso in a streaky tiebreaker win. He raced to a 6-0 lead, then fell behind 12-6, then raced to a 15-12 first game win. In the second, Moscoso cruised to a 15-3 win. in the breaker, Estrada really bore down and broke away with solid play to dominate and take teh breaker 11-5. I had Moscoso winning this event, now I wonder if Estrada can beat the winner of Parrilla/Montoya.

In the final, Estrada indeed got the breakthrough win, beating Montoya (14),9,3.

Quite a weekend for the home-town 24-yr old. He beat 3 of the top 10 players in the world to win this event and, for me combined with past results is now clearly himself in that same category.

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Doubles event:

The draw went mostly chalk to the quarters as expected, though the #10 seeded Pratt/Garcia team easily advanced over Guatemalans Christian Wer and Javier Martinez.

In the quarters: Beltran/DLR got a walkover, the CRC team of Acuna/Camacho took a scintillating 11-10 win over Parrilla/Portillo, Montoya/Mar beat a hobbled Bolivian team of Moscoso/Keller handily, and Pratt/Garcia took out #2 Colombian team 11-10.

In the semis, the two top Mexican teams both advanced to force a rematch of the 2018 Mexican National finals; Beltran/DLR over the Costa Ricans Acuna/Camacho, and Montoya/Mar over Pratt/Garcia.

In the final, Montoya/Mar got the better of Beltran/DLR 7,12 to take the title.

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That’s a wrap for the 2018-19 IRT season! When the points post to the website, i’ll scrape it and update the PRS sites with end-of-year season rankings and what not, and will do a notification post to that end with all the yearly artifacts updated. We look forward to the initial publishing of the 2019-20 IRT calendar.

Next up on the rball calendar is US Junior Nationals next weekend in Portland. After that, we have more solid Mexican non-sanctioned events, WOR outdoor nationals in July, Mexican Junior natioanls in July, and then the Pan American games in august.

International Racquetball Tour Federación Boliviana De Raquetbol – FeboraFederación Mexicana de Raquetbol RKT International Racquetball Federation – IRF

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Int’l Black Gold Racquetball Cup 2019 Preview

Moscoso travels up to Mexico and is a favorite to bring home some silverware.

The final sanctioned IRT event of the season is this coming weekend, the 2019 International Black Gold Racquetball Cup, held at the Club Campestre in Chihuahua, CH Mexico.

r2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30578

There is a massive, fabulous Men’s pro draw this weekend, with 46 players entered into Singles and no less than 22 pro doubles teams. The draw features 4 of the top 8 IRT pros, nearly the full contingent of Mexican pro players, all the top Ecuadorians, Guatemalans and Costa Ricans, and the top three Bolivian players who have made the flight up to make what should be a fantastic draw.

What’s at stake: from an IRT rankings perspective there shouldn’t be any change to the top 8-10 rankings on the IRT tour based on where things stood at the finish of the last tier 1 in Syosset. More likely is that we’ll see some movement (with solid results) with the players ranked in the 11-30 range.

Play runs from Tues to Saturday, starting this afternoon 6/11/19.

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Here’s a preview of the draw;

In the round of 64, there’s some good play-in matches to watch, especially:
– Bolivian Roland Keller takes on top Mexican pro Jaime Martell Neri in a tough first rounder for both. Keller is more known for his doubles play (he is currently the reigning 2019 Pan American Racquetball Championships double champ with Moscoso), while Martell is one of the top WRT players.
– #30 Jordy Alonso takes on #35 Ruben Estrada, a long time player who has a couple of quarter final Nationals appearances in the last few years.
– Long-time IRT touring pro Javier Moreno, whose first pro tour appearance was in Dec 1995, takes on youngster Erick Cuevas, who was born in 1997. 
– Erik Garcia plays David Ortega, one of the most decorated Junior players ever but who stopped playing pro matches more than a decade ago. Ortega won 11 junior world titles, including one in every age group from 8 to 18, during his junior career.
– Top Ecuadorians Esteban de Janon, Juan Flores, Juan Francisco Cueva and Jose Daniel Ugalde all have made the flight and have entered. Ugalde in particular faces Alex Cardona in what could be a great first rounder.
– Guatemalans entered include long-time player Edwin Galicia, Javier Martinez, Juan Salvatierra and Christian Wer. Its great to see such a solid international draw.

In the 32s, matches to watch out for:
– Bolivan Carlos Keller Vargas, the two-time reigning PARC singles champion, takes on IRT regular Justus Benson for a shot at the #1 in the 16s.
– #5 Rodrigo Montoya Solis takes on the Roland Keller/Martell winner in a tough opener for the top seed.
– #12 seeded Javier Mar likely takes on NCAA intercollegiate reigning champ Erik Garcia. Mar as a 12 seed is a tough one; he’s more than capable of running to the finals from the top of this draw.
– #13 Charlie Pratt likely takes on giant-killer Alan Natera Chavez. Natera has made the semis of the last two Mexican Nationals events and played his first ever IRT event in Syosset last month. 
– #14 Sebastian Fernandez likely takes on Javier Estrada, fresh off a finals appearance last week at the Copa RKT event. I’ve got them neck and neck in my personal power rankings and i’m not sure who i favor here. I like Fernandez’s game lately, but Estrada is a serious player.
– #7 Luis Conrrado Moscoso Serrudo, a player who most everyone is looking forward to seeing, gets a fun opener against the criminally -and hard-hitting Alex Cardona. Cardona is the 2-time WRT tour champ who has gone to part-time pro playing lately, but is still a tough out.
– In the 15/18 match, Eduardo Garay Rodriguez takes on Ernesto Ochoa … which we know is close b/c they just played last week in Monterrey, with Ochoa advancing in an 11-10 win.

Projecting the 16s:
– #1 Andree Parrilla vs Keller Vargas. Great round of 16 match-up; the #4 player on the IRT, who’s knocking on the door to move higher, versus one of the best international players out there. I like Parrilla, but just barely and wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Keller Vargas win here.
– In the 8/9 match, two old adversaries go at it; #8 Lalo Portillo versus #9 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez. Franco was upset last weekend early while Portillo lost a tough one to Cardona. These two have played a number of times in the past few years, and mostly Franco has had Portillo’s number. But, Lalo beat him the last time they played in Mar19 and is trending higher. I’m going with Lalo here.
– #5 Montoya vs #12 Mar. A rematch of the brutal round of 32 in Syosset. They have faced each other more than a few times in WRT and Mexican local events. Its a back and forth affair, with the frequent doubles partners trading wins when they face each other. Mar won last weekend, beat Montoya in Syosset, and i’ll favor him to advance here.
– #4 Sebastian Franco vs #13 Pratt; assuming Pratt gets by Natera, he stands a good chance of upsetting Franco here. They’ve played 4 times in the past three years and Pratt has never lost.
– #3 Daniel De La Rosa vs Fernandez/Estrada winner. I like DLR in the opener here, even though it’ll be a tough match.
– #6 Mario Mercado likely faces #11 Andres Acuña. An interesting potential match-up; Mercado has struggled this season on tour while Acuna has gotten some solid wins. They met once in juniors in 2014 (an Acuna win). I’ll give Acuna the win here.
– #7 Moscoso vs #10 Felipe Camacho; assuming Moscoso powers his way past Cardona, he has a much easier path into the quarters facing Camacho.
– #2 Alvaro Beltran vs the Garay/Ochoa winner: Either way, Beltran faces some trouble here. Ochoa beat Beltran in the 2018 Mexican nationals event. Don’t be surprised if there’s an upset here.

Interestingly, it wouldn’t be too shocking to see a majority of the top 8 seeds lose in the round of 16 here. That’s how deep this draw is, and how many good non-regular IRT pros there are out there.

Possible Qtrs:
– Parrilla vs Portillo; advantage Parrilla over the increasingly tough Portillo.
– Mar vs Pratt: Pratt beat him in the 2017 PARC semis, but I feel like Mar is in a better spot right now. These two play a very similar game style, so expect a close tiebreaker nonetheless.
– DLR vs Acuna: DLR advances easily, even if Mercado holds serve to advance here.
– Moscoso vs Beltran: Moscoso beat Beltran pretty handily in the Bolivian Open earlier this year and has the kind of game that gives Beltran fits. Advantage to the hard-hitting Bolivian no matter who advances here.

Semis:
– Parrilla vs Mar: advantage Mar; he’s won their last two meetings, though its usually a tiebreaker.
– Moscoso vs DLR; they played twice internationally in 2015, splitting wins but with Moscoso getting the better of DLR in a knockout setting en route to his run to the PARC semis. Which DLR shows up? The one who can handle the kind of power that Conrrado brings and offset it with his touch shots? Or will Moscoso bring his A-game, which is good enough to beat nearly anyone in the world? I like Moscoso here.

Final: Moscoso over Mar, as Moscoso overpowers the touch game of Mar.

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Doubles preview: 20 teams, a massive doubles draw, that features some of the top teams in the world. The seeded teams include the (IMHO) top doubles team in the world in Beltran/DLR, the Colombian na’tl team of Mercado/Franco, the 2nd best Mexican pairing (who’s been nipping on the heels of #1) in Montoya/Mar, and the Costa Rican nat’l team of Acuna/Camacho.

Also present are the likely favorites; the reigning PARC champs Bolvian pairing of Moscoso/Keller and the likely Pan Am Games representative teams from Ecuador and Guatemala.

Fun Quarter final matches to watch for: Montoya/Mar and Moscoso/Keller in a rematch of the PARc semis. And, Pratt/Garcia taking on Franco/Mercado; could be an upset.

Semis prediction: Beltran/DLR and Portillo/Parrilla on the top, Moscoso/Keller and Franco/Mercado from the bottom.

Finals prediction: Beltran/DLR beat the bolivians for the 3rd time in a year.


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Follow along on facebook; the irt’s broadcast team including Dean DeAngelo Baer is heading down to watch and broadcast.

Can’t wait to see how this event turns out!

International Racquetball Tour Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol RKTInternational Racquetball Federation – IRF

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Copa 2019 RKT Wrap-Up

Mar the double winner on the weekend.

Quick Wrap-up of this past weekend’s solid Copa 2019 RKT draws.

r2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30896

Congrats to your winners:
– Men’s Singles: Javier Mar
– Men’s Doubles: Javier Mar & Eduardo Garay

here’s notable matches by round.

In the 16s, the seeds held but there were a couple of notable matches:
– #7 Eduardo Garay Rodriguez beat #10 Jaime Martell Neri in two 14,3. I thought this would be a close match, and game one was before Garay ran away in game 2.
– Just one tiebreaker: #3 Javier Estrada dropped the middle game to junior Erick Trujillo before advancing.

In the Quarters:
– #1 Javier Mar lost game one to rising star #8 Sebastian Fernandez before advancing 11-4 in the breaker.
– #4 Alex Cardona split the first two games against fellow rising star #5 Lalo Portillo before winning a close breaker 11-7.
– #3 Javier Estrada held serve and got a solid win over #6 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez, who I favored to make the final.
– #2 Ernesto Ochoa had the closest match of them all, winning 11-10 over #7 Eduardo Garay.

Still chalk through the quarters, but 3 tiebreakers to get there.

In the semis:
– #1 Mar split two close games with #4 Cardona 13 and 14 before running away with the tiebreaker 11-4 to advance to the final.
– #3 Estrada got a walk-over win against #2 Ochoa in the other semi. Unclear what happened here; these two were doubles partners here and competed in the doubles event later on that evening .. so i doubt this was injury related.

In the final, Mar made short work of Estrada, taking the title 4,7.

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In doubles:

In one semi, #1 seeds Ochoa/Estrada lost in a breaker to #4 seeded Cardona/Martell, while the #2 seeds Garay/Mar trounced the upset-minded youngster team of Trujillo and Mauricio Delgadillo in the other.

In the final: Mar became the double winner on the weekend by teaming with Garay to beat Cardona/Martell 11-9 in the breaker.

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Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol RKT

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Copa RKT 2019 Preview

Ochoa is the #2 seed this weekend in Monterrey.

Not an officially sanctioned event, but a solid draw is expected at this weekend’s Copa RKT 2019 event in Santiago (outside of Monterrey), NL, Mexico.

r2sports link: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30896

Lets review the 16-man Open singles draw, which is comprised almost entirely of Mexican traveling pros.

In the round of 16:
– #1 seed Javier Mar gets a straight forward opener against infrequent top-level player Alan Marquez.
– #8 Sebastian Fernandez, fresh off his victory in the Mexican Olympiad two weeks ago, takes on Daniel Herrera.
– #5 Lalo Portillo, who lost to Fernandez in that final two weeks ago, takes on newly graduated junior Mauricio Delgadillo.
– #4 Alex Cardona makes a rare appearance to face Daniel Rodriguez.
– #3 Javier Estrada takes on #14 Erick Trujillo, who is playing in his age 16 season and is a favorite in the upcoming Mexican Jr. Nationals.
– #6 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez, who finished the IRT season ranked 17th, takes on youngster #11 Daniel Herrera Maldonado.
– #7 Eduardo Garay, recently repatriated to represent Colombia, takes on #10 Jaime Martell Neri in probably the best match of the opening round. They met in the semis of the 2019 Longhorn Open, before that in 2017 both Garay wins.
– #2 Ernesto Ochoa has never appeared in an IRT event but has serious wins on his resume (Beltran, Parrilla, Mar, Mercado just in the last 2 years), faces Alejandro Chavez.

I don’t see any upsets by seed in the opening round; the 8/9 and 7/10 especially could be close but expect chalk to advance.

In the qtrs:
– I like #1 Mar over #8 Fernandez, but Patata can make it a bit closer than Mar may like. He’s really improving fast and could be a dark-horse IRT top 10 player next season.
– #4 Cardona over #5 Portillo; despite how well Lalo has been playing, Cardona is a tough out. Portillo does have some really impressive wins (Murray, Jake in the last few months), but I don’t think he can take out Cardona yet.
– #3 Estrada vs #6 Franco: the last time they faced off, it was an 11-10 win for Franco in Mexican Nationals earlier this year. So its paper-thin between them. I think i slightly favor Franco, who has been playing more and better competition and may have the edge now.
– #2 Ochoa vs #7 Garay: another match-up where I think the difference between the players is paper-thin; they met in 2018 Mexican Nats, an 11-7 win for Ochoa. They both have impressive wins over top 10 players in the last year, including Ochoa beating Mercado in Costa Rica last month. I like Ochoa here in a tiebreaker.

Possible semis:
– #1 Mar over #4 Cardona: Mar’s one of the top 6-8 players in the world, while Cardona is basically a part-time player (albeit a good one). Mar advances here.
– #6 Franco over #2 Ochoa: they met at 2019 Mexican Nationals, a closer 13,10 2-game win for Franco. I think Franco wins again here.

Projected final: Mar over Franco.

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They’re also playing doubles this weekend, with 6 pretty solid teams competing. #1 seeds Ochoa/Estrada and #2 seeds Mar/Garay will have to work to get to the final.

Follow FMR or RKT on facebook for possible streaming from the event.

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International Racquetball Tour Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol World Racquetball Tour RKTCOPA RKT 2019

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Battle of the Alamo IRT Tier 4 and Mixed Pro Doubles wrap-up

Natera the double winner on the weekend in San Antonio.

It was quite a busy weekend for pro racquetball. A 35-man IRT tier 1 draw in Florida was actually missing a slew of quality players, who opted mostly to stay closer to home and compete in the IRT tier 4 draw held in conjunction with the LPRT Battle at the Alamo event in San Antonio, TX.

Because of the quality of the event, and the solid mixed pro doubles event, I thought i’d do a quick review of the draws here.

A note: we do not load lower IRT tier events into the database, but as a fan of the game here’s a draw review.

r2 sports IRT draw: https://www.r2sports.com/tourney/drawsOut/view-bracket.asp…

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A 15-man pro draw; here were the notable results round by round.

In the 16s:
– Erik Garcia won a rematch of the USAR intercollegiate finals earlier this month, topping Texan Alejandro Almada in a tiebreaker. 
– Alejandro Alex Cardona whitewashed the youngster Sebastian Longoria 0,0. Sebastian Longoria is playing in his age 17 season, while Cardona is one of the top 15-20 players in the world, so this is hopefully a good learning experience for Sebastian.

In the Quarters:
– #1 seed Gerardo Franco Gonzalez beat #9 seed A.J. Fernandez 4,5.
– #5 Seed Garcia got a very solid win over #4 Ernesto Ochoa in a tiebreaker. I have Ochoa in my top 30, and Garcia just took a big step up based on this win and his performance against Rocky Carson at qualifiers in Feb.
– Perpetually under-seeded Alan Natera Chavez took out #3 Javier Estrada7,7. Natera has wins over Javier Mar and Rodrigo Montoya in the past year and has made the semis of Mexican Nationals two years running … but has never appeared in a Tier 1 IRT event and thus has no points. 
– #7 seed Cardona topped #2 seed, IRT regular Nick Riffel11 and 12. A tough first match-up for Riffel in this event, coming up against the two-time WRT tour winner.

In the semis:
– #1 Franco topped Garcia 3,7, ending the collegiate champ’s run.
– #6 Natera squeaked by Cardona 11-10 in the breaker, probably a good indicator of where both players are right now. I think its probably fair to say the bottom half of this draw was more challenging than the top.

In the final, Natera defended his San Antonio title by wiping out Gerardo Franco 10 and 5. A solid weekend of victories over world top 30 players for Natera, who continues to impress.

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Mixed Pro Doubles.

Interestingly, the LPRT didn’t play ladies pros and instead opted for Mixed Pro doubles. So there was a solid draw of 14 Mixed pro teams that included most of the top LPRT pros playing with (primarily) the Mexican traveling pro players.

In the final, Paola Longoria teamed with Gerardo Franco to face Montse Mejia, who was playing Natera. Mejia and Natera came out on top, making Natera the double winner on the weekend.

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International Racquetball Tour LPRT USA Racquetball Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol

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2019 Campeonato Nacional Selectivo (Mexican Nationals) Wrap-up

Montserrat “Montse” Mejia shocks the world and takes the Mexican title over Longoria

Congrats to your 2019 Mexican National Team, set to represent Mexico at both the International Racquetball Federation – IRF major events this year:
– Men Singles Finalists: Alejandro Landa & Alvaro Beltran
– Women Singles finalists: Montserrat Mejia & Paola Longoria
– Men’s Doubles champions: Rodrigo Montoya & Javier Mar
– Women’s Doubles champions: Paola Longoria & Samantha Salas

Click here for the R2sports home page for the event: http://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30505 .

If you missed any of the matches, follow “RKT” on Facebook and they did a fantastic job of streaming throughout the weekend.

And see below for links to the match reports for the events within Proracquetballstats.com.

Lets review the event. Below by round are the matches I found interesting, including significant upsets, new champions and other noteworthy results.
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Men’s Singles:

PRS Match Report: http://rball.pro/D38678

In the 32s…there were no major upsets, no amazing #32 over #1 upsets like we’ve seen in the past. Best matches of the round:
– Jaime Martell Neri topped Eduardo Lalo Portillo with a solid 10,7 win to avenge a h2h loss at Monterrey mid last year. 
– Alvaro Beltran cruised by Polo Polito Gutierrez 4,13 to avoid an early upset.
– Gerardo Franco Gonzalez got a solid win, topping the hot Ernesto Ochoa 13,10 for the upset by seed, if perhaps not by talent.

In the 16s…
– #1 seed Daniel De La Rosa overcame a slow start to get past Rodolfo Esparza 12,8.
– 2-time WRT champ #9 seed Alejandro Alex Cardona pasted Sebastian Fernandez 6,4 to advance to the quarters. This result surprised me; usually 8/9 match-ups are close, and Fernandez has a number of solid showings on tour lately while Cardona has stepped back a bit from touring … but this is a dominant win.
– Former world #1 Alex Landa cruised by the over-seeded Christian Longoria9,6 to setup an excellent quarters match with Mar.
– #4 Seed Javier Mar blew out #13 seeded Martell in the first, but then it turned into the close match we expected and he held on for the win 2,(14), 7
– #14 Beltran, as under-seeded in this draw as Landa, was calm and collected while controlling his match against #3 Andree Parrilla, advancing in two games that probably weren’t as close as the scores suggest (8,13).
– #22 seed Gerardo Franco beat #6 seed Javier Estrada 11-10 in a marathon match that featured the players diving on nearly every point. Two really solid wins in a row for Franco here over two solid players.
– #10 seed Alan Natera Chavez saved match point against and advanced over #7 seeded Edson Martinez in another 2-hour marathon (9),14,6.
– Reigning World Champ and #2 seed Rodrigo Montoya Solis raced past the veteran Javier Moreno 3,4.

Quarter final seeds: #1, #2, #4 … then #9, #10, #12, #14, and #22. When 5 of your top 8 seeds fall, you know the seeds were out of whack.

In the Quarters:
– #1 DLR had to work for it, topping #9 Cardona in a drawn-out tiebreaker. Final score: 12,(13),3. A solid tourney for Cardona, who has really limited his tourney playing schedule lately but looked great this weekend.
– #12 Landa played a complete game and advanced over #4 seed Javier Mar in two straight games. Landa was in control throughout, was playing his typical crisp shots and Mar could do little to turn the tides. I predicted Landa to fall at this gate, the third tourney in a row where i’ve called for his upset early. From now on, i’ll take the opposite of what I think for Landa predictions 🙂
– #14 Beltran played his typical controlled match and outlasted #22 Gerardo Franco 8,13. Beltran has really played well so far this event, playing smart, controlling racquetball and outlasting younger and (perhaps) better players.
– In the upset of the event, #10 Natera topped #2 seed and presumptive favorite to return to the finals for the 3rd major Mexican Singles event in a row Rodrigo Montoya 9,9. This marks the second National singles finals in a row that Natera has made the semis in, both times as a drastic underdog and with significant wins over major players. If you’ve never heard of Natera it is understandable; he has yet to play in a single IRT event.

Montoya’s loss means that Mexico will have a new singles representative in this year’s PanAms/Pan Am Games, and that Montoya will not have a chance to defend his 2018 World title in the next set of international events.

So your semis are #1, … and #10, #12 and #14 seeds. Mexican Nats always seems to bring out the upsets.

In the Semis…
– #12 Landa was in control from the start and never seemed in jeopardy of losing to his long-time rival #1 De La Rosa, hitting shot after shot and advancing 11,10. Landa improves to 7-5 in all top-level competitions against DLR. Landa returns to the finals for the first time since 2017, and returns to the Mexican National team for the first time since he won the 2017 PARC tournament.
– #14 Beltran dominated his semis match against upset-minded #10 Natera, advancing to his first Mexican final since 2015. This will also be the first time he has represented Mexico in singles since that 2015 year, where he made the quarters of PARC and the finals of the Pan Am Games.

So the final ends up being the #12 and #14 seeds, ironically the two players I called out as being most under-seeded in this event in the preview. Coincidentally, if you’re wondering how i’d have seeded this draw, I’d have gone DLR, Montoya, Landa, Parrilla, Beltran, Mar, Cardona, Natera. Maybe we’d still have the same final, maybe not. The top three guys in Mexican racquetball all seem capable of beating each other week in, week out.

In the Final, Landa controlled his long-time rival Beltran, dominating in the final for (what I believe is) his first Mexican National title 8,7.

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Women’s Singles:

PRS Match Report: http://rball.pro/A54C5B

In the 16s… a couple of notable matches:
– #9 Ana Laura Flores raced past #8 seed Erin Rivera 11,3.
– In her return to the court after 8 months off, #5 Jessica Leona Parrilla split two games with her fellow LPRT touring pro (and drastically under-seeded) Alexandra Herrera before running out of gas and falling in a tie-breaker 13,(11),0.
– #13 Montserrat Perez waxed #4 Diana Aguilar 10,3, and in doing so confirmed that the 5/12 and 4/13 match-ups probably should have been reversed seed-wise

In the Quarters:
– #1 Paola Longoria dominated the youngster lefty #9 Flores 7,2
– #12 Herrera cruised past #13 Perez in two 11,5
– #6 Monste Montse Mejia got one of the best wins of her career, coming back from a game down to move past #3 Nancy Enriquez (10),4,6. 
– #2 Samantha Salas Solis advanced past the veteran #7 Susana Acosta in two 7,2

So your semis seeds are #1, #2, #6 and #12. Not too bad, since the #12 seed probably should have been the #4 seed.

In the Semis, we saw a couple of regular LPRT match-ups:
– #1 Longoria waxed #12 Herrera 4,3. They’ve played 12 times (10 times on the LPRT) and Longoria has now won all 12. Longoria returns to the Mexican National team in search of extending her current IRF title record of 17 international titles. She’ll get two more shots in 2019.
– #6 Mejia got her second major upset in a row, downing #2 Salas in relative ease 11,4. This was a rematch of last year’s quarters, a close Salas win, and now Mejia has earned her first Adult national team appearance.

In the Final, Mejia shocked the racquetball world and took out the world #1 Longoria in two games 8,14. She accomplished the unique task of defeating the #1, #2 and #3 players in the draw on the weekend, and now holds simultaneously both the Adult and 18U Mexican National titles.

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Men’s Doubles:

PRS Match Report: http://rball.pro/DBA748

A huge upset in the semis, when the #4 team of Landa/Cardona upset the reigning pro and world champion #1 seeded team of DLR/Beltran, knocking them out of the international events for 2019. On the other side, the #2 team of Montoya/Mar fought off the tough #3 team of Parrilla/Martinez to play for the National team berth.

In the final: the two teams traded games before Montoya/Mar caught fire in the tie-breaker to win 11-0 and clinch their first national doubles title and berths in Columbia & Peru later this year.

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Women’s Doubles:

PRS Match Report: http://rball.pro/81F0A4

The semis went according to seeding, though the #2 team of Longoria/Salas was taken to tiebreaker by the young Rivera/Perez team before advancing. The #1 defending champs Herrera//Mejia fought off the #4 team of Parrilla/Enriquez 11,12 to advance to the final to defend their title and national team berth.

In that final, Longoria/Salas got revenge for last year’s finals defeat and took out the #1 seeds 13,5 to clinch the IRF berths for 2019.

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That’s it. Thanks for reading, another fun event.

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2019 Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol Campeonato Nacional Selectivo (Mexican Nationals) Preview

DLR is your #1 seed and the favorite in both Singles and Doubles this weekend.

Home page for the event: http://www.r2sports.com/tourney/home.asp?TID=30505

Current RKT Rankings used (I believe) to seed the event: https://www.fmr.mx/ranking-rkt

This is the singular tournament (at least as far as I read the website) that will determine Mexico’s team that will play both the Pan Am Racquetball championships in Columbia in April and the Pan Am Games in Peru in August. Both singles finalists and the winning doubles team will represent the country. So this is a pretty big event for Mexican players.

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This is one of my favorite tourneys of the year to cover. We generally get the full force of the current state of Mexican racquetball in one place, all competing to represent the country at future International Racquetball Federation – IRF events. It isn’t like International Racquetball Tour events, where several of the top Mexican players rarely play, and it isn’t like the World Racquetball Tour where the top Mexicans committed to the IRT cannot play. Its everybody.

The Men’s draw features 34 players this year, and it is a who’s who of Mexican male singles players. The only men missing from my personal top 50 I see are Eduardo & Rodrigo Garay and Jordy Alonso. Even Javier Moreno came out of “retirement” to play the singles draw.

As always with Mexican National events, I find myself questioning the seeding. The Men’s draw is seeded 1-4 DLR, Montoya, Parrilla, Mar, which is fine and defend-able based on talent, past results and the RKT rankings. But 5-8 goes Longoria, Estrada, Martinez and Fernandez. That is the 11th, 9th, 13th and 7th ranked players by RKT. Meanwhile clearly superior players like Landa and Beltran are in the teens, and other players currently in RKT top 8 are nowhere to be found. This really makes no sense to me. And, it makes for unfair matches early on. And, I’d like to point out, it goes directly against the claim on the FMR website that they use the RKT rankings for “seeding of nationals.”

The Women’s draw is similarly stacked; it features every LPRT touring professional ranked in the top 30. The big news is the return to the court of Jessica Leona Parrilla, who has been recovering from injury since damaging her knee ligaments last June. She’s back after “only” 8 months recovery, so I’d temper expectations, but she is playing doubles with her regular partner Nancy Enriquez (who she was on the court with competing when she injured herself). The seeding is more or less accurate, with a couple of oddities: why is Herrera, current ranked 3rd in the world, seeded 12th?? And, i’m not sure how Diana Aguilar is seeded 4th. But lets move on.

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Here’s a preview of the Men’s Singles Draw:

In the 32s, matches to look for:
– Right out of the gate, #1 seed Daniel De La Rosa gets a solid match, going up against accomplished junior Juan Loreto (if Loreto can win the play-in of course).
– The best round of 32 match projects to be Eduardo Lalo Portillo vs Jaime Martell Neri. Both players are relatively under-seeded (13th and 20th) based on their accomplishments (world 18U junior reigning champ and current WRT #1). In talent rankings i’ve got these two neck and neck; this should be a really entertaining match.
– Another too-early match-up of talented veterans is the 14/19 match-up between Alvaro Beltran and Polo Polito Gutierrez. This was the Mexican National singles FINAL in 2014, and now its a round of 32 match. They’ve met 7 times that I have in the databases, and Beltran has won every time. Polo has essentially retired from pro playing at this point, while Beltran continues to tour and make the back ends of IRT events. I’m going with Beltran here.
– Ernesto Ochoa vs Gerardo Franco Gonzalez. Another excellent 1st round match-up between two talented players. I have Franco slightly higher in my personal rankings, but believe Ochoa can win this and advance based on his past results. This will be a dog-fight.

In the 16s, the match-ups get even better:
– #8 Sebastian Fernandez vs #9 Alejandro Alex Cardona. Two-time WRT champ Cardona has really slowed down his tourney schedule lately, with just a handful of events in the last two years. Meanwhile Fernandez has rebounded from his 18U World junior finals loss to get some really solid wins on the IRT. I favor Fernandez slightly, though wouldn’t be surprised at all if Cardona went on a run. 
– #12 Alejandro Alex Landa faces #5 Christian Longoria, in a case where really the two seeds should have been switched. Longoria is a solid young player, but should prove no match for two-time IRT tourney winner Landa.
– #4 Javier Mar vs #13 Portillo: Assuming Lalo gets by Martell, the enigmatic Mar awaits. Mar entered the 2018 Mexican Nationals as the defending champ and #1 seed … and was promptly beaten in the round of 32. In more recent events he played Kane Waselenchuk as tough as he’s been played lately, losing at the US Open 12,10 and won the 2019 Longhorn Open. Mar and Portillo have met a couple times in top-level events … but they’re long enough ago that they’re relatively meaningless. Portillo should give Mar a run for his money but should fall here.
– #3 Andree Parrilla vs #14 Beltran; another too-early match-up of (arguably) two of the best six players in this draw. Parrilla has been on fire this season in the IRT, projecting to easily finish in the top 8. Beltran meanwhile keeps hanging on and is also holding onto that top 8 ranking. They’ve met 7 times in my database: Beltran holds the advantage 4-3 AND won their most recent meeting … but this seems like a Parrilla win. I sense that Beltran’s much more interested in winning the doubles at this event and may be distracted in singles.
– #6 Javier Estrada vs #11 Ochoa; this could be an awesome match: I have these two neck and neck in my personal rankings. Ochoa has wins in the last year over Parrilla, Beltran and Mar, and was beating Montoya in Sonora when Montoya went down with injury. Estrada meanwhile has wins over Landa, Beltran, Cardona, and has played Montoya tough. Both players have the capability to win a stacked event … but only one can advance. Advantage slightly to Estrada here.
– #10 Alan Natera Chavez vs #7 Edson Martinez; Natera came out of nowhere as the #32 seed in last year’s event to advance to the semis, beating Mar, Longoria and Franco along the way. Martinez was a semi finalist in this event in both 2014 and 2015, but has not come close to repeating that performance since. I give the edge to Natera here.
– #2 Rodrigo Montoya Solis should advance easily over #18 Javier Moreno.

Projecting the Quarters:
– #1 DLR over #8 Fernandez: they play similar games … but DLR plays it a lot better right now. 
– #4 Mar vs #12 Landa: This is a rematch of the 2017 Mexican Men’s final, won by Mar in a tiebreaker 11-7. Its the only time i’ve got these two playing in the database. Since ascending to #1 on the IRT, Landa has struggled; in 5 IRT events this season he’s got two semis, two quarters and one round of 16 loss (to Montoya in a tough seeding match-up). Landa also has a recent history of getting upset early in these events: he lost in the 16s of this event last year to Martell, and in the 16s of the Worlds selection event last June to Estrada. I’m going with Mar here, but it’ll be a marathon.
– #3 Parrilla takes out #6 Estrada; I like Estrada’s game, but don’t think he can match-up with the grinding capabilities of Parrilla.
– #2 Montoya takes out #10 Natera. Same story; while I like where Natera’s game is, Montoya is one of the sport’s elites right now.

Semis:
– DLR over Mar: this would be a rematch of the 2016 Mexican Nationals final, a straight-forward two game win by DLR. Mar may play with more power, but DLR can and will out control the match throughout, and can match Mar shot for shot. For Mar to win this game, he needs to be more perfect than DLR typically is.
– Montoya over Parrilla; these two have plenty of experience playing each other; they’re the same age, and battled all throughout juniors. On the adult/pro stage, this is a rematch of last year’s semis (a 2-game Montoya win). Montoya leads h2h over time and has won the last couple times they’ve played, and advances here.

Final: DLR beats Montoya. A rematch of both the 2018 Mexican Nationals final (a Montoya win), the 2018 Mexican Worlds selection event (a DLR win), and more recently, the semis of the 2019 IRT Lewis Drug Pro-Am event (a DLR blow-out win), these two continue to show why they’re the top two seeds. The problem is … no matter who wins this final, both players advance to the international events, so sometimes we see players cruise through the final knowing they’ve guaranteed their national team spots. This could especially be the case here, since both of these players project to make the doubles finals and have the chance to double-represent the country. I think, when the chips are down, DLR is the better player and his on-the-court results generally prove it.

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Here’s a preview of the Women’s Singles Draw and matches to look for.

In the 16s, we have tough matches right out of the gate:
– In the 8/9: two young players face off in Ana Laura Flores and Erin Rivera. Flores still has a year in 18U (I believe), while Rivera made the finals of Mexican 18U in 2018 in her last year of competition. When Rivera couldn’t travel to 2018 junior worlds, Flores took her place and made it to the semis. But I don’t have them ever having played in my records. I’ll go with Flores, based on her recent LPRT wins.
– #5 Parrilla vs #12 Alexandria Herrera: poor seeding makes a semis-quality match-up happen here, even more unfortunate for Parrilla in her first event back. Herrera has gotten the better of Parrilla on the pro tour the last couple times they’ve played and I’ll favor her in this match as well.
– #4 Diana Aguilar vs #13 Montserrat Perez: perhaps a reader can help here: how exactly is Aguilar seeded 4th here? I don’t have her entered into a Mexican National singles event since 2014. Is this a typo and should be Delia Aguilar? I’m not sure who wins this match: both players are young and seem to be in the same age group; they’ve met for the finals of multiple Mexican junior championships, always won by Aguilar, so I’ll give her the nod here.

In the quarters:
– #1 Paola Longoria faces the lefty Flores and should advance easily.
– #12 Herrera should overpower the youngster Aguilar.
– #3 Nancy Enriquez faces #6 Montse Mejia in an interesting battle of youth and experience. Mejia, the reigning 18u Mexican and junior world champ, has not played since her Nov 2018 worlds triumph. Meanwhile, Enriquez has been busy making the back ends of LPRT events. Mejia has shown she can take games off of the world’s best; can she string together a complete match against a tough player? I’ll give Enriquez the edge in a tiebreaker.
– #2 Samantha Salas Solis faces off against long time adversary Susana Susy Acosta. This is a rematch of the semis of the 2016 Nationals, a Salas win then, and another in this event.

Projected Semis:
– Longoria over Herrera: this is a rematch of last year’s semis too. They’ve met 11 times in all formats, all 11 Paola wins.
– Salas over Enriquez: this would also be a rematch of last year’s semis. Enriquez does have some wins over Salas in their career (she topped Samantha for the 2005 Junior world title for example), but Salas has dominated otherwise.

Finals: Longoria over Salas. They’ve met 58 times across pro tours, Mexican national events that I have records for, and international events. Longoria is 55-3 in that time. These two have also met in 5 of the 6 LPRT pro events so far this season … all Paola wins as well. Its possible Salas pulls the upset, but not likely. Look for Paola to take her 6th Mexican national singles title (that we have records for … she likely has many more but we have no records for anything prior to 2014. If you’re reading this FMR; i’d love to get access to your past records and enter them into the PRS database!)

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They’re also playing doubles in Chihuahua with all the best teams playing together. Here’s how I think they’ll end up.

Men’s Doubles: 15 teams battling it out, but its hard not to go with 1 vs 2 again, in a rematch of last year’s Nationals final. The DLR/Beltran team is the best in the world and have proven it time and again (at the US Open, at Worlds, etc). The #2 seed Mar/Montoya is no slouch though, and they’ll both have their hands full with excellent #3 and #4 teams in Parrilla/Martinez and Landa/Cardona respectively.

Javier Moreno, who holds the Men’s record for most international doubles titles, is not entered, so he does not have an opportunity to extend that record 🙂

—

Women’s Doubles: the dominant team of Longoria/Salas was upset in the final of the 2018 worlds selection event and hence are the #2 seeds here. I wouldn’t count on another upset. I think Longoria/Salas take this draw, beating all comers. The interesting part may be their finals opponents: Parrilla/Enriquez were beating the #1 seeded Herrera/Mejia team in last year’s selection event before defaulting due to Parrilla’s injury; if Parrilla can compete, this may result in a new finals pair.

(Notable; there was not a 2018 National doubles final in the database for Mexico … the event was cancelled/not held during last year’s nationals).

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Phew, that’s it for the preview. Can’t wait to see how it unfolds.

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WRT Longhorn Open Wrap-Up

Mar takes the Longhorn Open.

Congrats to Javier Mar for winning the big Longhorn Open WRT draw on the weekend. He comes out on top of a 22-player draw that ended up having a very Mexican-flavor from the 16s on-wards.

NOTE: this is a correction post-publishing; the wrong winner was initially put into the bracket on r2sports.com. My apologies. Corrected now thanks to feedback from Jaime Martell.

Here’s the match report: http://rball.pro/FFDFB6

Lets review the draw.

In the 32s, a couple of surprises for this observer:
– Lukas Le took out Alexi David Cocco Hayes in a tie-breaker.
– Nico Miramontes downed fellow Mexican 18U player Mauricio Delgadillo 11-9 in the breaker.
– Erik Garcia took out Sebastian Longoria, who is still playing in 16U, in two straight.

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In the 16s…
– Edson Martinez saved match point against before advancing against long time Japanese International player Hiroshi Shimizu.
– Javier Estrada upset #3 seeded IRT regular Justus Benson in two straight, an unfortunate underseeding match-up that cost Benson a too-tough early round match.

10 of the 16 players in the round of 16 were Mexican … and all 8 of the quarterfinalists also hailed from south of the border.

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In the Quarters:
– #1 Jaime Martell Neri played a solid match to down #9 Edson Martinez in two.
– #4 Eduardo Garay was stretched to a breaker but downed #5 Jordy Alonso.
– #6 Javier Mar took out the under-seeded #19 Estrada in two
– #2 Alex Cardona looked fantastic taking out the solid #7 Alan Natera Chavez by the dominant scores of 6,1

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In the semis, 
– #4 Garay outlasted an at-times frustrated Martell in a tie-breaker. 
– #6 Mar took a close two game win over a rejuvenated Cardona 14,11.

In the final, Mar got a solid win over Garay 12,11 to take the title.

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In the doubles finals, the two singles finalists teamed up to take on the upset-minded Estrada/Alonso team, making Mar the double winner on the weekend.

Doubles Match report: http://rball.pro/00C90F

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Next up for the WRT? No idea. The website is back up, but still shows data and tourneys from 2017 (which seems to indicate to me they suffered a pretty significant data crash and restored a very old backup). In 2018, the next event after the Longhorn Open wasn’t until May (the Georgia Open in Atlanta). Lets hope we get some announcements soon.

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2019 WRT Longhorn Open Preview

Javier Mar could make some waves in Austin this weekend.

After a down year in 2018 and a website outage that fueled rumors of its demise, the World Racquetball Tour returns to action with its annual event held in conjunction with the most popular amateur event in the land, the 2019 Longhorn Open Racquetball Tournament held on the University of Texas campus in Austin.

Despite falling on the same weekend as the IRT event in Sioux Falls, the WRT pro draw has a solid 22 players, mostly local and Mexico based. We have several WRT regulars and should see a good tournament. As we’ll see below the bottom half of this draw is definitely the tougher side, and whoever comes out of it will have well-earned it.

Click here for the r2sports.com home page for the tourney.

Here’s a preview of possibly interesting matches by round:

In the 32s…
– Texas native and collegiate player Lukas Le takes on Mexican vet Alexi David Cocco Hayes.
– Alejandro Almada takes on Louisiana native Joseph Lee in an interesting first rounder.
– Underseeded Javier Estrada takes on fellow Mexican Juan Loreto in the first round.

In the 16s, here’s some matches of possible note:
– Edson Martinez faces off against long-standing pro Hiroshi Shimizu. Shimizu’s first entry in the database was in an IRT event in March, 2002.
– Jordy Alonso takes on the winner of the Hayes/Le match
– #4 seed Eduardo Garay Rodriguez takes on the Almada/Lee winner.
– #3 seed Justus Benson gets a tough draw in his home-town tourney, having to face Estrada in the 16s.
– #7 Alan Natera Chavez kicks off the tourney against another long-playing IRT pro in Shai Manzuri. Shimizu’s first appearance on tour was in 2002? Manzuri’s first was all the way back in Jan 1997, and he continues to represent Argentina internationally to this day. Amazing.

Projecting the Quarters: we could be seeing some good ball here.

– #1 Jaime Martell Neri is set to face #9 Edson Martinez. This is a winnable match for Martell, but the enigmatic Martinez can put losses on players easily enough.
– #4 Eduardo Garay versus Jordy Alonso; Alonso is improving, but Garay has nearly arrived, with wins over top WRT and IRT pros and should advance here.
– #6 Javier Mar would be my #1 seed if you were seeding this by my rankings; he takes on the equally dangerous #19 seed Javier Estrada. While Estrada has some marquee wins in the past year (Landa, Beltran), Mar is among the world’s elite and should advance.
– #2 Alex Cardona takes on #7 Alan Natera. These two are neck and neck in my rankings; Natera getting great wins lately while Cardona’s ranking is slipping due to outside interests. This could go either way; i’ll give it to the former WRT champ on this day.

Projecting the Semis;
– Martell v Garay: I like Garay’s game … but I think Martell wins on this day.
– Mar vs Cardona: An old-school match-up of two of Mexico’s best. I don’t have them meeting in a pro event since 2015, and a lot has happened since.
Mar takes the match on this day.

Final: Mar over Martell.

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In the doubles draw, I’m going with a #1 vs #2 final, with Mar making it a double on the weekend paring with Garay to take out Martell/Natera.