10th Annual 3Wallball World Championships Preview

Welcome to the last major WOR event of the year, the big outdoor event held in the shadow of the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas, NV. There’s 280 players from 6 different countries represented and competing this weekend, and the massive draw includes most every major name in the outdoor game today.

The Vegas venue is primarily 3-wall courts, but some one-wall events are included this weekend, so we’ll note the court type both below and in the results.

@R2 R2 Sports Tournaments home page for the event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=30648

Lets review the draws.

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Men’s Pro Singles:
Men’s 3-wall singles is just a 6-man draw, but it includes the defending champ Nick Montalbano, the defending runner up in William Rolon and the 2018 Huntington Beach outdoor nationals champ Luis R Avila. Throw in a top east coast amateur in Thomas Gerhardt and a top indoor touring pro in Costa Rican #1 Andres Acuña and we should expect some solid matches.

I’ll predict a rematch of last year’s singles final, and a repeat win for #1 seed Montalbano.

click here for a list of all past Men’s Singles major WOR tourney winners: http://rball.pro/AA519C

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Women’s Pros Singles:

Women’s 3-wall singles features 7 pros with solid outdoor creds. #1 seed Rhonda Rajsich has multiple outdoor national championships to her name, but has never won Vegas. 3-time defending singles Vegas champ Janel Tisinger-Ledkins is ineligible to compete this year, so we’ll have a new champ. The #2 seed is one-wall specialist Floridian Michelle Herbert; she’ll be challenged in the semis by a hard-hitting LPRT vet in either Bolivian Masiel Rivera Oporto (fresh of a semis appearance in Chesapeake) or Colombian Adriana Riveros (who made the semis at the Pan American Games in August).

I’ll predict its Rhonda vs Rivera in the final, with Rhonda finally taking home a Vegas singles title.

click here for a list of all past Women’s singles major WOR tourney winners: http://rball.pro/0FE709

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Enough about singles; lets get to the doubles draws…there’s full slates of both 1-wall and 3-wall doubles events. We’ll start with the 3-wall previews.

Men’s Pro Doubles 3-wall

Huge draw; 16 teams here to compete, headlined by the #1 seeds and top Mexican pairing of Daniel De La Rosa and Alvaro Beltran. These two are the defending Vegas doubles champs, the defending Outdoor Nationals champs, and have a slew of major pro and international titles to their credit. They’re easily the most accomplished Men’s doubles team today and are the favorites here as the #1 seed.

DLR and Beltran have their work cut out for them though: they could face Rocky Carson with partner Alejandro Barcelo in the quarters, then top California outdoor players Brandon Davis and Jesus Ustarroz in the semis.

On the other side of the draw, a slew of teams with top outdoor players are present, and it could be a shootout. Top one-wall guru Robert Sostre is teamed with Chris McDonald as the #3 seed, Vegas outdoor legend Rick Koll is teamed with Paddleball legend Emmitt Coe, and you have the likes of Montalbano, Charlie PrattGreg Solis and others in the mix.

I like the #1 seed to make the final and win, but have no idea who to predict out of the wide-open bottom draw. We’ll go chalk and predict the 2-seeds make it through to the final.

Click here for a list of all past Men’s doubles major WOR tourney winners from 2006-present (we don’t have older data right now): http://rball.pro/4C7C5B

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Women’s Pro doubles 3-wall

Six teams here, and the top two seeds are the finalists from last year who competed to an 11-10 tiebreaker contest.

#1 Rajsich/Herbert should force a rematch in the final with #2 seeds Michelle De La Rosa and Chilean Carla Muñoz Montesinos, who won the Outdoor nationals in dominant fashion in California earlier this year. Standing in their way are teams featuring top LPRT player Jessica Parrilla, Hall of Famer Jacqueline Paraiso-Larsson, and an all-Virginia team of Carrie Handfinger Hoeft and Amie LeBrun Brewer in the 4th seed.

I’m predicting mDLR/Munoz take the title in another tiebreaker over #1 Rajsich/Hebert.

click here for a list of all past Women’s doubles major WOR tourney winners from 2008-present: http://rball.pro/37AA13

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Mixed Pro doubles 3-wall

A solid 8-team draw featuring both of last year’s finalists plus the finalists from Florida Beach Bash (Sostre/Herbert) as the 3-seed and the 2018 outdoor nationals finalists (Coe/Paraiso) as the 5th seeds.

I like a rematch of last year’s final and I like a repeat title for Koll and Rajsich over the husband-wife duo of DLR/mDLR.

click here for a list of all past Mixed doubles major WOR tourney winners from 2008-present: http://rball.pro/95A44A

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Now for 1-wall.

Men’s 1-wall Pro Doubles:
A 9-team slate headlined by the #1 seed duo of two of today’s best one-wall players, New Yorkers Sostre and Rolon. On the bottom half, #2 seeded DLR teams with Florida one-wall specialist Ignacio Espinal.

Hard to root against Sostre/Rolon to win this draw, but they’ll have to work for it, as t he likes of Carson and Montalbano are in the top half of this draw.

Women’s 1-wall Pro Doubles:
Three teams here, headlined by one-wall Florida specialist Herbert teaming with LPRT veteran international Munoz; they’re the favorites in a small draw that may be over by the time this publishes 🙂

Mixed 1-wall Pro doubles:
#1 seeds Koll & Rajsich the favorites to do an unprecedented second straight double (winning both the Mixed 3-wall and Mixed 1-wall doubles at this event). Standing in their way are the #2 seeds Montalbano/Munoz and #3 seeds Israel Torres/Herbert looking to get the upset.

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Be on the lookout for streaming notifications starting as soon as you read this; the tourney is already underway.

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WOR – World Outdoor Racquetball
LPRT
International Racquetball Tour
Federación Mexicana de Raquetbol
Fecoracquet Fecoracquet
Federación Costarricense de Racquetball
Federación Chilena Racquetball
Federación Boliviana de Racquetball

27th Annual LPRT Christmas Classic Pro-AM Wrap-Up

Longoria wins again.

Congrats to Paola Longoria on her win at the latest LPRT event. This is her 5th win out of 5 on the season, her 6th straight tournament win on tour, extends her current match winning streak to 25 matches, and she opens up an even larger lead on her two closest competitors (#2 Samantha Salas Solis, who reportedly had travel issues and did not attend, and #3 Frederique Lambert, who was upset in the round of 16). This win represents Paola’s 87th tournament win in our database.

Here’s a link to R2 Sports App website for the tourney: http://www.r2sports.com/website/event-results.asp?TID=29971

And here’s the PRS Match Report for the Singles draw.

http://www.proracquetballstats.com/cg…/print_results_new.pl…

Here’s a wrap-up of the notable matches (for me) in each round:

In the 32s:
– Lucia Gonzalez outlasted 16U world champ Valeria Centellas in four to advance in a battle of young up-and-coming players.
– In a battle of two long-time pro players, Laura Brandt (first pro appearance in 2005) outlasted Jennifer Mayadas-Dering (first pro appearance in 1996) in a five-game breaker.
– Danielle Maddux outlasted #11 Adrienne Fisher Haynes, the highest seeded player not getting a bye into the 16s, in a 5-game marathon.
– Michelle De La Rosa (DLR) also played a 5-game marathon, just eking by Hollie Scott 12-10 in the fifth in a back-and-forth encounter.

In the 16s, just one upset but several close matches.
– #8 Carla Muñoz Montesinos outlasted #9 Sheryl Lotts in four close games.
– #5 Rhonda Rajsich needed a 5th game tie-breaker to down home-town favorite Masiel Rivera Oporto
– #4 Maria Jose Vargas seemed to be battling leg or ankle issues but came back from a 2-game deficit to down Lucia Gonzalez in five.
– The big upset though was De La Rosa ousting #2 Frederique Lambert. This is one of the biggest upets of the season and the first time in more than a year that a top 2 seed was upset at this juncture. DLR dominated, winning 6,4,7 and is in a great position to challenge for her second ever pro semi final.

In the Quarters: 
– #1 Paola Longoria made quick work of #8 Munoz 4,1,0
– #5 Rhonda Rajsich took a 3 game win over the hobbled #4 Vargas.
– #3 Alexandra Herrera took a 3-game win over #6 Natalia Mendez Erlwein 
– #15 De La Rosa continued her great run, downing the #7 seed Amaya Crisin four games.

In the Semis:
– Longoria took out Rajsich in 3 straight games 4,5,7.
– Herrera ended DLR’s run by blitzing past her 1,0,8.

In the Final, Longoria improved to 10-0 lifetime on the pro tour against her country-mate Herrera 8,4,7.

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In the doubles.. Just one upset in the quarters (#5 over #4). In the semis the top two seeded teams advanced to the final. In the final. Longoria made it a double on the weekend, teaming with Virginia-based Kelani Lawrence to top #2 Lambert/Herrera 7,10.

Here’s the Doubles match report in the database.

http://www.proracquetballstats.com/cg…/print_results_new.pl…

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In the Men’s International Racquetball Tour Tier 5 event the top four seeds all advanced as expected to the semis:
– Sebastian Franco over Geoff Heskett
– MoMo Zelada over Brent Walters
– Maurice Miller over Thomas Gerhardt
– Troy Warigon over Mike Gaffney

In the semis, Franco took a close one over fellow local Zelada, while Atlanta-based Miller scored the upset over home-club favorite Warigon. In the final, Miller (who has been playing pretty tough lately) took a game off of the #5 ranked Franco but fell in a tiebreaker.

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Happy Holidays to you from PRS: next event isn’t until the new year, with the always popular Canoga Park event on the IRT.