{"id":47,"date":"2018-08-23T09:38:52","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T09:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/?p=47"},"modified":"2019-05-03T16:08:07","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T16:08:07","slug":"2018-lprt-paola-longoria-experience-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/23\/2018-lprt-paola-longoria-experience-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"2018\u00a0LPRT\u00a0Paola Longoria Experience Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Welcome to the 2018-19 Pro Racquetball season! Fresh on the heels of an amazing World Championships event, we have the first Ladies pro event of the season, and we start of with a bang; the Paola Longoria<\/a><\/strong> Experience Grand Slam event.<\/p>\n

Here’s a preview of the draw, available now at this link at r2sports.com:<\/a>http:\/\/www.r2sports.com\/website\/event-website.asp?TID=29373<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s 24 ladies entered, meaning a round of byes for the top 8 seeds. Here’s a preview.<\/p>\n

Round of 32 Notable matches:<\/p>\n

–  Susy Acosta<\/a><\/strong> kicks off her 21st pro season by playing up and coming player Cassandra Lee<\/strong> in the 16\/17 first round match-up for the right to play #1 Longoria.
\n– Samantha Salas Solis<\/a><\/strong> comes into the event seeded 10th thanks to missing a chunk of last season to shoulder injury; she has to play-in against fellow Mexican Carolina  Luque<\/a><\/strong>.
\n– Mexican phenom junior Montserrat Mejia<\/strong>, fresh off a doubles final appearance at Worlds, takes on fellow country-woman Erin Rivera<\/strong> early.<\/p>\n

Notable round of 16 projections::
\n– #9 Carla Carla Mu\u00f1oz Montesinos<\/a><\/strong> faces off against #8 Maria Jose Vargas<\/strong> in a tough early match for both players. Vargas is also rebuilding ranking points thanks to an extended absence on tour, but made the semis at Worlds and should advance here.
\n– #13 Ana Gabriel Martinez<\/strong> comes up against #4 Rhonda Rajsich<\/a><\/strong>, and this could be a very early test to see just how repeatable Martinez’ worlds performance will be. Rhonda suffered an early knockout of Worlds and will be looking to play better here.
\n– #14 Jugadores Racquetbol Guatemala<\/a> player Maria Renee Rodriguez<\/strong> could give #3 Alexandra Herrera<\/a><\/strong> a tough match in this round; Herrera struggled at times in Costa Rica while Rodriguez took a game off of Vargas before losing in the 16s at Worlds.
\n– #6 Natalia Mendez<\/strong> had a phenomenal Worlds, knocking off two of the top 4 women in the world, and should advance past Colombian #11 seed Adriana Riveros<\/strong>.
\n– Tough luck draw for #7 Cristina <\/strong>Amaya<\/strong> Cris<\/a>, who faces off against an underseeded Salas early.
\n– #2 Frederique Lambert<\/a><\/strong> gets a tough early test against junior phenom Mejia in the 16s … Lambert was upset early at Worlds; can Mejia pull another upset here?<\/p>\n

Projected Quarters:
\n– #1 Longoria will have to earn it, facing off against a top 4 player in Vargas in the round of 8. I see a tiebreaker win for Longoria here, but Vargas will make some noise this season.
\n– #13 Martinez over #4 Nancy Enriquez<\/a><\/strong>; I think Martinez is on a run and can only be stopped by one person in this draw.
\n– #6 Mendez over #3 Herrera: Mendez continues her excellent form and takes out the lefty Herrera in the quarters.
\n– #10 Salas over #2 Lambert: Salas owns the LPRT head-to-head record 11-4 over Lambert and, despite both players losing early at worlds, seems like she may have the slight edge here.<\/p>\n

Possible Semis:
\n– #1 Longoria over #13 Martinez: I think Longoria is favored over Martinez right now in the pro format due to fitness and experience; she outlasts the Guatemalan and gets some revenge for the Worlds loss.
\n– #10 Salas over #6 Mendez: Mendez’ luck runs out against the motivated Salas.<\/p>\n

Predicted Final: Longoria over Salas, which is anticlimactic given that its a very common LPRT final and given all the possible upsets we may see earlier.
\n————————–<\/p>\n

Doubles:<\/p>\n

The doubles draw is stacked, with the #1 overall team of Longoria\/Salas, the World finliasts Herrera\/Mejia, World semi finalists Rodriguez\/Martinez, World Quarter-finalists Vargas\/Mendez, and an intriguing new team of Lambert and Enriquez that could be tough to beat.<\/p>\n

I’m going with a Mexico-Guatemala final, a rematch of the 2018 central American & Caribbean games final of Longoria\/Salas vs Martinez\/Rodriguez.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the 2018-19 Pro Racquetball season! Fresh on the heels of an amazing World Championships event, we have the first Ladies pro event of the season, and we start of with a bang; the Paola Longoria Experience Grand Slam event. Here’s a preview of the draw, available now at this link at r2sports.com:http:\/\/www.r2sports.com\/website\/event-website.asp?TID=29373 There’s 24 ladies entered, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “2018\u00a0LPRT\u00a0Paola Longoria Experience Preview”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,99,7],"tags":[73,71,171,66,63,77,74,65,75,67,70,64,76,85,60,69,62,61],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doubles","category-lprt","category-mexico","category-singles","tag-adriana-riveros","tag-alexandra-herrera","tag-ana-gabriela-martinez","tag-carla-munoz","tag-carolina-luque","tag-cassandra-lee","tag-cristina-amaya","tag-erin-rivera","tag-frederique-lambert","tag-maria-jose-vargas","tag-maria-renee-rodriguez","tag-monserrat-mejia","tag-nancy-enriquez","tag-natalia-mendez","tag-paola-longoria","tag-rhonda-rajsich","tag-samantha-salas","tag-susana-acosta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}