{"id":599,"date":"2019-06-07T15:58:42","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T15:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/?p=599"},"modified":"2019-06-07T20:43:47","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T20:43:47","slug":"copa-rkt-2019-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/2019\/06\/07\/copa-rkt-2019-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Copa RKT 2019 Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Ochoa is the #2 seed this weekend in Monterrey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

r2sports link: https:\/\/www.r2sports.com\/tourney\/home.asp?TID=30896<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lets review the 16-man Open singles draw, which is comprised almost entirely of Mexican traveling pros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the round of 16:
– #1 seed Javier Mar<\/strong><\/a> gets a straight forward opener against infrequent top-level player Alan Marquez<\/strong><\/a>.
– #8 Sebastian Fernandez<\/strong><\/a>, fresh off his victory in the Mexican Olympiad two weeks ago, takes on Daniel Herrera<\/strong>.
– #5 Lalo Portillo<\/strong><\/a>, who lost to Fernandez in that final two weeks ago, takes on newly graduated junior Mauricio Delgadillo<\/strong>.
– #4 Alex Cardona<\/strong><\/a> makes a rare appearance to face Daniel Rodriguez<\/strong>.
– #3 Javier Estrada<\/strong><\/a> takes on #14 Erick Trujillo<\/strong><\/a>, who is playing in his age 16 season and is a favorite in the upcoming Mexican Jr. Nationals.
– #6 Gerardo Franco Gonzalez<\/strong><\/a>, who finished the IRT season ranked 17th, takes on youngster #11 Daniel Herrera Maldonado<\/strong>.
– #7 Eduardo Garay<\/strong>, recently repatriated to represent Colombia, takes on #10 Jaime Martell Neri<\/strong><\/a> 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<\/strong><\/a> 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<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Projected final: Mar over Franco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

——————-
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow FMR or RKT on facebook for possible streaming from the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—————–
International Racquetball Tour<\/a> Federaci\u00f3n Mexicana de Raquetbol<\/a> World Racquetball Tour<\/a> RKT<\/a>COPA RKT 2019<\/a>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Copa RKT 2019 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":[8,6,99,7],"tags":[449,104,454,450,453,452,219,91,443,87,17,88,89,86,451,142],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amateur","category-doubles","category-mexico","category-singles","tag-alan-marquez","tag-alejandro-cardona","tag-alejandro-chavez","tag-daniel-herrera","tag-daniel-herrera-maldonado","tag-daniel-rodriguez","tag-eduardo-garay","tag-eduardo-portillo","tag-erick-trujillo","tag-ernesto-ochoa","tag-gerardo-franco","tag-jaime-martell","tag-javier-estrada","tag-javier-mar","tag-mauricio-delgadillo","tag-sebastian-fernandez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599","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=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":603,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions\/603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}