{"id":944,"date":"2019-12-11T16:53:58","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T16:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/?p=944"},"modified":"2019-12-11T16:54:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T16:54:00","slug":"28th-annual-lprt-christmas-classic-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/2019\/12\/11\/28th-annual-lprt-christmas-classic-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"28th Annual LPRT Christmas Classic Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
World Champ Ana Gabriela Martinez makes a rare LPRT appearance.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Here we are; its the last domestic pro tournament of the calendar year. And the LPRT is back at a frequent location, the Sportfit Laurel club in Laurel MD for 28th annual running of this event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R2 Sports App<\/a> link for the event: https:\/\/www.r2sports.com\/website\/event-website.asp?TID=31661<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The brackets are up (for the Pro events) as of this writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20 LPRT pros entered into the draw, a step down from the 28 who played the Chicago event a few weeks back. Missing from the top 10 this time around is #8 Montse Mejia<\/a>, which bumps #9 Amaya Cris into the 8th seed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Missing from the 11-20 range of regular touring pros include Adriana Riveros, Brenda Laime Jalil<\/a>, Ana Laura Flores<\/a> and Erin Rivera, which will bump up a lot of regulars into seeds in the upper teens and will give us some intriguing round of 16 matches (as we’ll see in a moment).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The draw also sees a rare appearance by 2018 World Champion Guatemalan Ana Gabriela Mart\u00ednez<\/a>, perhaps taking geographical advantage of an East coast tour stop to her home country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lets preview the draw:
—————————
In the play-ins:
– #16\/#17 is always fun, and this time is no different. Reigning World Champ Martinez as the #17 seed faces off against reigning US National champ and Virginia native Kelani Lawrence<\/a>. Lawrence has been trying to make some traction on the pro tour this year, and has played some top 4 players tough in early round matches, and now has quite a challenge on her hands to even get to the round of 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– #13 Jessica Parrilla<\/a> vs #20 Graci Wargo: 18U junior Wargo makes her pro tour debut, coming off of a quarterfinals result in Junior Worlds in November in her last event as a junior. She runs up against a resurgent Parrilla, who got a solid win in Chicago to advance to the Quarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– #14 Carla Mu\u00f1oz Montesinos vs #19 Lexi York; a fun match that we would have seen last year possibly in Intercollegiates; now we see York making the cross-country trip to compete. This could be a closer match than Munoz may like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– #15 Maria Renee Rodriguez<\/a> vs #18 Hollie Rae Scott: a tough match-up for MRR, who runs into Scott, who won Intercollegiates, made the finals of USA Nationals in June and who just topped Rajsich at the Portland LPRT exhibit. I like Scott to move on here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—————————–
Round of 16 matches of note:
– #1 Paola Longoria<\/a> vs the Martinez\/Lawrence winner: either opponent will make for an interesting show. Martinez of course topped Longoria at Worlds but otherwise has generally been dominated by the #1 (1-15 lifetime across pro and IRF events). Lawrence has played here a handful of times, including in this event last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– #8 Amaya vs #9 Masiel Rivera Oporto; 8\/9s are always fun, and this should be no different. Amaya is 4-0 lifetime over Rivera … but the last time they played it was 11-10 (in Chicago a few weeks ago), and … this is basically Rivera’s home court, living just a few miles away. Will a strong rooting interest spur her to victory? Look for another tiebreaker here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– #4 Alexandra Herrera vs #13 Parrilla: they met in the first event of the season, an 11-9 win for the lefty. Since, Parrilla has gained more of her game back. I like Parrilla’s chances here of an upset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– #2 Maria Jose Vargas<\/a> vs #18 Scott: I think Scott can hang with Vargas, make it a bit close, but still expect Vargas to advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—————————–
Projecting the Quarters:
– #1 Longoria over #9 Rivera
– #13 Parrilla over #5 Rhonda Rajsich: these two haven’t played since before her knee injury, and in the 2017 timeframe they were neck and neck, with a bunch of 5-game marathons. I think Parrilla continues her run.
– #3 Samantha Salas Solis<\/a> over #6 Natalia Mendez<\/a>; because of their relative seedings over the past few years … they have relatively few meetings on tour. Just two LPRT meetings and none since Apr of 2018. Salas has never lost to Mendez, and I expect her to advance here.
– #2 Vargas over #7 Nancy Enriquez<\/a>; they met for the first time in September, an easy Vargas win. I expect the same here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Projected Semis: Longoria over Parrilla, Vargas over Salas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Projected final: Longoria over Vargas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—————————–
Quick doubles preview:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top team of Longoria\/Salas looks set to run through the draw and face the #2 team of Mendez\/Vargas, who will not have to deal with the power of the Herrera\/Mejia team this time around. I like the #1 team to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—————————-
Reminder, there’s also a nice little IRT Tier 5 at the same time, with a solid east coast draw. We’ll recap that at the end of the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—————————–
LPRT<\/a>
Jugadores Racquetbol Guatemala
USA Racquetball<\/a>
Racquetball Canada<\/a>
Federaci\u00f3n Mexicana de Raquetbol<\/a>
Asociaci\u00f3n Argentina de Racquetball<\/a>
Federacion Colombiana de Racquetball<\/a>
International Racquetball Federation – IRF<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here we are; its the last domestic pro tournament of the calendar year. And the LPRT is back at a frequent location, the Sportfit Laurel club in Laurel MD for 28th annual running of this event. R2 Sports App link for the event: https:\/\/www.r2sports.com\/website\/event-website.asp?TID=31661 The brackets are up (for the Pro events) as of this writing. 20 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “28th Annual LPRT Christmas Classic 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":[6,3,7,98],"tags":[73,71,171,84,172,66,74,65,193,160,78,158,211,67,70,176,64,76,85,60,62],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doubles","category-lprt","category-singles","category-usa","tag-adriana-riveros","tag-alexandra-herrera","tag-ana-gabriela-martinez","tag-ana-laura-flores","tag-brenda-laime","tag-carla-munoz","tag-cristina-amaya","tag-erin-rivera","tag-graciano-wargo","tag-hollie-scott","tag-jessica-parrilla","tag-kelani-lawrence","tag-lexi-york","tag-maria-jose-vargas","tag-maria-renee-rodriguez","tag-masiel-rivera","tag-monserrat-mejia","tag-nancy-enriquez","tag-natalia-mendez","tag-paola-longoria","tag-samantha-salas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","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=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":945,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.proracquetballstats.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}