Pro Racquetball Stats published this article on Facebook on January 15, 2018.
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WRT Longhorn Open Recap
The Draws are up at the r2sports home page here: http://www.r2sports.com/portfolio/r2-event.asp?TID=22338
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WRT Longhorn Recap
(note: the singles and doubles data for the tourney have been loaded into the www.proracquetballstats.com database).
#4 Jake Bredenbeck eased past #2 Rodrigo Montoya Solis 3,11 in the final of the stacked Longhorn Open this past weekend. Lets take a look at the results and the matches I found notable.
We were robbed of some of the round of 32 matches I was looking forward to with several withdrawals, giving early walkover wins to Diana-Shai Manzuri, Andree Parrilla and Eduardo Garay. The two best 1st round matches turned out to be Mexican junior phenom Sebastian Fernandez outlasting experienced Argentinian veteran Fernando Kurzbad and #5 Alex Cardona topping sporadic WRT player Alejandro Almada 11-8 in the tiebreaker. Almada has played a number of WRT events in the past, making several quarters and even a semi; I should have noted this as another excellent first rounder to watch for.
In the 16s, Cardona turned around and easily beat upset-minded Ernesto Ochoa 6,5. #22 Garay, given the walkover win over #11 Jose Diaz, then ousted #6 seed Gerardo Franco 11-9 in the breaker. #3 Parrilla handled the upstart Fernandez 10,7, and Javier Mar (my pre-tournament pick) beat #7 Jaime Martell in a tight game 13,14.
The quarters led to some surprising results. #1 David Horn needed a breaker to beat #8 Christian Longoria 11-9. Longoria (LPRT #1 Paola Longoria’s brother) is no slouch; he puts mistakes away and is always a tough out. #4 Bredenbeck beat #5 Cardona 14,3 in their WRT-leading 16th ever matchup (Alex now leads the career h2h record 9-7). Montoya beat Javier Mar 15-3 and injury-forfeit in a rematch of last year’s final; I did not see the match or what led to the injury but was bummed that this didn’t turn out to be the barn burner I predicted. But the biggest upset in the tournament was #22 Garay beating #3 Parrilla 0,(14),2. Putting a donut on a top seed is always rare, but this was no fluke result in the end. This is the second time Garay has beaten Parrilla in as many meetings, and Garay has been routinely downing good players for a year.
In the semis, #4 Bredenbeck took out his periodic doubles partner and #1 seeded Horn in a tight match; these two have played a number of times as well on the WRT: Jake now leads 8-6 h2h and reverses a trend of Horn winning their match-ups as of late. In the other semi, Garay could not keep his run going, falling to #2 Montoya (14),3,9. He’s improved his standing though against the WRT’s best; the last time they faced off Montoya pasted him in June2017.
In the final, Jake seemed at ease and was never troubled in the first, then came through in a closer second. Jake and Rodrigo are now 3-3 h2h on the WRT, with Jake having won the last two matchups, both in tourney finals.
For me, lots of notable results in this tourney. I think this is a pretty good statement win for Jake, taking out three of the WRT’s best players in succession. Garay has established himself as a force to be reckoned with. In my private rankings I’m moving Jake up a tick and Garay is now broaching my private top 20 world wide.