2023 3WallBall Championships Celebrated on the Vegas Strip
Oct 3, 2023
The KWM Gutterman 3Wallball Outdoor Championships was the largest of 3, outdoor major events of 2023. Each year, Tournament Director Mike Coulter and his team construct the outdoor courts for this multi sport event, right in front of the iconic STRAT Hotel. Armatures and Pros competed and then celebrated their victories on the Vegas strip.
LPRT athletes put on a show while capturing the top titles in pro singles, pro doubles, and mixed pro doubles. Matches were streamed live by the LPRT and IRT.
Here is an event recap thanks to Todd Boss of ProRacquetballStats.com:
3WallBall 2023 Recap
The 2023 Kwm Gutterman 3Wall Ball Outdoor Championships are in the books. It was a fun, long weekend in Las Vegas on the grounds of The STRAT Hotel, Casino and Skypod , with players from all over the country competing in Racquetball, Paddleball, and Handball.
Congrats to your Pro racquetball division winners on the weekend:
– Men’s Pro 3-wall Doubles: Daniel De la Rosa & Alejandro Landa
– Women’s Pro 3-wall Doubles: Monserrat Mejia & Alexandra Herrera
– Mixed Pro 3-wall Doubles: De La Rosa & Hollie Rae Scott
– Men’s Pro 1-wall Doubles: Eduardo Portillo & Benny Goldenberg
– Women’s Pro 1-wall Doubles: Brenda Laime Jalil & Carla Munoz
– Mixed Pro 1-wall Doubles: De La Rosa/Scott
– Men’s 3-wall Singles: Alan Natera
– Women’s 3-wall Singles: Mejia
A big weekend for De La Rosa, who entered 4/won 4 divisions (3 pro racquetball divisions plus a paddleball division too). DLR teamed with Scott to win both
Mixed pro titles and, for the first time ever, do a clean sweep of all four mixed pro titles from the three outdoor majors. A fantastic achievement. Mejia took
the 3-wall singles/doubles double, her second straight 3-wall outdoor singles title.
Also Congrats to the winners of the other major Racquetball divisions held this weekend:
– CPRT Pro Doubles: Alvaro Beltran & Rick "Soda Man" Koll
– Combined 75+ Men's Doubles: Cesar Chavez & Landa
- Centurion/Combined 100+ Men's Doubles; Tony Burg & Scott St. Clair
– Men’s Open Doubles: Chavez & Emmett Coe
- Women's Open Doubles: Sonja Septon (competed as a King of the Court)
- Mixed Open Doubles: Mike Harmon & Sarah Noye
- King of the Court Legends competition: Keith Minor
And Here's the winners of the non-racquetball disciplines competed this weekend
– Paddleball Men’s Doubles: Daniel De La Rosa/ Emmett Coe
– Paddleball Mixed Doubles: Victoria Rodriguez/ Emmett Coe
- Handball 3-wall Big Ball Men's Doubles: Anthony Hernandez / Tywan Cook
- Handball 1-wall Big Ball Men's Doubles: Tywan Cook / Michael Christopher:
- Handball 3-wall Big Ball Men's Singles: Anthony Hernandez
- Handball 1-Wall Big Ball Men's Singles: Tywan Cook
A triple crown for Brooklyn's Cook, and a double Paddleball title for Coe, which should be no surprise given the number of national titles he holds.
R2 Sports App home page for event: https://www.r2sports.com/website/event-website.asp?TID=40677
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Match Reports in the database by division (racquetball divisions only)
– Men’s Pro 3-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/2hq
– Women’s Pro 3-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/u28
– Mixed Pro 3-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/fy6
– Men’s Pro 1-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/usc
– Women’s Pro 1-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/m12
– Mixed Pro 1-wall Doubles: https://rball.pro/tkt
– Men’s 3-wall Singles: https://rball.pro/b9t
– Women’s 3-wall Singles: https://rball.pro/13m
Here's the Triple Crown reports in the database, showing all the winners of all divisions over the years.
- Men's Doubles Triple Crown Report: https://rball.pro/pdb
- Women's Doubles Triple Crown Report: https://rball.pro/5pw
- Mixed Doubles Triple Crown Report: https://rball.pro/bhn
- Men's Singles Triple Crown Report: https://rball.pro/49e
- Women's Singles Triple Crown Report: https://rball.pro/hl6
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Here's a recap of the draws. Because of the number of divisions to cover, we'll run through in narrative format instead of round-by-round.
- Men's 3-wall Pro Doubles: De La Rosa won this title for the 6th time in 7 years, teaming this year with the very improved Alex Landa to take the title over last year's finalists Manilla & Riffel. Adam and Nick, as they did last year, rolled into the final playing smart, tactical racquetball and were not seriously challenged until the final. DLR continues to show why he's the best all-around player in the world, killing everything in his reach and leading his team to victory.
There were a couple of notable early round matches. In the opener, #13 seeds Chris & Jack McDonald absolutely pulverized the #4 seeds Waselenchuk & Beltran 8 & 4, surprising the crowd who turned out to watch two legends of the sport. Chris (who has made the pro final in Men's doubles three times in his career) was just lights out and the brother-brother team created a tactical nightmare for the IRT veterans, who had no answers for McDonald's pace and aggression. In the quarters, 1-wall specialists Sostre & Goldenberg faced the 3-wall veterans Solis & Allin and played a fantastic, brutal 11,(11),10 match in the 95-degree sun. There was little between the teams on the day, and the crowd was treated to an awesome match.
- Women's 3-wall Pro Doubles: 10 of the currently ranked top 17 LPRT pros were in Las Vegas, and the pro draws were littered with the sport's top females mixing it up with outdoor veterans. In the pro doubles, current #1 Mejia, relatively new to outdoor, continues to impress, taking her first outdoor pro doubles title with the improving Herrera. They topped Scott & Lawrence in a tightly-contested 11-8 final.
- Mixed 3wall Pro Doubles: the final pro match competed at the event lived up to its billing as the highly anticipated rematch of DLR/Scott & Kane/Key (full of all sorts of interpersonal overtones) became a highlight show of shot-making from all parties. DLR and Scott ground out a 15-10 win in game one, then ran away with it in game 4 as DLR finger-wagged his way through one kill shot after another. Nonetheless, Kane and Key were an impressive team, and Kane will only improve in the 3-wall discipline going forward. It's fantastic having the 13-time IRT pro champ here, and I hope he continues to play the outdoor majors.
- Men's One wall Pro Doubles; The ever improving Lalo Portillo joined forces with NY-one wall veteran Goldenberg to grind out a title over the #1 seeds and multi-time champions of this event Sostre & Rolon in a slugfest on the show-court.
- Women's One Wall Pro Doubles: Munoz won her second straight Vegas One-wall pro ladies doubles title, teaming with Laime to take a strange final over the eventual 3-wall champs Herrera & Mejia. After edging them 11-10 in game one, they blew out the two top LPRT pros 11-1 in game two for the win. This was a great division, with each of the 6 teams featuring a past pro doubles outdoor champion.
- Mixed One Wall Pro Doubles: The semis of the Mixed one-wall pro doubles tournament featured men who had combined for a grand total of 20 year end IRT #1 titles (between Kane, Cliff Swain , and DLR). The action on the court bore that out. Waselenchuk, who recently relocated to San Antonio and who has been playing with the big one-wall community there, showed just how quickly he's picking up the discipline, but the more experienced outdoor player DLR drove his team to the win.