The Best Racquetball Players you've never heard of:

(Inspired by conversations on meetandplay.com, musings by Marty Hogan, etc)

This is a list of players who usually demonstrated the ability to compete with the top players of their day, but who never decided to tour full time (or who only toured for limited amounts of time).

Old Schoolers: players from the hey-day of racquetball in the 70s and early 80s (most of text pulled from Hogan 9/16/08 posting)

  • Larry Myers: a very accomplished junior who had some sucess and big wins during the toughest days on tour. He owned Mike Yellen.
  • Dave Fleetwood: beat Brumfield, Yellen, Peck, Bledsoe and everyone on tour besides Old Smoky
  • Mike Levine: big serve and big forehand. He was always a threat
  • Jim Cascio: great reach and power. A dangerous floater. Amateur from Pennsylvania, only played pro tour full time for one season (85-86).
  • Mike Griffith: beat me, and other top players. Was on his way to the top before his life ended way to early.
  • Steve Mondry: one of the most fit players in history. The best leftside doubles player, I ever played with.
  • Bruce Christenson: huge serve beat Brumfield at the nationals
  • Kenny Wong: battled and beat me, Hilecher, Serot, Koltun and other better known players in St. Louis during 70's
  • Scott Oliver: a guy capable of beating everyone and he did. I played him in three finals and he was a contender at every event.
  • Freddy Calabrese: New Yorker with a serve you couldn't read, beat Hogan, Swain, Ruben, Ray and others in cash events off tour.
  • Others mentioned: Bill Land, Bo Champagne, Stan Wright, Kelvin VanTrease
    Modern players : Players from the 90s and 00s

  • Eric Muller: Boston/NYC based player who chose Harvard Law over racquetball. Training partner of Swain during his reign, seems to make runs in every pro tournament he entered.
  • Mike Locker: Gained fame with a fabulous run to the US Open semis in 2000 and made a final in 98-99 season. Then quit the pro tour altogether by mid 2002.
  • Dave Johnson: was getting seeded as high as #3 in the early 90s ... but never really pushed further than a top 8 finish. Never won a tourney but made more than a few semis and finals.
  • Brian Hawkes, Clubber Lane and some of the other outdoor guys: Hawkes played various events in the mid 80s, then decided to play full time in 91-92. He had a tour win, made a final, then never played an IRT event again after looking at the financial reality of touring. Was the greatest outdoor player of all time, with 20 Outdoor National singles titles. Lane's power is legendary. The outdoor scene in Southern California has rebounded nicely in the past few years with the appointment of Marcus, the creation of a tour and the attention of top IRT players.
  • Bill Sell, Greg Solis, Adam Karp, Steve Lerner, Tony Jelso, Michael Bronfeld and other California pros in the mid 90s: The mid 90s experienced a glut of players pouring onto the tour and competing on a regular basis. California Open draws resembled IRT satellite events because of all the touring pros from the state.
  • Sherman Greenfield: Longtime Canadian champion, never really committed to the IRT tour.
  • Jeff Bell: great amateur player in Arizona.
  • Jeff Conine: Legendary power player in his college days, unsurprisingly chose a pro baseball career and multi-million dollar contracts over the IRT tour. Married to former touring womens pro and former IRT champ Tim Doyle's sister Cindy, with whom he made a surprise appearance at National Doubles while playing for the Baltimore Orioles.
  • Tim Sweeney: Chicago based-player in the late 80s/early 90s who definitely had top 10 capabilities, who had a major win that helped decide the 95-96 pro season with a round of 32 upset of Cliff Swain. Never played the tour full time but won intercollegiates four straight times (the only person to do so) and was on the US Team in the early 1990s.
  • Mike Johnston:
  • Jimmy Lowe: US Army player has dozens of amateur national championships but has *never* entered a pro tournament. Despite this, he cruised to the 2008 Classic Pro Racquetball championship in Memphis, beating all comers and former touring pros.
  • Josh Tucker: former junior phenom who played the pro tour full-time for three seasons, achieving decent success before returning to local pro status. He became a force in outdoor raccquetball, winning multiple Outdoor National titles.
  • Ricardo Monroy: Long time Bolivian player who won the Pan American Games in 2010 and was a trail blazer for the sport in that country.
  • Gilberto Mejia: great player from Mexico who rarely played in the USA but was a fixture in international events for years, reaching the final of Pan American and World championships.

    Current Players: here's current players who are great but you may not have heard much about them.

  • Micah Rich: Northern California born and raised, was a dominant player who regularly defeated the Rojas brothers while they were touring full time and ranked in the top 8. Moved to Southern California, took a decade off, and now is one of the best outdoor players in the land, winning multiple Pro outdoor doubles titles.
  • Carlos Keller Vargas: Also from Bolivia; he and Moscoso are regulars on the IRF circuit and have a number of semis and finals appearances in major international events. Played the tour full time pre-Covid.
  • Javier Mar: the 2017 Mexican National champion, he's got a number of significant wins on the IRT and WRT circuits but rarely plays events.
  • Javier Estrada: the Chihuahua native won a famous tournament in 2019, the Black gold cup, where he defeated, in order, Juan Flores, Sebastian Fernandez, Daniel De La Rosa, Mario Mercado, Conrrado Moscoso, and then Rodrigo Montoya to win the title. But he rarely played IRT events domesically.