2025 World Games Preview

Later this week the 2025 World Games will begin in Chengdu, China, but the racquetball part of the games will begin next week on August 13. This will be the 7th time racquetball has been included in the World Games program. Racquetball was part of the first World Games in 1981, which is now also recognized as the first Racquetball World Championships.

New this year is a mixed doubles competition. Racquetball at the World Games has generally been a singles only competition with a maximum of two players from each qualifying country.

The players qualified for Chengdu based on results from the 2025 International Racquetball Federation (IRF) World Championships in San Antonio, Texas. Previously, qualifying went to the specific player who competed at Worlds, but this time the qualifying went to the country, so if Sally from the USA qualified from her World Championship performance, but was injured and couldn’t participate in the World Games, the USA could send a different player in her place. Previously, Sally’s absence would have meant the next player from the order of qualifying players would be selected to play at the World Games, regardless of what country that player was from.

With this change there is only one player per country in the men’s and women’s singles competitions, so as to maximize the number of participating countries. Those players will be the mixed doubles teams for their respective countries.

Thus, there will be 16 countries competing in Chengdu. Qualifying spots were given to four Asian countries, four European countries and eight countries from the Americas. One of the Asian spots was not taken (that of the host nation, China), so Ecuador has taken its place.

Who’s there?

Both the defending World Games gold medalists from the 2022 Games in Birmingham, Alabama are in Chengdu. Thus, Andrés Acuña of Costa Rica and Paola Longoria of Mexico will have a chance to defend their gold medals from three years ago (note: originally, the Birmingham games were to be held in 2021, but were postponed to 2022 due to the COVID pandemic).

The women’s silver and bronze medalists from Birmingham - Gabriela Martinez of Guatemala and Angélica Barrios of Bolivia, respectively - will also be in Chengdu, but neither of the other men’s medalists - Mexicans Rodrigo Montoya and Andree Parrilla - will be. Instead, Eduardo Portillo will be representing Mexico in China.

Along with Acuña and Portillo, the other favourites on the men’s side will be Bolivian Conrrado Moscoso and American Jake Bredenbeck with Canadian Coby Iwaasa and Argentina’s Diego Garcia as dark horses.

On the women’s side, Longoria, Martinez and Barrios are all players to watch, as is Argentina’s Maria Jose Vargas. Here the dark horses are Canadian Frédérique Lambert and American Naomi Ros. Notably, Angela Grisar - a World Games bronze medalist in 2009 - is in the field representing Germany. We’re not sure how she’s doing that, but we’re also not sure how Cristina Amaya is representing Italy either.

Streaming matches. We hope that some of the matches will be streamed live from China, but this a large games, so the rights to the broadcasts have been bought by someone. Whether that someone will be streaming racquetball is uncertain. Thus, we’re not sure how available streaming will be.

2025 World Games - Chengdu, China - August 13-17, 2025

Field of racquetball players

Argentina - Maria Jose VARGAS & Diego GARCIA
Bolivia - Conrrado MOSCOSO & Angélica BARRIOS
Canada - Coby IWAASA & Frederique LAMBERT
Costa Rica - Andrés ACUÑA & Larissa FAETH
Dominican Republic - Ramon DE LEON & Maria CESPEDES
Ecuador - Jose Daniel UGALDE & Maria Angela VILLACRESES
Germany - Marcel LUNSMANN & Angela GRISAR
Guatemala - Ana Gabriela MARTINEZ & Edwin GALICIA
India - Kosetty JYOTHEEKALYAN & Shilpa DALVI
Ireland - Aisling HICKEY & Jonathan O'KEENEY
Italy - Carlo PAPINI & Cristina AMAYA
Japan - Michimune KONO & Harumi KAJINO
South Korea - Sumin LEE & Gunhee LEE
Mexico - Paola LONGORIA & Eduardo PORTILLO
Chinese Taipei - Yuan WANG & Han-Yang HUANG
USA - Jake BREDENBECK & Naomi ROS

Follow the bouncing ball…..