Arizona Open draws nine of top 10 women’s racquetball players

The Arizona Open drew nine of the top 10 women’s racquetball players, leaving only Brenda Laime out of the field and turning the Tempe bracket into a near full-strength test of the LPRT order. With that much of the elite group in one draw, seed lines mattered immediately and the path to the title became as important as form.

The Ladies Professional Racquetball Tour’s ranking graphic put the depth in plain view, and Laime’s absence stood out because she is not a fringe name. Her official LPRT profile lists her at No. 7 with 341 total points and 341 season-to-date points, a ranking position that would have shaped the top end of any draw she entered. In a field this compact, one missing top-10 player changes the bracket balance and opens a lane for someone else to move deeper than expected.

That is why Arizona carried so much weight inside the women’s race. The 2024 LPRT Arizona Open was played in Tempe on Jan. 14, 2024, and María José Vargas won it, a reminder that this stop has already produced a champion who could handle the pressure of a stacked draw. The 2026 edition was listed for Jan. 15-18 at Arizona State University’s Sun Devil Fitness Complex in Tempe, with draws hosted on R2Sports, giving the event a high-visibility stage and a familiar early-season proving ground.

The timing also fits the broader shape of the tour. The LPRT’s official rankings page tracks the current singles race, and the tour said on June 22, 2025 that Paola Longoria claimed her 14th season-ending No. 1 ranking. That kind of sustained dominance at the top is part of what makes Arizona meaningful: when the tour’s best are all in the same place, each result carries real seeding and momentum implications, especially against fellow top-10 opponents.

With nine of the top 10 in the draw, the likely collision points were clear from the start. Quarterfinals and semifinals had the look of title matches waiting to happen, and the winner in Arizona would leave with more than a trophy. A victory in a field this dense would signal that the champion had beaten the current pecking order, not just survived a convenient bracket, and that matters as the rest of the LPRT season takes shape.