Racquetball’s comeback continues with 2026 USA Junior Nationals

USA Racquetball’s July 13 junior nationals update ended with a concrete payoff in Des Moines, Iowa: the U.S. Junior Team was named and All-Americans were recognized after the championships. That outcome matters because it shows the event was not just a stop on the calendar, but a selection point for the sport’s next wave.

Rich Neher’s July 25 feature for Racket Business, “Racquetball - The Comeback That Never Left,” put the 2026 USA Racquetball Junior National Championships at the top of its table of contents, and that framing fit the facts on the ground. USA Racquetball announced on May 24 that the junior nationals would head to Des Moines in June, giving the sport a clear national destination for its youth ladder and a fresh stage for elite juniors to earn recognition.

The broader calendar told the same story months earlier. USA Racquetball’s September 21, 2025 national championship schedule said it had “set the stage for an exciting year of competition in 2026,” and the federation backed that up with a slate that went well beyond one age group. The junior nationals sat alongside a larger national competition structure that included junior, high school, intercollegiate, singles, doubles, and outdoor championship categories in the record books.

That depth is what separates a fading spotlight from a sport that still has a working base. USA Racquetball’s junior team page carried both a 25-26 Junior Team Handbook and a 26-27 Junior Team Handbook, which points to a pipeline built for repeated seasons, not one-off ceremonies. Its College Racquetball program says it is designed to support intercollegiate and intramural racquetball programs at schools nationwide, and it offers a free challenge ladder for schools that register as an Official Collegiate Program.

The junior tournament footprint has also shown continuity. USA Racquetball’s 2024 National Junior Festival & Championships recap said Bay Club in Pleasanton, California, hosted the event for the second year in a row from June 26-30, 2024. Repeated venues, repeat national calendars, and repeat handbook cycles are not the signs of a sport clawing its way back from extinction. They are the signs of one that stayed organized while the wider audience looked elsewhere.