R48 Men’s Pro Rankings Turned Upside Down at the Portland Classic
Tucson, AZ, WPH Press, 10/13/25
The first stop of the 2025/26 Race 4 Eight season produced a rankings overhaul, as each R48 top ten Men’s Pro’s ranking position changed.
Martin Mulkerrins regained the number one ranking he held for much of the 2024/25 season after his dominant title run at the 2025 Portland Classic, bumping current R48 Player’s Cup champion Lucho Cordova from the coveted perch to number two.
Ivan Burgos became the first Canadian to reach a R48 Men’s Pro final in Portland, catapulting the Maple Leaf into the top three for the first time.
Leo Canales slid to the number four spot following his quarterfinal loss in Portland, while Danos Cordova roared back into the top five after his first semifinal finish in ten months.
Ray Ure’s 2 hour and 30-minute Chicago marathon triumph did not help his ranking, as the 2024 R48 Hall of Fame finalist slid from number four to number seven.
Sam Esser and Sean Lenning both started Portland outside of the top eight and ended in the sixth and eighth positions, respectively, with Esser climbing to number six after his ninth-place finish and Lenning to number eight with his seventh-place finish.
Bryan Trejo and Dylan Schmitt became first-time R48 qualifiers in Portland, with both moving into the Race’s top 28.
See all of the Race 4 Eight’s post 2025 Portland Classic rankings below.
WPH Pro Men’s Ranking Methodology PDF
WPH Pro Women’s Ranking Methodology PDF
WPH Senior 40+ Ranking Methodology PDF
WPH RACE 4 EIGHT: The World Players of Handball’s Race 4 Eight Powered by ESPN features Race 4 Eight stops around the country, all culminating with The Player’s Championship in Utah each May. Similar to NASCAR’s Nextel Cup and the FedEx PGA Playoffs, players earn points in the Race 4 Eight’s regular season stops to qualify for the season-ending Player’s Championship and bonus prizes. The top 8 elite men will receive bonus cash after the season-ending rankings are tallied up; meanwhile, the top 4 Sr 40+ and Women’s ‘Fab Four’ will also receive bonuses. The amount of these bonuses fluctuate from year-to-year Please contact the WPH for this season’s bonus structure. Email the WPH for detailed explanations regarding the ranking system, seeds and bonus pay-outs at season’s end: info@wphlive.tv
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The Executive Director will seed each tournament in a manner that respects the objectivity of the WPH rankings, while acknowledging that some unranked players are strong enough to disrupt the integrity of a draw if not seeded subjectively. Therefore, the seeding process will involve the objective constraint that no ranked player may be seeded ahead of a higher ranked player, while allowing for the subjective seeding of any unranked player the Executive Director deems strong enough to disrupt the draw.