Tucson, AZ, WPH Press, 3/3/25
The 2025 Race 4 Eight Juarez produced a number of sensational matches, with R48 #1 Martin Mulkerrins ultimately claiming his second consecutive Juarez title, sixth Race title in seven starts, and his twelfth career Race title to maintain his dominating lead in the pole position of the Race rankings.
Lucho Cordova nearly won his second consecutive Race title in Juarez, losing in the final of Juarez to Mulkerrins. Lucho is the only player to have finished in the top three of all five Race stops during the 2024/25 season, placing his firmly in the number two spot in the rankings.
Despite not playing in Juarez, Ray Ure remained the R48 #3, while Leo Canales stayed at number four, despite his round of 16 exit in Juarez.
David Fink slid out of the top five for the first time since 2019 due to missing Juarez with a lower leg injury, while Tucson’s Ivan Burgos and Sam Esser rounded out the top eight.
Ireland’s Diarmaid Nash was the biggest rankings jumper post Juarez, climbing from outside the top 25 to fourteenth on the heels of a top three finish in Juarez.
The R48 Men’s Pro, WR48, and SR48 will be in action in eighteen days at the LAAC. Expect major rankings shakeups in Tinseltown.
Check out the R48, WR48, and SR48 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 equal or greater to the prize money offered in Salt Lake City. Email the WPH for detailed explanations regarding the ranking system, seeds and bonus pay-outs at season’s end: info@wphlive.tv
For more information on the WPH Race 4 Eight title sponsor opportunity, please contact World Players of Handball Executive Director David Vincent at info@wphlive.tv or World Players of Handball Development Director David Fink at david.fink@wphlive.tv. For more information on the World Players of Handball, please visit wphlive.tv
Tournament seeds reflect rankings at the time of the event but are not the sole determining factor. The WPH retains the discretion to seed players based on their skill level, recent performance, and injury status.
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.