The Professional Pickleball Association roared back into action this past weekend, returning to a favorite city in Las Vegas for its 4th Annual PPA Championships, sponsored by Guaranteed Rate and presented by Thorlo. This event is one of the few “majors” on the PPA schedule, and the draws indicate it, with a pretty full slate of the PPA’s top pros making the trek to sin city and the fabulous Darling Tennis Center a few miles west of the strip.
Nearly 1,100 pros and amateurs entered: click here for the PickleballBrackets.com home page for draws and player information.
Ahead of the event, Connor Pardoe took to social media to explain “The Race,” which went into great detail about the PPA’s ranking system and discuss the qualification status for the big year end PPA Finals, which will be held the first weekend in December in San Clemente. Only the top 8 players (in singles and mixed) and top 16 gender doubles teams will qualify for this event, and we’re down to just a couple of PPA tour stops that can help players move into qualifying position. The PPA finals is somewhat modeled after tennis’ ATP Finals, where the top eight men play a round robin tournament that’s among the best tennis action all year, and it should be fantastic for neutrals to watch the Pickleball version.
All that said, the competition was fierce for the big-prize money available in Las Vegas. Let’s Recap the action.
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Men’s Pro Singles Recap
The Men’s Pro Singles division continues to be the most fun to follow, as it seems like a new name makes a run nearly every tournament. Las Vegas was no different, as Minnesota-based Aanik Lohani went on a complete tear through the draw as the #23 seed, topping along the way established pros like #10 Julian Arnold, #15 Hayden Patriquin, and #6 JW Johnson to make the final.
Lohani was not the only upset of the day, as the draw was littered with surprise wins over high seeds. The shock winner from Fountain Valley Gabriel Joseph took out #5 Christian Alshon and played #4 Garnett tough before bowing out. #15 Patriquin sent #2 Staksrud home in the round of 16, while #6 JW Johnson sent #3 McGuffin home in the quarters. Johnson ended up claiming bronze in a walkover against Garnett.
In the final, first-time pro medalist Lohani put up a valiant effort against the sport’s #1 player Ben Johns, but fell 3,7. Lohani puts his name alongside fellow singles players who came out of nowhere this year to make runs, players like Schick, Eveloff, Beasley, Duong, Kusmider, and Vich.
Gold: Ben Johns. Silver: Aanick Lohani. Bronze: J.W. Johnson.
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Women’s Pro Singles Recap
The Ladies singles draws continue to be thin on players who can challenge #1 Anna Leigh Waters, and that list of competitors was thinned even further this week as #5 Hurricane Tyra Black withdrew from singles before the draw started. This gave a wide-open path for #12 Dominique Schaefer to make a deep run and somewhat redeem herself from her sub-par MLP Atlanta performance. Schaefer has two women’s singles gold medals on the APP this year and put some notice on the field by taking out #4 Tereschenko en route to her bronze medal.
For the third straight PPA event, #1 Anna Leigh Waters met #2 Catherine Parenteau for the gold. Parenteau has wins over Waters, the most recent in March, so she knows what it takes, and the match went to a third game, but Waters is just too tough. ALW takes the gold in three games, 4,(7),4.
Gold: Anna Leigh Waters. Silver: Catherine Parenteau. Bronze: Dominique Schaefer
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Mixed Pro Doubles Recap
Mixed Pro doubles continues to be the deepest pool in the sport, with top-performing pros routinely mired with seeds in the 20s as they struggle to find their footing. One of those 20-something seeds blew up this weekend; the #23 seeded team of Christian Alshon & Hurricane Tyra Black took out the #10, #7 and #2 seeds en route to the semifinals. They couldn’t close the deal for a medal (losing in the Bronze medal match to Cincinnati’s silver-medal winning team of Thomas Wilson & Vivienne David) but left Vegas having made an impression.
Outside of the Alshon/Black, the Mixed quarterfinals included all the other top seeds. The other stand-out performance from the weekend was the inspired play of James Ignatowich and Anna Bright, who ground past Wright & Kovalova in the quarters and tamed Alshon & Black in the semis to make the Sunday gold medal match. Unfortunately, Ignatowich suffered a bad ankle sprain during Saturday’s gender doubles, forcing them to have to forfeit the gold medal competition and give the dual-#1 players yet another title together. This is their 25 mixed pro title together since the beginning of 2022, a time period that includes just two losses.
Gold: Waters & Johns. Silver: Bright & Ignatowich. Bronze: David & Wilson.
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Men’s Pro Doubles Recap
Matt Wright and Riley Newman have gone their separate ways but both are getting closer to the point where they can re-challenge the Johns brothers; Wright paired with Ignatowich in Las Vegas and made a solid run to the semis as the #4 seeds before James’ injury forced them to withdraw. Newman has partnered with A.J. Koller and was the #3 seed here, getting upset by the under-seeded #6 team of Staksrud & Tellez in the quarters. Between the two of the former partners though, they have just one medal combined in the seven tournaments since their split, and their breakup has opened the door for a new clear #2 team of JW Johnson & Dylan Frazier.
For the fourth time in the last five tournaments the gold medal match was competed between the Johnson/Frazier pairing and the world #1 Johns brothers, and the Vegas match was one for the record books. JW & Dylan took the first two games 11-7 and 11-3, and the Johns brothers seemed to be on the way to a rare loss. However, they found a pathway forward and showed why they’re the best in the business at making in-game adjustments, taking the next three games to secure the gold.
With the win, Johns secures the Triple crown for the weekend. This is his 19th career PPA triple crown and his 23rd career professional triple crown (including other tours and events).
Gold: Johns & Johns. Silver: Johnson & Frazier. Bronze: Staksrud & Tellez
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Women’s Pro Doubles Recap
Waters teamed with Parenteau for the third straight PPA event, and for the third straight event they cruised into the gold medal match with little trouble. The #1 seeds surrendered just 15 points across eight games/four matches to achieve championship Sunday.
In the gold medal match, they faced “Team Length” in Callie Smith & Lucy Kovalova, two of the taller players on tour, and two experienced players who showed up with a game plan. Smith & Kovalova took game one 11-7, but the dominant #1 team cruised from there, winning the gold in four.
With the win, Waters secures the Triple crown for the weekend. This is her 19th career PPA triple crown.
Gold: Waters & Parenteau. Silver: Smith & Kovalova. Bronze: Jones & Wright.
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Champions (Senior) Pro Competition Quick Recap
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The Pro Pickleball Medal Tracker has now been updated with these results; check out this link online for a complete pro medal history for all tours and all pro events.
Programming Note: the Pickleball Schedule link below has now been updated for both the APP and PPA 2024 schedules as they’re known for now. We’ll update MLP and other tours as the information becomes available.
Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, next weekend features the NLP’s 6th and final event of the season. The PPA isn’t back in action until the end of the month, when they have an amateur-only event in Hilton Head. They don’t have a pro stop again until mid-November, the Hertz National Championships in Daytona Beach, which will be the last event for pros to qualify for the year-end finals in San Clemente the first week of December.
