The Professional Pickleball Association rolls into the tour’s home town of Dallas for the 2024 CIBC Texas Open with a couple of interesting storylines brewing in and around the pro tour:
- The PPA confirmed name of the player involved in MLP Atlanta foreign substance issue as being Andrei Daescu, banning him for two months and fining him $50k for the infraction.
- On the eve of the event, the PPA emailed its players informing them that the Joola Gen3 paddles which have been removed from the USAP approved list will be banned from this weekend’s event.
- And, in the most important news of the past couple of weeks, doubles partners Anna Bright & Rachel Rohrabacher posted pictures from a, shall we say, interesting photo shoot, which were then mimicked by their good friends Travis Rettenmaier & Graham D’Amico for some the funniest, most awkward pictures you’ll see from the pickleball-sphere this year.
Click here for the PickleballBrackets.com home page for the event, where you can get tournament details, draw sheets, and results.
Let’s Recap the action.
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Men’s Pro Singles Recap
The banning of one of the most popular paddles on tour had an immediate effect on this event; the qualifying draw in Men’s singles was shredded as 20+ male pro players withdrew, either because they traveled to Dallas without any non Gen3 paddles or because they didn’t have enough time to practice using alternative gear. Social media posts seemed to indicate that qualifiers were given literally 5 minutes of warning before playing, a communications gaffe that should have been handled well ahead of time. Once the play started, the draw had a slew of upsets, perhaps also related to the paddle controversy since dozens of players now play the Joola.
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The bottom half of the singles draw featured just ONE player seeded inside the top 20 by the time the round of 16 had arrived as upsets came one after another. #4 McGuffin was topped by #36 Dusty Boyer, who went on a huge run in Minnesota earlier this year. #22 Christopher Haworth, coming off a win last week at the APP’s NYC Open, cruised past #15 Roscoe Bellamy and has to like his chances of going deep. #11 Aanik Lohani was handled easily by #54 Grayson Goldin, who then manhandled Johnny Pickleball in the 32s. Lastly, and most surprisingly, #8 Quang Duong was beaten in a relatively straight-forward 9,6 manner by #33 Hunter Johnson. The semis were guaranteed to have at best a 20+ seed with all the upsets. Only #2 Staksrud, a Joola player himself, stayed above the upset fray and cruised along unscathed.
By the time the dust had settled Thursday evening, Haworth, who won last week’s APP NYC Open Men’s Singles title, had made a serious statement to the sport by crushing Hunter Johnson in the quarters 1,1 and then blitzing #2 Federico Staksrud 6,2 in the semis to ensure his first career PPA medal. The win over Staksrud is especially amazing, since the Argentinian had made it to every final thus far this season. Not for nothing, but Staksrud is a Joola player, and one can only assume the loss of his favored paddle greatly impacted him against a top-notch player like Haworth.
While the bottom half of the draw was chaos, the upper half went relatively as expected. A last minute withdrawal of #5 Christian Alshon gave a spot in the main draw to “lucky loser” Jayden Broderick, who couldn’t hold back the experienced North Carolina-based Eric Roddy as he raced to the quarters as the #30 seed before falling to #1 Ben Johns. Editor’s note: some on social media have asked what a “lucky loser” is. The term came from tennis, when a loser in the last round of qualifying is selected at random to replace a top seed who withdraws at the last minute so that there’s a full slate of matches played and no walkovers in the main draw.
#7 Dylan Frazier, who took the 2024 season opening singles gold medal at the Hyundai Masters, topped #3 Connor Garnett to move into the semis to challenge Johns for the gold medal spot. Johns, who re-achieved the #1 ranking on tour for the time being after his win in Atlanta, edged Frazier 13-11 in game one before running away to move to Sunday’s gold medal match and a rematch against Haworth (who topped him last October indoors at the USAP Nationals in Dallas).
In the final, Haworth crushed Johns in the opener 11-2 and the fans were abuzz with word of perhaps another upset. However, Johns is well known for making adjustments mid-match, and he turned right around in game two 11-3 to force a tiebreaker. There, the two played close but Johns edged the budding Oklahoma-based pro to take the title. It is John’s 38th PPA singles gold, and Haworth’s first PPA pro medal. Staksrud salvaged the bronze in a brutal match against Frazier to keep his 11-for-11 medal streak alive, even though his streak of finals was broken.
Gold: Ben Johns. Silver: Christopher Haworth. Bronze: Federiko Staksrud.
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Women’s Pro Singles Recap
Interestingly, the Women’s singles draw didn’t feature practically any of the withdrawal or upset drama as the Men’s side did. The opening round of 64 featured just a couple of minor upsets, and the round of 32 went 100% chalk to seeds. In the round of 16, more favorites advanced as expected, and mostly in two straight forward games. The sole upset was #9 Jorja Johnson topping #5 Brooke Buckner 7,9. #8 Kaitlyn Christian, who had to go tiebreaker in her opener against Kate Fahey before advancing, was pushed to a 3rd game again by DC-area native Taylor Garcia. Otherwise it was smooth sailing into the quarters for the top seeds.
The top four players on tour all advanced into the semis, setting up the best the Women’s pro singles has to offer for the fans. Those who stuck around deep into Thursday evening (either onsite at the rain-soaked event or online) got to see something rather rare: a loss by #1 Anna Leigh Waters in singles. For just the fourth time in the last three PPA seasons, Waters was defeated on the court. #4 Salome Devidze performed the deed, coming from a game down to grind out baseline rally points and beat the world #1 11-7 in the third. This being pro pickleball, the match was not without line calling controversy, including a blatant over-turn on a line call at match point for Devidze that extended the match, but Salome bore down and got the win. On the bottom half of the bracket, another upset ensued, as #3 Lea Jansen also had a come-from-behind victory against #2 Catherine Parenteau to set up an unlikely but juicy final between two players between whom there’s no love lost.
In the final, the PPA took no chances, deploying no fewer than 11 referees to watch over the match between two players who have had combative meetings and disputed calls in the past. The pair played a close game one that went Salome’s way, then Jansen bore down to grind out a 11-7 game two win before running away with the tiebreaker 11-2 for the win. It is Jansen’s 4th career pro singles medal, while Devidze adds another medal to her collection (it’s her 14th career PPA singles medal).
Gold: Lea Jansen. Silver: Salome Devidze. Bronze: Catherine Parenteau.
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Mixed Pro Doubles Recap
A slew of last minute withdrawals played havoc with the seeds and we had a couple of unexpected teams making their way into the round of 16. #26 Martina Frantova & Patrick ka*wka made fast work of lucky loser’s #6 Johnny “Pickleball” Andrews & Salome Devidze in the 32s, then got a solid win over #11 Frazier & Black to earn a match with the top seeds. #10 Lea Jansen & Hayden Patriquin continue to get results in their new partnership, topping the multi-medal winning team #5 team of Dekel Bar & Tina Pisnik to earn a quarter-final match against the #3 seeds. Both teams fell at this juncture, and the #1 Anna Leigh Waters & Ben Johns team ended up topping #3 Anna Bright & Tyson McGuffin (subbing in for Bright’s beau for the weekend) to earn the upper half’s gold medal slot.
The bottom half featured a massive run from qualifiers and #55 seed Riley Bohnert & Richard Livornese Jr, who fell in the round of 16 to #7 Tardio & Irvine. The bottom half of the Mixed draw otherwise went basically chalk, with the #2 and #4 seeds advancing to the semis as expected. There, the brother-sister Johnson pair topped #2 Thomas Wilson & Vivienne David in three close games to earn the Sunday gold medal match.
In the final, the sport’s top pair bent but did not break against the methodical Johnson duo, winning in straight games 2,7,9. The match was featured on Fox’s national broadcast, and even managed to preempt an MLS game so that the network could extend coverage to finish a match. This is a great step for the sport.
Gold: Waters & Johns. Silver: Johnson & Johnson. Bronze: Bright & Ignatowich
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Men’s Pro Doubles Recap
We got the latest debut of a famous ex-tennis pro this weekend, when John Isner paired up with Wyatt Stone to compete in the Men’s Doubles pro draw. They fared decently well, losing their opener to qualifiers #45 Jay Wang & Sepand (Sep) Attar. Several late withdrawals (possibly paddle related) resulted in a handful more lucky losers in top seeds making the round of 16 seem like it had a ton of major upsets. In reality, there were just a couple of upsets into the round of 16 that were noteworthy: #29 Rob Cassidy & Eric Oncins got a solid win over #8 Thomas Wilson & Hunter Johnson; Cassidy is a known veteran, but Oncins is a relatively unfamiliar face who was selected to MLP challenger earlier this year and is starting to get results on tour.
Perhaps the biggest upset of the event early on was #16 Daniel De La Rosa & Martin Emmrich taking out the #3 seeds Federiko Staksrud & James Ignatowich in the round of 16. Staksrud & Ignatowich seems like an odd pair; both are left sided players and both have paired with seemingly a better match of Matt Wright this year to decent success. However, it was the 3-time Pro Racquetball champ De La Rosa and his long-time partner, lefty Emmrich who got a career win and advanced to the quarters.
The top four remaining seeds held serve in the quarters, setting down upset-minded pairs to give the neutrals two solid semifinals, and we got some surprising results. #4 Matt Wright, playing with Dekel Bar in what may have been a last-minute partner shuffle with Daescu’s suspension, shocked the #1 Johns brothers 7,9 to move into the final from the top side of the draw. On the bottom side, the #2 team of JW Johnson & Dylan Frazier, like machines, dominated #5 McGuffin & Vich to move into their third straight final.
In the final, Johnson & Frazier lost game one but cruised the rest of the way and were not troubled in running off a (9),3,5,4 win. It’s their third straight gold medal on tour, while the #1 Johns brothers now have three straight events being upset in the semi-finals.
Three straight losses have some in the pickle-sphere whispering about a possible breakup of the #1 team; after all, we have seen top teams like Newman & Wright and Staksrud & Tellez give up after long runs of success once the going gets a little tough. I find it hard to believe the Johns brothers will split, just based on the complete dedication they have to shaping their partnership and playing styles. They’re still #1 by a fair margin, and thanks to the Johnson Five contract dispute earlier this year the odds of the Johns losing their season-to-date lead anytime soon seem slim as well.
Gold: Johnson & Frazier. Silver: Wright & Barr Bronze: McGuffin & Vich
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Women’s Pro Doubles Recap
The ladies pro draw featured a mixture of old and new partnerships, with some predictable results. #1 Waters & Catherine Parenteau are back and faced little resistance marching their way to the gold medal match from the topside of the draw. In the semis they topped #4 Anna Bright, who played this event with her MLP teammate Kate Fahey instead of her regular partner and photo-shoot starlet Rachel Rohrabacher. The pair were taken to tiebreakers along the way but played to their seed, losing in the bronze medal match.
The #2 seeds this week were Meghan Dizon & Etta Wright, who pipped Bright & Fahey on points for this event. They downed another MLP teammate pairing of #6 Parris Todd & Vivienne David in the quarters before facing the long-time #2 team of Lucy Kovalova & Callie Smith. Kovalova and Smith have split up for the past couple of events, on rumors of sour grapes from a line call in a mixed match weeks ago. Nonetheless, without each other they’ve seen their ranking fall, but here in the semis they played a solid match to down Dizon & Wright 6,10 to move into the final.
In the final, the veteran duo could do little with the sport’s most dominant pairing, losing 3,3,4 to Waters & Parenteau. A reminder: Waters & Parenteau have lost just once in their entire history of playing together, and this was their 17th gold medal together.
Gold: Waters & Parenteau. Silver: Kovalova & Smith. Bronze: Dizon & Wright
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Senior Open Competition Quick Recap
Rain issues forced the cancellation of the Mixed divisions, so only a couple of Senior Pro divisions had results:
- Men’s Senior Open Singles: Josh Cooperman cruised to the gold as the #1 seed. It’s his third Senior pro singles medal on the PPA this year, following wins in Atlanta and Phoenix.
- Men’s Senior Open Doubles: Dave Weinbach & Tienr-X Nguyen took the gold in dominant fashion. Weinbach continues to be the most decorated senior pro on tour; this was his 48th career PPA gold. He won his first PPA gold medal at the PPA’s inaugural event in February 2020 and he hasn’t stopped since.
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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 dating to the beginnings of all the major pro tours, plus pro events that predated 2020.
Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, the PPA heads west to wine country for the 2024 PPA Veolia Sacramento Open in Roseville, California.
There’s also a USAP Golden Ticket event in Virginia Beach, and a Senior Pro Tour event in Trussville, Alabama.
Also coming up in the next week, the 2024 World Pickleball Conference is in Las Vegas, and I will be there and representing Forbes Magazine on the Media Panel on Day 2.