The Unstoppable Waters Takes Another Pro Pickleball Triple Crown In San Clemente

After a hot and heavy tournament in Dallas, the Professional Pickleball Tour headed west to San Clemente, California, for the 2023 Select Medical Orange County Cup, held at the Lifetime Fitness San Clemente. While back-to-backs are not ideal, especially for singles players (and as we’ll see, the singles draw on both sides featured upsets and absentees galore), the pros are setting up camp for two straight weeks in Southern California, as next week’s MLP event is being held in the same venue. The San Clemente event was plagued by rain all weekend, which led to more than a few delayed and rescheduled matches.

Side Note: the PPA has finally pivoted, starting with this event, to using its newer tournament management platform user interface at pickleballbrackets.com, after years of using pickleballtournaments.com. Both platforms are owned by the same group that owns the PPA, so soon we’ll see the sport moving more completely to the Pickleball Brackets experience.

Let’s Recap the action.

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Men’s Pro Singles Recap

The PPA’s men’s singles draws keep getting bigger; no fewer than 65 players attempted to qualify into just 8 spots on the weekend. The qualifiers included a couple of familiar names, including Ross Whitaker, Sam Querrey, and Brandon Lane. Alas, none of the eight qualifiers could take out one of the top 8 seeds, and all advanced into the round of 16 as expected. Last week’s singles surprise Jaume Martinez Vich, seeded 10th here this weekend, was taken out in a tiebreaker by AJ Koller in the opening round, a complete reversal of his finals run last week.

In the round of 16, we started to see some crazy upsets. #17 Collin Shick, who made a fantastical run to the finals in Daytona Beach in March, got the better of #1 Ben Johns this time, beating him 9,5 to send Johns out of a tournament at one of the earliest points ever of his career. Other round of 16 upsets included the young #14 Hayden Patriquin taking out #3 Jay Devilliers and #11 Pablo Tellez continuing his excellent 2023 by taking out #6 JW Johnson by the odd-looking score line of (0),6,0.

Shick continued his run to the semis, where he fell to 4th seeded Tyson McGuffin. McGuffin advances to play for gold for the 21st time in his career. From the bottom half of the draw, #7 Connor Garnett (who had upset #2 Federico Staksrud earlier in the day) returned to the gold medal match for the 2nd time in three tourneys with a solid win over Tellez. Shick dominated Tellez 1,8 to take the Bronze and continue his march up the PPA singles rankings.

In the final, Tyson returned to the throne by sending Garnett to the silver for the second time in the last three events, winning a close game one then running away in game two. Final score: 12-10, 11-3.

Gold: Tyson McGuffin. Silver: Connor Garnett. Bronze: Collin Shick.

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Women’s Pro Singles Recap

With no Lea Jansen in the singles field this week (she mentioned on Adam Stone & Rob Nunnery’s podcast that she decided well in advance to skip singles this week as a form of load management during the back-to-back-to-back tournaments), the burden was on another of the top players to try to push Anna Leigh Waters off the top spot. It has been nearly a year since her last singles loss, and Jansen’s thoughtful approach nearly solved the riddle. Could one of her peers pick up where she left off?

It was business as usual into the quarters, with seven of the top eight seeds advancing. The sole upset was #11 Anna Bright, who took advantage of another early round loss from #6 Lauren Stratman to advance into the quarters. There, Bright took out #3 Mary Brascia before losing to #2 Catherine Parenteau to drop into the Bronze medal match.

#1 Waters was pushed to a breaker by #5 Judit Castillo in the semis, but ground out a (5),6,3 win to set up a #1 vs #2 gold medal final against Parenteau. Castillo salvaged the Bronze medal over Bright to earn her first ever medal in pro singles. In the final, Waters took out her doubles partner 7,7 to win the 14th straight Women’s Pro Singles event she’s entered.

Gold: Anna Leigh Waters. Silver: Catherine Parenteau. Bronze: Judit Castillo

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Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

The back end of the Pro Mixed doubles draw featured some familiar faces, and three of the top four seeded teams advancing into the semifinals. In one semi, the practically unbeatable #1 seeded team of Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters were pushed by the #5 seeded brother/sister team of Jorja & J.W. Johnson, losing the first game before rebounding for the win. From the bottom half, the #3 seeds Catherine Parenteau & Tyson McGuffin controlled the #2 seeds Anna Bright & James Ignatowich to move into the finals and cap a great week for both players (who both played multiple times on Sunday).

In the gold medal match, Parenteau & McGuffin needed three games to make a match of it, but despite getting closer in each game lost in three straight, 11-3, 11-6, 11-9. This gives the sport’s two top players 19 pro mixed titles together since they began playing together in January of 2022. Bright & Ignatowich salvaged a come-from-behind win over the Johnsons to claim bronze.

Gold: Waters & Johns. Silver: Parenteau & McGuffin. Bronze: Bright & Ignatowich.

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Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

The more things change, the more things stay the same. Sunday’s final came down to #1 versus #2, the Johns brothers versus the veteran Riley Newman/Matt Wright team, and the crowd was not disappointed with the match they saw for gold. Newman and Wright ran out to a game one lead, which the Johns’ matched in game two. Newman & Wright found a new gear to take game three 11-5 and it looked like they might top the Johns brothers for the first time since November’s Newport Beach event, but the Johns brothers had other plans. Games four and five were one-way traffic, 11-0 and 11-1, a shock ending to what looked like an upset in the making.

In the bronze medal match, Tyson McGuffin won a PPA men’s pro doubles match with his sixth different partner in Ignatowich, taking out surprise semi-finalists #6 Callan Dawson & Dekel Bar in three.

Gold: Johns & Johns. Silver: Newman & Wright. Bronze: McGuffin & Ignatowich

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Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

In a break from her pattern for the previous 6 months, #1 Anna Leigh Waters entered a PPA Women’s Doubles pro event with the same partner for a second straight event, seemingly breaking her pattern of switching between Anna Bright and Catherine Parenteau every other event. And, true to form Waters and Parenteau advanced to the Gold Medal match, though they were pressed in their quarter final event by #8 Lea Jansen & Hurricane Tyra Black.

From the bottom half, #6 Irena Tereschenko and Etta Wright took out both the #2 and #3 seeds to advance to the final. #2 Callie Smith & Lucy Kovalova rallied after their semifinal loss to take the bronze.

In the gold medal match, Wright & Tereschenko took a game off the #1 seeds, but couldn’t hold off the latest triple-crown quest from Waters, losing in four. This is Waters’ 13th PPA triple crown (with a couple more earned in non-PPA events).

Gold: Waters & Parenteau. Silver: Wright & Tereschenko. Bronze: Smith & Kovalova.

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Senior Pro Competition Quick Recap

· Men’s Senior Pro Singles: #1 Mattias Johansson cruised to another gold medal on the PPA senior pro singles tour.

· Men’s Senior Pro Doubles: Scott Johnston & Todd Murphy upset the top seeded team of Dayne Gingrich & Scott Crandall to take the title.

· Mixed Senior Pro Doubles: Beth Bellamy & Scott Crandall took the small senior pro mixed doubles draw.

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Next up on the PPA Tour? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule … the PPA gets a breather after a hectic first half of the season, giving its players a full month off until they regroup in Denver in Mid-July.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? MLP Season #3, Event #3 is next weekend, at the same venue the PPA just visited. The PPA players and other top pros from the pickleball world will compete in the season ending event.