A Triple For Waters And A Successful Debut For Sock At The Professional Pickleball Association North Carolina Open

The Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) returned to Charlotte for the second year in a row in early May to hold the 2023 OS1st North Carolina Open. This is one of the few PPA events each year that is an indoor event, held at Life Time Charlotte. Last year’s event featured a triple crown from Canada’s Catherine Parenteau, and the big news this year is the professional debut of former top 10 US tennis pro Jack Sock. I covered Sock’s singles run and his overall doubles performance separately with deep-dive articles; this article will do our conventional tourney recap.

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Men’s Pro Singles Recap:

A huge men’s qualifier draw of 55 players competed for the eight wild-card spots, and a couple of the qualifiers made solid impressions on the main draw. #29 overall seed Ross Whittaker qualified and then beat #8 Julian Arnold and #9 Connor Garrett to earn a quarter final appearance. #33 overall seed Jhonattan Alvarez Medina, a two-time medalist on the APP so far in 2023, also qualified and ground his way into the quarters, defeating #6 Ryan Sherry and #11 Pablo Tellez (the silver medalist in Utah a month ago). Both these quarterfinalist qualifiers fell to the eventual gold medal combatants #1 Federico Staksrud and #3 Tyson McGuffin respectively.

#20 Jack Sock, given a wild-card into the main qualifier, went two rounds deep and lost in the quarters to #12 Jake Kusmider in a grueling 3-game win. Jake had to immediately jump back on the court to face Staksrud in the semis and fell quickly. #7 Christian Alshon took out the 2nd seeded Jay Devilliers on his way to the semis, then topped the lefty Kusmider for the bronze. It is Alshon’s 2nd bronze medal this season as he works his way up the rankings.

In the singles final, Staksrud earned his 3rd gold on the PPA tour by dominating last week’s champ McGuffin 7,5. Staksrud showed great court coverage and excellent instincts to cut off Tyson’s passing shots, and took the gold medal in straight-forward fashion.

Gold: Federico Staksrud. Silver: Tyson McGuffin. Bronze: Christian Alshon.

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Women’s Pro Singles Recap:

#12 “Hurricane” Tyra Black got her first significant win on tour, upsetting #5 Mary Brascia to get to the quarters before falling to the dominant groundstroke game of #4 Salome Devidze. Home-town favorite #7 Brooke Buckner got a career win by taking out #2 Catherine Parenteau and spoiling her chances at a repeat triple crown.

In the semis, #1 Anna Leigh Waters, back on tour after a mini-break, cruised into the final by topping Devidze 6,8. From the bottom side, #3 Lea Jansen took advantage of Parenteau’s upset by grinding out a tiebreaker win over the upset-minded crowd favorite Buckner (8),8.2. Devidze earned her fifth PPA medal in 2023 in the bronze medal match, topping Buckner and preventing the long-time coach at UNC-Charlotte from earning her first Pro medal.

In the final, #1 Waters made quick work of Jansen to earn her 23rd pro singles crown on tour.

Gold: Anna Leigh Waters. Silver: Lea Jansen. Bronze: Salome Devidze.

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Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

After Sock’s gutty singles performance, the tournament was abuzz to see how he’d fair in Mixed Doubles, where he was partnered with the dominant Waters. The pair was seeded #6, started hot and stayed hot, blowing by the gold medalists from Utah Bright & Ignatowich 5&3 in the quarters before gutting out a come-from-behind win in the semis over the grinding team of #10 Julian Arnold & Vivienne David to secure a spot in the Sunday final.

The top half of the draw went almost perfectly chalk, with just one top-16 seed falling in the opening round and the #1 seeds Tyson McGuffin & Catherine Parenteau advancing to the semis to face #4 Riley Newman & Allyce Jones. Newman has bounced around mixed partners a lot so far in 2023, with 6 different partners across 9 events and just three medals to show for it, but perhaps has found a solid partner in Jones. The pair upset the #1 seeds McGuffin/Parenteau in two to earn a shot at Sock. The vanquished #1 seeds took out their frustration on Arnold & David in the Bronze medal match, crushing them 1,3 to salvage the weekend.

In the Sunday final, which was stripped out of the PPA’s YouTube broadcast to be the first feature show of their brand new ESPN broadcast deal, and then was subsequently pre-empted for most of its planned broadcast time slot on ESPN2 by a Cornhole tournament of all things, turned out to be a tale of two phases. In the first phase, the Newman/Jones partnership was able to expose Sock and win game one 11-3. In the second phase, the ALW-led partnership turned aggressive, and the Jones/Newman pairing couldn’t keep up, getting blown off the court the rest of the way 11-2 and 11-3 to give Sock a pro title in his first appearance.

Gold: Waters & Sock. Silver: Jones & Newman. Bronze: Parenteau & McGuffin

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Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

Sock’s impressive tournament got a shock to the system Saturday morning with a beat-down at the hands of qualifiers and #28 seeds Jim Dobran and Eric Roddy, who crushed #5 seeds Sock & McGuffin 5&2 for the shock of Saturday morning. This opened a pathway for the #12 veteran team of Steve Deakin & Travis Rettenmaier to cruise into the semis, shocking #4 Loong & Ignatowich along the way. They fell to the #1 seeds Wright & Newman, but salvaged the Bronze medal and giving both men their first PPA medals since November.

From the bottom side of the draw, #2 JW Johnson & Dylan Frazier, champions in Newport Beach, made fast work of the competition, including a 2&0 beatdown of #6 Jay Devilliers & DJ Young in the semis to setup a rematch of last week’s doubles final with the #1 seeds.

In the final, Newman & Wright returned to the form that won them four straight PPA Men’s Doubles titles in mid-2022 by downing their young rivals in three straight games, 11-3, 11-8, 11-6. It is their 7th PPA men’s pro doubles title together.

Gold: Newman & Wright. Silver: Johnson & Frazier. Bronze: Deakin & Rettenmaier

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Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

#1 Anna Leigh Waters continues her pattern of cycling between female doubles partners, this week being Parenteau’s turn to cruise to a gold medal by partnering with the best female pickleball player on the planet. The duo advanced to the final with a solid 7&8 win over #4 Anna Bright and Vivian Glozman from the top half of the draw. They met the upstart #7 seeds Lauren Stratman & Yana Grechkina in the final, who upset the #2 seeds and Newport Beach champs Callie Smith & Lucy Kovalova in the quarters and then topped fellow upset-minded #6 seeds Jessie Irvine & Jackie Kawamoto in the semis. Irvine & Kawamoto secured the bronze over Bright & Glozman.

In the final, it was one-way traffic, as Waters & Parenteau dominated the three-game set, winning 11-3, 11-4, and 11-0 in a match that was never really in doubt from the opening salvos. The win secured Water’s triple crown at the event.

Gold: Waters & Parenteau. Silver: Stratman & Grechkina. Bronze: Irvine & Kawamoto

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Senior Pro Competition Quick Recap

· Men’s Senior Pro Singles: Paul Olin took the pro singles as the #1 seed without dropping a game.

· Men’s Senior Pro Doubles: Carolinians Craig “Church” Hall & Brandon Walters took the Men’s Senior Open doubles event.

· Women’s Senior Pro Doubles: Tammie Steele & Janey McKenna surprised the bracket by taking the Senior pro doubles as the #5 seeds.

· Mixed Senior Pro Doubles: Julie Johnson teamed with Olin to take the Mixed senior open division.

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Next up on the PPA Tour? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, they’re back in action in two weeks’ time in Atlanta, at the Atlanta Open. Yours truly will be in attendance and I’ve got all sorts of cool stories lined up with the PPA brass.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? Next week, the APP is back in action in Cincinnati at the 2023 Vlasic Classic.