APP Tour Cincinnati Open Live Blog – Mixed

We are back with another live blog. We’ll be providing a recap at the end of each day as well. You can see our previews for the pros and senior pros.

6:20 pm EST (Gritty) – Both gold medal matches go to the game 15. Some interesting strategy in the Pro final where both teams looked to be trying to get the matchup that they wanted. Carr’s game has improved substantially since Nationals 2019, but if she could find a way to add a backhand at the net for those in between balls it would be another noticeable boost to her game I think. Really good win for them today though.

Thompson and Sperling surprised us both today. Thompson has not had the results at Senior Pro that John Sperling has and they knocked off two very good teams to get the gold.

4:51 pm EST (Gritty) – Stone/Carr vs. Koop/Navratil in the final. They played a super tight one earlier today and not much reason to think this will be different. We also have Wilhelm/Witsken vs. Thompson/Sperling in the final after a very close bronze win. Sperling is really good. That’s my main takeaway.

3:15 pm EST (Gritty) – Stone/Carr onto the gold. I really like how Carr’s game looks these days. They did a lot of stacking to get Carr in front of Stratman and that was successful. Carr does a great job of threatening that Erne and is very diligent keeping it to a 1 on 1 game with Stratman. It was clear when she played Lindsey Newman at the US Open that Stratman wasn’t as comfortable straight on and she confirmed that in her chat with Scott Golden. Stratman either needs to get more comfortable straight on or cross court on her backhand because her and Smith have no plan B when things aren’t going well for them with their default mixed stack.

1:45 pm EST (Slim) – Stratman/Smith and Carr/Stone both advance to the winners side final after a couple of very close 3 game semi-finals. I like Carr/Stone in a close one here but it will be interesting to see who comes out on top. On the losers bracket side, I am going to be curious to see who comes out on top in the Franco/Devilliers versus Esquivel/Nunnery match up.

11:10 am EST (Slim) – the semi-finals are setting with it being Stratman/Smith vs. Franco/Devilliers, and Koop/Navatril vs. Carr/Stone. They should be fun entertaining matches. I still like Stratman/Smith and Carr/Stone to advance to the winners side final.

The quarter-finals were fairly easy straight game wins for these teams, except for Franco/Devilliers who were down a game and down 10-7-1 in game 2 to Rob Cassidy and Maggie Remynse before managing to pull out a 12-10 win and then they were able to roll in the third game.

In the losers bracket Dylan Frazier and Katie Gaines, managed to pick up an impressive win over Altaf Merchant and Katie Dyer 15-4.

9:33 am EST (Slim) – So far a pretty chalky bracket in the Pro Mixed Doubles but that should make for some entertaining quarterfinal matches. Rob Nunnery and Michelle Esquivel versus Andrea Koop and Zane Navatril should be interesting to watch.

8:45 am EST (Gritty) – The first thing that stands out about the mixed pro draw is the looming JW Johnson/Lea Jansen second round matchup against Navratil/Koop. The expectation is Navratil and Koop pull that one out but that’s an upset waiting to happen.