APP Tour Los Angeles Open – Liveish Random Thoughts

There won’t be as much this weekend in terms of live blogging as we have our own stuff going on but we’ll try to give some thoughts still.

Sunday, June 26th – Singles

9:47 pm EST – Surprise gold match and it is Joseph who comes out on top. Such a wide range for his results but he double dips Frazier who was oh so close to a triple crown.

Mary Brascia got beat in the 2 of 3, and then took down Bright, 15-4, in the game to 15. Mary making early waves in singles.

6:05 pm EST – What a weekend for Dylan. Can’t say we saw it coming that he would get to the gold medal match without losing, or even at all. He wins in 2 games over Staksrud, who will play the winner of Joseph and Rafa Hewett.

Mary Brascia simply seems better than Bright right now. After losing game 1, she took over and was able to win in 3. Another gold medal match for her.

4:58 pm EST – Good weekend for Frazier as he guarantees himself a medal after a win in two over Julian Arnold. He’ll play Federico Staksrud who has breezed through today, including over James Ignatowich. Hunter Johnson is also done for the day, taken out by Rafa Hewett in the backdraw. Hewett having a run for himself as Arnold withdraws. He has one game left to get to bronze.

It will be Bright and Brascia again in the winners bracket final of the women’s draw. Brascia had to work against Rosie Johanson who clearly has some ability in limited tournaments. Lacy Schneemann had a very nice win over Stratman before losing to Brascia. Stratman also withdrew after the loss.

2:43 pm EST – I guess Lauren Stratman and Julian Arnold don’t withdraw from singles when they have good doubles days? Both of them are playing today and Arnold got a nice win over Gabriel Joseph in 3 games. Fed and Ignatowich will play in the other semi-final, and we’ll get another chance to see how close those two are. Fed had to play two very tight games against silver medalist Hunter Johnson from last weekend.

Saturday, June 25th – Doubles

10:34 pm EST – The two favorites for gold ended up winning. JW and Dylan looked bored out there today and those two playing together in these fields is kind of unfair. JW missed 3 serves in the gold and one pretty badly. There was more smiling on their side than what we had seen before. The surprise was Patriquin and Arnold finding a silver medal. They are a go for broke kind of pair and it worked against DJ and Thomas who couldn’t get game 2, losing 15-13. Nothing else too crazy on the men’s side. Tamanha and Venkatesan got a 4th place finish but it was buoyed by a Pesa Teoni retirement.

On the women’s side, Stratman/Johnson got the gold but not without some trouble. They eeked by Barr/Wright, 12-10 in the third, then beat Todd/Esquivel in 3 after dropping game 1. Not shockingly, another big day for Parris Todd. They had to work to get by McMillan and Rane as well as Bright/Franco in the bronze, but they did it in 3 both times. Franco just looked a bit out of her depth in the bronze after game 1. If she isn’t fully precise, there’s not enough power coming from her to bother higher end opponents.

Friday, June 24th – Mixed

9:35 pm EST – That was the roughest Jorja has played in a quite a while. We couldn’t count how many thirds she missed, particularly her drives. It seemed like the siblings were not fully on the same page too. They somehow pulled out game 3 after being down 9-4, but they couldn’t get it together enough in the game to 15, dropping it in anti-climactic fashion, 15-6. On the flip side, Anna Bright and Dylan Frazier get a huge gold. It’s unclear if they are fully on the same page with how much court Dylan takes but the results cannot be denied.

7:38 pm EST – Jorja And JW Johnson have not made it easy on themselves, but they have reached the gold match after defeating Lauren Stratman and Julian Arnold in three. It’s the first time that Stratman and Arnold have podiumed playing together, but I imagine the way day ended was a little disappointing, after they won game one of the bronze with ease.

6:45 pm EST – Jorja and JW Johnson squeak by Parris Todd and DJ Young 16-14, to reach the bronze medal match. I agreed with Daniel Roditi that I would have liked Parris and DJ to reverse stack more in the match, they seemed to have the most success when Parris was head on with Jorja and could attach her straight up. After some interesting results earlier in the day, we probably have have the three teams most people expected to be in the medals, playing for the medals.

6:00 pm EST – Dylan Frazier and Anna Bright won the winner’s bracket final with relative ease 11-8, 11-6 over Lauren Stratman and Julian Arnold. After a very close first round match up, Frazier and Bright have looked pretty dominant. Stratman and Arnold, will play the winner of the Johnson siblings vs Parris Todd and DJ Young in the bronze. The Johnsons versus Parris and DJ should be an interesting match up here.

4:45 pm EST – It’s been an interesting day so far. The Johnson’s appear to have hit a wall. They lost to Franco and Thomas Wilson in 3 games. It’s a surprising lost to say the least as Franco has not been getting mixed results but Wilson can make a lot happen.

Stratman/Arnold are in the winners bracket final as they have played tough matches. Just a lot of 3 game matches going on as they went on to beat Parris Todd and DJ Young in 3, which was expected to be close.

In an oddly competitive match day, Bright and Frazier barely got through Maggie Brascia and Ky McMakin 13-11 in the third earlier. They are currently fighting against Franco and Wilson after winning game 2.