APP Tour Newport Beach Open – Live Random Thoughts

In case you forgot, there is no streaming Thursday and Friday, and Saturday and Sunday are on ESPN+ so a good chunk of you won’t have any streaming this weekend. Enjoy the show!
Sunday, July 2nd – Championship Sunday
2:18 pm EST – Parris Todd takes gold in 3 games over Megan Fudge. That’s 1 for 1 in her quest for a triple crown and she is in line for her first one in a while. Megan Fudge is having a strong weekend as well as we lead up to the MLP Draft.
4:40 pm EST – The Duong Cinderella run comes to an end at the hands of Hunter Johnson while Hunter/Parris find their way to gold in 3 games over Harris/Mick. Harris/Mick were able to take game 1 but it wasn’t enough. Amazing runs for both these underdog teams this weekend.
5:57 pm EST – Pesa and Andrei do it again. They had some almost bumps but the gold match was much more straightforward. They win 11-4 and 11-6.
6:40 pm EST – Triple crown for Parris Todd as she and Simone get gold, 13-11 and 11-5. Commendable fight from Genie and Rianna, but Simone/Parris remain undefeated on the APP Tour. We’ll have takeaways tomorrow!
Saturday, July 1st – Doubles
3:25 pm EST – The question for women’s is going to be whether anyone can knock off either of the top 2 seeds, Fudge/Barr or Todd/Jardim. Glozman has not been as good as we may have thought she could be coming off that result with Bright, but she and Truong will be very intriguing tomorrow.
Will we get a surprise men’s team on the podium tomorrow? Andre Mick is back with Jason McNulty hoping for a consecutive big day. A bunch of teams will be in mix for medals with no definitive clear cut top team even though Daescu is in the field with Pesa.
4:00 pm EST – Not a ton to catch up on for the day so far. The women’s stuff is mostly going to plan so far but the one result that was very surprising was Hannah Blatt/Ali Phillips taking down Rettger/Bates, 6 and 3. Blatt is a former high level squash player and Phillips is slowly getting better, but that’s still a pretty shocking result against a team that almost beat Lea/Allyce early in the year. Notably, Allison Harris/Jenna Hessert took a game off Emmrich/Pisnik before going down pretty easily.
Early results only on the men’s side. Erik Pailet/Angus Lee, two local Cali guys, took down Roscoe Bellamy/Jack Foster, 12-10 in the third. Wyatt Stone/Ivan Jakovijevic, two Texas guys, got the best of Querrey/Burrows, 11-7 in the third. Hard to say what Querrey is at this point. He feels good about his semi-finals appearance but the eye test is questionable.
4:55 pm EST – Ryan Finley, the former NFL QB, and Craig Johnson worked through the qualifier this morning and have now beaten Farias/Emmrich to get to the winners quarter finals. They are playing Andrei/Pesa, who barely got past Markowitz and Zwiren, which is one you wouldn’t expect to be all that close. No big day for Mick either as he and McNulty lose to two NextGen guys, Liovernese and Lanier.
Megan Fudge and Susannah Barr are through to the semis after getting pushed hard by Emmrich/Pisnik, 14-16, 11-8 and 11-4. They’ll play Bohnert/Whitwell, who just got by Blatt/Phillips, 11-8 in the third. Parris/Simone are cruising and playing Glozman/Truong, who had to fight hard against Hendry/Ackerman. These results just aren’t certain to predict.
6:28 pm EST – Man, the Johnson twins are an enigma. They lose in 3 tight ones to Lanier/Livornese and that’s just not great at this point. They are confusing. Klinger/Amazon Man snuck by Dow/Long, which is a great win for them. Austin T could get a look in Challenger.
No surprise with the two women’s teams in the winners final. It will be interesting to see the bronze as Erokhina/Valdes are having a strong day as well as Pisnik/Emmrich.
10:55 pm EST – What a day for Erokhina and Valdes. Getting the win over Fudge and Barr is a notch in the belt to say the least. That’s a big win for them and they’ll get their first shot on Sunday as Genie has gone from out of Challenger to Championship Sunday.
Lanier and Livornese with a guaranteed medal was not expected. The NextGen boys are playing Nunnery/Gridley who worked their way through the backdraw as Nunnery continues his strong play heading into the MLP draft on July 12th
11:28 pm EST – It is a weekend full of surprises as Lanier and Livornese NextGen their way into Sunday over Gridley/Nunnery, getting it in a tight final 2 games at 9 and 10. What a day for those two as neither had really sniffed anything close to the finals but it shows the margins aren’t that big in these fields a. Surprises all around.
2:30 am EST – We didn’t see the winners bracket final match but saw Odoth post on Twitter the horrible hook by Parris Todd against Fudge/Barr at 8-10-1 in the this game. Someone in the comments has now said the call was overturned by Simone. If someone could confirm that information for us, it would be much appreciated. That’s awful stuff from Parris, though. Completely unacceptable and done at a point where they were on the brink of losing. Todd/Jardim ended up winning 14-12 in the third.
Friday, June 30th – Mixed
11:30 am EST – It should be an interesting day of mixed. Some shake-ups of partnerships and no Andrei/Susannah together. Parris Todd is a Premier lock for MLP but Hunter Johnson probably needs a good performance to have a shot at getting drafted Premier. Not that one result should impact things, but he needs to show that with one of the Premier women, he is able to be a Premier guy. Yates Johnson is getting another shot with Simone Jardim, which didn’t go all that well last time. You’re also looking at a team like Vivian Glozman and Brendon Long or even a William Sobek/Rachel Rohrabacher and Wes Burrows/Emily Ackerman. Start time is 2:00 pm PST with the qualifiers just getting underway.
2:45 pm EST – Some early results to note. Allisson Harris/Andre Mick taking down Wes Burrows/Emily Ackerman in straight games after coming out of the qualifiers. Another team coming out of the qualifiers that will be interesting to monitor is Tina Pisnik/Martin Emmrich as they are currently playing Trifunovic/Dow. We see Rachel Rohrabacher/William Sobek taking down Klinger/Erokhina in straight games as well. One more notable name is former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, Ryan Finley. He has come out of the qualifier with Angie Walker and he actually started games for the Bengals a few years ago. He has some strong results for a guy without any racket sports background of note and clearly there is some major athleticism there.
4:00 pm EST – Things are not nearly as certain at these APPs and it’s probably why there is more variance in the Challenger results. You don’t know what to expect each time they come out as the level simply isn’t as consistent. William Sobek continues his hot run as he and Rohrabacher have rolled through Klinger/Erokhina and then DeHeart/Barr. The other surprising one is Andre Mick, who has an APP bronze medal to his name already this year, as he and Allison Harris worked Glozman/Long based on the score line. Martin Emmrich/Tina Pisnik rolled through Dow/Trifunovic. There are a lot of more known names getting pushed by newer talent as we have seen the likes of Sobek, Pisnik and Andre Mick, but they aren’t as established as these other players, at least in name.
5:06 pm EST – The Cinderella run has ended for Rohrabacher/Sobek and Harris/Mick, at least on the winners side. Fudge/Nunnery took down Sobek/Rohrabacher 0 and 10, which is quite notable from Nunnery, as they took down Pisnik/Emmrich to get there. Fudge’s mixed results have not been nearly as strong as her women’s results so this is another feather in the cap for Nunnery, especially if they can go deeper. Yates Johnson/Simone go 6 and 6 over Mick/Haris. Sam Querrey getting a tight win with Lee Whitwell over Hendry/Foster, 12-10 in the third. Is Querrey a Challenger player?
On the loser’s side, Glozman/Long go down to Valdes/Pailet and Christine Trifunovic has an 0-2 day despite her great stats from previous MLP’s. Is Glozman not comfortable on the right in mixed? What can you make of Brendon Long’s shaky-ish results since MLP Daytona?
6:45 pm EST – Rob Nunnery wants one of us to eat his words about saying he’s not in our top 24. This is a statement say going through this draw and now beating Truong/Daescu when he and Barr had gotten double dipped by them at a previous event. Rob might be extra motivated after he addressed the “elephant in the room” on his recent podcast, which is that his ex-wife has an affair with his previous good friend, Ben Johns, and they are still together. Rob thinks this may be causing some politics to keep him out of the top 24. It’s an interesting question whether this piece of information could have anything to do with his MLP stock. Regardless, Nunnery is currently doing all he can to show what he can with his play.
The Cinderella teams on the day are still going along with Klinger/Erokhina and Ackerman/Burrows. The Johnson twin match is still going on to see who gets to the winners final.
7:45 pm EST – Hunter/Parris are into the winners bracket final after what appears to be a very tight win over Yates/Simone. They lose game 1 and then only win game 2, 11-9, before taking game 3. In other news of players having a good day are Erokhina/Klinger as they have been battling through the losers draw to get some revenge against Rohrabacher/Sobek, 15-13. They are now playing Yates/Simone, who will get Mick/Harris after they have had a crazy good run, getting by Truong/Daescu, 15-10.
1:32 am EST – Amazing day for Harris and Mick. It’s one thing to come out of nowhere to make a singles final but quite another to do so in doubles. They take down Fudge/Nunnery in 3 and will get a shot at Parris/Hunter on Sunday. That’ll probably feel disappointing for Fudge/Nunnery but Mick and Harris beat a lot of good teams today.
Thursday, June 29th – Singles
11:17 am EST – They are doing something interesting this weekend with the women starting first for singles and the men going ahead second. There have been some complaints that with the draw sizes more equal nowadays that it’s not fair for the women to have to start later and get less shine on the stream. We’ll have to consider that one more closely another day, but it is unclear if the women are happy with the earlier start today.
Parris Todd is in the draw on the women’s side. Her first matchup could end up being harder than anticipated with either Rohrabacher or Schaefer. Sam Querrey is in the men’s draw. Hunter gets William Sobek in his half of the draw.
1:43 pm EST – Parris Todd barely gets by Dominique Schaefer as Todd’s singles game continues to stagnate. Schaefer has to be getting better as she plays more tournaments but an 11-7 in the third victory for Todd isn’t an overly encouraging sign. There are some other notable results in here. Shelby Bates lost to an unknown, Cloe Murillo, who proceeded to lose to Tatiana Ruhl so that’s clearly a bad loss for Bates as her singles game is questionable at best. Hannah Blatt, a former pro squash player, took a game off Amanda Hendry. Alix Truong slipped by Nicola Slater, another unknown to us, 13-11 in the third. The men’s stuff has not gotten going yet as the qualifier has just finished up.
4:48 pm EST – The biggest notable result of the day so far is Roscoe Bellamy taking down WIlliam Sobek in straight games, 7 and 7. The son of Beth Bellamy, Roscoe has had some quality singles results to start his career as can often be the case for big time tennis background guys. His doubles game is more unknown to us but that’s an interesting result. Cam Luhring, who gets some relatively solid results on the PPA, took down Jack Foster in 3 games.
On the women’s side, Fudge and Todd are playing for gold after Todd smoked Amanda Hendry and Fudge got past Simone in 3 games. Emily Ackerman played Fudge very tight in the winners semi, losing 10 and 9, but then goes down in the losers bracket to Dominique Schaefer. It may not be a fluke for Schaefer getting some of these better singles results. She almost beat Catherine Parenteau earlier in the year and has now beaten Ackerman and Jenna Hessert on the day. We should mention Shelby Bates has made a commendable run in the backdraw and will play the winner of Hendry vs. Schaefer to go to bronze.
6:03 pm EST – Hunter Johnson is playing Quang Duong in one semi-final. Surprising to see Duong there considering he’s not a name we are aware of after he beat Roscoe Bellamy, 0 and 9. Yates Johnson is playing Ryler DeHeart as Ryler continues to get wins in singles. Yates also beat Sam Querrey whose singles game has come along fairly nicely. Another Johnson twin winners bracket final on the horizon?
Dominique Schaefer takes down Shelby Bates to go to bronze and that’s going to be her first pro medal. Impressive run from Dominique and it will be interesting to see if she can give Megan Fudge a run at all. Parris Todd handled Megan Fudge, 9 and 2, and good to see from Parris. After a close first match for her, she has cruised pretty well into the Sunday final.
7:30 pm EST – We get our Johnson twin final as Yates breezed past Ryler while Hunter had to work in 3 to get past Duong. Duong is now playing Sobek who is a never give up guy that is running through the backdraw. James Bragg also having a nice day as he is playing Ryler DeHeart after beating Roscoe Bellamy.
Megan Fudge takes down Schaefer in 2 but that’s a very good day from Schaefer. Someone to monitor going forward as there’s lots of talent in her game.
8:42 pm EST – So it is Quang Duong into the bronze. What a day for Duong. According to his interesting Instagram page, he was once a hitter for Sam Querrey. Tennis background, obviously. He plays Yates for bronze as he and Hunter went 3 games. Duong doesn’t like PPA draws apparently either!
10:12 pm EST – It’s Duong’s day. One of his Instagram posts he says that the Chinese will takeover pickleball one day. Is Duong step one? He is onto Sunday with a 10 and 9 win over Yates Johnson. Another Vuk situation from a guy who is training both tennis and pickleball at the same time, with tennis apparently still taking up far more time.
if it wasn’t streamed, did it really happen?
Probably not haha
Yes, really too bad the men’s singles bronze match was not streamed. Quang’s 17 and hits massive topspin & pace. He served 3 in a row to start game 1 before being called for a fault on the serve (slight jump, so feet might have been off the ground). Then again at 4-2 he was called for the same thing and got a bit frustrated/upset. Had a few misses and went down 4-9.
As Yates was hitting a serve at 4-9, Quang said “wait” and asked the ref what the score was — he was thinking they should have switched sides at 8, like the other backdraw matches. . The ref reminded Quang that it was best 2/3 to 11. Since the score was called correctly and Quang had stopped play (the serve had landed in and Quang had made no attempt to play it), the ref had to assign the point to Yates.
You could almost see the switch flip from frustration to anger in Quang as he proceeded to rattle off the next 8. (Yates got a few sideouts and wasn’t playing badly, but just couldn’t get that last point.). The second game had several great rallies. Yates went up a few (maybe 6-3) but then Quang strung together some wicked passing shots and they battled back and forth to the end.
Very interesting. Noticed in some of the clips that Duong posted to his Instagram that Yates wasn’t coming to the net on every return. Any idea why that was the case and was this regular?
Sometimes when Duong’s serve was very heavy and deep, Yates wasn’t able to hit a deep return (especially when Duong was jumping). In those cases he stayed back instead of risking getting caught in transition. (Don’t remember it happening that much, maybe 6-7 times and pretty sure it was not strategic.)
Just saw a few clips so was curious if it was a trend
Also of note is that Duong had to play qualifiers before the main draw. Similar to a Schick sitiuation.
Great point. We did not note that
It will be interesting to see how Nunnery performs after dropping the adultery bomb on It Feels Right.
Maybe the added weight and stress of the situation is released a bit. He should play well.
He is playing well recently. His results could be important this weekend for any chance at Premier too
Tough call.
On the one hand, he says he wishes them well, and just wants “it” all to go away, but yet he’s dropping bombs on his podcast, stirring “it” up. Not a good look.
Also, “upside” is the flavor of the month in pro pickleball. Tyra, Garnett, Alshon, et al. Nunnery is not that flavor.
OTOH, as mentioned, he’s playing well recently, and recency bias is a thing.
To be fair, Rob has not said this anywhere and it seems he had to say it publicly before being able to move on. The mixed result today is maybe his most impressive to date no matter what happens
Did he address the abuse allegations?
There are none. You are making this up.
Ben Johns, the savior of married women everywhere. What a true hero. Maybe the third time is the charm if they are still together.
Don’t think he has. To be clear, the abuse allegations were not physical? And can’t recall whether the word abuse was used at any point? In any event, we want to be clear we don’t want to get involved about the why – assuming there is nothing criminal that occurred or claims of sexual harassment. The reason the Rob thing is brought up is how that fact relates to pro pickleball and that’s what we want to keep it to for our blog
I’m sure that everyone wants to follow whatever policies you set for your own blog, but this is confusing — “The reason the Rob thing is brought up is how that fact relates to pro pickleball and that’s what we want to keep it to for our blog”
It sounds like you’re saying that your commenters can continue to talk about the dissolution of his marriage here, as they have been for months and even you were shortly before my comment, because it “relates to pro pickleball”, but only if they accept his version without question, and agree to collectively ignore his ex-wife’s harrowing account of the treatment she received? Are comments like the one from The Better Denise what we are supposed to “keep it to for your blog”?
We’re happy for commenters to say whatever they like and there have only been rare occasions where we have removed a comment. We are just speaking personally for ourselves how we are going to approach it and it’s not going to be our place to poke holes in either of their versions of what happened in their marriage. We are good with others providing their perspectives if they do choose, but our opinions are going to stick to what related to pro pickleball from how we see it.
Who was the other two?
Sorry what are you referring to?
Any thoughts on Paris Hooking Fudge/Barr?
Simone gave it back. (After Fudge/Barr took a time out…). F/B were up 10-8 at the time. (With the out call it would have been 9-10-1, instead they came in off the timeout 8-10-2). This was in the third game. (I,m assuming that’s the play gman is referring to.) They got the sideout after Simone served but failed to score (obviously). F/B had maybe 5-6 chances at match point…a little tightness and those shots that were dropping start hitting the tape…
Horrid call. Need more confirmation on Simone overturning it during the timeout though
Yes it was overturned. I think Chad may have signaled to Simone from the booth (you could kind of hear him off mic a little). Announcers confirmed Simone overturned during timeout and the score reflects the call being overturned. Parris played lines fairly throughout on some close calls. This was a hard angled overhead which can be tough to call. Glad they got the call right. Before saying Parris hooked them I would suggest watching the match.