Minto US Open Live Blog – April 20, 2021 – Mixed Split Age

Young male or young female. What is going to carry the day in the mixed split age. We had some very interesting results yesterday in the gender split age and we live blogged it all here. Exciting again today to see what happens in this first time event. j

10:53 pm EST (Slim) – Callie Smith and Dave Fleming, beat Scott Moore and Irina Tereschenko and Scott Moore 16-14 to take the bronze. As two of the friendlier and nicer people in pickleball, it’s nice to see Smith and Fleming on the podium.

It looks like at the end of the day, the teams with young dominant women carried the day, with really the lone exception being the Silver medalist in Joey Farias and Eva Welsher. I’ll be curious if this trend continues, if they run this event in the future. I know that Gritty had predicted this would be the case, I still think teams with young court covering guys can do very well, but a lot of those guys like Tyson McGuffin, Jay Devilliers and Tyler Loong withdrew, so we didn’t get a chance to see them play it out.

A match-up I’d love to see next year in this event, is Ben Johns paired with one of the top senior women, versus Simone Jardim paired with a top senior man, I would be very curious who would prevail. Would be very curious who people think would win, this theoretical match up.

8:48 pm EST (Slim) – Catherine Parenteau and Steve Kennedy take gold, defeating Farias and Welsher. Parenteau and Kennedy proved to be a very tough team, as Catherine is one of the more consistent players out there, and a lot of teams as I suspected did shy away from playing her a lot of balls, which left them playing Steve a lot of the balls, and Steve has very effective attacks, and those attacks proved to be problematic for a lot of the teams in the draw today.

7:46 pm EST (Slim) – I am actually disappointed that we only get to see 11 in this event. Obviously, it had to be done due to time constraints, but just from a curiosity standpoint, I would have loved to see so longer matches in this new event to see how different strategies would play out. I feel like this event with the variety of different partnerships, and with so many first time partnerships, lends itself to a lot of in game adjustments, and games to 11 don’t provide a lot of opportunity for that.

Also does anyone else feel like the Pickleball Channel is living in the past a bit? I feel like they still think the Weinbachs and Moores, are at the top of the pickleball world, and they just are not, there is new and exciting blood out there. Joey Farias and Eva Welsher beating Scott Moore and Irina Tereschenko while a good win, should not be considered a major upset.

7:01 pm EST (Gritty) – Wild card day indeed. I don’t think you can take much from these results with only one game to 11. Stratman/Morariu took down Callie/Dave Fleming. We highlighted both teams in our preview and this one could have gone either way. The Franklin ball is a game changer, literally. It is so hard to put the ball away for these players, especially in this type of mixed split age where a lot of pairings are senior men and younger pro women. While I can’t comprehend why Pickleball Channel has two play-by-play guys on a 3-person broadcast, it is nice to hear Morgan Evans on the mic.

5:41 pm EST (Slim) – they have now moved to a one game to 11 format, with the gold medal as one game to 15. It is truly a wildcard event now as, the one game to 11 is unpredictable and does not provide much time for adjustments

4:41 pm EST (Gritty) – While they say they are drying the courts, it appears two teams have withdrawn. Alex Hamner and Tyler Loong are out, and I would have had them on the podium coming into this tournament based on their history. Jay Devilliers and Stephanie Lane have also withdrawn giving Parenteau and Kennedy a free path to the next round. My understanding is that Ernesto Fajardo and Yvonne Ting are up 11-6, 4-2 on Callie Smith and APP Broadcast Crew member Dave Fleming, which if they can finish it off would be a big upset in my mind at least.

4:20 pm EST (Slim)- they are drying the courts and aiming for a 6pm return to the courts

2:27 pm EST (Slim) – and they are on another rain delay, thing cannot be looking promising.

2:15 pm EST (Slim) – play has resumed and some early results are trickling in. Dominic Catalano and Leslie Bernard had a nice win in two games over platform tennis legend Juan Arraya and Christine Barksdale

1:00 pm EST (Slim) – they are currently drying the courts, and will text players to return to their courts when the courts are dry. However, it appears the courts are quite wet, so this could take a while

10:50 am EST (Slim) – there is currently a rain delay we will update when play returns.

10:41 am EST (Slim) – And the bracket has changed again as Callan Dawson is stepping in for Tyson to play, with Cammy. While Callan is a very strong player, one of the most consistent on tour, he is not the mixed player that Tyson is due to not quite having the weapons for mixed. I still like this team but don’t think they are quite the favorites that Cammy was with Tyson.

7:20 am EST (Gritty) – I’m with slim on Tyson and Cammy. Otherwise, I generally am of the mindset older man with younger woman is the ideal combination. Jose Derisi appears to be stepping in for Steve Dawson with Anna Leigh Waters. Jose had a very good day with Nunnery yesterday. I also want to highlight Tyler Loong and Alex Hamner who have a long standing partnership. Zero trust for me in DJ Young after yesterday but you never know.

12:25 am EST (Slim) – I am very interested to see how this event plays out, it is just so unique with the different possible partner combinations out there. My first instinct looking at the draw (presuming it doesn’t get changed) is that I like Tyson McGuffin and Cammy McGregor to come out of the top half of the draw, I think Tyson will cover a lot of the court and cause opponents problems and then as we saw to today Cammy is just very solid. In the bottom half of the draw, I like Catherine Parenteau and Steve Kennedy to make it to the gold, as I have a feeling that teams will actually look to avoid Catherine and play Steve and I think that will be tough for a lot of teams.

I am very curious if at the end of the day we see certain partner combinations rule the day, or if it comes down more to each teams chemistry. I know Gritty has some different thoughts on this division, so I am curious to see who he predicts will be emerging.

It should also be noted that they are still predicting thunderstorms tomorrow, so we will see if they can get the events off.