Minto US Open Live Blog – Men’s Senior Pro Cont. and Women’s Senior Pro – April 22, 2021
It’s time for some better weather. The men’s senior pro bracket is set to kick off at 10:00 am EST. You can find our live blog and preview of the bracket here. The senior women go at 12:30 pm EST. We don’t have a full preview for the women’s senior pro bracket as the field simply is not as deep as any of the other divisions. What you need to know is that, other than Simone/Ben losing, the biggest upset of the tournament would be Jennifer Dawson and Cammy MacGregor not getting a gold medal. Dawson/MacGregor have surpassed Lisa Naumu and Kris Anderson as the dominant team on the senior women’s tour, but without Naumu/Anderson in the field it should be elementary for Dawson/MacGregor. The only thing holding them back might be that Franklin ball that will give others a chance to hang in rallies where they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, particularly with Dawson’s hard hitting style.
6:04 pm EST (Gritty) – It’s gold for Dawson and MacGregor. Shocker! They didn’t drop a game and they didn’t give up more than 7 points in any game. I think they lost their focus a bit in the 2nd game against Lucore/Hamner. It’s hard to keep your focus when Lucore/Hamner celebrated for getting their first point in game 2. There’s not much more to say about this expected result. Eva Welsher is having herself a nice tournament as she is playing for bronze against a TBD opponent.
4:30 pm EST (Slim) – Crandall and Derisi are your bronze medalists. After losing the first game fairly handily, they really isolated Mills in the next two games and did a good job of grinding Mills while keeping Dave out of a lot of the points. I have been impressed with Crandall’s game, it is smooth and consistent. I would expect him to continue to be a pretty consistent presence on the podium. Derisi has to be pretty happy that he rebooked his flights after the delay yesterday. I also have to give a big shoutout to Mills, I just love way he puts his body on the line every time he plays!
3:00 pm EST (Slim) – Witsken and Moore are your gold medalists, they came out firing in the first game and overpowered Morariu and Granot that first game. In the second game, Morariu and Granot jumped out to a 7-2 lead but Witsken and Moore battled back to pull it 11-9. Credit to Moore for staying near the top of the game at 59, in an event where you are at a disadvantage with every year you are past 50.
It would be nice as pickleball and the professional game grow, if the games reffing could progress. In any sport there will always be ref controversies, but I feel too often in pickleball, even in high profile matches we get just plain ref confusion.
11:28 am EST (Slim) – tough look for me as two teams, I did not have in my top 5 are playing for the Gold Medal in Senior Men’s Pro today. I think I was definitely sleeping on Morariu/Granot who have been handling their business heading into the gold medal match. The Kennedy/Oncins withdrawal, is very unfortunate, obviously these things happen, but you hate to see the weather and prior work commitments lead to a withdrawal in the semi-final of a major.
10:57 am EST (Gritty) – Tough for Kennedy/Oncins as it appears work related matters caused a forced withdrawal by them after the rain delay. This gave a free pass to Witsken/Moore who ended up rolling Sperling/Olin after being stopped at 9-5 in the first game yesterday. Lauren Stratman is currently streaming Crandall/Derisi vs. Morariu/Granot. Stratman mentioned how good it was that they kept the 2/3 format and how no one has really said anything about going one game to 11. We talked in our live blog about how it makes it a complete wildcard one to 11 and, as brutal as it is, I think with the split age being the least important of the events it made sense to just get that in on the day.
