PPA Tour Orange County Cup – Live Random Thoughts

San Clemente is one of the favored venues of the pros. Most seem to be staying the full 2 weeks for this tournament, a ton of clinics, and the grand finale of season 1 MLP. The cooler weather will be a welcome relief for those who couldn’t tolerate the Texas heat index (which seems to be 100% of the pros). Pickleball Brackets seems to be the official new home now for tournaments and their results so you better get used to that for now. No more logging out issues at least.

Championship Sunday, June 11th

11:20 am EST (Waggish) – At some point, PPA decides to hold the second WD SF this morning. At the end of the broadcast yesterday both AL and the announcers were saying the WD would be the first Gold medal match played today. I wonder if PPA just forgot that the second SF had not been played? Or if the teams in that match refused to play it if it wasn’t streamed? So first we get the WD SF at 9:30 local time then we get MXD. Current order is shown as MXD, MS, WD, MD, WS. 5th place WD went to the Brascia sisters over Braverman/Ansboury (5). MD bronze went to James and Tyson (8-,2,8) over Bar/Dawson.

Fun facts: Including this one, there have been 12 PPA tournaments. 16 names in each gold medal match gives a possibility of 188 names because Newport was doubles only. There has been 24 or 25 different women in gold matches depending on whether Irina makes it to WD gold today. Of those, we have 8 different women who achieved gold. There have been 20 different men in gold matches. Of those, we have 11 different men who earned the gold across the relevant 3 brackets.

12:30 pm EST (Waggish) – BONUS THOUGHTS! – Dylan/JW vs James/Tyson QF.
How do you go from being up big in game 1 to losing, have a big win in game 2, then lose almost equally big in game 3? Let’s discuss with an eye towards answers to these 3 questions:
What is the role of a right side specialist?
Do you have to be “on”?
How important is strategy vs skills/talent?

In game 1, Dylan/JW have taken a substantial lead at 9-5. Tyson calls time-out. At 10-5, both JW and Dylan go for the same middle air ball. As a result, there’s a mishit and the ball goes out giving the serve back to Tyson/James. At 10-5, Tyson’s ball might have been out. Dylan asked refs if they saw it and they did not. Dylan should have challenged the call. Tyson had previously been only attacking Dylan but now he is attacking JW also. At 10-8, when serve returns to Dylan/JW, Tyson calls a strategic time-out. At 11-11, JW makes the biggest flubbed shot, possibly by rushing his shot. Game 1 ends with momentum in Tyson/James favor. In game 1, we clearly recognize Dylan/JW’s style: JW is working the points, taking the middle balls mostly, and playing soft/dink game until there’s a strategic opportunity to attack. Dylan would sometimes take a ball in the middle that should have been JW’s to take but not excessively. Tyson turned it around when he started attacking both Dylan and JW and through wise use of time-outs. James was playing a right side role and never deviated from that role. Dylan would deviate and sometimes take a ball in the middle. It hurt them at 10-5 when they could have won the game.

In game 2, despite the momentum favoring Tyson/James, Tyson is missing shots. He gets hurt a few times on the unwinding of stack, he hits a lot into the net. So it’s not that JW and Dylan were suddenly playing out of their minds, it was mainly that Tyson wasn’t “on”. In game 3, we immediately see the difference. Tyson and James are keeping them back or pushing them back as much as possible. They are doing drives. They are dinking to JW’s backhand keeping him out of the middle. They are not letting Dylan/JW develop any rhythm with a dinking game. James is taking frequent water breaks. They are attacking both Dylan and JW. Dylan is taking more of the middle, sometimes his foot is on the line. JW can’t work any of the points like he’d been doing in game 1. Dylan is out of his role as a right side specialist. Now he’s competing for the middle balls. And again on an overhead, they both go after the same ball. James is making fewer errors and his attacks are finding better success. So through better strategy from Tyson/James and Dylan’s stepping out of his role, they easily win game 3.

JW’s hands are the fastest, James is next, and then Dylan’s. But Tyson has savviness, mental toughness, and years and years of experience. In TX, it was Dylan/JW that pulled off the win against this team. We may now have 2 rivalries to watch: JW/Dylan against Matt/Riley and against Tyson/James. What fun!

1:25 pm EST (Waggish) – WD SF: The women in red (Callie/Lucy) vs Etta Wright/Irina Tereschenko. The ladies in red bring the fire in game 2 with fast-paced rallies and forceful attacks. Irina showing she has wheels at 7-6. Etta/Irina fighting back and tie at 9. Irina gets into her first 2023 gold match. Etta gets into her 3rd (she has gold from Red Rock, silver from TX). (5,9)

2:45 pm EST (Waggish) – MXD Gold: Waters/Johns vs Parenteau/McGuffin. There’s a huge headshot picture of Tyson from a fan on the front row of spectator’s stand. Rather distracting! There’s one of CP too but it stays hidden behind the player’s bench most of the time. AL/Ben get a big lead with their speed-ups, helped tremendously by errors from Tyson/CP who don’t look quite ready to play good pickleball. Game 2, Tyson and CP are nicely warmed-up. Will it make a difference? AL is on fire! She’ll attack whoever is in front of her. Ben loves stationary targets away from the NVZ! But Tyson does win a fire-fight rally (no point) from transition. Game 3 follows similar patterns to games 1 and 2. Catch them off the line and attack. Good rally at 8-2-1. Ben/AL may have been counting their chickens as they let team Tyson get several points in a row from 9-3. Team Tyson fighting hard at 10-7 and make it 10-9. But AL/Ben get serve back and finish. (3,6,9)

3:30 pm EST (Waggish) – MS Gold: #4 McGuffin vs #7 Garnett. One thing is for sure, McGuffin is not planning on leaving anything in the tank. He’ll run it dry putting it all out there. See 4-9 — both times! Tyson may have reached his 10,000 steps. McGuffin somehow comes from behind 5-10 after his time-out! He takes the serve away from Connor and runs up 2 points before Connor’s time-out. He continues the run all the way to 12! Wowwweee!. Tyson’s time-outs are pure magic! After that 7 points in a row, he continues it with another 5 points before Connor makes another point. And Connor doesn’t make another one until 10-1. Tyson (10,3).

5:20 pm EST (Waggish) – #1 Waters/Parenteau vs #6 Wright/Tereschenko. This is not a rerun! We’ve seen all these ladies already today but here we have them in WD Gold. Game 1 goes about the way of TX with AL/CP against Etta/Meghan. Wright/Tereschenko get a small lead to start game 2. We’re seeing a lot of offensive lobs from Etta and Irina. AL/CP not playing clean at all. But staging a come-back from 3-8. And ties at 10! Game 3: Etta/Irina doing nothing but lobs from baseline at 0-1 but they are not working. AL/CP able to maintain the NVZ. AL/CP bringing the aggression. But some high balls give Irina/Etta good attacks at AL. See highlight rally at 4-3 that leads to 5-3 and a time-out from Etta/Irina. Ties at 9. Extremely tight game. Teams appear equal on the firefights but need a counting aficionado. Stands are packed as normal for Sunday but no Frat party AFAIK. (Rumour has it they’ll be there for MLP though!) Will game 4 be the deciding game? It’s been a long time since we’ve seen WD go to 5 – maybe Red Rock? See AL on fire at 0-0 to start the game out right (from her perspective). All ladies fighting it out at 1-1. I’m expecting to see blood, a black-eye, an ear bite, or a bludgeon to a knee at any moment (hyperbole). CP/AL take a commanding lead and finish out in 4. (2,10-,9,3) Congratulations to Etta and Irina for being such fierce contenders. No results shown for WD Bronze which was eligible to play after this morning’s SF.

7:20 pm EST (Waggish) – Riley and Matt win game 1 with speed-ups and holding the NVZ. I’ve never seen them play almost an entire game at NVZ before. Game 2 gets ready to start and Collin decides the court is too wet from mist and walks off. Only 1 player has to complain about court and you get the game called off until condition fixed. Weather delay. Game 2 starts. See 0-2-1 and 1-2-1 rallies. The wall at the NVZ not looking nearly as solid in game 2. Chinks that the Johns are quickly attacking. Matt needs to do a return that gives him more time to do the unwind and get to his side of the court. It’s a close game due to errors from both teams. Game 3. We see Ben baiting Riley to leave his sideline open and he falls for it. We see Matt targeting the wrong player and leaving a huge open space for their return. Lucky for them, Ben can’t take every shot. See rally at 7-5-2. Ultimately, Riley and Matt control enough of the speed-ups to win. Game 4. Matt and Riley both go for the speed-up at 3-0 and it gets flubbed from partner interference. Johns are sending a message in game 4 – don’t mess with the Johns you twerp. Nothing goes right for Riley and Matt this game. Game 5. Riley sets Collin up for a good diagonal erne at 1-0 lol. The Matt at NVZ and Riley back strategy isn’t working for them. Gives the Johns tons of options. Johns win the gold which makes them 6 for 6 this year. (6-,7,5-,0,1).

7:50 pm EST (Waggish) – WS Gold: #1 Waters vs #2 Parenteau. Game 1 is neck and neck and ties at 6. AL works those sidelines with her angles. Game 2. CP does a good angle sideline shot herself at 4-7. AL almost trips over the LED court barrier and just goes sit down on her bench for a time-out. Mom is like “well, hello there”. lol. CP not showing the energy to run from side to side. Great play by CP at 6-9 and 7-9. She’s fighting tough. AL wins (7,7). In the 2023 gold matches against CP, AL is 3 for 3. CP did beat AL in FL in the SF. Fourth triple crown in a row for AL!

Saturday, June 10th – Doubles

11:25 am EST (Waggish) – If you can believe the Brackets website, it is showing Bright/Ignatowich won bronze over the Johnsons. They show the score as (9-,8,5). Bobbi Oshiro and Dekel Bar got Fifth place over Jansen/Rettenmaier (6). PBB still doesn’t have the correct Singles results for men. If we presume the name should be Pablo Tellez instead of JW, then Collin Shick won (1,8). Womens singles show the right names Castillo vs Bright but no scores. Maybe they both withdrew which would be very unusual for Bright. And it should show the first to withdraw as the loser. At least they’ve manually corrected all the bad entries in MXD: wrong scores, wrong teams dropping down to back-draw, and bronze results.

The main WD draw starts with 27 teams with byes for #1 through #5 seeds. Some interesting partnerships: Jorja and Allyce, Lea and Hurricane Black, Bright and Fudge, Oshiro and Glozman. Their start time is 12:00 locally.

The main MD draw starts with 32 teams with no byes shown. Tardio and Garnett are back together. They were fun to watch in TX. This time they’ll avoid JW and Dylan (unless it’s crazy and they get in SF). We don’t often see Kyle Yates at a PPA but he’s with Travis, most likely getting ready for MLP. They could face JW and Dylan in round 2. But the quarter is likely to be JW/Dylan vs James and Tyson. Two strong contenders for Riley and Matt’s QF: Tellez/Staksrud or Koller/Lange. The last quarter is the odd one. Jay D. and Tyler Loong are seeded #3 and their single digit contender is Dekel and Callan at #6.

Enjoy the streaming and let us know your observations, opinions, gems, and rants! Put on your armor though because not everyone is going to like what you have to say!

1:00 pm EST (Waggish) – Stream delayed 1 hour due to weather/drying courts. Forecast looks okay for remainder of day but overnight and early morning rain could delay Sunday’s start.

2:55 pm EST (Waggish) – No upsets so far. #14 Nunnery/Patriquin vs #19 Deakin/Shick (GS). Game 1: N/P get a good lead but D/S settle in and pass them by for the win. Some of Shick’s mannerisms reminds me of Newman: his length, 2-handed backhand dinks, quickness to get back to baseline or front to NVZ, his read of out balls. It’d be interesting to see him in a MD against Riley to directly compare. N/P again take the lead in game 2. Shick’s 3rd shot drops and transition drops way too high. It becomes a blood bath. At least we get a good rally on 8-3 by all players. Game 3 is a close battle with tie at 6. But N/P take it from there (8-,3,6).

4:05 pm EST (Waggish) – Ignatowich/McGuffin vs P.Smith/W.Stone. Tyson is playing left – full stack! We’ll see if they stick with it when they reach the higher rounds. James said he might try to bounce a little less to conserve energy/body heat. He’s doing the normal bouncing though so he must need it. Wyatt sets himself up for a nice erne in game 2 at 5-1. Strange that Pat/Wyatt don’t see that James playing right indicates a weakness and target him. I/M win (6,4). In QF, they’ll play JW and Dylan after they beat Travis and Kyle Yates (5,4). Tardio/Garnett take down J.Arnold/DJ Young (9,5) to reach QF – assuming against Johns. In bottom half, Newman/Wright demolish Hewett/Alshon (2,1). Bar/Dawson also reach QF after defeating S.Smith/T.Fought (1,5-,3) to play either Hayden/Robb or Tyler/Jay.

6:00 pm EST (Waggish) – #4 Johnson/Frazier vs #5 Ignatowich/McGuffin QF. Tyson/James still doing the full stack with Tyson on left. Both teams are being patient with the soft game. 1-6 long dink and Dylan only touched the ball once! Dylan with the poach at 6-1 to get to 7. James fast hands at 4-7 has to build his confidence! They have almost caught up with JW/Dylan. Which seems to fire up the hands of both Dylan and JW and they quickly get some points to force the time-out. They get to game point 10-5 and side-out. Gives Tyson/James a chance to get 3 points then a time-out when they lose the serve. No points and serve goes back to Tyson/James to take the lead! Now it’s JW/Dylan’s time to take a time-out. What a tension-filled finish to this game 1. Serve goes back to JW and Dylan but now they are 1 point behind. James/Tyson win (13-11) after trailing most of game 1 and after JW/Dylan had game point. Game 2, Not as much dinking this game. James and Tyson have more confidence and get into hands battles with Dylan and JW. But Dylan/JW again get to game point first. Can they close? Indeed. And we get a game 3. The craziest shot I’ve ever seen was 1-1 by JW. I had to rewind to even tell what it was. James is attacking Dylan as much as possible and it’s working for him. They lead 6-3 at end-change. Finally we get a time-out from JW/Dylan at 10-5. Should have happened much earlier when they weren’t getting points on their serve and making errors. I/M win (11,4-,5). The big difference was Tyson on left and keeping James’ confidence high.

7:25 pm EST (Waggish) – #2 Newman/Wright vs #7 Tellez/Staksrud QF. Tellez/Staksrud beat Lange/Koller (6,5) to reach QF. Game 1: Staksrud playing the game of his life and even beating Newman in hand battles. For the first time, T/S win a game against N/W. Matt and Riley figure it out in game 2. They lead 7-0 before Tellez/Staksrud get their first point. What a turn-around! Game 3. 6-1 see Riley run, hurdle, jump! He has to hurdle the court barrier as he sprints to hit the ball then jumps the barrier on his way back to get its return, jumps in the air to hit the ball, and runs into Matt trying to cover for him! When will Matt appreciate how athletic Riley is. Later, Staksrud doesn’t appreciate Matt taking credit “Come On!” for winning a rally. Staksrud lets him know he won that rally only due to the luck of the ball hitting the net and dribbling over – not by any great shot by Matt! Put Matt’s head in his place, Fed! lol N/W go on to SF (7-,3,6) against Bar/Dawson. Bar/Dawson defeated Nunnery/Patriquin (2,4). Johns defeated Tardio/Garnett (5,4) to play James and Tyson in SF.

8:40 pm EST (Waggish) – #1 Waters/Parenteau vs #8 Jansen/Black QF. Tyra covers a lot of court and CP/AL have a difficult time getting anything past her. Lea’s power on her OH also giving them trouble. AL/CP do a good job staging a comeback to make it a close game after being down 1-8! Game 2 starts almost identical to the Newman/Wright comeback game 2. CP/AL get a good start of 6-0 before Lea and Tyra make their first point. Ugly rally at 6-1 where every return from CP and AL is high. AL struggles with some 3rd shot drops. Several side-outs with score stuck on 7-3. Game 3: See rally at 3-2-2. A wise time-out at 2-5 gets AL/CP to tie at 5. See 5-5 that gets AL/CP to 6 for end-change. See 8-6-1. Amazing court coverage by AL. AL/CP win (7-,5,6). Impressive performance by the Jansen/Black team.

Oshiro/Glozman barely get into round 2 after a (13-,4,7) first round. Then are defeated by Callie and Lucy (7,5). Dizon and Stratman are defeated by Lina and Yana. The QF between Callie/Lucy vs Lina/Yana is won by Callie/Lucy (7,8). Jorja/Allyce make it to their QF after defeating Gecheva/McMillan (2,9). Etta and Irina defeated Braverman/Ansboury (10,7)

9:20 pm EST (Waggish) – #5 Irvine/Koop defeat #4 Bright/Fudge (8,9) to play #1 AL/CP in SF. #6 Etta/Irina defeat #3 Jorja/Allyce (8-,8,9) to play #2 Callie/Lucy in SF. In MD backdraw, Dylan and JW go down to Connor and Gabe! (13). Connor and Gabe play Pablo and Federico for 5th place.

9:55 pm EST (Waggish) – #1 Johns vs #5 Ignatowich/McGuffin SF. Game 1 starts out badly for James and Tyson with a 6-0 lead by Johns team. It ends even worse with a 11-0 finish! Game 2 was 3 points better. (0,3). As good as Tyson looked earlier, he had no answer for the Johns. They frequently didn’t even make it past the transition zone. Meanwhile, Pablo/Federico get 5th (7). And of course PBB now show them playing I/M for the bronze.

10:40 pm EST (Waggish) – #2 Wright/Newman vs #6 Bar/Dawson SF. Game 1. A series of errors by Bar gives W/N a 4 point lead at first time-out by Bar/Dawson. Between Riley being on fire and series of errors by Bar, we get a quick 11-3 finish. Game 2. Bar is hanging back at baseline too much while Callan gets to line. Callan does a nice job at 3-2-1. Bar brings out his big serve which helps them. At 9-9, Riley does a return from baseline after falling down. Good try! Bar/Dawson get to game point with some good use of shake and bake plays. Callan does an erne at game point and gets a foot fault. They challenge it. But fault confirmed. (3,11) #1 vs #2 on Sunday.

11:25 pm EST (Waggish) – AL/CP vs Koop/Irvine SF. When a strong offensive team meets a mainly defensive team, you don’t expect any surprises. AL/CP (4,4). That is 3 gold matches tomorrow for each of them! Stream ends. No love for the Callie/Lucy vs Etta/Irina SF match. Be on the alert for a rain delay alert on Sunday. PPA claims WD will be first match.

Friday, June 9th – Mixed

7:20 am EST (Waggish) – Just when you think the brackets can’t get more unbelievable, you get today’s brackets. We have a ridiculous bottom half. You can call Parenteau/McGuffin #3 with their 2 recent bronze and 1 silver if you want. They play #14 Wright/Staksrud early so maybe there’ll be an upset there. In the same half, you have #2 Bright/Ignatowich with their 1 gold and 1 silver. Is that a stretch of credibility? Though each have a gold with a different partner. Where is everyone else? In the top half with Waters/Johns. Johnsons are #5 which seems about right with their results. Newmans are #4 and could face Johnsons in quarters so tune in for that! Who does Waters/Johns have to fight off in quarters? Either Kovalova/Wright who they always beat or Jones/C.Johns. All I can say is Sunday Gold could be a very boring match. So watch the semis today for the best action. Luckily, we won’t have to worry about the stream wandering off to some other “partner”. We only have to worry about what PPA chooses to show on the stream. And please PPA get PBB to show the court numbers on their page as a historical record – not just live. We want to know what we missed on GS, CC. And somehow after months of prepping the PBB software to replace PBT, no one at PPA or PBB realized the unconventional SF losers playing into the Bronze was going to be a problem for the software results. Let the gambling begin!

10:49 am EST – Is this possibly the weekend that Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns get taken down? Probably not. There’s really only one team on their side of the draw that could thwart a Championship Sunday and that is the Newman’s. While the Newman’s played them to 3 games last weekend, Anna Leigh Waters was as fresh as you could be off of an epic singles gold medal match. It is just a fact right now that teams are playing for 2^nd place, and there are a lot of teams in the mix for the 2^nd place spot on the other side of the draw. AB/Ignatowich, JW/Jora, Stratman/Arnold have made a final this year, Catherine/Tyson, Wright/Staksrud as a first time partnership and Koop is back on tour with Frazier. It is so stacked in mixed when we aren’t even mentioning a team like Koller/Irvine as one of those 2^nd tier teams in the mix.

3:00 pm EST (Waggish) – With local Pacific time, we don’t have a lot of results yet. Quarters are still a long way off. Jones/C.Johns vs Padegimaite/DJ Young. Very quick game 1 with errors by DJ team. Game 2 we get sloppy errors from everyone and it gets close at 8-6. At 10-6, Allyce crosses the middle line to take a FH away from CJ which is funny to see in MXD because it’s so seldom. (2,7) They play Kovalova/Wright next. E.Wright/Staksrud vs Oshiro/Bar (GS) – Staksrud team had game point at 10-7 but Oshiro/Bar tied it. Nice poach by Staksrud in game 2 at 2-0. It gets tied at 4 with aggression from both sides. Great coverage by Bobbi and Dekel when each go wide and other covers at 9-4. O/B get game point at 10-4 but W/S are not done fighting. You wonder if this will be the reversal of game 1 where O/B came from behind to win. W/S get all the way to 8 and are stopped. Very well played by Oshiro/Bar (10,8).

3:40 pm EST (Waggish) – CP/McGuffin struggled to pull off the win against Castillo/Martinez Vich (11,7). That’s an impressive result for what may be Vich’s first MXD with a rising star partner. No problem for Waters/Johns against Maggie Brascia/Patriquin. Good rally in game 2 at 1,1. (6,1) Newmans vs Pailet/Valdes (GS). Newmans trailed for some of game 2 at 3-6. But Newmans contain them until they reach 9! Then it gets close with a tie at 9. Great rally to tie it at 10. Newmans win (3,10).

5:00 pm EST (Waggish) – (3)CP/McGuffin vs (19)Oshiro/Bar (GS). Close game 1 with neither team dominating for the early part. Eventually, #3 earn that number. Game 2 goes about the same way. Close in beginning before #3 pull away. (6,5).

(7)Irvine/Koller vs (10)Jansen/Rettenmaier. It can be so painful to watch Irvine/Koller. They just get in each other’s way all the time. There’s a lack of set-ups, patterns, and thinking 3 strokes ahead. Good strategy by AJ at 4-7 to take advantage of the stack unwind. Gets tied at 8 for several side-outs with dinks. Game 2 seems to be nothing but dinks. But Irvine/Koller come from behind 2-8 with the dink strategy to reach 6 where Jansen/Rettenmaier get to game point. They win. (8,8) They play Bright/Ignatowich in the QF.

Bright/Ignatowich beat Dizon/Alshon (3,0). What a blow-out that was! Frazier/Koop don’t have it quite as easy to make it to QF. Game against C.Smith/Devilliers was (3,10-.9). They play CP/McGuffin. Kovalova/Wright beat Jones/C.Johns (9,7) to play the other Johns in QF. Johnsons beat Stratman/Arnold (10,4-,8) to make it to their QF. Seems likely they’ll play the Newmans but currently Newmans are in a close 2nd game against Lange and Mary Brascia.

5:10 pm EST (Waggish) – Newmans vs Mary Bracia/Lange: Lindsey was amazing in the second game with some of her Ernes, gets, and even a poach a-la-AL. it gets tied at 6 and Riley happy to stay on left for several points. It was fun to watch something other than endless dinking. Newmans (3,7)

5:45 pm EST (Waggish) – Waters/Johns vs Kovalova/Wright QF. This seems like a repeat of last week in TX where we had the same teams. Last week was (6,3). But this week we see some new strategies employed. See rally at 3-3 in game 2. Wow! Someone has been reading posts online about the weaknesses of AL. I’m loving how much Kovalova/Wright are mixing up their shots. Waters/Johns win but it was a good match (7,5).

6:15 pm EST (Waggish) – #3 Parenteau/McGuffin vs #11 Koop/Frazier QF. At 9-3, CP and McGuffin softly collide as they both go for a sharp, short angle dropped at CP’s sideline. Fun observation. CP/McGuffin are both sponsored by Sketchers so their shoes match down to the color. Koop/Frazier are almost matching too – same color blue but can’t tell if they are both Adidas. Pure coincidence because Dylan is on record as saying he does not believe in matching. #3 get to SF (6,8). In the back-draw, Wright/Staksrud wipe out Castillo/Martinez Vich (2).

7:20 pm EST (Waggish) – #2 Bright/Ignatowich vs #10 Jansen/Rettenmaier QF. Game 1: J/R quickly get to 5-0 before B/I call the time-out. AB saved the day at 0-6 to finally get them a point which starts the train moving all the way to 4 before Lea cries enough and takes a time-out. Game 2. AB doesn’t like getting attacked or bagged. And seems to want to mirror back to her opponent – not because it’s the right shot but for revenge. Just remember attacks require a ball given to you which you rightfully attack. Good play by Travis at 2-6-1. Unfortunately, there are too many misfires from Travis to do any damage to B/I. Tight game 3. Gets tied at 7. I didn’t count errors but throughout the match my impression is that it was the women who saved the bacon over and over after their male counterparts made a series of errors. B/I win (7-,3,8). They play CP/McGuffin in SF.

8:05 pm EST (Waggish) – #4 Newmans vs #5 Johnsons QF. Jorja’s overheads look almost identical to JW’s. She is winning rallies with them. The Johnson’s quick hands and anticipation make it seem like they are seeing the ball in slow motion. Game 2: see incredible court coverage at 2-3. Riley looks like he may be trying to get into the Johnsons head with his stare-downs and chirps. It’s impressive how precise some of Jorja’s shots to Riley’s sideline are whether short or deep. Johnsons win (4,6). They play Waters/Johns in SF. JW for once may have had a bigger grin than Jorja after the win.

8:45 pm EST (Waggish) – #2 Bright/Ignatowich vs #3 Parenteau/McGuffin SF. I love how Tyson fully commits to his shots. None of that leaning in and half-way getting your paddle on the ball like some players. CP looks so comfortable and confident playing MXD with McGuffin. Jessie and AJ might need to pay attention to how a finely tuned team looks. Game 2. CP highlight ATP at 3-3. James may be struggling with energy. He takes a side-out at 3-3 and again at 3-5. So no more time-outs early in the game. After the time-out, P/M quickly get to 8. And then get to Sunday. (6.4). Both of them will also play Singles on Sunday. And I’ll eat my words. The bracket draw worked out better than it looked on paper.

9:50 pm EST (Waggish) – #1 Waters/Johns vs #5 Johnsons SF. Smart decisions by Jorja to sustain their lead in game 1 after JW’s perfect timing gets them the lead. Game 2: Ben has it dialed in. Jorja making mistakes. This combo keeps the W/J team in the lead. Game 3. JW not nearly as involved in game 2 and 3 and it is making a difference. He is being iced out and being passive about. The decision-making from both Johnsons has deteriorated to a painful point. Hugely different play from game 1, reflected in the points. I have no idea what was going on at 3-10. Practice? #1 go to Sunday. (6-,6,3)

Spicy tidbit: There’s a clip showing the aftermath of the Jansen/Rettenmaier QF loss where Lea is beating her Perseus into the ground. Pretty funny after last Sunday’s comments.

1:45 am EST – Another different matchup for Ben and AL as they get Catherine and Tyson in the finals for what should be the second time this year. Tyson and Catherine were two players with weird partnership situations that led to each other. Tyson was with Lea and Catherine was out of luck after Newman went with Bright and others were fearful of playing with her after the Allyce Jones debacle. Here we are 7 months later and Parenteau is back to being a coveted commodity while McGuffin remains underrated in mixed. They have had a great year together.

Ignatowich is clearly struggling. He is quite open on Twitter about the struggles and joking maybe not joking about getting recommendations for a sports psychologist. A semi-finals appearance isn’t what this team wants and you really do wonder as positive as Bright might be with him, it could hurt him more if he feels like he’s letting down his life partner. The Johnson’s had a quality day too as they smoked the Newman’s and gave AL and Ben a lot to handle. They are always scary to face together.

Thursday, June 8th – Singles

1:05 pm EST – We could see another Colin Schick vs. Ben Johns rematch early here in round 2. It will be interesting to see who comes out to face probably Ben in the semis of that half of the group. Tyson and Alshon in the quarters could be spicy. The bottom half is really anyone’s game – Jaume, JW, Garnett, Pablo, Devilliers and Staksrud.

The women’s semi final for facing ALW has a host of options as well. Schneemann, Judit, Hurricane and Irina. Parenteau could have one of her softer draws of the year and we’ll see if Mary Brascia gets a shot to take her down.

2:30 pm EST – These singles days are quite interesting with the mix up of the results. AJ Koller hasn’t had a singles result of note in ages and he comes out to beat the Texas Open silver medalist, Jaume Martinez Vich, in 3 games – 11-5 in the third. Koller has issues staying focused but he would be considered one of those lower quality men’s singles players right now. The difference isn’t that wide for players that have a level competency. That gap is usually too wide for someone like Koller over the course of 3 games, but he stayed relatively focused across the entire match today. Colin Shick has had a big result and Alex Neumann went toe-to-toe with him, 6-11, 12-10 and 11-7. Dylan Frazier barely beat Ross Whittaker in two, winning 9 and 10. Pablo Tellez also barely beat Kyle Lewis, losing game 1 11-4 and then winning game 2, 17-15. These are the type of results that make us feel the way we do about volatility of Dreambreakers so long as all players have a certain level of competency and there are very few men at MLP who don’t have that level of competency.

4:00 pm EST – It was noted in our fantasy preview that this could be a let down spot for Ben, with the tournament sandwiched between a big one in Texas and then MLP. We see both JW Johnson and Ben Johns go down early. Ben loses to Colin Shick, 9 and 5, and JW loses to Tellez, 0-11, 11-6 and 11-0. Two guys who can sometimes fall into a lull for singles, Ben and JW probably aren’t overly concerned about these losses. 

Another notable result is Hayden Patriquin dummying Jay Devilliers 6 and 2. Big win for Hayden Patriquin there. Federico Staksrud slipped by Gabriel Joseph, who has been playing some more events recently. Staksrud lost game 1 and only won game 2, 11-8, before cruising in game 3. Currently, Alshon and McGuffin are playing on center court.

6:52 pm EST – Singles unpredictability. Blah. Blah. Blah. Pablo Tellez is playing Connor Garnett in one of the semis. Pablo was inches away from being out of the tournament in his first round match and here he is with an opportunity to play on Sunday. And a very good opportunity at that. Connor Garnett is becoming a more consistent performer. He went undrafted by us and he was right around that last spot, but 7 and 8 win over Federico Staksrud is nothing to sneeze at. The other men’s semi-final is Colin Schick and Tyson McGuffin. Schick beat Frazier again in 2 games while Tyson McGuffin got through Alshon in a couple of close games. It would be lovely if someone wanted to compile some stats on Christian Alshon’s tweener success rate in singles. He got one to go against Tyson McGuffin, which was actually somewhat necessary, but he had at least 3 others that were 100% for show that were unsuccessful. There’s a lot more to Alshon than we initially knew but you wonder if someone can get his head on straight enough to stop shooting himself in the foot. Seems less likely as time goes on. Also, what the hell is JW doing playing all these backdraws? 

We are missing one semi-final team from our women’s side. Judit Castillo will play Anna Leigh Waters and the winner of Bright/Brascia will play Parenteau. Lina Padegimaite gave Parenteau a good run, but it was not enough. Irina lost to Judit Castillo in 3 and it was interesting to see Irina smoke Lacy Schneemann, 3 and 3. Irina isn’t good enough to win anything these days, but she’s still better than a lot of players out there. 

The rest of today will be on Fox Sports 1. The CBS Sports of Fox.

11:55 pm EST – Tyson is back into Sunday. Super impressive run from him and he’ll be favored to win there against Connor Garnett. McGuffin dismantled Colin Shick and Garnett had a pretty easy time with Tellez. Does Garnett have a counter to the last time Tyson played him?

Anna Leigh and Catherine are back in business to the final. Judit Castillo gave Anna Leigh a lot to handle and it seems Judit is on the rise in singles. Bright didn’t have much for Catherine.