PPA Tour Orlando Cup – Live Blog

Live blog for the weekend to follow along all the action and get some of our brief thoughts on the interesting results. You can view our fantasy draft preview here to see our thoughts going into the tourney.

Sunday, September 12th – Championship / Rain Delay Sunday

3:56 pm EST (Gritty) – Anna Leigh gets the gold in women’s singles. The result is not unexpected but I would say the score is. She won in straights and Jansen wasn’t able to get more than 6 points off her in a game. I think these are clearly the 1 and 2 ladies singles players at this point. Expect a lot more battles between the two going forward.

11:08 am EST (Gritty) – With no back draw wrap around, it was going to be a big day for either Koller/JW or Smith/Nunnery, and it ends up being Koller/JW. They were just the better team today basically hammering Nunnery with whoever was on the left side for them. Koller is really establishing himself as a guy who is right there in that 2nd/3rd tier-ish of guys. A lot of quality lobs from Koller today too. You may expect Koller to be the 4th best guy on that court but it sure didn’t show today. It is tough coming out to play such an important match right away in the morning, but those are the breaks.

Jansen and Tereschenko lost in straights to Lucy and Simone who will get the chance to win a gold over the Waters. No revenge match but you know they would love a gold even more after not being able to beat Irvine and Parenteau in gold matches recently, who did end up with bronze today.

McGuffin and Newman are out of the podium too after losing to Bar and Stone 15-13. That is a disappointing result undoubtedly for them on the side of they draw they were on.

Saturday, September 11th – Gender Doubles

3:45 pm EST (Gritty) – The Waters get a mildly surprising win over Catherine and Jessie. You wonder if it all changed at 9-9-1 in the first game when Jessie and Catherine appeared to go up 10-9, timeout called but during the timeout it was found they served from the wrong side. While they did get it to 10-9-2, they couldn’t close, Catherine left a couple of close balls and game 1 lost. The Waters rolled in game 2 after they were up 9-4 in game 1. Anna Leigh was all over the court and seemed to win the majority of the hand stuff she got into. It’s been a hot minute for the Waters.

We are in a rain delay now.

1:05 pm EST (Gritty) – Johnson and Koller ginormous win over McGuffin and Newman in 3 tight ones. Would have loved to watch that. And then the Deakin retirement. He didn’t play mixed with Irina yesterday and now a retirement. Not good.

12:37 pm EST (Gritty) – Let’s start with some women’s results. Jorja Johnson and Sarah Ansboury have a very nice win 4 and 7 over Lee Whitwell and Vivienne David. Have not seen much of Jorja’s game recently but have to think there is some improvement there. The Waters also get through Carr and Smith in 2, which is not surprising at all.

Nothing too noteworthy on the men’s side to this point in the day.

7:33 am EST (Gritty) – I know we have an explanation about how seeding works now but something needs to be resolved in these women’s draws for the Waters. They continue to be seeded outside of the top 4 for these tournaments. I get that it’s PPA points but are we still counting last year’s points? Do they really not have enough points from this year for a top 4 seed? I guess I don’t get full access rankings because I’m not an all-access member! I did not realize they do not give all fans the ability to see rankings. Wild!

Friday, September 10th – Mixed Doubles

7:37 pm EST (Gritty) – As a summary for the day, Matt and Lucy do take bronze. Jansen/Koller appeared inches away from taking the bronze, which would have been a massive upset. However, a 4th place finish is a bit of cash and a big moral victory for them. I don’t know what this whole weekend is going to mean with the Ben and Simone no podium, or if this is a blip on the radar. You have to question whether Simone is having a decline. Saturday will be a good test.

2:52 pm EST (Gritty) – I honestly have no clue what’s going on with Ben and Simone. No medal after a 15-12 loss to Matt and Lucy. This is weird.

2:26 pm EST (Gritty) – Jay and Jessie barely get it done after being up 9-3 in the third only to find a way to go up 12-10. This is the Dekel that we have been waiting to see in mixed and with Vivienne David’s strong defensive play he was able to insert himself throughout to put a ton of pressure on Jessie and Jay. Bar was essentially on the other side of the T taking over the court and Irvine saved a little flip down the line for the most important moment of the game at 11-10 match point. I actually thought she needed to do that earlier a couple times but it worked out.

Jansen/Koller huge win in the back side 15-13 over Callie and Tyson. Big day for them and Slim did say to me during our draft he had them as his 6th team in mixed. I disagreed.

12:31 pm EST (Gritty) – It’s nice to get a new final and not the same old in mixed. Parenteau and Newman do get the win in two over Matt and Lucy. This was a 2(a) and 2(b) situation in my view and Newman/Parenteau prevail.

I should have noted in my last entry that Dekel played like the beast he should be in mixed against Ben and Simone. All over the court and causing a ton of problems with his length and power.

12:07 pm EST (Gritty) – Welp, I was very wrong about Simone and Ben. It seemed they were in control in game 2 but they lose in straights to Dekel Bar and Vivienen David. Dekel doesn’t really get mixed results and now it’s a big W for him. Opens the door on the gold medal with no back door here. What a time to be alive.

11:16 am EST (Gritty) – The one sort of notable result from this morning is Yates and Anna Leigh losing to Irvine and Devilliers. It’s far from surprising and Yates with AL feels like a bit of a waste of AL’s talent to challenge the top teams.

It’s all going as expected otherwise. Ben and Simone are down a game, but that feels like when Djokovic goes down a set. Now they will start focusing.

Thursday, September 9th – Singles

9:11 pm EST (Gritty) – Poor Jack Foster with another 4th place finish. It’s actually a really good day for him to get 4th in this field and he should be proud as should JW for bouncing back after a slow start to the day to take a bronze. Not shocking from the stoic youngster.

I have seen a good chunk of complaining online about the seeding. The PPA sent an email to players explaining how the seeding works and it is tennis like as beyond the 8 seed is completely random. They are using PPA points only and it continues to seem odd that DUPR sponsors the PPA yet is not used for competition yet. In any event, outside of Jack Foster vs. McGuffin, it’s insane to call the Yates vs. JW match a case of bad seeding. Yates hasn’t done anything in singles for literally years. He says he’s healthy now but the results go to seeding. It’s a credit to Kyle that he won but the seeding wasn’t terrible by any means. Kyle is NOT a top singles player so let’s not historically pretend he is.

7:32 pm EST (Gritty) – Slim was right and I was wrong, Tyson took Jay down in 2 even though I have no clue what was going on with him. Jay was up big in game 2 and then after the rain delay couldn’t get anything going. Still matches going on to see who plays for bronze.

Callie Smith with another medal in singles as she beats Parenteau in straights. Parenteau isn’t going to do much if she defaults to staying at the baseline when things are going poorly. The women have to realize you need to keep going to the net no matter how badly it’s working out because the alternative is far worse. That’s two more big wins for Callie who is arguably the #3 female singles player in the game now.

5:39 pm EST (Gritty) – The gold women’s singles match is set with Anna Leigh and Lea set to face each other. It should be a very good match as they have played 5 gamers against each other. It seems clear these are the top 2 singles players right now as Parenteau has stagnated a bit and Jardim lost to Callie Smith in straights today.

Something appears to be wrong with Tyson. We’re in the middle of game 2 against Devilliers and he is not hitting his serve the way he normally does. I may have missed it during the broadcast but it does not seem to be discussed.

Yates will get Ben in the other semi-final after a big day for him.

We are going into another rain delay now. Tyson is up 11-3, 5-7 in his match, but it’s odd because he is moving around well enough and hitting his forehand. No legs in the serve at all.

11:26 am EST (Gritty) – Kyle Yates out of nowhere with his two biggest singles wins in God knows how long. He easily rolled JW Johnson 6 and 2, and then went on to squeak by Ryan Sherry 11-9 in the third. Starting to wonder if we’re getting a little fatigue from JW who has been playing a ton of pickle in recent months.

Lea Jansen played her 2nd game against Rachel Summers 15-13. Summers has not played any 5.0 since she has tourney history only back to October but looks like more D1 tennis in the past.

9:00 am EST (Gritty) – Simone is in the draw and appears to be playibg. Slim said he thought she would be super motivated going into this week and may be playing singles to prove the doubters she is not “old”. Is she overextending herself by playing singles?

The men’s draw features one tough first round matchups as I don’t quite get how Jack Foster has to face Tyson McGuffin. Brutal draw for the 4th place maestro and I can’t imagine Tyson is too thrilled either