PPA Tour Bristol 2025 – 5 Takeaways – Legacy Weekend

Despite our belief that MLP provides the higher ceiling for the long-term growth of pro pickleball, it does feel like both the tour and team-based concepts are necessary to unlock the sport’s full potential. Without seeing how players perform outside the team environment, something essential is missing from what remains an individual/partner-focused sport.

There’s nothing that tests a player’s mettle more than a tournament-style, multiple-game format in a sport like pickleball. Having this Bristol event was a nice change-up from the season and helps give us more context and understanding of the pro landscape.

1. Legacy Weekend – It was a weekend for the legacy players, highlighted by none other than Matt Wright. The 48-year-old had himself a run, making it to the gold medal match of men’s doubles with the older-than-he-seems Jaume Martinez Vich—who notched a big doubles result for the first time in a while. In an era of power paddles, better athletes, and faster balls, Matt Wright embodied the “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was” mantra in Bristol, Tennessee.

He and Jaume took down Hayden Patriquin/Federico Staksrud in the quarterfinals* and backed that up with an incredibly tight win over Max Freeman/Tyson McGuffin in the semifinals.

The term “athleticism” is most often used to describe physical attributes like speed, jumping ability, and power. But being big, strong, or fast is not what defines an athlete. Hand-eye coordination, touch, and anticipation are just as important in most sports—and definitely in men’s pro doubles pickleball.

Interestingly, as the game has evolved, the styles of women’s and men’s doubles have diverged more than ever in 2025. While women’s doubles features more trigger pulls and firefights than ever before, men’s doubles remains a more structured chess match, where missing less and countering better than your opponents probably matters more than anything.

This is what allows Matt Wright to remain a threat as a right-side men’s player who doesn’t have to move all that much. His consistency and countering ability remain higher end, and his forehand off-the-bounce attack initiation is right up there with the best. That’s not to say Wright’s game hasn’t evolved in recent years, but modern men’s doubles still requires fundamental, old-school pickleball to succeed at the highest level.

Regardless, it was quite surprising to see a semifinal bracket that also featured Jay Devilliers, Riley Newman, and Tyson McGuffin. Not too long ago, these guys were staples on pro podiums, but those days haven’t passed them by completely.

We’ve wondered whether Tyson McGuffin is washed more times than we can count over the past few years, and it seems like every time we do, he proves that’s not the case. It still feels like a major misstep in Tyson’s career that he hasn’t figured out how to put two hands on the paddle for his backhand, but all these guys are a testament to an evolved old-school style of play remaining more than viable in 2025 men’s doubles.

One final note. People have to stop being impressed with Matt Wright getting this done with an Onix paddle. We already know that “UPA grit” is a thing as the UPA is not currently testing for grit on paddles.

It almost certainly is not unique to Wright for what players are doing on tour but our expectation is that there’s a very low likelihood Wright is playing with the stock version of the paddle you’d find at the Pickleball Central tent. 

2. New vs. “Old” – It feels weird to call Gabe Joseph a legacy player. It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that Baby Kyrgios and Scott Crandall spent nearly an entire year grinding it out in 4.5 doubles together.

Once upon a time, Gabe Joseph represented the modern way to play singles. All groundstrokes, all the time, from both wings. Incredible court coverage. No cat and mouse. But that’s how most guys play singles in 2025 and it’s easier than ever with upgraded paddle technology.

Joseph felt like a random signing during the Tour Wars – another warm body the PPA Tour could add to its roster. He never developed a pro doubles game, so it is surprising to see him competing at such a high level in singles in 2025, seemingly out of nowhere.

It’s quite a contrast to see Joseph, a guy who was playing pickleball pre-COVID, face off against a 17-year-old teenager making big waves on the pro tour. This is our third time writing more extensively about John Lucian Goins in recent PPA events. Notably, he had a good round of 128 win with Jalina Ingram over Mya Bui/Yuta Funemizu.

Goins plays more of an off-brand modern style of singles. He’s a better mover than he appears and has impressive consistency given his different style of play. Not everything looks like it should work for Goins, but he keeps getting good results in all three events, relative to his current place on the PPA Tour.

Times change fast. Gabe Joseph was once the young buck chasing the big dogs. Now, he’s part of the old guard trying to hang on to relevance as teenagers like John Lucian Goins slowly but surely take over the sport.

3. Impressive Mixed Chalk – Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns are undeniable as the #1 mixed team in the world. Jorja Johnson and JW Johnson are just as undeniable as the #2 team. It was a close 5-game battle for the gold medal, which ended with Ben and ALW on top of the podium once again. However, the consistency we’ve seen from the Johnson siblings in mixed this calendar year has been incredibly impressive.

As if he doesn’t already look the part sometimes, early in the day is probably the best time to get to JW Johnson (and also Ben Johns). Brooke Buckner and James Delgado pushed the Johnsons to an 11-9 loss in the third game, which is wild to think about.

The Johnsons continue to improve as a duo. Jorja’s hands and firepower have always been elite compared to other women on tour, but she’s making her unorthodox forehand dinking style work consistently. It’s taken two years for JW to finally start initiating more consistently off the bounce on his forehand side. It doesn’t look the cleanest, but JW’s speed up initiations don’t have to be as good as others to put his hands in a position to win a firefight. We’re curious if JW ever decides to start speeding up with the two-hander that is just about exclusively used as a dink at the kitchen. Maybe two years from now?

What’s also impressive about these two partnerships is that they’re consistently making it to the end of close to every tournament, despite how deep the rest of the field is. Some of these round-of-32 matchups are already high-level matches, and it’s not getting any easier.

It may not make for the best drama, but you can’t deny the high level at which these two pairs are operating.

4. Runaway Freight Train – We’re three events into the Anna era of doubles dominance, and things aren’t looking any brighter for the rest of the field. Anna Bright and Anna Leigh Waters look far and away better than their competition right now.

Bristol was their best event by far, and it’s scary to think they may have just started to find a good rhythm with their partnership. We thought this could be bad for women’s doubles drama, and it’s currently as bad as we feared. Whether this continues remains to be seen, but there’s really nothing to indicate this runaway freight train is slowing down anytime soon.

5. Does Matt Wright or Anna Bright Have Bigger Biceps? – We need to settle this. Anna Bright responded to our post on Twitter about the above photo of Matt Wright, saying her “biceps might be more defined” than Wright’s. We replied, “Let’s not get crazy here.” Somehow, that turned into Bright putting out a poll in her newsletter and Lucy Kovalova’s even more hilarious poll on Instagram regarding the biceps. 

So funny. My biceps might be more defined😂😂😂 Matt is such a legend

— Anna Bright (@annabright108) August 10, 2025

Let’s make sure to get this on record. The muscle definition in the biceps is likely closer than we gave Anna credit for initially. The pure size of the biceps remains far apart. What do you think? 

*this article has been edited to correct that Matt/Jaume beat Hayden/Fed in the quarters, not JW/Jaume

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