PPA Tour Bristol Open 2025 – EOD Musings
Our first PPA Tour event in a while. It is always fun to see where players are stacking up after a longer break between tour events. It’s not a complete field in beautiful Bristol, Tennessee but there are a lot of top players, which means different partnerships and unique matchups.
We haven’t done one of these EOD musings posts for a tour event yet, so we’ll try it out and see how it goes!
August 9th – Semis
Good day for Matt Wright. Good day for old guys. Not the best day for pickleball showcasing the best pure athletes in the sport. Very impressive stuff from Matt Wright and Jaume Martinez Vich. A Championship Sunday is a big deal and no easy feat in today’s landscape of pro pickleball. He’s not totally washed as a right side player yet.
It was a good weekend for legacy players overall. Gabe Joseph into a Championship Sunday. The aforementioned Matt Wright. Jay Devilliers and Riley Newman pushed Ben and Gabe to 3 games. Heck, Ben isn’t a legacy guy and he’s been playing as long as anyone, except for Matt Wright. The game has changed a lot but it’s fun to see the old guard still have some juice.
The anti-old guard award goes to John Goins. He will face Gabe Joseph in a full new guard versus legacy matchup. Something about Goins’s game doesn’t look the smoothest but the results are undeniable for such a young guy. We are full buy on the Goins stock.
Women’s and mixed was pretty uneventful. A good matchup with Brooke and Parris, but not too much to speak of otherwise.
August 8th – Gender
Have we questioned anyone as being washed only for them not to be washed as many times as Tyson McGuffin? Certainly not. It was only yesterday we brought this up again only for him to find a semi final in men’s after beating JW Johnson and Andrei Daescu with Max Freeman. Huge win for them and it really doesn’t look great for James Ignatowich that he and Freeman struggled so much this year.
Jaume is another guy we noted as having a down year but a huge win for him with Matt Wright over Hayden/Fed. Love him or hate him, probably mostly hate, Matt Wright has to be respected as a men’s doubles player.
Tough day for Dylan Frazier again. The SpongeBob outfit didn’t do it and that’s a bad loss to Scarpa/Dow with Noe Khlif.
Other than the dying Etta/Tina partnership losing to Jessie and Kaitlyn, pretty chalky women’s day. Humberg and Jade Kawamoto had chances against Jorja/Rachel but they couldn’t push it to 3 games.
Finally, please can we try to solve problems without Don Stanley?
August 7th – Mixed
After an upset-filled singles day, we have a 1, 2, 3, 4 seed semi-final mixed day. The Johnson’s narrowly averted disaster against Delgado/Buckner winning 11-9 in the third in the round of 32, but the 2nd best mixed team in the world is still standing. Parris/Hayden lost in 2 very tight games to Alshon/Patriquin. The upsets are harder to come by in doubles at the top, despite the fact that the mixed draws are so incredibly deep these days.
It’s a long season and we are in those dog days right now where it has been a lengthy stretch without a substantive break for the players. However, a couple of guys with question marks around their results are Dylan Frazier and Tyson McGuffin. Frazier and Jackie Kawamoto lost badly to Rane/Garnett, and this is amidst a strong run Kawamoto has had with Riley Newman in the 2025 season. Lacy Schneemann and Tyson McGuffin lost in 3 to Michelle Esquivel/Marshall Brown. Do we need to start looking at these guys results a little more closely and where they fit in with the modern landscape of pro pickleball?
We did not see Michelle Esquivel’s random 2025 resurgence continuing.
John Lucian Goins remains a 2026 MLP guy to watch. He and Jalina Ingram took out Yuta Funemizu/Mya Bui in straight games before losing 12-10, 11-3 to Alshon/Parenteau. Goins had a big singles day yesterday and he’s a teenager finding real results early on in these PPA days.
Pablo Tellez/Zoey Wang continue to struggle. They lost early to Mehvish Safdar/Anderson Scarpa. A non-legacy lefty, Max Freeman, keeps seeing some quality mixed results following his run with Vivian Glozman toward the end of the year. He and Truong beat Dizon/Martinez Vich (speaking of stock down, Martinez Vich’s doubles results have left something to be desired in 2025).
Wednesday, August 6th – Singles
Singles days are getting more and more wild. We have the very fast Lifetime ball that is the new official ball of the PPA that could be playing a factor in what we have seen today. The other thought that we had is whether the grind of the summer MLP stretch makes it tougher on the incumbent players to bring their best level to singles, especially on the men’s side where the competition is so stiff.
Tyson McGuffin, Federico Staksrud, Ben Johns and Jack Sock were all upset before reaching the round of 16. Connor Garnett lost to John Lucian Goins in the round of 16. Two of the semi-finalists, Gabe Joseph and Goins, have not been playing these MLP events. Heck, even Christian Alshon has had a little time off and he gets the upset over Hunter Johnson.
Who knows how much the condensed MLP schedule and possible mental, physical as well as travel fatigue have to do with the results. But we don’t think you can throw it away as a non-factor.
Anna Bright got a big win over Lea Jansen, 11-9 in the third, who fails to capitalize on an Anna-Leigh Water-less draw. Bright doesn’t play much singles anymore but we have to believe the increased focus on her movement and fitness has to be a big help when she is out there grinding singles. She loses to Judit Castillo in the quarterfinals, which included a little bit of animosity about an earlier out call between the Shock teammates.
Otherwise, a fairly ordinary day at the office in women’s singles. Kaitlyn Christian, Parris Todd and Brooke Buckner are the other 3 semi-finalists as the top 3 seeds.
The AB/Castillo ending is wild to see.
I saw these two hanging out as teammates at MLP events going to dinner, etc. so it’s shocking (no pun intended) to see them interact with each other like this and especially when Castillo should know how much more important AB is for the Shock to have the team remove Castillo from the team.
Good for Castillo to not be afraid of that and to speak how she felt at that moment.
It is tough when you are in that battle. Suspect it will be fine between them and they will get over it. Castillo may have been better off waiting until they were off court but it is kudos to her for not being afraid
What happened between them? I’ve read a few comments (including the one’s here) and heard match commentary today. But no one has described the scene, or reported what was said.
A couple weeks ago i heard navratil and fleming cover a match. It was the best pb booth coverage i’ve heard. It reminded me of high level NFL coverage. Today [name of esquivel’s husband or boyfriend] talked about her good play in mixed. i never heard him describe his relationship with her. Not good.
Here is a link with what happened so you can hear it: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNCAc1tgqP-/?igsh=MTN2eHJ2MWIwMnljMQ==
Zane does a very good job on the mic. It’s a big discrepancy when they get signed players to do commentary as none of them have experience or training so you are really praying that they will be ok. It’s not easy to do
In PPA, the players are plaid via their UPA contract and can then earn something on top of that based on how they finish, is that correct?
How does it work in MLP? If you are a Arizona Flame player, are you essentially paid your base salary by UPA and you can earn money i.e. the mid-season tournament and at the end of the season based on performance … and then the Arizona Flame own your rights as a player via your UPA contract?
There is very limited prize money available right now for players signed during tour wars. There is some extra prize money we believe at PPA and then if you win midseason tourney or win the championship there should be some additional MLP prize money as well. But otherwise it’s just you are required to play a certain number of events – depending on where you signed it might differentiate between tour and team based events. No teams own rights per se but they can use the players days or events to whatever they please depending on contract – something like that.
Thank you, I appreciate your response!