Christian Alshon and Connor Garnett are into the men’s singles gold medal match in Cincinnati after straight-game victories on Saturday.

Alshon kicked things off with an 11-3, 11-7 victory over top-seeded Hunter Johnson in a match that saw the return of the ‘Cincinnati Streaker’ while Johnson took a medical timeout for a calf issue between the first and second games.

It looked like Johnson would force a decider when he got out to a 6-0 lead in Game 2, but Alshon went on to score eleven of the next twelve points to close out the contest and secure his second straight win over Johnson.

The No. 6 seed spoke about how he remained composed after getting down early in Game 2.

“Hunter was just playing well. I missed the first return, but other than that, he just hit a couple crazy backhand winners. It’s easy to get mad when somebody starts playing really well, but at the same time, there’s no reason to get mad because you’re not the one doing it,” he told Pickleballtv’s Kamryn Blackwood and Matt Manasse. “I just had to try and weather the storm.”

He certainly did the weather the storm to make his first since final since winning the Texas Open in March.

In the second semifinal, Connor Garnett dominated No. 57 seed Chris Haworth by an 11-4, 11-1 score line.

The 6'4" Haworth had beaten Jack Sock and Federico Staksrud in back-to-back rounds coming into Saturday, but Garnett was able to find ways to expertly maneuver the ball past him at the kitchen line.

“When you’ve got a guy as long as Chris, the more he gets grooved on these shots, the more he can kind of start to take over, and so I was just trying to keep him uncomfortable; that was kind of my whole thought going into this match,” he said afterwards.

Garnett has been particularly impressive this week and is into the final without having dropped a game through five singles matches. He says that his recent Triple Crown at PPA Tour Asia’s Sansan Fukuoka Open gave him the confidence to play at a high level at the third Slam of the year.

“Japan helped a lot, being able to get the Triple Crown over there. Any time you can finish a tournament with a win, I think it just helps the confidence because you’re on the road so much and when you lose week after week, sometimes that starts to put doubts in your head,” he explained.

Sunday’s final will be the third meeting of the year between Alshon and Garnett, and the first since Garnett triumphed in the bronze medal match at the Orange County Cup by a 9-11, 11-4, 11-8 score line.