Christian Alshon playing pickleball.
Christian Alshon competing at the Veolia Austin Open powered by Invited. PPA Tour

Alshon, Navratil rally to secure quarterfinal spot

LAKEWAY, TX - Zane Navratil and Christian Alshon are into the men’s doubles quarterfinals after a come-from-behind victory over Julian Arnold and Tyler Loong.

The win was come-from-behind in more than one way for the No. 9 seeds: they came from behind after dropping Game 1, and they also came from behind in Game 3 after going down 0-6.

“The way these matches go, we didn’t even think we really did anything wrong to get down 0-6,” Navratil said. “It’s all just about execution, and they were executing better in the first half. We took it to them and executed better in the second half.

An interesting aspect of Navratil and Alshon’s strategy was the decision not to stack, which meant they didn’t have to switch sides on the way up to the kitchen when returning.

“When you’re unwinding [the stack], you create a lot of openings for your opponent to attack,” Alshon explained. “We were just trying to close those openings by holding our ground and staying on our sides.”

Keeping things simple on the return helped Navratil and Alshon take the deciding game with a final match score of 5-11, 11-4, 11-8.

They’ll take on Ben and Collin Johns next.