Kate Fahey and Dylan Frazier celebrating their victory at the Pickleball Central Sacramento Vintage Open.
Kate Fahey and Dylan Frazier celebrating their victory at the Pickleball Central Sacramento Vintage Open. PPA Tour

Fahey, Frazier make first final together, will face Johnson siblings for mixed title

Kate Fahey is getting married a week from Saturday, but she’s showing that she isn’t overlooking this week’s tournament in Sacramento.

After making the women’s singles final on Thursday, she teamed up with Dylan Frazier on Friday and won four mixed doubles matches, an effort that culminated in an 11-8, 11-6 semifinal victory over No. 9 seeds Layne Sleeth/Riley Newman.

 

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One of the challenges for the No. 7 seeds was adapting to the chaotic style of their opponents, who frequently switched sides throughout the contest.

“Against a team that switches it up a lot, you’ve got to keep your head on a swivel and make sure you and your partner are on the same page, depending on what orientation they’re in,” Frazier explained. “Kate and I usually are on the same page, so it worked out.”

The match wasn’t without its tense moments, however.

Trailing 3-6 in the second game, Newman fell while tracking down a ball on defense and suffered what appeared to be a lower body injury. He was able to finish the match after taking a medical timeout, but his status for men’s doubles on Saturday with Jay Devilliers could be in jeopardy.

Both Fahey and Frazier expressed their well wishes to the tour veteran, and Fahey gave some insight into the difficulties of playing against an injured opponent.

“I think it’s sometimes harder playing someone that’s injured because you just want to put the ball in play, but Layne and Riley are so good that you can’t just put the ball in play,” she shared. “I actually thought they played really well after the injury, so we just had to stick to the game plan. We didn’t really change anything; we were trying to move our dinks around, and I think we were successful enough at that.”

This is only the fourth tournament that Fahey and Frazier have played together, but they’ve made a habit out of making deep runs. They earned bronze together at Tucson earlier this season and have already secured at least a silver in Sacramento.

Standing in their way of a gold will be top seeds Jorja Johnson/JW Johnson, who beat No. 3 seeds Jessie Irvine/Gabe Tardio 11-5, 11-7 in the final bout of the day on Humana Championship Court.

 

The siblings and Dallas Flash teammates will look to secure their third title of the season together on Sunday.