The PPA Tour swings back to the east coast for the first tournament of April, the Veolia North Carolina Open. The action begins Tuesday and will be a modified traditonal; draw; that means one event per day, played through the quarterfinals. A number of the pros had been in Vietnam and missed the Black Desert Resort Red Rock Open, but the field is full for North Carolina.

 

 

Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio are back in action, but get the #2 seed. The top seed goes to Red Rock silver medalists Federico Staksrud and Hayden Patriquin. The gold medalists from Red Rock, Christian Alshon/Andrei Daescu, draw the #3 seed. The order of seedings really matters, as this week, Johns/Tardio are set to face Alshin/Daescu in the semifinals, if both win through. Staksrud/Patriquin are on the easier said of the draw, where if the seeds all hold up, they will face #4 Tyson McGuffin/Dekel Bar. The bottom half of the draw also includes the dangerous teams of #5 seed JW Johnson/CJ Klinger and #8 Dylan Frazier/Eric Oncins. Expect Staksrud/Patriquin to cruise in the top half, while the bottom half goes through a tremendous battle to get to the finals.

 

As always, there are really good matchups early in the men’s doubles draw. In the round of 32, #11 Tyler Loong/Connor Garnett will take on #18 Spencer Smith/AJ Koller.  Smith/Koller came close to taking down Staksrud/Patriquin at Red Rock, and are good enough to give anyone a tough match. Another fun one in the round of 32 is Staksrud/Patriquin v. #33 Zane Ford/Tom Evans. I don’t see an upset happening there, but Ford/Evans will be blasting the ball and it should make for an entertaining match.

 

 

Both men’s and women’s singles are affected this week by late withdrawals. As of the time of this writing, Ben Johns has withdrawn from men’s singles. Federico Staksrud gets the top seed, with Red Rock champion Hunter Johnson grabbing the #2 seed. The ever-consistent Connor Garnett is at #3.  Expect the winner to come from that group of top 3 seeds.

 

One outside threat will be #8 seed Jack Sock, playing with home state advantage. He will be tested early in a likely round of 32 matchup with #34 seed Max Freeman. That will be a very entertaining match to see.

 

For a couple of fun round of 64 matches, check out #25 John Lucian Goins v. #35 Tom Evans, in a battle of hard hitting youngsters; and #19 Donald Young v. #45 Yuta Funemizu in an interesting battle of contrasting styles. Young comes over from tennis and hits as hard as anyone in the game; Funemizu was the world’s top ranked soft tennis player before switching to pickleball and has as much speed and unconventional shots as anyone playing. Both Young and Funemizu are getting better and their matchup should be a really fun one to see.

 

 

Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters are back atop the seeding table and will be the favorites. Siblings Jorja Johnson and JW Johnson will look to challenge from the #2 seed. The bottom half of the draw has several challengers for the Johnsons, including #3 Christian Alshon/Catherine Parenteau, #6 Rachel Rohrabacher/Dekel Bar, and #11 Hayden Patriquin/Kate Fahey. The top half of the draw looks to include one serious challenger for Johns/Waters, in #4 seed Anna Bright/Federico Staksrud. Staksrud just has not been able to achieve the same success at mixed doubles as he has at men’s doubles; this week, with Bright as his partner, he has as good a teammate as he is ever going to get. But can they take down the #1 seed?

 

A couple of lower seeds with favorable draws are #10 Andrei Daescu/Meghan Dizon and #15 Max Freeman/Tyra Black. Both have reasonable draws to allow them to make the round of 16 or quarterfinals, at least. Black playing with Freeman is particularly interesting; Freeman would normally be ranked too low to draw interest from such a top partner, but Freeman is a lefty and Black is much more dangerous playing on the left. Freeman has had some good runs in singles, but it remains to be seen if he can compete with the best in doubles.

 

 

 

Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau take the top seed and likely are expecting another rematch of their rivalry with #2 seed Anna Bright/Rachel Rohrabacher. The most likely obstacle to that rematch is #3 seed Tyra Black/Jorja Johnson, who would be set to play Bright/Rohrabacher in the semifinals. Other challengers are #4 Lacy Schneemann/Parris Todd, #5 Etta Tuionetoa/Meghan Dizon and #7 Mari Humberg/Lea Jansen.

 

For interesting round of 32 action, check out #12 Brooke Buckner/Zoey Wang v. #21 Lindsey Newman/Genie Erokhina, and #13 Mehvish Safdar/Lucy Kovalova v. #24 Christa Gecheva/Kaitlyn Christian. Safdar is fairly new to the PPA Tour but has shown flashes of good doubles skills; Gecheva/Chritsian had a good run at Red Rock.

 

 

Anna Leigh Waters cruised to a gold at Red Rock, but her absence from the singles draw in North Carolina presents an opportunity for others. Kate Fahey returns to singles action and gets the #2 seed. Her side of the draw includes #4 Brooke Buckner and #8 Salome Devidze, so getting to the final will not be easy. Waters' withdrawal favors #6 Parris Todd.

 

 

The men’s events remain very hard to predict. Any of five or six men’s doubles teams could easily win and as many as eight to 10 singles players have a reasonable shot.

 

In men’s doubles, I continue to like Alshon/Daescu. They have a tough draw, but I will take them to win it over Staksrud/Patriquin.

In men’s singles, I like Staksrud to make a comeback from a disappointing Red Rock to win over Hunter Johnson.

In mixed doubles, I am going with an upset of Alshon/Parenteau over Johns/Waters.

For women’s doubles, look for Waters/Parenteau to win over Johnson/Black

Finally, in women’s singles, I will take Todd over Buckner.

 

It should be a great event with interesting matches from the round of 64 going forward. See it live or on Pickleballtv.

 

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