Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrabacher celebrate a point at the IHG Hotels & Resorts Bristol Open presented by Deep Eddy Vodka.
Anna Bright and Rohrabacher survived consecutive three-game thrillers to make it to Championship Sunday. PPA Tour

Game 3 rally propels Bright, Rohrabacher into women’s doubles final

BRISTOL, TN - Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrabacher are into the women’s doubles final after a 7-11, 11-4, 11-7 victory over No. 7 seeds Jorja Johnson and Vivian Glozman.

Things did not look good for the No. 2 seeds in the third game as Johnson and Glozman raced out to a 5-1 advantage.

But Bright and Rohrabacher went on to score ten of the match’s final 12 points to secure the win.

Crazy matches and comebacks have been the name of the game for the tandem on Saturday.

Ahead of this back-and-forth semifinal, they narrowly escaped with a 13-11 victory over Brooke Buckner and Chao Yi (Zoey) Wang after having match points at 10-6.

With Major League Pickleball taking center stage for most of July, this is the first tournament that Bright and Rohrabacher have played together since the Select Medical Orange County Cup in late June.

It can take some time to get back to full force.

“We haven’t played with each other in a couple months, so I think part of it has just been getting back into the swing of things as a partnership,” Rohrabacher said.

They will face No. 1 seeds Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau for the title. Bright and Rohrabacher handed the top seeds their only defeat as a partnership in Austin back in March and will be looking to repeat that result on Sunday.

“The most important thing will be getting off to a good start,” Rohrabacher explained. “We can’t get down early, and we can’t let them have quick and easy points. Our shots don’t have to be perfect from the start; we just have to allow ourselves to settle down and wait for the right opportunities to attack.”

We’ll see if they can take down the top seeds for a second time.