LOS ANGELES, CA - Connor Garnett and Federico Staksrud will square off for men’s singles gold at the Veolia LA Open presented by Deep Eddy Vodka.

This is the second singles final of the year for Garnett, who beat No. 11 seed Aanik Lohani in the semifinals.

Even though the No. 3 seed came away with an 11-8, 11-8 victory, Garnett’s performance was marked by a strangely high number of missed serves.

“The serve is something I’ve been working on,” he shared. “I’m trying a little bit of a new technique on it, and it goes in spurts. I served really well against Jaume [Martinez Vich] in my earlier match and just had to get through it with the serve in this one. When I’m in the point, I feel good always, so I just had to get into the point.”

Standing in between Garnett and his first gold medal of 2024 is Federico Staksrud, who has now made the singles final in all eight PPA events this year.

The No. 2 seed looked sharp on Thursday and didn’t allow more than six points in a single game.

In the semifinals, he took down Roscoe Bellamy, who himself had a breakthrough run with a signature win over Tyson McGuffin in the Round of 16.

Sunday will mark the third time that Garnett and Staksrud have squared off this year, and Staksrud has won both previous meetings in three games.

Garnett wants to focus on putting his best foot forward, regardless of the opponent.

“I’ve just gotta put in the work and let the shots do the talking,” he said.