Thursday action at the CIBC PPA Tour Finals, presented by ROAR Organic, was a day filled with highlights and upsets. Continued pool play led to a few players locking up spots in the Saturday semifinals, but more often created a logjam, with many more players still alive, competing for the limited spots. Here’s what stood out on a great day of play.

 

1. We love a good upset. Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau have been nearly unbeatable in 2024. Their only krytonite has been the pairing of Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrabacher. But, Lacy Schneemann and Jorja Johnson took down the top seeds today in pool play. It sets up Waters and Parenteau needing to defeat Parris Todd and Tina Pisnik on Thursday, or Waters and Parenteau will not advance to weekend play. While Waters/Parenteau will be heavy favorites, who would have predicted them being ousted during pool play?

 

 

2. Defense can win too. We have seen an explosion of pickleball offense. Drives, speedups, shake and bake, all are dominating play. But, every once in awhile, we see a team with outstanding defense showing that defense matters too. Allyce Jones and Tyra Black defeated Lucy Kovalova and Callie Smith on Thursday, to keep alive their hopes of playing on the weekend. Black/Jones did it with a whole lot of defense. Blocking, countering, lobbing, and just old fashioned hustle helped Black/Jones to a much needed win.

 

 

3. How about another upset? Connor Garnett took down Ben Johns in singles. As Garnett is a top player, it was not that big of an upset. But, what the win meant (more importantly) is that Johns is eliminated during pool play. Johns now cannot advance to weekend play, no matter what happens on Friday. Now, that is an upset.

 

 

4. Bar/Alshon stay hot in the cold. The last match of the day featured Dekel Bar/Christian Alshon against Ben and Collin Johns. With the sun having gone down, temperatures dropped fast, and it got pretty cold. Bar/Alshon were cold too in game one. But, they heated up, came back to win game two and won a close game three to take the match. The win guaranteed Bar/Alshon would move on to weekend play. But, perhaps more importantly . . .

 

 

5. It sets up the big Friday match! The men’s doubles pools are arguably the toughest ones to predict. All eight teams are very good. Any of the eight are capable of winning it all. Two of the top teams are Ben and Collin Johns and Gabe Tardio/JW Johnson. But, one of those two teams is going home after Friday and will not make weekend play. Both teams are 1-1, and they play each other in the last match on Friday. One will win and move on; the other will lose and go home. Talk about can’t miss pickleball!

 

 

Friday will be a beautiful day in San Clemente, and the Life Time Fitness facility is a premier place to watch pickleball. There will be twenty pro matches; all will be fun to watch, capped off by the Johns v Tardio/Johnson finale. It’s not to be missed.

 

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