“This may be the highest level that women’s doubles has ever seen.”

That’s what Pickleballtv’s Dave Fleming said of the women’s doubles semifinal between top seeds Anna Leigh Waters/Anna Bright and No. 3 seeds Jorja Johnson/Tyra Black.

It’s a matchup that has produced some epic encounters in the past, and Saturday’s contest certainly lived up to the lofty expectations. 

Waters/Bright found themselves trailing 2-5 in the deciding game, but they went on to score the final nine points of the match to advance to Championship Sunday with an 11-7, 7-11, 11-5 victory.

Waters spoke afterwards about how the decision to switch to driving a majority of the third shots—instead of dropping them—helped her and Bright pull off the comeback.

“I feel like most of the time for us in women’s, the drive isn’t the right shot, but [Jorja and Tyra] have so much length, and especially when it’s cold outside, it’s really hard to drop and get in against them,” she told Pickleballtv’s Kamryn Blackwood and Matt Manasse. “They’re so good at flicking and getting the ball at your feet, so we just decided to go for the drives to hopefully get a ball in return that we could hit a better drop on.”

Though they are now into the gold medal match, Waters/Bright have had to earn every bit of their No. 1 ranking in Palm Springs; they dropped the first game of their quarterfinal match against Kaitlyn Chistian/Jessie Irvine before being pushed to three games again in the semis.

Bright says that, despite the growing challenges in the women’s doubles draw, facing adversity only helps her partnership with Waters grow stronger.

“I think at the start of AL and I’s partnership, we were just winning everything in 2, and then whenever we went 3 we were losing, so it’s good to build up some exposure therapy to those kinds of situations and build up that kind of faith in ourselves,” she explained. “Of course, we would rather win in 2 and not flirt with disaster, but there is definitely a positive in that we are getting more and more comfortable playing together not only when we’re winning easily, but when we have to really get gritty against some of these other really amazing teams.”

Waters/Bright will take on No. 4 seeds Jackie Kawamoto/Jade Kawamoto on Sunday in a rematch of the final from November’s Lakeland Open, which Wates/Bright won by an 11-8, 11-4, 11-3 score line.