It was a trip down memory lane to see the mother-daughter duo of Leigh and Anna Leigh Waters take the court together in Daytona as the #2 seeds. 

Waters/Waters faced off against #4 seeds Allyce Jones/Tina Pisnik, who had made a fantastic run through their side of the bracket to get to the semifinals, thanks to the pair’s fast hands and incredible defense.

It’s the only time this year that Anna Leigh entered a women’s doubles bracket and wasn’t the #1 seed.

Waters and Waters haven’t played together since Leigh tore her ACL at the end of 2022, so competing side-by-side again was, in the words of Anna Leigh herself, “surreal.” The two have 8 PPA titles as partners together and will have the chance to add one more if they have their way on Championship Sunday.

Down 0-3 in game one, Anna Leigh hit a shot that she believed made contact with Pisnik before flying out, so Team Waters took a timeout to get the tape reviewed. The referees did not find evidence to overturn, so play continued and Waters/Waters fell even further to 0-5. From there, however, they went on a dominant nine point streak. Although Pisnik and Jones saved nine game points, Waters/Waters closed out game one on the tenth attempt: 11-6. 

“When we went down, there was that controversy with the ball [...] and we were just so upset and angry,” Anna Leigh said after the match. “We really thought that it had hit [Tina Pisnik], so we just went on, and I think we sped up every ball we got in that first game, and it was working and we were being aggressive and that’s when we play our best.”

Pisnik and Jones came out firing in response in game two, finding their stride and taking it in decisive fashion 11-3. However, in yet another flip-flop of momentum, Waters/Waters came out in game three and immediately went up 6-0. They then proceeded to close the match out 11-3 in the third, with a final score of 11-6, 3-11, 11-3.

Team Waters was showing a lot of emotion throughout the match, and no wonder. They had a finals appearance on the line in their home state, with family and friends watching in what might be the last tournament they would ever play together.

“I was like, at what point am I going to get nerves and go into a sinking spell – well, that was game two,” Leigh said, laughing. “Anna Leigh, after the game, was like, ‘Mom, I don’t think you’re having fun anymore. C’mon, let’s get back to having fun and doing what we did in the first game.’”

It was a fairytale run through the draw in Daytona Beach for the Waters family, setting up what should be a can’t-miss final between the mother-daughter duo and Jorja Johnson/Tyra Black tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by CARVANA PPA TOUR (@ppatour)