Patriquin and Tellez, Johnson and Frazier to face off for men’s doubles title
SAN CLEMENTE, CA - No. 5 seeds Hayden Patriquin and Pablo Tellez will take on No. 2 seeds JW Johnson and Dylan Frazier for the men’s doubles crown on Championship Sunday.
Both teams won their semifinal matches in two games on Saturday.
Patriquin and Tellez moved past No. 12 seeds Julian Arnold and Jack Munro to make the final in their first tournament together.
This will be the second consecutive Championship Sunday appearance for Patriquin, who took home gold alongside Federico Staksrud at the Sacramento Open earlier this month.
Patriquin and Staksrud beat Johnson and Frazier to claim gold there, so Patriquin will look to replicate that performance alongside the lefty Tellez.
Johnson and Frazier defeated No. 4 seeds Tyson McGuffin and Dekel Bar 11-4, 11-9 to extend their stay in SoCal.
It looked like they would sprint to victory when they got up 8-4 in the second game, but McGuffin and Bar rallied to eventually tie the score at 9-9.
From there, the No. 2 seeds made a return to what had gotten them the lead in the first place: disciplined, patient pickleball.
That move helped them the next three points to seal the win in two games.
"We decided to slow it down a little bit,” Johnson explained. “They were getting on top of our speedups, so we tried to pick our spots a little better and be more patient.”
The pair will go for their fifth title of 2024 on Sunday.
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