Christian Alshon and Andrei Daescu celebrating their victory at the Veolia Lakeland Open presented by Six Zero.
Christian Alshon and Andrei Daescu celebrating their victory at the Veolia Lakeland Open presented by Six Zero. PPA Tour

Powering forward: Wild comeback lifts Alshon, Daescu over Johnson, Klinger in three-game epic

Pickleballtv’s Dave Fleming often refers to the pairing of Christian Alshon and Andrei Daescu as ‘Team Power Forward’ because the two stand at six-foot-two and six-foot-four, respectively.

It’s an apt description, to be sure, and Alshon and Daescu did indeed stand tall on Saturday night—in both stature and glory.

The No. 2 seeds in men’s doubles prevailed over No. 3 seeds JW Johnson/CJ Klinger by a 4-11, 11-8, 11-9 score line in what could go down as the best match of the entire PPA Tour season.

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When these teams faced off earlier this month at Worlds, Johnson/Klinger comfortably won 11-2, 11-4.

And a similar result seemed likely on Saturday when they took the opening game 11-4 and built an 8-0 lead in Game 2.

Alshon/Daescu were nowhere near finished at that point, however.

They went on to score the match’s next seventeen points to both steal the second game and earn a 6-0 lead in the decider.

Johnson/Klinger did manage to tie things up at 9-9, but a final run from Alshon/Daescu brought the day’s most entertaining battle to a close as the victors carried out their unmistakable chest bump in celebration.

 

“It was a little bit of luck and a lot of fight,” Alshon said of the performance. “Near the very end of the match, Andrei looked me in the eye and said ‘I want to see the intensity’ or something like that, and it really hyped me up. It was like 9-9, and I just thought, ‘Alright, let’s freaking go.’ So big shoutout to him for hyping me up at the end.”

Top seeds Ben Johns/Gabe Tardio await in the final in what will be a rematch of the two-hour epic from last month in Las Vegas.