Federico Staksrud celebrates a pickleball victory.
Federico Staksrud celebrates his title at the Selkirk Red Rock Open. PPA Tour

Staksrud overcomes Sock for fourth title of 2024

ST. GEORGE, UT - Federico Staksrud capped off his first tournament since taking the No. 1 men’s singles ranking from Ben Johns with a title at the Selkirk Red Rock Open.

He beat No. 11 seed Jack Sock to claim his fourth singles gold in nine tournaments so far this year.

It looked like the top seed would cruise to an easy victory after he took Game 1 11-3 behind an intentional effort to attack his opponent’s backhand.

But Sock caught fire in Game 2—partially thanks to the support of the raucous Utah crowd—and demonstrated impressive athletic feats and cracked several devastating forehands to even the match with an 11-2 rout.

A back-and-forth Game 3 saw Sock rally to the score at 7, but the steadfastness of Staksrud helped the Argentinian win the match’s final four points to take gold and cap an 11-3, 2-11, 11-7 victory.

With this win, Staksrud comes away from a grueling month of April that had four consecutive tournaments all over the country with two titles.

He doesn’t take the accomplishment lightly.

“It feels great. It’s been a tough month with four tournaments in a row, and to be able to compete in four finals in singles just shows that hard work pays off,” he said of the busy schedule.

No. 4 seed Christian Alshon beat No. 3 seed Tyson McGuffin 11-2, 11-3 for the bronze medal.