Parris Todd and Hurricane Tyra Black celebrate a pickleball point.
Parris Todd and Hurricane Tyra Black competing at the Pickleball Central Indoor USA Championships in March. PPA Tour

Todd, Black battle to make quarters

CARY, NC - Parris Todd and Hurricane Tyra Black are into the women’s doubles quarterfinals at the Fanatics Sportsbook North Carolina Cup presented by CIBC.

They took on No. 5 seeds Callie Smith and Lea Jansen on Humana Championship Court Thursday evening, eventually emerging victorious in three games.

The No. 9 seeds had a chance to get it done in two, as they held a 9-7 advantage in the second before Smith and Jansen reeled off four points in a row to force a decider.

But Todd and Black wouldn’t let that phase them and stayed with the tactics that had helped them gain the advantage initially.

“We just tried to stay calm and stick to our game plan,” Todd explained. “We felt like putting Tyra on the left and keeping me on the right was really working, so we stuck to that. We knew we had a few bad breaks in the second game, so we just tried to weather the storm.”

Weathering the storm is exactly what they did, as they jumped out to a 6-0 lead in Game 3.

Smith and Jansen made a valiant comeback attempt, but Todd and Black held on to close it out, 11-8.

They will next face No. 4 seeds Lucy Kovalova and Jackie Kawamoto in the quarterfinals on Friday.

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