The top-seeded tandems of Anna Leigh Waters/Anna Bright and Ben Johns/Gabe Tardio are through to the semifinals in their respective events, but their trips to the final four didn’t come easily.

Both teams were pushed to three games in Friday’s quarterfinal round, as they closed out the day’s action on Nature’s Sunshine Championship Court.

Waters/Fahey came away with an 11-2, 5-11, 11-1 victory over No. 9 seeds Tina Pisnik/Kate Fahey in the penultimate match at Brookhaven Country Club.

They dominated the first game and got up 3-0 in the second, but Pisnik/Fahey caught fire with their attacks off the bounce and evened the contest.

Not deterred, Waters/Bright found their form once again in the decider and comfortably closed out the win.

Bright gave some insight into how she and Waters were able to reset going into Game 3 after dropping the second.

“It’s definitely not easy, and it’s something that AL and I have talked about a lot. It’s something for us to work on and an area for improvement in the partnership. Of course, it’s great when you can kind of steamroll everyone, but sometimes there’s gonna be some bad luck, or other teams are going to raise their level,” she said afterwards. “I think we did a really good job of just resetting. Leigh gave us one or two things to focus on, and we had some thoughts too, and then we just had to come in with a renewed sense of focus.”

Waters/Bright will face No. 3 sees Jorja Johnson/Tyra Black in the semifinals, where they will look to avenge their loss against the Dallas Flash teammates from earlier this season in Las Vegas.

In men’s doubles, Ben Johns/Gabe Tardio dropped the first game against Riley Newman/Jay Devilliers, but they came back to secure a 6-11, 11-5, 11-2 victory over the No. 6 seeds.

Johns discussed the challenges that Newman and Devilliers presented and what it took to ultimately triumph.

“[Riley and Jay] get to the line a ton and definitely have some heavy hands, so I was a little weary of attacking at first, but really I think it just came down to us getting to the line more and playing more consistent points and me watching my backhand side because I felt like Riley was going behind me pretty well,” he explained.

The top seeds will take on No. 3 seeds Federico Staksrud/Hayden Patriquin in the semifinals for the second tournament in a row.

They will look to replicate the result from their most recent encounter, a 14-12, 11-7 victory in Las Vegas.