Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrabacher competing at the CIBC Atlanta Slam presented by Vizzy.
The top two seeds advanced to the final without dropping a game. PPA Tour

Waters and Parenteau, Bright and Rohrabacher to face off for women's doubles crown

Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau are into the women’s doubles final, but their 11-7, 11-4 victory Callie Smith and Lucy Kovalova was complicated by a medical timeout early in the first game.

After dropping the first four points of the match, Waters—who was playing her third match of the day—called that timeout and left the court for approximately 15 minutes.

“After my singles match, I started feeling badly in my stomach and got sick right before this match,” she explained. “Four points went by, and I was feeling a little dizzy and lightheaded and didn’t really know where I was. The medics came and checked everything and found that my blood sugar was low.”

A refueled Waters was still able to compete at a high level to secure the win, but the 17-year-old admits that Parenteau was the true X-factor in the effort.

“I was still a little bit out of it on the court, but Catherine played insanely well,” she said. “She was doing a great job of taking over the court, which isn’t usually her role, but she took what she was given and wasn’t flustered by what was going on. She was so supportive and really picked me up.”

The top seeds now boast an unprecedented 112-1 record as a partnership and are now just one win away from leaving the Georgia capital with a gold.


In the second semifinal, Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrabacher came away with an 11-6, 11-6 victory over No. 8 seeds Lacy Schneemann and Jackie Kawamoto.

It was a clean performance from the No. 2 seeds, who are now into their ninth final of the year together.

Though this was Schneemann and Kawamoto’s first tournament as partners, they picked up impressive wins over No. 9 seeds Lea Jansen and Parris Todd and No. 3 seeds Etta Wright and Meghan Dizon.

Bright was proud to earn the win without needing a third game.

“I think [Lacy and Jackie] play really well together—they’re both really good at moving the ball around and have different strengths, so I’m happy to have gotten the win in straight games,” she mentioned.

The No. 2 seeds will face Waters and Parenteau in the final.

Bright and Rohrabacher handed the top seeds their only loss as a partnership in Austin back in March, but they haven’t taken a game off the tandem in their last two Championship Sunday meetings.

 

Rohrabacher says she frequently returns to the video of her and Bright’s Texan triumph in film study.

“I watch it a lot just because we play [Anna Leigh and Catherine] a lot, so I try and study from that” she shared. “We just need to try and control what we can control, and hopefully we’ll be able to get off to a good start.”

We’ll see if another upset is in store on Sunday.