James Ignatowich was a late scratch from mixed doubles this morning for precautionary reasons. He and Anna Bright were the #1 seeds so that opened up the top half of the draw. Let’s see who was able to walk through it and stamp their ticket to Championship Sunday.
Mixed Doubles Championship: (11) Dekel Bar/Tina Pisnik vs (2) Ben Johns/Etta Wright
Dekel Bar and Tina Pisnik secured a silver medal last week in North Carolina together and they will at least walk away with another on Sunday. However their road to the finals was far from an easy one as each of their four matches went to three games. The biggest scare came from Pablo Tellez and Jessie Irvine in the semifinals as the lefty right duo put them into some uncomfortable patterns but they were able to problem solve their way to victory.
On the bottom half of the draw Ben Johns was paired up with former Seattle Pioneers MLP teammate Etta Wright as Anna Leigh Waters is not in action this week. Johns and Wright dropped a game to Devilliers and Smith but otherwise made their way through the draw comfortably as they finished their day with a two game victory over the dangerous duo of Christian Alshon and Jackie Kawamoto.
On the Horizon
Gender doubles will kick off tomorrow morning at 12PM EST. We hope to see James Ignatowich back in the draw as he and Matt Wright are the #2 seeds. Make sure to tune into PickleballTV and the PPA Tour’s YouTube channel to catch all the action.
