Mixed doubles day was a bit more straightforward on Friday after a singles day full of upsets and parity but there were still plenty of entertaining matches to watch. Let’s breakdown what we saw down in Fountain Valley California.
Mixed Doubles Championship: (1) Johns/Waters vs (3) Johnson/Johnson
The Johnson’s should be walking into the final with some confidence for a few reasons. Their only PPA title together this year was in Orange County at the Newport Shootout back in April. They also are the only team to defeat Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns which happened in Mesa in February. We'll see if they can do it twice but let's first see how they each team reached Sunday's final.
(1) Johns/Waters were untested on Friday as they brought their highest level to the table. After an Anna Leigh singles loss on Thursday you could tell the level of focus was at an all time high from the best players in the world. They took out (8) Irvine/Koller 11-1, 11-6 and (4) Newman/Newman 11-3, 11-5 in en route to the final.
(3) The Johnson’s had a much trickier road on the bottom half of the draw. After defeating (14) Garnett/Tereschenko 11-5, 11-2 they took out (6) David/Wilson in 3 games 11-8, 6-11, 11-3. In the semifinals they beat the hot team of (2) Ignatowich/Bright 11-6, 11-8 to stamp their ticket to championship Sunday.
In Case You Missed it
(2) Ignatowich/Bright captured their 4th mixed doubles medal in a row taking out (4) Newman/Newman in the bronze medal match. Ignatowich has now tied Riley Newman for 2nd among males with 7 mixed doubles medals on the year.
On the Horizon
All of Saturday’s gender doubles action can be caught on PPA’s YouTube Channel starting at 10am PST.
