CONGRATULATIONS American Professional Pickleball Player Anna Leigh Waters Wins Player Of Month Awards… Read More…
Who Can Dethrone The Current Pro Pickleball Number Ones?
ByTodd Boss
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Todd Boss writes about Pickleball, the fastest growing sport in USA
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Johns waters Mixed title masters cropped
This pair combined for 87 PPA titles in 2023. [+] PPA TOUR
As we kick off the 2024 pro season, we’ve just finished up a 2023 season that saw not only an explosion of new talent pouring into the pro pickleball ranks, but also a real distinct separation between the #1 players on the Professional Pickleball Tour (PPA) and the rest of the field.
To give an idea of just how dominant Men’s #1 Ben Johns and Women’s #1 Anna Leigh Waters were in 2023, here’s some stats for you. In 20 regular PPA events (plus their year-end Tour Finals in December), here’s how each player fared:
Ben Johns:
Men’s Singles: 11 golds, 1 silver, 4 missed events, 5 main draw losses, 1 tour finals group stage loss. Year-end record: 65-6
Men’s Doubles: 13 golds, 1 silver, 4 missed events, 4 main draw losses. Year-end record: 73-4
Mixed Doubles: 15 golds, 1 bronze, 4 missed events, 1 main draw loss, 1 tour finals group stage loss. Year-end record: 80-2
Anna Leigh Waters:
Women’s Singles: 15 golds, 4 missed events, 2 main draw losses. Year-end record: 60-2
Women’s Doubles: 17 golds, 4 missed events, 0 losses. Year-end record: 71-0
Mixed Doubles: 16 golds, 4 missed events, 1 main draw loss, 1 tour finals group stage loss. Year-end record: 81-2
So, as you can see, that’s some serious dominance.
(Data details: these 2023 PPA tournament records were compiled with assistance from data provided by Andrew Mauricio and picklewave.com, along with a Medal Tracker XLS that I maintain. They only include matches from PPA tournaments, meaning they exclude the USAP Nationals and the US Open. The records DO include the PPA Tour Finals. The records include only “main draw” losses since both Ben and ALW generally forfeit back-draw appearances. Lastly, one PPA event in 2023 in Newport Beach did not feature Singles).
However, every tournament we see more talent pouring into the pro game, and we are inarguably seeing the rest of the tour catching up. So, who can dethrone these #1s in their respective disciplines? Here’s my opinion on the likelihood, from the division with the least chance to the most likely division to see a new #1 (the one that ALW went undefeated in 2023), and then I’ll throw out the top 3-4 teams/players to watch for.
Women’s Doubles
No surprise here that the current makeup of Women’s Pro Doubles has the least likelihood of seeing a vanquisher of the current Waters/Parenteau pairing. Waters went undefeated in Women’s doubles last year, and by season’s end it wasn’t really that close. After Anna Leigh’s mom and former regular partner Leigh Waters went down with a knee injury at 2022 Nationals, ALW bounced between two top players Anna Bright and Catherine Parenteau for months, each time winning a gold medal with her partner of choice that weekend. After Parenteau’s summer honeymoon caused her to miss several events in a row, Waters pivoted and played out the rest of 2023 with Catherine and formed a rather unshakeable team, rolling off five straight titles, including a shockingly dominant performance at the year-end Tournament of Champions. I do not see anyone seriously challenging these two in 2024, but I do see some partnerships that could start to chip away at their armor.
Candidates to challenge #1:
Anna Bright & Rachel Rohrabacher: this pairing of former college tennis rivals turned Orlando Squeeze MLP teammates is apparently flourishing into a 2024 regular pairing which has real promise.
Meghan Dizon & Etta Wright: Dizon’s power is evident, Wright’s already a top ten player, and this sneaky-good team is poised to make a series of deep runs.
Jackie & Jade Kawamoto: I worry that these two defensive stalwarts don’t have the firepower to make a difference in matches, but they showed in the MLP 2023 Season 2 that they’re a tough out and don’t make mistakes.
Mixed Doubles
ALW probably could win gold in Mixed with any one of ten to fifteen different male partners on tour (as she showed in May 2023 by taking Mixed with debutant Jack Sock). So partnering her with the clear cut #1 Male player in Johns just isn’t fair to the rest of the tour. Since they paired up to start the 2023 season, they’ve won 28 gold medals together and have taken just three losses (a semis loss to Newman & Parenteau in May 2022, a quarterfinal loss to the Johnson siblings in Feb 2023, and a group stage Tour Finals loss to Bright & Ignatowich in December). Waters’ backhand across the middle is lethal, Johns is the best left sided player in the game, and you have to play a perfect game to beat them.
Candidates to Challenge for #1:
Anna Bright & James Ignatowich: They’re both now individually the #2 ranked Mixed players on tour, conveniently playing together. Bright has separated herself as the clear-cut #2 mixed doubles player, while James continues to improve and continues to look like a dangerous foe going forward. They topped Ben & ALW in San Clemente’s finals last December but couldn’t take the title. They’ve taken a gold together along with several silvers and are the best chance to challenge the #1 team.
Catherine Parenteau & Jack Sock. I’d put this pairing as the 3rd best mixed team right now, irrespective of seed. Sock is a nightmare in mixed for the opposing team, with significant power and fantastic wrist ability to attack the opponent with pace. And he’s paired this year with fellow Selkirk playing Parenteau, who only happens to be the #2 overall female player in the world. This is a team to be reckoned with.
Meghan Dizon & Tyson McGuffin; I’m clearly bullish on Dizon, while McGuffin’s exploits on the court speak for themselves. This third candidate team should probably be the steady-eddie team of Wilson & David, who just continue to grind their way to wins, but I discount them for the same reason I discount the Kawamoto’s; where’s the firepower? You can’t defend your way to a win over Ben & ALW; you need some attacking prowess.
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Women’s Singles
The Women’s singles discipline is tougher to come up with candidates for, since we’re seeing more and more top women’s pros bailing out of singles, not embracing it. In ALW’s entire pro singles career (starting in May 2021) she’s lost exactly six times: twice to Lea Jansen in mid-2021, twice to Parenteau (Oct 2021 and Mar 2023), once to Parris Todd (June 2022), and once to Hurricane Tyra Black (Aug 2023). So, where are these players who actually have wins over ALW? Black basically hasn’t played singles since the curious win over Waters. Jansen “retired” from singles last summer but now seems like she’ll play singles in progression draws only to manage her diabetes, but she’s clearly not training as hard in singles as she was when her goal was to be #1. Todd’s schedule is spotty and she rarely competes in singles on the PPA tour. So, that leaves us with some speculative picks.
Catherine Parenteau: the clear-cut #2 player in the world, and who had 14 podiums in 2023 in singles (4 gold, 7 silver, 3 bronze).
Judit Castillo; she’s quietly worked her way into the PPA’s top 10 while also competing full time on the APP, and the cycles are showing off. She just took the APP Punta Gorda singles title with wins over Todd and Fudge. She’s athletic, moves around the court well, and makes shots. She’s got the complete package.
Christine Maddox, a former Pepperdine All-American who just took Parenteau to an 11-8 third game at the Masters. She’s got the game and the power to make a splash.
Men’s Doubles
Collin and Ben have such a unique partnership, with Collin basically sublimating his talent to ensure they remain the best. They did suffer a few losses in 2023, but oddly they were all in the “early round out-of-nowhere upset” category, as opposed to the “getting beat by the next best team” category. They got beat by Newell & Locklear in April, they lost to Pat Smith & DJ Young in Seattle in August, they lost to JW & Dylan in the Takaya final with Collin nursing an Achilles injury, and they got beat by Vich & Stone in the 16s of the Hertz Gold Cup in November. None of these were really the kind of “telling” loss that indicates either a) the Johns are vulnerable, or b) there’s a really special team there to watch for.
2024 is giving us some new partnerships though, and here’s who i think the Johns are on the lookout for:
Newman & Wilson: Newman struggled to find the correct right-sided fit after parting ways with Wright last summer, and I think he’s found it with Wilson. Wilson can be a better Matt Wright than Wright, is younger and more athletic, and can match Newman’s energy. I don’t think it’s a shock they made the first final of 2024, and I expect them to do so more and more.
Frazier & JW Johnson, who won five of the eight Men’s doubles titles the Johns brothers didn’t win last year. They’re the dominant #2 seed right now. However, I’m not sure they’re making the adjustments they need to beat the Johns brothers, and I’d actually be looking out more for one of the below teams, who seems like more of a disruptive force than Dylan and JW’s defensive focus.
Wright & Ignatowich. Wright didn’t just wake up after parting ways with Newman and stop becoming perhaps one of the best men’s right sided player out there; he just couldn’t find a regular partner. Now he’s committed to Ignatowich, who’s quick twitch game style and energy is a great match for Wright’s steadiness on the right. I like this partnership for the same reasons I like Newman & Wilson, and I could see them making waves too.
Men’s Singles
It should come as no surprise that I’m predicting a vanquisher for Johns in Singles as the most likely/first division to happen. Men’s Singles draws are, by far, the most wide open of any right now, in both the PPA and the APP. The #1 player Johns took the most losses of any of his disciplines in Singles last year , losing 6 times: twice to Staksrud, once to Alshon, once to Shick, once to Joseph, and once to Garnett at the Tour finals. And that didn’t include his shock loss to Haworth at Nationals (which I attributed to playing indoors, but which unfairly discounts Haworth’s talent and performance that day; read on).
That trend immediately continued in 2024’s first event with his round of 16 loss to Quang Duong. Johns is a self-admitted slow starter and generally “plays his way” into brackets … but progression draws are going to rob him of that first match of the day/round of 32 against a qualifier that Johns can use to warm himself up. Instead, he’s set to face (if the PPA continues to do these double-byes for the top players) a pretty solid player who’s already played a couple of rounds as his singles opener. And I think he’ll continue to be susceptible to early upsets unless he changes his tournament preparation to be more vigorous (which, by some accounts, he’s already doing).
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