The PPA Tour returns from a successful venture Down Under, coming back to Tucson for the Proton Tucson Open. It will be held February 5-9 at the Tucson Racquet and Fitness Club. Look for beautiful weather this time of year in Arizona and great competition, with all the biggest names in the sport in this field.

 

 

 

Major news out of the Proton Australia Open last week was the PPA’s signing of Australian stars Tom Evans and Helena Spiridis. They will join the US tour, and will be in the draws in Tucson. It will be fun and interesting to follow how they do, coming over to the toughest tour on the planet. It will be no easy task for them. For example, Spiridis must face Parris Todd in round one in women’s singles; in men’s doubles, Evans teams up with Danny Jensen — they draw a qualifier team first round, but in the round of 32 would face Augie Ge and Jaume Martinez Vich. There are no easy draws in any PPA event, so the Aussies will be tested right off the bat. Good luck!

 

 

The men’s draw sees the return of Matt Wright playing with Riley Newman. They get a #7 seed and a potential meeting with top seed Ben Johns/Hayden Patriquin in the quarters. Other potential quarterfinal matchups are #4 Andrei Daescu/Christian Alshon v #5 CJ Klinger/Federico Staksrud, #2 JW Johnson/Gabe Tardio v #6 Zane Navratil/Dekel Bar, and #3 Pablo Tellez/Dylan Frazier v #8 Augie Ge/Jaume Martinez Vich. For other pairs who could spoil that quarterfinal lineup, we have #11 Julian Arnold/Hunter Johnson, #13 Rafa Hewett/Noe Khlif, and the winner of a super interesting round of 32 match between #10 Quang Duong/James Ignatowich v #24 Jack Sock/Eric Roddy. Look for the bottom half of this draw to be pretty wide open. Johnson/Tardio have not played well together the last two events, and Tellez/Frazier have shown vulnerabilities.

 

 

 

The top seed and the heavy favorite is the pair of Anna Leigh Waters/Catherine Parenteau. Their rivals are seeded second, Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrabacher. Can anyone stop them from another highly anticipated rematch? To try to stop that rematch will be #3 seed Parris Todd/Tyra Black and #4 Meghan Dizon/Etta Tuionetoa. Lower seeds that could cause trouble include #7 Kate Fahey/Tina Pisnik, #11 Mary Brascia and Maggie Brascia, and #12 Brooke Buckner/Zoey Wang. It will be tough for anyone to stop the #1 v #2 rematch.

 

 

Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters team up to take the top seed. They face a potential quarterfinal matchup with #6 Andrei Daescu/Tina Pisnik. Other potential quarterfinal matches are #3 Federico Staksrud/Catherine Parenteau v #8 Gabe Tardio/Jessie Irvine, #2 Dekel Bar/Anna Bright v #5 JW Johnson/Maggie Brascia, and #4 Christian Alshon/Tyra Black v #7 Hayden Patriquin/Rachel Rohrabacher. Looking to crash that quarterfinal party will be #11 seed Riley Newman/Lea Jansen and #18 Pablo Tellez/Zoey Wang. The draw looks much stronger at the top, with an expected semifinal between Johns/Waters v Staksrud/Parenteau. The bottom half looks wide open, with no clear favorite.

 

 

 

Federico Staksrud has the top seed and the question is whether anyone can stop him. No Ben Johns, so the #2 seed goes to the ever-steady Connor Garnett. Garnett’s side of the draw is the more difficult side, with #3 Hunter Johnson, #5 Quang Duong, #7 Dylan Frazier, and #10 Pablo Tellez all on that side. An expected quarterfinal match is likely between #4 Jaume Martinez Vich and #8 Jack Sock; whenever they play each other, it is must see pickleball, as it will be a match filled with jokes, smiles, good-natured banter, and amazing athleticism. A longshot to watch is #21 Zane Ford. He is capable of a deep run and has a reasonable draw.

 

 

Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau both sit this one out, leaving the top seed to Kaitlyn Christian. She is going to be tested in an expected semifinal match with #4 Kate Fahey. In the bottom half of the draw, the other potential semifinal is #2 Lea Jansen v #3 Brooke Buckner. A couple of interesting potential quarterfinal matches are #7 Zoey Wang v #9 Genie Bouchard and #8 Dominique Schaefer v #12 Samantha Parker. The winners of those matches will be a threat to break through to the medal rounds, in what should be a wide open draw.

 

 

 

We did pretty well with predictions at The Masters, but figuring out PPA draws is never easy. There are just too many good players to be able to predict a lot of gold medal matches. But, that doesn’t stop us from trying!

 

Men’s doubles: I’m going with the upsets in this one, Daescu/Alshon over Navratil/Bar

Women’s doubles: Going chalk here, Waters/Parenteu over Bright/Rohrabacher

Mixed doubles: Johns/Waters over Alshon/Black

Men’s singles: Hunter Johnson over Federico Staksrud

Women’s singles: Kate Fahey over Parris Todd

 

What do you think? Take a look at the draws and try a few predictions yourself; it is a lot of fun and very difficult. But, most of all, come out to the tournament to see the best against the best, or catch all the action on Pickleballtv. It is going to be a great tournament.

 

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