Pro Pickleball Association Tour Finals Preview — Teams, Partner Draft, And Predictions

Obviously, the loss of ALW shakes up the singles draw greatly, and it robs her of the chance to three-peat a Triple Crown at the Tour finals.

With that, let’s preview the groups and make some predictions. Some of the pools seem to be the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th seeds in one pool, then the 2-6-6-8 in the other, while others have proper seeding of the groups (1-4-5-8 and 2-3-6-7).

Men’s Singles

Christopher Haworth has come a long way to be the top seed in Singles at the Tour Finals.

PPA

Groups:

• Pool A: Haworth, Alshon, Garnett, Sock
• Pool B: Staksrud, H.Johnson, Bellamy, Goins

Thoughts: 13 out of the last 14 singles gold medals have been taken by one of the three top seeds here (Haworth, Staksrud and Hunter), so it will be hard to predict against them. Garnett has struggled relatively speaking, and Sock has just two medals in the last year. The big question for me is whether Bellamy’s upward trajectory can overcome Hunter’s long run of consistency for the 2nd spot in the B pool, which is considerably deeper than Pool A.

Predictions: Haworth & Alshon out of the top, Staksrud and Johnson out of the bottom, Haworth beats Staksrud in the finals. Haworth has his work cut out for him to win, but then again so would anyone here.

Women’s Singles

Groups:

• Pool A: Fahey, Jansen, Parenteau, Truluck
• Pool B: Christian, Buckner, Wang, Castillo

Thoughts: It is awful hard to not predict two chalk groups here. There is a huge gulf on tour right now between the top five ladies (including ALW) event to the current 6th ranked Parenteau, who has just one medal since last September. I t I see no way Christian and Buckner don’t advance out of the B pool, and I can’t see Parenteau topping Jansen for 2nd place in the A-pool.

Predictions: Chalk pools, then Fahey over Christian in the final but not before Christian and Jansen have a semi-final with 18 refs on the court.

Men’s Doubles

The Tardio-Johns partnership has flourished and they're the odds-on favorite to take the Tour Finals.

PPA

Here’s how the player “draft” went, which ended up giving us the top 5 teams we’ve been seeing on tour for most of the last year, plus some “left over” teams at the end that will be interesting to watch.

• No.1 Ben Johns picked his regular partner No. 2 Gabe Tardio.
• No. 3 Christian Alshon picked his regular partner, No. 4 Hayden Patriquin
• No 5. Andrei Daescu picked his regular partner No. 6 Federico Staksrud
• No. 7 JW Johnson picked his regular partner No. 8 CJ Klinger
• No. 9 Eric Oncins picked his regular partner No. 10 Dylan Frazier

After these five regular teams were picked, we got the expected odd teams put together afterwards.

• No. 10 Tyson McGuffin picked No. 14 Noe Khlif, a solid looking team with Khlif on the left and McGuffin strong on the right.
• No. 11 Jay Devilliers picked No. 16 Jaume Martinez Vich, bypassing the two remaining left-side dominant guys to give himself a decent chance here. This pair won a bronze recently and will like their chances.
• That left No. 13. Connor Garnett and No. 15 Riley Newman cobbled together, which will make for an interesting lineup since both primarily play the left.

Groups:

• Pool A: Johns/Tardio, Johnson/Klinger, Frazier/Oncins, Garnett/Newman
• Pool B: Alshon/Patriquin, Daescu/Staksrud, McGuffin/Khlif, Devilliers/Vich

Thoughts: The top seeds get the harder group by far, thanks to the Oncins/Frazier team being there and the bronze-medal winning Devilliers/Vich team, but it is hard to see anything but the big four advancing. You can count on one hand the number of times a PPA medal has gone to a team outside the current big four in the last 6 months.

Predictions: the big four advance to the semis, and Johns/Tardio beat Alshon/Patriquin in the title.

Women’s Doubles

Here’s how the player “draft” went:

• No.1 Anna Leigh Waters picked her regular partner No. 2 Anna Bright
• No. 3 Hurricane Tyra Black picked her regular partner, No. 4 Jorja Johnson
• No. 5 Parris Todd picked No. 7 Rachel Rohrabacher, who isn’t necessarily who she’s been playing “regularly” with lately, but who is the player she just won Gold with in Sacramento.
• No. 6 Catherine Parenteau, who thus misses her regular partner in Rohrabacher, picks No. 8 Jade Kawamoto to put herself on the left.
• No. 9 Tina Pisnik picked No. 11 Lacy Schneemann; they’ve had some success lately with a couple of Bronze medals in Late Feb/early March.
• No. 12 Meghan Dizon picked No. 16 Alix Truong; they won gold together in Vietnam and made the quarters at the Masters, so this is a team with some playing time together.
• No. 13 Kate Fahey picked No. 18 Ting Chieh “Jamie” Wei; they’ve never played together and neither is especially known for their doubles.
• That left No. 14 Chao-Yi Wang and No. 15 Kaitlyn Christian as the final team, two singles-dominant players but who played together internationally late last year with great success (golds in both Vietnam and Malaysia last September). So, they could be a dark-horse team.

Groups:

• Pool A: Waters/Bright, Parenteau/Kawamoto, Dizon/Truong, Fahey/Wei,
• Pool B: Black/Johnson, Todd/Rohrabacher, Pisnik/Schneemann, Wang/Christian.

Thoughts: I’m not sure I see an obvious group stage upset here, unless Dizon and Truong can get Parenteau on an off-day.

Predictions: chalk group stage, with another ALW/AB title.

Mixed Doubles

Here’s how the player “draft” went, which let the top 8 guys draft their female partners after the reverse method was used in the 2024 finals.

• No.1 Ben Johns picked his regular partner, No. 1 Anna Leigh Waters.
• No. 2 Hayden Patriquin picked his regular partner, No. 2 Anna Bright
• No. 3 JW Johnson picked his regular partner and sister, No. 3 Jorja.
• No. 4 Christian Alshon picked No. 7 Rachel Rohrabacher, with whom he won a bronze mixed medal earlier this year for his most recent mixed medal.
• No. 5 Andrei Daescu picked No. 4 Hurricane Tyra Black; Daescu couldn’t pick his regular mixed partner Parris Todd b/c she finished in a tie for 8th and lost out on the tiebreaker for the final spot to Jessie Irvine.
• No. 6 Gabriel Tardio picked No. 5 Catherine Parenteau (and not Jessie Irvine), as these two just won Bronze in Atlanta together and have momentum.
• No. 7 Federico Staksrud picked No. 8 Tina Pisnik (his normal partner on tour Fahey didn’t qualify); these two do not appear to have any experience playing with each other.
• That left No. 8 Eric Oncins to have No. 6 Jessie Irvine, another team with little to no experience with each other.

Groups:

• Pool A: Waters/Johns, Alshon/Rohrabacher, Tardio/Parenteau, Staksrud/Pisnik
• Pool B: Bright/Patriquin, Johnson/Johnson, Daescu/Black, Oncins/Irvine

Thoughts: The two No. 1 seeds are obvious, but there’s major opportunity for upsets here. I like Daescu & Black to take out the Johnson siblings, who have drifted a bit lately from their constant Sunday presence. From the top pool, Tardio & Catherine can make noise but Alshon is just too strong in mixed and may be the second best team here.

Predictions: Waters & Johns beat Bright & Patriquin in the final.

Coverage starts Wednesday with three days of Pool play, then semis on Saturday and the finals on Sunday on national TV.

All stats mentioned are courtesy of pickleball.com and picklewave.com

Lastly, here’s the official PPAtour.com link to the previews with draws plus some useful information on how the points will be awarded and broadcast details.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com