Anna's 2025 PPA Season Wrapped

With the recent release of Spotify Wrapped (if you don’t know what this is, it’s basically a summary of your music listening from the last year), it only felt right to recap my pickleball year! Let’s go over the highs, the lows, and everything in between, together! As we do. Oh, and also here is my actual Spotify Wrapped😂.

I played in exactly 25 events this season (including Daytona 2024), 17 of which were PPAs. I played with In those 17 PPAs, I got:

🥇 8: Anna Leigh Waters (7), Ben Johns (1)
🥈 7: Rachel Rohrabacher (4), Dekel Bar (1), JW Johnson (1), Andrei Daescu (1)
🥉12: Hayden Patriquin (3), Anna Leigh Waters (2), Federico Staksrud (2), Rachel Rohrabacher (1), Andrei Daescu (1), Dekel Bar (1), Jackie Kawamoto (1), Eric Oncins (1)

Not bad at all! I medaled in 27 of the 34 doubles events I entered this season. Here are my other finishes.

4th 1: Hayden Patriquin (1)
QF 6: Rachel Rohrabacher (1), Hayden Patriquin (1), Roos van Reek (1), CJ Klinger (1), Quang Duong (1), Dekel Bar (1)

On the PPA side - so much to be happy about. Ending up on the podium approximately 80% of the time is awesome, especially considering how many partners I played with this year. On the women’s side I only played with three partners, but on the men’s side I had 9 (‼️) different partners. Talk about playing the field! In the future, I will write an in-depth post about my mixed experience this year. My dad recently remarked that I must be approaching some record for most medals with different partners, and I think he might be right😂

I am very proud of always making at least the quarterfinals, and am particularly proud of going 12/13 (‼️‼️‼️) in bronze medal matches. A true bronze baddie, you could say🥉💁🏽‍♀️. Bronze matches are hard to play at the pro level, and people often joke (?) about a lack of motivation. Not to toot my own horn, but I think doing so well in them is a testament to my competitiveness and deep hatred of losing, simply for the sake of losing. That is one of the things I will always love most about myself.

When your only gold medals are with the goats🐐, it must mean you aren’t beating them much😂. Of course, AL and I played with each other in 9 of the 16 tournaments we both played (she did not play Vietnam), but in the 7 we both played, I lost to her 4 times. My other losses were to Tyra/Jorja with Jackie, Parris/Tyra with Rachel, and Dani-elle Townsend and Nicola Schoeman with Roos van Reek in Vietnam.

I’m not really torn up over not beating AL in women’s earlier in the year, it all led to our eventual partnership, and I did pretty well against her in MLP (3-1 record). Obviously, the double bronze w AL in Vegas and Cincinnati was a “bad” stretch, but again, something we took a lot of positives from, so I can’t even honestly say I wish it hadn’t happened. We really learned from it and got a lot stronger and made strides in figuring out our “optimal” style of play.

What is more of a “bad” for me is my record in mixed against Ben and Anna Leigh. I played them 11 times this year, and only won 1 of those encounters (with Dekel in Mesa). Of those 11 matches, 7 actually went to a deciding game, and I only won one of those deciders (with Dekel, also). Hayden and I split with them 4 times and lost, JW and I lost in the fifth in Cape Coral, and Federico and I lost in a third in Vegas strip event. Pushing the goats to a decider 64% of the time is something to be proud of, especially considering I played them with 6 different partners this year, but only converting 14% of deciders just isn’t gonna cut it.

The partners I failed to push Ben and AL with were Andrei, Eric, and Quang. Federico and I got smoked in North Carolina, but did push them in Vegas. I actually only played JW/Jorja 4 times this year, 3 of which were in the main draw. In main draw matches, I went 1-2, and H and I lost to them in bronze in Vegas. I definitely need to do better against them as well, but hey… I wouldn’t mind a few more cracks at them in 2026 rather than running into Ben/AL all the time! 😂😂😂

My last 3 unaccounted-for losses in mixed are to Andrei/Tina with both Dekel and CJ, and to Christian/Tyra with Hayden. Andrei/Tina are tough! They are elite ball makers through and through.

A major 2026 goal of mine is to do better against Ben and Anna Leigh. 2025 was much better in this regard than 2024, but I am clearly close to pushing them very hard, and they can’t be excited to see me on the other side of the net. Feel free to share any tips you have for me! I will be announcing my mixed partnership (partnerships ??) soon😊😉.

Thanks for reading everyone, that is my 2025 PPA Season Wrapped! Next week I will do the same for MLP, and also stay tuned for my in-depth review of my mixed doubles experience this year! It was a great year on the PPA Tour, and while I am very happy to be taking Daytona off, I am also super excited to get back into the swing of things come January😊

Love and appreciate you all, and see you on Monday! - Your internet bestie, Anna♥️

PS - please make a friend subscribe to the newsletter! I don’t care how you have to do it, that’s up to you♥️🔪💣😂