WINNER in Vegas!🎰🥇💅🏼 PPA Vegas Recap

PPA Vegas at Darling Tennis Center always delivers. This year, we had another EPIC five-game thriller (that thankfully I was not a part of this year), meme wars, and the best full bag that I have ever seen. And of course, I also won gold! I break it all down here!

For those that don’t know, I have found myself in the women’s doubles finals twice at this tournament (once with Parris Todd in 2022, and the other with Rachel last year in 2024). I, unfortunately, did not convert in either match despite having chances in both, so getting over the hump this year felt amazing.

Anna Leigh and I had another tournament where it felt like nothing could go wrong- we were firing on all cylinders up until the final. Vibes were great, speedups were working, and our hands were on fire. But then… we ran into trouble!

Parris and Tyra were also coming into the final with a ton of momentum, and the defense they displayed against Rachel and Jorja gave me a headache just watching. AL and I were definitely a lot more angsty than we’d been in a while for this matchup, which definitely showed in our play.

I, personally, stepped onto championship court feeling a lot of nerves and a strong desire to prove myself. I also didn’t have much rhythm, candidly. I warmed up with: Yates Johnson, Eric Oncins, Leigh Waters, Hayden Patriquin, and finally… Anna Leigh. It was very all over the place, but it is what it is! In the future, I will try to do what I can to get a more “typical” warmup, but with only one warmup court on Championship Sunday and so many pros trying to use it, it’s a bit of a mess. (Today Federico and Roscoe were literally taking turns playing 4 points each against Yates Johnson while a bunch of us watched😂).

Game 1 was haphazard and everyone was nervous. AL and I were less in flow than usual, as evidenced by the overhead we both tragically left on our only game point at 11-10 2.

After dropping game 1 and getting down 5-2, I’m so proud of how we regrouped, refocused, and conquered the sense of panic that has plagued us before when we’ve been tested. Girls are just too good to panic-pull your way out of trouble these days, and I’m so proud of our fight and how we came together! Of course, I would’ve loved an easy win, but having to grind it out and make adjustments made the W so much sweeter.

It is comical to me how it seems every tournament we have a new “greatest point ever”, “highest level ever”, “point of the year”, and now, a new “greatest match of all time!”. Undoubtedly, the level in this men’s match was insane, and it very well could have been the greatest match of all time, but just something that makes me chuckle.

In my eyes, the greatest match of all time just depends on what your favorite event is. If you like men’s doubles, it was probably this one, if you prefer women’s, then I still feel like Rachel and I vs AL and Catherine last year in Vegas would probably take the cake (also 12-10 in the fifth!). Something about Vegas!

Men’s doubles remains a super entertaining event, even with Ben and Gabe being so dominant. This week, we had some partnership mixups and even some mixups within partnerships as Hayden and Federico switched sides! Federico even joked to me yesterday that Hayden was tired because he had been playing two mixed matches every day😂.

I was hoping JW and Dylan would have a better result and get to try their luck against one of the more established partnerships, but they fell to Eric and Matt in a closely contested QF battle. Something about Matt Wright! He keeps getting it done, and him and Eric ended up finishing in 4th place.

I don’t know what it will take to beat Ben and Gabe, but Christian and Andrei almost had the secret sauce today. Christian seemed to be having a lot of success attacking Gabe cross-court, while also mixing in a lot of off-speed pulls at Ben. Christian’s forehand and movement patterns looked more “flowy” than I have ever seen it, more like Hayden’s. An interesting development I will pay continue to pay attention to. As an anecdote, I ran into Christian after the matches concluded at Blaze Pizza. He seemed to be in relatively good spirits considering the L- he was happy they didn’t get killed but also feeling the pain of losing a heartbreaker. I have grown a lot more fond of Christian since spending time together in Malaysia and I was happy that he was doing well.

Hayden and I have now lost three times to Ben and Anna Leigh this year, and in each match we have won game 1. Winning a game against them is always great, but winning the overall match is really all that matters. I felt like there were a lot of positives from this week for us in mixed and against the goats in particular, but we have to figure out how to adjust to their inevitable adjustments. The best teams make you beat them in multiple ways!

I think for one, it’s hard for Hayden to sustain a “redline” level for 2 entire games, especially once they raise their level. We will have to brainstorm a plan for when they slow the game down a bit after they adjust to how hot he is. I was happy that I was able to bring more offense than I typically do against this team, but I do think I need to be quicker to make some adjustments when things stop working. I also need to return better and put more pressure on 4ths- it often feels like Ben and AL get to the kitchen far too easily when our matches against them start to turn.

Hayden and I honestly got smoked in bronze by JW and Jorja. It was a weird match in which neither of us played well. It wasn’t for a lack of effort, we both tried hard, but… yeah. I don’t know! Jorja and JW played amazingly (JW had a lot of pulls off the bounce that surprised me), and in my case at least I think after all the emotions of winning women’s it was just hard to find the optimal headspace to play my best in mixed. Oh well! Bad scoreline for the DUPR, but I’m not too pressed about it. Excited for MLP and Worlds with H, and hopefully we can build on what we are doing right and have a couple of great weekends.

In other news, this weekend I saw the greatest full bag I have ever seen in my life. It was by Max Freeman on Noe Khlif (does Noe have a sign “bag me” sign on his head or something?!). Seeing this live was INSANE - I felt a mix of shock, awe, fear, and extreme gratitude that Max has never done this to me (I practice with him a lot). I genuinely don’t think this was defendable- by the time you saw it coming it was too late, and Max hit this ball HARD with forward momentum. Insane.

Some kids also had great weekends. Tama Shimabukuro and Andre Mercado looked great against Eric and Matt, and qualifiers Luc Pham and Will MacKinnon had a great run to the quarters (buoyed by two defaults, but still). You can’t beat reps as a kid, and I’m sure these guys will be causing me problems soon.

I also have to shoutout Genie Bouchard- her singles game is impressive. There might be a few girls who hit harder than her situationally, but there is definitely no one who takes the ball earlier. Watching her up close against Kate was super impressive and a stark reminder that she is a grand slam finalist, after all. If she keeps improving and gets better at the net, I wouldn’t be surprised if she became a mainstay on Sunday. I wonder if she is training more now that she has retired from tennis? If so, the singles girlies better be on edge!

Lastly, I will discuss the PPA’s new attempt at memes. To put it briefly, the effort is admirable, but I do think they are bringing a knife to a gun fight if their intent is to compete with memesofpickleball. But, undoubtedly, memes has been slacking and has not been putting content out as regularly as we would all like, so maybe this is the push they needed to lock in. We all need some competition from time to time!

Thanks for reading everyone, hope you enjoyed! Oh, and you guys already know I was up money leaving Vegas. I think Vegas is officially the only place I will gamble, ever. I sat down at the blackjack table with $75 in cash, got up with $560. I know- I’m a legend, an icon, a queen, you don’t have to tell me. Haha. See everyone on Thursday!