Clean Sweeps and Winning Weekends
| July 11, 2023
What a weekend for pickleball.
What a weekend for the PPA Tour.
You watched, right?
Of course you did, because Saturday and Sunday were the kind of days for the people who play this game at local parks, on gym floors, on cracked pavement, or on the nicest courts from Indian Wells, CA., to Naples, FL.
Pickleball is popular, but now after two days, including Saturday’s showcase on CBS – the first time pickleball was broadcast on national television – this sport for all us beginners and the pros as well, took a giant leap forward, showcasing the game’s top players at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles at the Skechers Summer Invitational.
And the party continued on Sunday, with three matches broadcast on CBS Sports Network, starting with a two-game sweep in mixed doubles for Matt Wright and Lucy Kovalova over Catherine Parenteau and Riley Newman. These teams have gone head-to-head many times over the last year or so, with wins on both sides, but Wright/Kovalova came out on top during the major coverage.
Meanwhile, it was another winning weekend for the game’s top player, Ben Johns, who paired up with brother Collin Johns on Saturday in a men’s doubles win before getting by Tyson McGuffin on Sunday in a two-game singles final.
“There are a lot of entertaining points when we play,” Johns told CBS Sports. “[McGuffin] has some great shot-making and he has that Ferrrari forehand. When he catches fire, you have to weather the storm.”
And in the third match of the day, it was another sweep – this time for Anna Leigh Waters, who beat Catherine Parenteau in two games for the singles title. Waters and her mom Leigh also teamed up on Saturday to snatch the women’s doubles title.
“I was a competitive soccer player, so I’m used to tons of running,” Anna Leigh Waters said to CBS Sports. “On the court, I will literally sprint to any ball. I try and find a little extra something there when I need to.”
And that’s kind of what this weekend was about for pickleball and the PPA Tour. A chance to get a little extra something that wasn’t there before.
When you can feature the world’s best players and debut on CBS, you have to think that’s a lot more than a little something.
It was a great weekend of pickleball. And it doesn’t stop here.
Starting Wednesday, the PPA Tour is back on the courts at the Tournament of Champions in Brigham City, Utah, as the tour’s best, including the Johns brothers, Wright, Newman, McGuffin, and others on the men’s side will be competing. Kovalova, Callie Smith, the Waters duo, Allyce Jones, Parenteau, Lea Jansen and more will be competing on the women’s side.
