Professional Pickleball Association Tour Finals Field Set With Partner Draft

Professional Pickleball Association Tour Finals Field Set With Partner Draft

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The day after the final Professional Pickleball Tour (PPA) regular season event of the 2024 season finished in Milwaukee, the players who qualified for the year-end Tour Finals gathered on a zoom conference call to select their doubles partners for the championship event, to be held December 4th-8th in San Clemente, CA.

The top eight ranked singles players and the top 16 ranked doubles players in each division qualify.

Useful links to bookmark for the Tour Finals:

Doubles teams for the finals were determined via a “draft” whereby the players selected their partners one by one, selecting in order of where they finished in the race. The results were announced by Dave Fleming on PPA’s YouTube channel on 11/19/24. The PPA then published the partner list right afterwards that we’ll be discussing below.

We’ll post an event preview once the pools are set, with matchups and predictions. For now, we’ll look at the teams drafted and react.

Mixed Doubles Draft Results

Here’s the rankings for Mixed Doubles at season’s end.

The final Women’s order:

  1. Anna Leigh Waters, 22,300 points
  2. Anna Bright, 13,000 points
  3. Jorja Johnson, 10,450 points
  4. Catherine Parenteau, 7,800 points
  5. Tina Pisnik, 6,350 points
  6. Marietta “Etta” Wright, 6,275 points
  7. Rachel Rohrabacher 5,700 points
  8. Jessie Irvine, 5,500 points

Just missed: Dizon (4250). Vivienne David would have been 4th but has opted out given the absence of her regular Mixed partner Wilson, giving the last spot to 9th place finishing Irvine. This field of eight ladies is relatively close to last year’s field; only Jansen and Kovalova miss out, finishing 11th and 14th respectively.

The final Men’s order:

  1. Ben Johns, 22,500 points
  2. JW Johnson, 10,400 points
  3. Christian Alshon 9,150 points
  4. James Ignatowich, 8,650 points
  5. Federico Staksrud, 6,250 points
  6. Dekel Bar, 5,750 points
  7. Riley Newman, 4,450 points
  8. Gabriel Tardio, 4,387.50 points

Just missed: Patriquin (4,350), McGuffin (4200), Thomas Wilson would have finished 5th with 7,600 points but remains sidelined with injury, giving the last male spot to 9th place finishing Tardio. The field has three new names as compared to last year, as McGuffin, Matt Wright, and Frazier miss out, finishing 11th, 13th, and 18th respectively.

In a departure from last year’s draft methodology, the tour allowed the women to pick their men’s partner for the finals as opposed to going purely by point order. Here’s how the draft went:

  • No. 1 Waters selected No. 1 Johns, her regular partner for 2+ years and the dominant No. 1 team in the game. No surprise here.
  • No. 2 Bright selected No 8 Tardio, her MLP St. Louis Shock teammate but a bit of a surprise pick. Bright and Tardio have not played together in a match this year; she pairs up with Patriquin for the Shock’s mixed matches. Bright played the first part of the season with Ignatowich but they parted ways, and none of her recent mixed partners (Frazier, Patriquin, or Daescu) qualified. Bright has some matches this year with Alshon, but chose Tardio instead. Does Bright play the left here, leaving Tardio to play his typical 50/50 dominant right?
  • No 3. Jorja Johnson selected No 2 JW Johnson, her brother and regular partner on tour. No surprise here.
  • No. 4 Parenteau selected No. 3 Alshon, who have played together for a big chunk of 2024 with multiple medal rounds reached. This is a strong team used to playing with each other with some recent success.
  • No. 5 Pisnik selected No. 6 Bar, who have been playing together for most of 2024 with great success. They had two straight gold-medal game appearances in April and have continued to be a force all year as a team. They’ll be a dark horse to upset one of the top seeds in pool play.
  • No. 6 Etta Wright selected No. 4 Ignatowich, a player with whom she’s never played before. Wright has been playing as of late with Alshon, but he was already picked and went with the highest ranked remaining male.
  • No. 7 Rohrabacher selected No. 5 Staksrud, her regular partner as of late, which is a great turn of luck for both players to end up together this late in the draft.
  • No. 8 Irvine thus gets No. 7 male Riley Newman, a veteran team who haven’t played together this year, but who make for a well fitted mixed team based on their collective playing styles.

Initial thoughts: Rohrabacher/Staksrud are an immediate dark horse as the “7th seed” of this draw. The Bright/Tardio team will be interesting to watch to see if they gel quickly. Bar/Pisnik will make their pool deeper than the top seeds may want. Waters and Johns the obvious favorite, but remember they took a group stage loss last year to Bright & Ignatowich before rebounding to take the title.

Women’s Doubles Tour Finals Field

Here’s how the top 16 women finished this year:

  1. Anna Leigh Waters, 21,500 points
  2. Catherine Parenteau, 21,500 points (technically tied for 1st)
  3. Anna Bright, 17,200 Points
  4. Rachel Rohrabacher, 17,100 points
  5. Marietta “Etta” Wright, 8,850 points
  6. Meghan Dizon, 8,850 points (technically tied for 5th)
  7. Hurricane Tyra Black, 8,700 points
  8. Callie Smith, 8,400 points
  9. Jorja Johnson, 7,550 points
  10. Lucy Kovalova, 7,400 points
  11. Tina Pisnik, 7,200 points
  12. Lacy Schneemann, 6,450 points
  13. Allyce Jones, 6,300 points
  14. Parris Todd, 6,050 points
  15. Mari Humberg 4,450 points
  16. Jessie Irvine 4,200 points

Two players who would have qualified opted out: Lea Jansen would have been the 12th seed and Jackie Kawamoto would have been No. 16. First rights of refusal for the last two spots went to Jade Kawamoto (work) and then Vivienne David (injury), which gave the last two spots in the field to Humberg (originally 19th) and Irvine (originally 20th).

There’s not a ton of turnover from last year’s field of Women: Tereschenko and Newell qualified last year but finished outside the top 20 this year.

Here’s how the draft went:

  • No. 1 Waters selected No. 2 Parenteau, to no surprise. They’ve played together for the better part of two years and have 24 titles together.
  • No 3. Bright selected No 4 Rohrabacher, again to no surprise. These two have gone tete-a-tete against the top pair and are starting to come out on top.
  • No. 5 Wright selected No. 6 Dizon, her doubles partner for the entire season. Again, no surprises so far here.
  • No. 7 Black selected No. 13 Jones, a bit of a reach by ranks but also a player with whom she’s played a lot with lately with some solid results (two back to back Bronzes to close out the regular season)
  • No. 8 Smith selected No. 10 Kovalova, her long-time partner, so no surprise here. They parted ways at times this year, but came back together to medal at the Atlanta Grand Slam and have multiple medal appearances this year. This was the #1 pair in the sport prior to ALW showing up, but they’re starting to get passed as the sport evolves and grows professionally.
  • No. 9 Johnson selected No. 12 Schneemann. This is a real surprise pick to me. Jorja has played much of the latter part of this season with Humberg, who is still on the board. Instead, she’s gone with a new partnership for the finals. She could have also gone with Pisnik, but they only played together once early on and are both left-side players, so Schneemann makes sense as a left/right side combo.
  • No. 11 Pisnik selected No. 14 Todd, who do not have a ton of history playing with each other, but who could gel together if Parris takes the right side to allow Pisnik to dominate on the left.
  • No. 15 Humberg selected No. 16 Irvine. The two remaining players get paired together as the last seed. These two have no history playing together and are both right-sided players, which may cause them struggles against the rest of the field.

Instant Thoughts: the top four teams here are clearly the favorites to move on. All four teams are regular partners and have recent success. Smith & Kovalova are long-time partners and regularly make deep runs, but the rest of these teams are wildcards who will struggle to get out of pool play.

Men’s Doubles Tour Finals Field

Here’s how the top 16 men finished this year:

  1. Collin Johns, 14,500 points
  2. Ben Johns, 14,300 points
  3. Dylan Frazier, 13,500 points
  4. JW Johnson, 13,400 points
  5. Federico Staksrud, 12,800 points
  6. Dekel Bar, 10,800 points
  7. Pablo Tellez, 9,600 points
  8. Hayden Patriquin, 9,500 points
  9. Tyson McGuffin, 9,250 points
  10. Gabriel Tardio, 9,000 points
  11. Matt Wright, 8,950 points
  12. Andrei Daescu, 8,600 points
  13. Christian Alshon, 8,150 points
  14. Riley Newman, 8,050 points
  15. Jaume Martinez Vich, 6,325 points
  16. James Ignatowich, 5,800 points

Just missed: Connor Garnett (5,000), Zane Navratil (4,775), Tyler Loong (4,550). There’s significant turnover in this field from last year, with five players who qualified last year missing out this year (Young, Arnold, Devilliers, Wilson, and Koller).

Here’s how the draft went:

  • No. 1 Collin Johns picked his brother No. 2 Ben Johns, to no surprise. There’s been plenty of chatter about the partner status of these two as they have taken a slew of losses this year, but they head into the tour finals as the No. 1 team despite multiple losses this year.
  • No. 3 Frazier, in a massive shock, selects No. 7 Tellez instead of his week-in/week-out partner JW Johnson. According to Fleming, the scuttlebutt on tour is that Frazier & Johnson are splitting up for 2025, and the break-up starts now. Frazier has played second fiddle/right side keeper to JW for their entire partnership, but will man the left side with lefty Tellez. This is a big surprise for this field. Why are these two breaking up? I’m sure we’ll get social media buzz about the situation in the coming days now that it’s more than just gossip.
  • No. 4 JW Johnson selects No. 10 Gabriel Tardio. This is not that big of a shock; Tardio has always been part of the “Johnson 5” of players who regularly train together in Florida, is considered the best up-and-coming right-sided player in the sport, and is a perfect foil for Johnson’s left sided play. This could be a tough team.
  • No. 5 Staksrud selects No. 8 Patriquin, to little surprise. These two paired up twice this year, and won gold both times. I’ve been wondering why they ever stopped playing with each other. They’ll spell trouble for whatever top seed’s pool they get drawn into and are a favorite to advance.
  • No. 6 Bar selects No. 13 Alshon. Bar played a big chunk of the year with Tyson, but they parted ways and he’s been bouncing around partners the rest of the season. He could have picked his MLP teammate Ignatowich; they’ve certainly had enough on-the-court time together this year, but opted for a strange pick in Alshon. Who plays left? These two have zero 2024 appearances together.
  • No. 9 McGuffin selects No. 12 Daescu. Another strange pick; McGuffin has been playing basically with Vich since June (who is still on the board) and has no 2024 matches with Daescu. Why bypass your regular partner? At least there’s good left side/right side chemistry here.
  • No. 11 Wright selects No. 16 Ignatowich, with whom he’s played a bunch this year and even has a gold medal appearance. This could have resulted in the humorous forced pairing of Wright with his long-time partner Newman, but things fell nicely into place for Wright. For the second-to-last team formed, these guys will be tough.
  • No. 14 Newman is left with No. 15 Vich, a weird pairing of two left side players who play with passion and who make no sense together.

Instant reaction: The Johns brothers lose their biggest tour rival in Frazier/Johnson, but really their nemesis as a team this year can better be described as “aggressive right-sided players.” Those are still in this field for sure with the Staksrud/Patriquin team and the Johnson/Tardio team. Those are my favorites to make noise here.

Men’s Singles Tour Finals Field

The singles qualifiers didn’t have to draft anything, but we’ll include them for completion and quick analysis. Here’s how the top eight finished for the men:

  1. Federico Staksrud, 19,100 points
  2. Ben Johns, 11,600 points
  3. Connor Garnett, 9,800 points
  4. Hunter Johnson, 6,925 points
  5. Quang Duong, 6,750 points
  6. Dylan Frazier, 5,900 points
  7. Jaume Martinez Vich, 5,750 points
  8. Tyson McGuffin, 5,475 points

Just missed out: Alshon (4700), Sock (4675), Haworth (3575)

The Men’s singles field is significantly changed from last year’s tour final, with just half of the 2023’s field returning. Missing are last year’s finalists JW Johnson (12th this year), Alshon (9th), Devilliers (16th), and Tellez (13th). Alshon and Devilliers struggled with injuries, Johnson de-prioritized Singles for parts of the year, while Tellez struggled to get results like he did in 2023 (appearing in just one medal match all season). Johns has taken a slew of losses this year, but is 5-0 against No. 1 Staksrud, so probably favors his chances if he can get to the gold medal match unscathed. His biggest nemesis in this field will be Duong, who’s beaten him twice this year.

Women’s Singles Tour Finals Field

  1. Anna Leigh Waters, 17,900 points
  2. Brooke Buckner, 10,100 points
  3. Catherine Parenteau, 8,800 points
  4. Kate Fahey, 7,850 points
  5. Salome Devidze, 7,600 points
  6. Kaitlyn Christian, 7,250 points
  7. Parris Todd, 6,975 points
  8. Mary Brascia 6150 points

Just missed out: Castillo (5,225), Wang (4,150). Jansen opted out; she finished 3rd, giving 9th place Brascia a lifeline into the event.

The Women’s singles field, like the Men’s, is significantly changed from last year’s tour final, with just three players returning (Waters, Parenteau, Brascia). Last year’s participants not here in 2024 include Tereschenko (97th), Stratman (14th), Castillo (10th), and Newell (unranked). Two of last year’s top 8 have basically stopped playing singles, while the other three were just passed by some of the new blood pouring into the tour.

We’ll post an event preview once the pools are set, with matchups and predictions.

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