Anna Leigh Waters notched up a hat-trick of medals by winning the women’s singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles titles at the Atlanta Pickleball Championships on Sunday.Waters started the day by clinching the mixed doubles title with Ben Johns.
After losing the North Carolina Open final in April to Jorja Johnson and JW Johnson, Waters and Johns reigned supreme in Atlanta.The top-seeded pair registered an 11-3, 11-2, 11-7 victory over No. 4 seeds Etta Tuionetoa and Christian Alshon to start the day. It was the 49th title together for Waters and Johns, and Waters’ 50th in mixed doubles overall.
Waters was unstoppable ever since. She then clinched the women’s doubles title. Playing with Anna Bright for the first time since she broke her partnership with Catherine Parenteau in April, Waters registered a comfortable 11-4, 11-7, 11-3 win in a highly anticipated battle for the women’s doubles crown. The victory marked Waters’ 49th women’s doubles title, including 31 with Parenteau and eight with Bright. Parenteau, now pairing up with Rachel Rohrabacher-the former partner of Bright-suffered the loss due to several miscommunications leading to errors, as their opponents eventually closed out the win in straight games.Maintaining the rhythm, Waters closed out the week’s action by winning her 51st women’s singles crown. She defeated second seed Kate Fahey in straight games (11-1, 7-11, 11-1) to claim her 34th Triple Crown on the PPA Tour.After completing the hat-trick of medals, a relieved Waters said she was fired up after suffering two championship defeats in North Carolina.”I was definitely fired up after North Carolina,” she admitted. “I didn’t think that was my best performance, so I wanted to come out here and prove – not to everybody else, but to myself – that I still had it in me and that I could still fight.”Johns Wins Men’s Singles CrownJohns, meanwhile, outwitted third seed Connor Garnett 3-11, 11-9, 11-9 to clinch the men’s singles title. It was his second title in Atlanta after the mixed doubles title with Waters and his 37th singles title overall on the PPA Tour.Johns, however, went down in the men’s doubles final with Gabe Tardio. The second-seeded pair suffered a straight-game (9-11, 9-11, 7-11) defeat to JW Johnson and CJ Klinger in the championship match. The defeat denied Johns a chance to earn a hat-trick at the Slam event.
For Klinger, the win was special since he played with a lot of intensity, applying lots of pressure with his length at the kitchen line and showcasing top-tier hand speed in quick exchanges.”I think a lot of that comes from practice and hard work and dedication,” he said. “My dad’s a big part of it, so big thanks to him. He’s the best coach out there.” It was also a revenge of sorts for Johnson and Klinger, since they had lost to Johns and Tardio in the quarterfinals of the North Carolina Open.