PPA Daytona Beach: Preview

Daytona Beach Open

Thought you were done watching pro matchups this calendar year? You thought wrong! The Daytona Beach Open (non-progressive draw) starts with singles Thursday, and is the first official event of the 2025 Tour Race. Many big names are sitting this one out, but there’s still a lot of interesting matchups to see… including one Anna Leigh and her mother, Leigh Waters.

Women’s Singles

• In the absence of Anna Leigh, Lea Jansen carries the #1 seed this event.

• Genie Bouchard, who suffered a scratched cornea when a pickleball hit her in the eye last week, sits in the 6th seed. We’d love to see her make a deep run!

• Salome Devidze, who sat out of Finals two weeks ago, is back as the 3 seed.

Men’s Singles

• Federico Staksrud, who takes no breaks apparently, is ready to defend his #1 status and start early raking in points for 2025. Who can take him down?

• Michael Loyd (2) had an epic run at Nationals and is looking to make another Championship Sunday appearance.

• Grayson Goldin is another up-and-comer who’s made some surprising deep runs in the past. He has the 5 seed this time, but could easily push through his corner of the bracket and land in semis.

• Look out for Augie Ge (16), the best lefty when Tyler’s not playing, who sits in Loyd’s corner of the bracket and is undoubtedly looking to add to his collection of championships.

Mixed Doubles

• Top seed Anna Bright is partnering for the first time with Dekel Bar. Some of her recent partners (Dylan, Christian, Gabe) aren’t playing, and she’s still testing out new partnerships since her split from James Ignatowich. Is Dekel the guy?

• Anna’s sometimes-partner Hayden is playing this go-round with Jorja Johnson (bro JW is not playing this event); they take the #2 seed. They’ll have some interesting matchups on the way to finals: Leigh Waters (and partner, PPA Pro Player Director Dillon Segur) and Lea Jansen (with James Ignatowich’s buddy, Max Freeman) sit in their wing of the bracket.

• Not to be overlooked, Fed and Kate Fahey partner up in the 4th spot. They played together first in Milwaukee, where they were knocked out in R16 by Lea & Max.

• Don’t forget pro qualies: Alix Truong and her brother, 17-year-old Jonathan, are playing in mixed pro qualifiers for the first time. Jonathan has just a few pro events under his belt: APP NYC earlier this year, OC Cup, Virginia Beach, and Vegas. It’ll be fun to watch these siblings make a run for it!

Women’s Doubles

• The obvious storyline here is the return of Leigh Waters alongside her daughter, ALW. Maybe they’re just playing for fun, but we’ve seen Anna Leigh carry just about any and every teammate to championships, and their corner of the bracket is light work. They have the #2 seed after Anna Bright and Jackie Kawamoto.

• Dallas Flash ladies, Hurricane Tyra and Jorja Johnson are back together and at the #3 seed.

• Lea and Kate Fahey are partnering for the first time, and will need to get through Anna and Jackie to make it to semis. Both dominate singles; it will be interesting to see how they play together.

• Other interesting matchups to watch: Genie & Layne Sleeth (10) (always rooting for Genie!); Allyce Jones & Tina Pisnik (4); former Black Bears Amanda Hendry & Michelle Esquivel (18).

Men’s Doubles

• Hayden and Fed are partnering up once again, looking to four-peat after winning gold at the Finals, Worlds, and Virginia Beach.

• Collin Shick is playing with his younger brother, Braden, who introduced him to pickleball and with whom he played tennis at NC State. This will be their first pro matchup together.

• Pablo Tellez and Dekel bar come in at the #2 seed, and will have some challenging matches to get through to make semis: the Shick brothers (14); Augie Ge & Eric Oncins (6) in a first-time partnership; and Michael Loyd & Ivan Jakovljevic (9), who are primed for some upsets.

• Andrei Daescu & CJ Klinger (3) hope to tap into their (individual) MLP magic and break in this new partnership.

With a lot of big names out this tournament, we don’t see a lot of upsets in our future, but this weekend will give us an opportunity to see a lot of new partnerships tested. If some of these new pairings find their chemistry, we could see a lot more of them in the future. Which partnership do you think will be most successful?

It’s time to get on board with pickleballTV, because that’s where all the action is!

Watch via Prime Video and other TV services, or download the app (with rewind/pause functionality) at pickleballtv.com

If you’re planning to attend PPA in Daytona Beach, you can secure your tickets at a discount using code KOTC.

Watch Episode 118 - the guys give a PPA Daytona Beach preview

Premiering Thursday @ 10 am MT