APP Newport Open Recap:

These APPs are tough to recap as zero of Thursday and Friday’s action were streamed but that’s unfortunately the world we live in. What makes it even tougher is that the stream started at 1pm PST Saturday and by that time most of the women’s main draw QF doubles matches were completed. However there was still plenty to talk about as several names we aren’t accustomed to hearing from made deep runs in the draw.

1. NUNNERY CLAIMS #2

Through the first four APP tournaments of the year Rob Nunnery had one medal to his name. In his last three he has six. Safe to say that Rob is now the second best guy on the APP tour behind Andrei Daescu. The Johnson’s have fallen off a bit after dominating the podium spots earlier in the year. Brendon Long has come back to the middle after his hot two month stretch in March-April. No other guys that consistently play APPs have a gold medal in men’s doubles so that leaves Nunnery sitting comfortably in the 2 spot. Rob is the consistent among a sea of inconsistent and in a best 2 out of 3 format he is tough for opponents to break down which is why he is finding podiums. He now owns men’s doubles medals with Daescu, DeHeart and Austin Gridley. The names behind him may possess more power and weapons but their unforced error counts are simply too high which makes them more susceptible to upsets. As far as right side guys go Nunnery is in a class of his own. The question is was this enough to push him into the premier league for season 2? 

2. ULTRA OMEGA SUPER WARRIOR

In the last APP event we saw qualifier Vuk “Wolf Velickovic make his way through qualifying en route to a silver medal in New York. On Thursday we saw qualifier Quong Duong do something eerily similar as he took out notable APP names William Sobek, Ryler Deheart & Yates Johnson on his way to the finals . Duong is another talented tennis player (Sam Querrey’s former hitting partner) breaking through on the pro pickleball scene. The tennis guys keep on coming so it will be interesting to see how long a guy like Hunter Johnson, who Duong lost to in the finals, can maintain his dominance. Hopefully we’ll see more of the self proclaimed “avatar ball bender” in the future but he did mention in an instagram post that his sponsor and dad won’t pay for tournament entry fees so maybe we won’t? 

3.THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN

Another APP in the books and another gold medal for Parris Todd, Simone Jardim and Andrei Daescu in gender doubles. All three of these players have one thing in common outside of their 7 straight gold medals, they are the only three shoe ins for the premier league season 2 draft. This weekend in Newport saw more upsets than we accustomed to but once again it was the same three with gold medals around their necks.  Barr/Fudge got closer than any other team has all year but fell just short as a bad line call by Todd seemed to swing the momentum of the third game, at least in eyes of Megan Fudge. Daescu/Teoni had a scare in round 1 from the team of Markowitz/Zwiren but after that they weren’t really tested. To have no blemishes on their records in gender doubles as the calendar turns to July is quite the feat especially for Daescu, who has done it with three different partners.

4. OTHER NOTABLE PERFORMANCE

1. Dominique Schaefer claimed her first APP medal in women’s singles taking bronze.
2. Andre Mick and Allison Harris made an impressive run to the silver in mixed doubles.
3. Richard Livornese Jr and Spencer Lanier who are apart of the APP Next Gen team surprisingly took a silver in men’s doubles.
4. Rianna Valdes and Genie Erokhina took their second medal of the year together falling in the finals to Parris Todd and Simone Jardim.