San Clemente Proves to be one of the Best Venues - PPA Orange County Cup Recap

Southern California always puts on amazing pro pickleball events and the Life Time Rancho San Clemente is known as one of the premier event venues in the entire world - it delivered this week on the PPA Tour.

The weather was perfect throughout the week, the crowds were unbelievable, and the play was incredible.

Let’s get into the action.

Top Storylines

ALW Triple Crowns for the Second Straight Event and Third Straight Orange County Cup

Anna Leigh Waters won her 35th triple crown on the PPA Tour. The next closest player to her? Ben Johns, with 21.

Additionally, Anna Leigh is catching Ben in gold medal count, as well. Waters now has 154 golds on the PPA Tour and Johns has 156.

This is the second straight PPA event where Anna Leigh just dominated her competition:

As the field continues to get better each and every day, so does Anna Leigh Waters. She dominated the field in all three events for a second straight time. Waters didn't lose a match, and went a combined 32-1 in her games this week, with her opponents averaging well below five points per game.

Hunter Johnson Makes a Claim for the #1 Singles Player in the World

Johnson defeated (1) Federico Stakdsrud, 11-2, 11-5, in the final. This marked Johnson’s third victory in the 2025 calendar year, most among men. He also has six gold medals in the past 52 weeks, and Staksrud has five.

Although Staksrud will maintain that #1 seed for the foreseeable future, I believe Hunter is the consensus #1 player in power rankings.

In the last four events, Johnson has two gold medals and a bronze. He failed to make the semis just once in those four events. He has wins over Quang Duong (2x), Jack Sock, Noe Khlif, Dylan Frazier, James Ignatowich, Connor Garnett, and Fed Staksrud, in those four events.

Three Qualifiers Made Deep Runs

Usually there is always a qualifier or two that make a run to the Round of 32 or something. This weekend felt a little different. Here are the three qualifiers that made great runs:

Rafael Lehnard

(61) Rafael Lehnard - Won three qualifying rounds to make it to the main draw. In the main draw, Lehnard had the following results:

• Rd of 64 - Win - (4) Ben Johns - 11-6, 14-12
• Rd of 32 - Win - (31) Zane Navratil - 11-4, 10-12, 11-3
• Rd of 16 - Win - (13) Noe Khlif - 7-11, 11-0, 11-7
• Quarterfinal - Loss - (8) Christian Alshon - 9-11, 2-11

The Brazilian was a five-star tennis recruit out of high school and played D1 college at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He is currently a tennis coach in the San Diego area and only recently started playing pro pickleball.

Riley Inn and Luke Williams

(5) Riley Inn/Luke Williams - Lucky losers in the men’s doubles draw end up finishing fifth overall.

What is a “lucky loser”? A lucky loser is a qualifier team that loses in the last round of qualifying, but still ends up making the main draw, due to some sort of issue. In this particular instance, the true 5 seed, Dekel Bar and Dylan Frazier, had to withdraw due to illness (Bar). So Inn and Williams took their spot in the draw.

They delivered. In the Round of 32, Inn and Williams beat (31) Mota Alhouni and Ross Whittaker, 11-4, 11-5. In the Round of 16 on Thursday, they then beat (12) Spencer Smith and Tyler Loong, 11-2, 11-9. On Quarterfinal Friday, they ran into the 2 seed, Fed and Hayden, losing 4-11, 5-11. 

With that run, though, the lucky losers made the most of their opportunity and earned themselves 300 PPA Points in the process.

Yufei Long & Ting Chieh “Jamie” Wei

Lastly, we had Yufei Long and Ting Chieh “Jamie” Wei, women’s doubles qualifiers, make a run to the quarterfinals.

Long and Wei are part of the UPA Asia Trailblazers program. They had an all expenses paid 90 day trip to the US, to hone their skills and bring high level pickleball back to Asia.

Long and Wei won their qualifying match, 11-0, 11-1. 

Once they made the main draw, as the 36 seed, here were the results:

• Rd of 64 - Win - (30) Audrey Brown/Tatiana Ruhl - 11-2, 11-0
• Rd of 32 - Win - (4) Lacy Schneemann/Jorja Johnson - 12-10, 8-11, 11-5
• Rd of 16 - Win - (14) Alix Truong/Andrea Koop - 11-8, 13-11
• Quarterfinal - Loss - (10) Mari Humberg/Meghan Dizon - 6-11, 3-11

Making the Quarterfinals in basically their third pro event of their careers is quite the accomplishment. In addition to the women’s doubles success, Long and Wei both made the Round of 16 in singles, before getting knocked out.

Ben and Gabe are at the top of the “Big Four”

It has become very clear there is a "big four" in men's doubles:

• Gabe Tardio and Ben Johns
• Hayden Patriquin and Federico Staksrud
• Christian Alshon and Andrei Daescu
• CJ Klinger and JW Johnson

Dekel Bar and Dylan Frazier would like to have a say in the matter and want to be included in this list, but they couldn't do anything this week to bolster their argument, with Bar dropping out of the event due to illness.

In the past four events, there were 12 men's doubles medals earned - only one of them came from a team outside the top four. That was Eric Oncins and Dylan Frazier, who earned bronze in North Carolina.

The Orange County Cup was the fifth straight tournament that Ben and Gabe made the finals. The Red Rock Open doesn't count, as Ben was overseas and both him and Gabe skipped that tournament.

Gabe and Ben now have three gold medals together and two silvers.

Even though the men's field is really top-heavy with these four teams, I would argue Ben and Gabe are just a step above the rest.

Two Newly Signed Players Did Well

These are not new names to the diehard fans, but they are new names to the PPA Tour.

Judit Castillo

Judit Castillo played for the first time on the PPA Tour in six months, after signing recently as a UPA exclusive player. What did Castillo do in her first event as a fully signed PPA player? Won bronze in women’s singles.

Even though the Spaniard hasn’t played on the PPA Tour in the last six months, she was still the 10 seed - that’s how good her results were before the contract issue forced her to stop playing PPA for a while.

Castillo got off to a rocky start, barely squeaking out a win over Jessie Irvine in three. After that, it was smooth sailing until the semis. Full Castillo results:

• Rd of 32 - Win - (20) Jessie Irvine - 11-5, 6-11, 13-11
• Rd of 16 - Win - (29) Cailyn Campbell - 11-1, 11-4
• Quarterfinal - Win - (3) Kaitlyn Christian - 11-9, 12-10
• Semifinal - Loss - (1) Anna Leigh Waters - 7-11, 9-11
• Bronze Medal Match - Win - Brooke Buckner - 11-6, 9-11, 12-10

Castillo has now immediately placed herself in the conversation for top 10 women on the PPA Tour.

She also had a very good upset win in mixed doubles, as the 45 seed, with Wyatt Stone, beating (19) Zoey Wang/Pablo Tellez.

Grayson Goldin

The other newly signed player that turned some heads was Grayson Goldin. As the 17 seed, Goldin beat John Cincola and Eric Roddy in straights, before barely losing to Connor Garnett, 11-5, 10-12, 3-11.

However, it wasn’t in singles where Goldin outperformed expectations. He played men’s doubles with Jay Devilliers, who was supposed to play with Quang Duong, but he was suspended for this event.

In the Round of 32, Goldin/Devilliers beat (24) Jakovljevic/Dow, 11-6, 11-6. 

The Round of 16 match was against (2) Federico Staksrud and Hayden Patriquin, eventual silver medalists. Devilliers and Goldin came out strong, winning the first game, 11-9. The second game went to Fed and Hayden, 11-5. In the third, Goldin and Devilliers lost a heartbreaker, 9-11. 

Goldin played better than most talent evaluators thought he would in doubles. This is a very good sign for the former USF Bull, as he recently signed exclusively with UPA, and will be looking to continue to get good partners.

The Line Call Issue is Back

The casual pro pickleball fan probably doesn’t see line calls as an issue, because they see Ben and Anna Leigh playing on Championship Court all the time. Championship Court (and Grandstand) has video challenges available for replays, when players believe the opponent made the wrong call. 

However, the line call issue is prevalent on the side courts. Think about this stat for a second - there were a total 283 main draw matches at this event. A whopping 102 matches were either played on Championship Court or Grandstand Court, which equates to 36 percent of the matches.

This still means 64% of the pro main draw matches are being played on side courts, with no live way to overrule player line calls, other than hoping that a referee saw the ball one way or another.

Travis Rettenmaier and Etienne Blaszkewycz got into a line calling argument on Wednesday, that resulted in Rettenmaier posting on social media that he hooked on purpose, because Etienne had hooked earlier in the match.

For a full breakdown of that drama, check out my full article I published over the weekend (linked above).

Other Quick Storylines

Catherine Parenteau - Won two silver medals (women's doubles and women's singles) this week and is playing some of the best pickleball I have seen from since the beginning of the year.

Connor Garnett - Came back from being down 9-2 in game 1 and 10-0 in game 2 against Jack Sock, winning 11-9, 12-10, in the Quarterfinals.

Mari Humberg - Although she didn't medal, Humberg made it to two semifinals, one in mixed doubles with CJ Klinger, and the other in women's doubles with Meghan Dizon.

Full Results

Women’s Singles

🥇 Anna Leigh Waters

🥈 Catherine Parenteau

🥉 Judit Castillo

Men’s Singles

🥇 Hunter Johnson

🥈 Federico Staksrud

🥉 Connor Garnett

Mixed Doubles

🥇 Anna Leigh Waters/Ben Johns

🥈 Jorja Johnson & JW Johnson

🥉 Anna Bright/Hayden Patriquin

Women’s Doubles

🥇 Anna Bright/Anna Leigh Waters

🥈 Rachel Rohrabacher/Catherine Parenteau

🥉 Parris Todd/Hurricane Tyra Black

Men’s Doubles

🥇 Gabe Tardio/Ben Johns

🥈 Hayden Patriquin/Federico Staksrud

🥉 CJ Klinger/JW Johnson