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Waters, Johns Rout Tuionetoa/alshon For Mixed Doubles Gold
Anna Leigh Waters/Ben Johns kicked off Carvana Championship Sunday in the Georgia capital with an 11-3, 11-2, 11-7 victory over No. 4 seeds Etta Tuionetoa/Christian Alshon in the mixed doubles final.
The top seeds came out on fire and scored nine points on their first service possession in a run that set the tone for the rest of the contest.
In the third game, Tuionetoa/Alshon changed their formation to have Tuionetoa play the left and Alshon play the right since the inverse hadn’t worked in the first two games.
It was a move that would work on paper, since Tuionetoa excels on the left in women’s doubles and Alshon does on the right in men’s.
But it didn’t help them in practice, though, as Waters/Johns went on to take the third game and close out the first match of the day on Humana Championship Court.
This run is an impressive response from the top seeds after falling in the final of the Veolia North Carolina Open last month to Jorja Johnson/JW Johnson.
“I feel like we were really just gunning for this one, not to show people anything, but more for ourselves,” Waters said of the mindset coming to Atlanta. “To remind ourselves that we can do better than we did at the last tournament.”
They certainly did that this week, as they didn’t drop a game through their six matches.
With this title, Johns has now earned at least one gold medal in 39 consecutive tournaments that he’s played on the PPA Tour. This breaks a record previously set by Waters, who did so at 38 straight from 2021-2024.
The 25-year-old sees the milestone as just business as usual.
“Outside of the numbers or titles or anything, it just feels great to get on the court and play well,” he said. “I can’t say it means anything extraordinary, but I’m just super happy with the way we’ve been playing, and hopefully we can continue that through the day and the next tournaments.”
Both Waters and Johns are in the running for Triple Crowns this week and will both play two more matches on Sunday.
