Waters/Bright vs Kong/Ingram at the SXY Newport Beach Open

We'll get us started. Let's play pickleball. Expect Anna Bright to really focus on the left foot of Jelena Ingram and not have to deal with her forehand at the kitchen. And aggressive dink from AB. Jelena Ingram knows just what to do with that. Did she ever. Okay. Massive serve. Have to drive the third and give Jelena a chance to Lingway can't come up with it. Side out. 1-0-1. Point. 2-0-1. Man, that's heavy. The pro five Scorpius just went off there. Talk about engaging your lower body with the serve from Anna Lee Waters too. She is using the rotational power and the power from her legs. How about that clear of the body? That was very nice from Jelena and Anna Lee Waters looking for a little offense out of the air from the back hand with one hand. Oh, just so pretty through the middle from Anna Bright. Yeah, and I understand Anna Lee Waters very good from the back of the court, but Lingway chose to play a soft shot to Anna Bright when Anna Lee was back at the baseline. Have to take your chances keeping Anna Lee Waters back. Point. There it is from Anna Lee. A couple nice dinks out to the backhand of Lingway Kong. Opens up some space and fires right at Lingway's partner Jelena Ingram. Side out. Okay, five spot though to start here. That's 27-0 for the tournament. All the locations on this speed up. Gina's like, hey, I'm going to load up with my backhand in the middle and Anna Lee Waters just whips it right at the body cross-court. Oh, absolute filth from the goat right there. Clean winner cross-court. Nasty. Coming right at 5-0-1. Second serve. 5-0-2. Oh, Jelena Ingram comes flying in after a perfect dime of a lob. Yeah, right on the line. Love that move from Jelena Ingram. She knew Lingway was going to rope that ball with a drive. 6-0-2. Just a hair rate. Point. Anna Bright fires off the bounce with the backhand from the middle, playing the right side. 7-0-2. Looking for those aerial speed-ups more, but she still has plenty of offense when the ball bounces. Nice step over from Jelena. Takes that with the beautiful back where it came from angle. Okay, let's see if they can get on the board. 0-7-1. I mean, just an onslaught. Oh, yeah, and I think I am definitely seeing Anna Lee, when she finds herself on the right, taking more backhands out of the air. Whether that speed up or dink, I know that was a bit of an issue in the mixed doubles final, so she knows. Side out. Another empty trip. The perfect defense. Still throwing a shutout and pickleball for a tournament, Adam. What a third, because the perfect return. It couldn't be better. And of course, no panic. Get to the kitchen three or four shots later. 8-0-1. Nice aerial speed-up and let go from Anna Bright. I mean, and you know I talk about Tyra Black and Georgia Johnson being the aerial queens. Anna Bright is making a play to be right in the middle of that group. Very impressive offense out of the air for her. 9-0-1. Okay, let's see. Not in the club yet. 9-0-2. Just the adjustment off, but gives herself time when she's in trouble. Do not get pasted to the line, Adam. Pickle point. 10-0-2. That is wide, and they have played three games in this tournament. Almost always correctly what your partner's going to do is something that is so important and probably not talked about enough. Side out. Jelena popped up early in that ball in the midcourt. 0-0-1. What chaos. And then that's in there. My goodness gracious. They're off and running in game two. Yeah, just a little bit of the breeze going from Anna Bright to Ling Wei Kong, which kind of killed that ball and made it drop. Had a look, but absolutely scalded it deep. And I was actually completely wrong on the wind going, so we're going to give great credit to the top spin of Anna Bright on that speed up that just dropped. I was trying in my mind to figure out what you meant by the wind coming that way, even though it's not. I mean, it is just relentless pressure. Cross court from Anna Lee handcuffing Ling Wei, who has played a solid game but hasn't had a lot of good looks to be offensive. Time of the drop from Anna. Wow, fade away. And really, I mean, the overall ball distribution has definitely been more to Jelena Ingram. 4-0-1. As I said, Ling Wei Kong just not getting a lot of good looks to do offensive things. Hey, but there's a quality counter. Unbelievable chicken wing save there from Anna Bright. 4-0-2. Oh, no she did not. There's Amy out of the air again, and I'm absolutely shocked that Anna Lee Waters didn't drop shot after that third shot lob. That was two feet in probably. And surprised the entire state of California. Yeah, 5-0-2. Including me. I'm in that state right now. Very impressive. Geez, just flying forward, crushing what he was saying, and then through a have fun, try to get back in this game. Side out. All right, here we go, ladies. Time to put up a point or two. 0-6-1. Just sick little protractor-worthy angle there from Bright. Take a little pace off. Get an extra hook, an extra angle. 0-6-2. Side out. Ling Wei Kong way clear in the body, looking for the forehand drop inside out. I wanted a point or two, but that was a very quick possession. 6-0-1. Point. Jelena looking for the misdirect through her body to the left to find that forehand up the line and threw off a rhythm. 7-0-1. Point. What an ATP from Ingram, and it got defended. Yes, it did. I mean, you cannot hit it harder. I mean, she was pretty deep in the court, which gave some extra time to defend it, but still very tough to handle that pace. Point. Jelena was coming forward. Her opponents hit a ball with a lot of power, so that at that point when you have those things going for you, you have to shorten up your swing. Point. Adam. Yes. We are at double pickle point again. I know it. Wild. 10-0-1. And crushed to end it, and the local grocery stores are going to be out of pickles at this point. Welcome back, everybody, to the SXY Newport Beach Open. The top seeds just wrecking everything in their path again. 0-0 here. They join us now. A.B., I'll start with you. During the match, we were talking with our production truck as well as ourselves about you continuing to attack out of the air. Do tell what you're looking for and how that is as successful as it has been recently for you. You know, I'm not really sure. You know, Annaleigh and I just have gotten in a bit of a rhythm, and I feel like she's the best attacker off the bounce, like maybe in the game, men and women, and so I'm like, why am I going to bother attacking off the bounce? You know, I need to develop my own specialty a little bit, so I've just been trying to get better at reaching in and doing a little bit more out of the air, and I think it's been it's been working really well for us. You know, she can kind of create so much, and then I just kind of look into the poke. You know, people want to bail out. They want to hit to me. Like, oh, not a safe spot either. That's the goal. It just ain't safe, Adam. I know it isn't. Annaleigh Waters, a great performance per usual. Some wild numbers here. Three of your last four matches have been 0-0, including a semifinal in Mesa and the clean three-game sweep in the final sandwiched in between all of that. Is this something that you want, that you think about? Does it just happen organically? Tell me about some of these scorelines. Yeah, I mean, obviously that's what we're striving for, but I don't think we're going into any match like, we're going to win this 0-0, or we're going to really try to win this 0-0, because it just gets in your head a little bit, but Anna said it earlier in the match when we were playing together. She feels like she knows where I'm hitting the ball, and I feel like vice versa. Like, we're starting to become one unit instead of two really good players together. I feel like now we're just one really good team, and it's been almost a year since we started playing together, so it's been a minute. We're starting to get used to each other. I think we're getting very comfortable off the court too, so when we come on the court, I think we're just very comfortable and confident to hit some shots. Anna's being very aggressive out of the air. Like you said, I'm trying to hit some different speed-ups, some different patterns, blobbing a little bit this week. So yeah, I just think because we're so comfortable, we're playing a lot better on the court, and we kind of know where the other one's going to hit the ball. Yeah, the fact that she's seeing that sick little cross-court roller before you hit it is pretty doggone special right there. A.B., I'll end with you. We'll go switch over a little MLP talk. Your million dollar A.B. there. Stop. Thank you. So what does it mean to be back? This crew maybe hasn't seen some of your social media or the coverage of Major League Pickleball. What was it like sitting there knowing you are the bell of the ball and these numbers got out of control? Are you saying I'm not worth a million dollars, Dave? I am saying you're worth more than that. Okay, you were saying out of control, so I wasn't really sure there. But yeah, it was really, really stressful and anxiety-inducing. I felt like I just didn't know where I was going to go. I felt like I was just watching my fate. I was luckily in a bit of a win-win situation. Either I would be back on the shock and have an amazing opportunity to kind of feel like kind of do what we haven't been able to do in the last few years, or I was going to end up here with my girl. So I was lucky in kind of how it all worked out, but I'm really excited to be back on the shock. Gabe is going to have to wake up for some more 8 a.m. practices. He's going to have to relinquish the captain title back to me, but I'm really excited and feel really, really blessed all around. Well, it was an exciting day for all of us. Congrats on that, and congrats to you two on another spectacular performance.