St. Louis Shock stunning a star-studded New Jersey 5s in the MLP Mid-Season Tournament in Grand Rapids to claim the title remains the most dominant talking point. Along with that, another major talking point came to foray was the American pickleball’s most consistent player, Anna Leigh Waters’ shock defeat in the women’s doubles match.
St. Louis Shock’s women’s doubles pair of Anna Bright and Kate Fahey executed a tactical move against Waters and Jorja Johnson. The win not only ended Waters and Johnson’s 17-match winning streak in the MLP but also helped St. Louis clinches the Mid-Season title.
The result sparked a fierce debate across the pickleball community about whether the strategy was brilliant or simply lacking the spirit of pickleball.
For Bright and Fahey, the strategy was clear – keep Waters off the ball. The execution was never easy, given the vast repertoire of court craft Waters possesses. But Bright and Fahey, under those conditions, were successful in their tactical approach against one of MLP’s most consistent pairings.
Keep the ball away
What Bright – Waters’ women’s doubles partner on the PPA Tour – and Fahey did was stunning. With Bright using the cues from their doubles partnership, Waters’ attacking prowess faced a unique challenge.
Rather than engaging Waters in extended rallies, the St. Louis Shock pair repeatedly frustrated her by not playing the ball to her side. Instead, they kept Johnson busy by overloading her with the overwhelming majority of shots, with Waters mostly playing the role of a mere onlooker.
The numbers collected by Jim Ramsey, the lead statistician for PPA, from the match showed Waters’ movement in the match, and how precisely Bright and Fahey executed their strategy.
Excluding serves, returns and rallies ending on either shot, Waters got to play merely 20 percent of her team’s shots and just 16 percent of their third shots. She averaged 1.6 shots per rally, while Johnson averaged 6.4, clearly emphasizing the direction in which the ball moved. Waters did not touch the ball in 11 rallies and hit only one shot in 10 others.
At a timeout with the pair trailing 8-3-1, she had struck just 11 shots across 19 rallies. In the longest rally of the match – 77 shots at 6-10-2 – Waters played only nine of her team’s 38 shots as Johnson hit 19 consecutive balls. Across the match, Waters finished more shots than Johnson in only one rally.
Fahey spoke about their diligent planning for the women’s doubles match in the title clash. “We came out with a specific game plan and it started working,” Fahey said after the match. “To hit the ball to Anna Leigh is a little bit scary, so we tried to avoid that.”
However, it is one thing to make a specific plan and another to execute it on the court. Bright admitted that executing the plan required immense focus and commitment to stick to it. Technical execution alone is not always enough.
“It definitely requires discipline, patience. I think it also requires perhaps a lack of pride to an extent, just to kind of say, ‘We’re going to do this, and we’re going to commit to this game plan.’ It’s pretty obvious what we were doing, but it worked,” she said. “It worked on the day.”
Pickleball community divided
Their tactical ploy against Waters and Johnson, however, split the pickleball community, with many criticizing Bright and Fahey for keeping Waters off the ball while forcing Johnson to shoulder the overwhelming workload of handling shots from two players on the other side of the net. In that sense, Bright and Fahey breached the very ethos of women’s doubles. But everything is fair in a match as long as the rules are not broken.
Seasoned pro Zane Navratil rubbished the criticism, hailing Bright and Fahey for devising and executing such a brilliant tactic that left Waters largely ineffective in a women’s doubles match.
“The internet thinks that this is bush league. So, does a win like this even really count? Absolutely. And to say otherwise is just insane. A win is a win regardless of how you do it, as long as you play by the rules. And isolating Anna Leigh Waters like that is a skill in and of itself. If it was easy to do that, don’t you think every single team would do the exact same thing?” Navratil said on YouTube. “And Jorja Johnson is undeniably a top 5 women’s doubles player in the world, and they frustrated the hell out of her. Was it the world’s prettiest win? No. Do you think Anna Bright or Kate Fahey gives a crap? No.”
Veteran broadcaster Dave Fleming echoed that sentiment, describing the performance as “a strategic masterclass.”
“A strategic masterclass delivered the trophy to the St. Louis Shock at the Mid-Season Tournament. They isolate Anna Leigh Waters. They put dead dinks, meaning you can’t attack them, in front of Jorja Johnson, and they just stayed so disciplined to it,” Fleming said on Instagram. “They had to. They were patient. They didn’t want to engage in firefights because their hands are so good on the other side, and they just kept doing it over and over. They checked their egos at the door. Incredible performance by Anna Bright and Kate Fahey.”
Despite the terrific win, Navratil felt St. Louis had revealed his tactical hand too early. Six events are still to be played in the MLP regular season, and St. Louis are currently tied with the New Jersey 5s at the top of the standings.
“Did they actually play their cards too soon? Anna Leigh never loses twice in a row. They’re going to be ready for this strategy next time. And are Kate and Anna good enough to execute it again in crunch time?” he said. “The Mid-Season Tournament is huge for determining the No. 1 seed in the playoffs, but these two were going to be the No. 1 and No. 2 seed anyway. So, would it have been better for the Shock to unveil the strategy in the playoffs instead? It’ll be interesting to see.”
