At 1 Main Street, Las Vegas. Hey everybody welcome to Las Vegas. Dave Benz, hanging out with Melissa Mccurley and Mark Renneson.
And guys we're excited to be here and be a part of this tournament as Pickleball continues to grow in yet another major tournament added to the schedule. - Oh absolutely, it's been a great week. We started with an amateur event the first part of the week and then are going on with the pros today. - Mark you've seen this sport really grow and to see a tournament like this with a large purse for the pros, it really is impressive. - What a thrill, this is one of the richest pickleball tournaments in the sport right now. To come to such a beautiful place in Las Vegas, here at the Plaza Hotel, it's a real treat for spectators and players. - Yeah the purse of $25,000 vaults it right to the top of pickleball tournaments that are being played around the country right now. Over 300 players, not just from the United States but four countries represented in this tournament here. We are excited to get the coverage under way. Let's play some pickleball here in Sin City! Don't go anywhere, live action coming your way next Casinoslots. Stop me if you've heard this before but it's gonna be Kyle Yates and Ben Johns against Callan Dawson and Tyler Loong. A match that we saw earlier today here in our live coverage and it was decidedly in favor of Yates and Johns. They won 11-4, 11-6 in straight sets They set Dawson and Loong to the opportunity bracket and they made the most of that opportunity, Melissa McCurley, because they fought their way back through the opportunity bracket and now they are playing for gold. - Yeah, this is an example, you know we did see these guys earlier today were Callan and Tyler did lose to Ben and Kyle, dropped down to the opportunity bracket and then fought their way back for the opportunity to still win the gold here on championship court at the Las Vegas open. And we are live and under way. -Yates and Johns in the near court. Loong and Dawson in the far court. Loong in the green colored shirt. And the point here to get things started, so an early 1-zero advantage. (coaches talking) - [Mark] So it's going to be interesting what we see here from Yates and Johns early on. Whether they use the power game. Initially we saw Kyle, in the match earlier today we saw Kyle hitting a lot of third-shot drives. Going hard early on in the match. Where as we saw Ben using more of the soft rollers as third-shot drops. So we're gonna see. I think it's fair to expect that from Loong and Dawson we're not going to see very many third-shot drives at all. - And this quartet earlier today, as you might expect with the men's doubles division, they produced the best point we've seen all tournament long. It was impressive. - [Melissa] It sure was, I know we didn't get a count but it felt like at least 50. - Yeah, I said 40 to 50, that ball just crossed the net continuously and in all different form and fashion. - And it's 3-1-1. - Loong and Dawson jumping out to the early advantage. Their largest lead in the first match earlier today was at 4-3 in game number two. So, this is uncharted waters for them against Yates and Johns today. - Yeah and- And this is what I was talking about a little bit earlier too how Ben Yates and Johns, right they won that match. They win then and sat waiting to see who was gonna come get to the final here while Tyler Loong and Callan Dawson continued to play in the opportunity bracket. So they've stayed warm and so it could be very interesting to see if that staying warm will give them an advantage here. - Yeah, you think with the heat it would be advantageous to sit and hydrate but sometimes you sit around and you don't stay fresh. - Right. Yeah, absolutely. - 4-1-2 now. - I don't know we've been so busy over here at the booth, I wonder how many of these players in between matches are hitting the pool. We're here on the fifth floor of The Plaza Hotel, has a beautiful pool right beside the pickleball courts. I'm petitioning for next year that we maybe move the booth over to the pool. (laughing) - I don't know that we'd have quite the vantage point that we have right now. - They got all kind of things over there. They've had live entertainment, there's a bar, there's food. There's some gambling tables, there's a hot tub. I mean it doesn't really get any better than right here on the roof of The Plaza Hotel for pickleball and whatever else you might want to do. - A vicious backhand there by Dawson. And that get's the serve back to Loong/Dawson, with the 4-1 advantage. - There's another point, wow. - Yeah, Loong was able to hold off on that and let it sail wide. - 5-1-1. Make it 6-1-1, and certainly not the start that Yates and Johns were expecting coming out here in the championship match. - No, no it's like they've not kind of woken up here yet. - Now Melissa, because this is a double elimination format, and we're probably getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, but should Loong and Dawson be able to win this first best two out of three, they would go to a tiebreaker, one game up to 15, win by two. - That's right, they sure would. So at that point both teams are considered to of had one loss and then that's why they'd play the tiebreaker. - This point is contending for point of the day. - Wow, what concentration there by Tyler Loong. Did you see that laser down the line? - Yeah, so I think one of the things that the players at home can take when they watch pros like this play, is they always expect their opponents to hit hard. They never expect a soft shot. And by doing that if the ball does come fast you're ready for it. And if it doesn't come fast, if it's slow, if it's a dink, whatever you're wrong but that means you have more time than you expected. So just watch how calm and composed these players are when you get into those bang-bang rally's or when the, what looks like will be dink ends up being a fastball at you. The players are expecting that and they're ready for it. - Guys, Steve Valzan Facebook chiming in wondering what they payout is for the gold medal men's winners. And I don't know the specific number, maybe you do Melissa, but I do know the total purse here at this Las Vegas Pickleball Open is $25,000. One of the richest tournaments currently being played.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
ArchivesCategories |