With so much action in the past few days happening around the game, off the court, on the internet and behind closed doors, Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters provided a sense of pickleball normalcy in Kansas City.
Because, from what we’ve seen for just about all of 2023, when these two step between the lines, they win.
That’s what happened at the Vulcan Kansas City Open as each took home another triple crown, including teaming up for a 10th victory this season together in mixed doubles.
“Even though there was, and is, so much going on in pickleball right now, I tried to stay focused during all of my matches at the task at hand,” Waters said. “There is only so much you can control, and matches are something you can control, so I focused on that.”
She definitely did. Meanwhile, despite dealing with, or trying to distance themselves from the drama of the day, both Johns and Waters were coming off of tournaments where they didn’t triple.
Both sat out last week’s Tournament of Champions in Utah and both were beaten at the Takeya Showcase the first week of August in California.
But that was then. So much has changed since. And Waters and Johns are back…
