Sunday, November 11
Today was the final day of competition for the historic, record-setting Margaritaville USA Pickleball National Championships, and what a week it’s been. With just over 2,200 players from 46 states and 4,293 total matches, the tournament was the largest in the history of pickleball and will go down as a major turning point for the sport.
Sunday was singles day and featured brackets for Pro Men/Women and Sr. Pro Men/Women (5.0) as well as Boys/Girls Juniors. In addition to national championship bragging rights, the Pros and Sr. Pros were also competing for a piece of this year’s record-setting $75,000 cash purse. Pro Men’s national champion, Tyson McGuffin was set to defend his Men’s Singles National Championship, but the Pro Women’s division would crown a new championship this year as defending singles champion, Simone Jardim was a last minute withdraw following a grueling week of doubles and mixed doubles competition.
On the lady’s side, the Sr. Pro Women’s Singles final match up of Cammy MacGregor and Jennifer Dawson was simply incredible and had to be settled with a tie-breaker. MacGregor ultimately prevailed, taking the gold (11-6, 5-11, 7-11, 16-14). Clare Grabher, who lost to MacGregor earlier in the day, took home the bronze.
The match-up for the Pro Women’s Singles championship featured Lucy Kovalova against her doubles partner Irina Tereschenko. Heading into the day, both ladies were favorites as Tereschenko (silver) and Kovalova (bronze) had very strong showings during last year’s National Championships. The two women did not disappoint the crowd watch on the Margaritaville Championship Court or those watch on ESPN3. When it was over, Kovalova prevailed with hard fought, 3-game victory (11-4, 9-11, 11-8). Up and coming Pro Women’s player, Kaitlyn Christian also had a very solid showing today to take the bronze.
As for the men, Scott Moore continued his dominance of the Sr. Pro Singles division with a gold medal match victory over Scott Burr (11-0, 11-4). Glenn Lucey also looked very strong today to capture the bronze.
The final match of the tournament was the Pro Men’s Singles gold medal match between Tyson McGuffin and Tyler Loong. The final match was set up after Loong defeated bronze medal winner Ben Johns. Unfortunately for Johns, he had to battle through illness much of the day and ultimately Loong was able to hold him off and advance to the final where he gave defending champion McGuffin all he could handle. In the end, McGuffin prevailed (11-2, 3-11, 11-7) to successfully defend his 2017 title.
Click here to see all of the results from this year’s Margaritaville USA Pickleball National Championships.
ESPN3 On Demand Replays:
In case you missed any of the livestreamed coverage during this year’s event,
on-demand replays on ESPN3 are now available:
Thursday – 11/8/2018 – 4:00 PM-8:00 PM (ET) – Watch Replay
Friday – 11/9/2018 – 4:00 PM-8:00 PM (ET) – Watch Replay
Saturday – 11/10/2018 – 4:00 PM-8:00 PM (ET) – Watch Replay
Sunday – 11/11/2018 – 4:00 PM-8:00 PM (ET) – Watch Replay
