Arizona
Federico Staksrud Topples The GOAT At The Carvana Arizona Grand Slam Professional Pickleball Association Event
Federico Staksrud gave #1 Ben Johns his first singles lack of the season. (Picture From Sept 2022 APP … [+]
Occasion #3 of the 2023 season of the Carvana Skilled Pickleball Affiliation (PPA) tour revisited a busy website for skilled pickleball; the Bell Financial institution Park in Mesa, Arizona. Bell Financial institution Park is an enormous sports activities facility that sprawls throughout greater than 300 acres, and has at least 41 pickleball courts to go along with a 2,000 seat pickleball stadium court docket. This was the identical website that hosted the MLP’s first occasion just a few weeks in the past, it’s internet hosting an APP Occasion later within the season, and it was the host of this previous weekend’s Carvana Arizona Grand Slam.
Let’s recap the motion, as a result of it was not “enterprise as common” on the PPA tour this previous weekend.
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Males’s Professional Singles Recap:
Regardless of the Grand Slam prize cash in Mesa, plenty of high 10 Males missed the occasion. #2 McGuffin stays out with a slight harm, however the attract Arizona was additionally lacking #5 J.W. Johnson, #7 Frazier, and #9 Hunter Johnson from the highest 10. This tremendously opened up the draw for some lower-ranked execs, and a few took benefit.
For the second match operating, Travis Rettenmaier upset two larger seeded gamers to advance to the quarters. He fell at that juncture to final week’s finalist #4 Federico Staksrud. #1 Ben Johns, in the hunt for his third straight Triple Crown to open the season, was pressed to a breaker twice en path to the semis, the place he met up with Staksrud in a rematch of Scottsdale’s last. He couldn’t prevail in a 3rd straight breaker, dropping his first singles match of the brand new season to Staksrud 12-10 within the third. Staksrud got here again from 3-8 down within the tiebreaker and saved a match level in opposition to to advance in a unbelievable comeback. No triple crown for Johns this weekend.
The underside half of the draw went extra chalk, although an early upset of #3 Ryan Sherry by the hands of #14 Gabriel Joseph opened the door for #6 James Ignatowich to advance to the semis. There he met the regular #2 French-man Jay Devilliers, who gave out three donuts en path to his semifinals look. Devilliers topped Ignatowich in a streaky tiebreaker to advance to the ultimate. Ignatowich salvaged his weekend with a walk-over bronze medal victory, when Johns no-showed.
Johns’ withdrawal out of the comfort bracket made for 9 complete forfeits out of the loser’s bracket on the weekend by Males’s singles execs, a really dangerous search for the PPA. We touched on this final weekend and posted at size on social media the explanations behind it (merely; the incentives to play a ton of loser’s bracket singles matches are simply not there), however the concern is changing into extra vital when your #1 participant bails on an opportunity at a Medal. Gamers and followers pay charges to look at the professionals play, and there’s a number of matches not being performed that followers are paying for. The PPA in all probability wants to handle this construction ahead of later, as a result of every week the optics develop worse.
Within the gold medal match … the gamers cut up the match’s first 4 factors, after which Staksrud rolled off 20 straight unanswered factors take the match in an unanticipated blowout 2,0. Staksrud saved Devilliers off-balance with staggered assaults, glorious ball management, and unwavering strain. Jay had no counter on the day.
Gold: Federico Staksrud. Silver: Jay Devilliers. Bronze: James Ignatowich
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Ladies’s Professional Singles Recap:
#7 Mary Brascia made the largest information on Singles Thursday, upsetting #2 Catherine Parenteau within the quarters and eliminating the silver medalist from Scottsdale early. In any other case the Ladies’s Singles draw went principally to seeds, with #1 Anna Leigh Waters topping #4 Salome Devidze in a single semi, and #3 Lea Jansen topping the upset minded Brascia within the different.
Devidze, the silver medalist final week on the APP, took out Brascia for the bronze medal 6,11. The loser’s bracket was taken by #23 Lacy Schneemann and noticed among the similar withdrawal points that the Males’s draw noticed (4 withdrawals by singles gamers within the fifth place bracket).
Within the gold medal match, the ultimate match of the occasion, Waters out baselined her MLP teammate Jansen to win with relative ease 5,5. Waters finishes off her eighth gold medal in 9 tries on the season and extends her lead on the high of the standings.
Gold: Anna Leigh Waters. Silver: Lea Jansen. Bronze: Salome Devidze
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Blended Professional Doubles Recap:7
Anna Brilliant did the doubles “double” this weekend. (Picture from 2022 Margaritaville Nationals by … [+]
Upsets had been the secret this weekend in Blended Professional. The dominant #1 seeded workforce of Johns & Waters was shockingly upset within the quarters by the brother-sister workforce of J.W. & Jorja Johnson in a tie-breaker (4),8,9. The Johnson duo didn’t let up and superior to the gold medal match. Within the semis, they topped the veteran pair of #5 seeds Wilson & David, who went on to take the bronze medal a few hours later.
The #2 seeds Wright & Kovalova (the silver medalists two weeks in the past) had been upended even earlier by the hands of the #18 seeded workforce of Bar & Megan Fudge. The occasion additionally noticed the 4th, sixth, and seventh seeds get upset sooner than anticipated, and the seeds of the 4 semi-finalists had been 3,5,8, and 18.
A part of the explanation for these early upsets is the truth that many of those decrease seeded groups are comprised of high abilities who simply shouldn’t have the rankings factors to be seeded larger. For instance, the seventh seeded workforce of Julian Arnold & Catherine Parenteau was upset by the twenty sixth seeded workforce within the first spherical, which seems like an enormous upset, however that twenty sixth seeded workforce was Zane Navratil & Jade Kawamoto. So, suffice it to say there’s loads of depth within the Blended doubles attracts proper now.
One high seed that managed to keep away from upset was the #3 workforce of Newman and Brilliant, the bronze medalists from two weeks in the past, who navigated the landmines of the underside half of the draw to advance to the gold medal match. Within the gold medal match, Anna Brilliant & Riley Newman got here from 2 video games to 1 right down to take a grueling 5-game match versus the Johnson siblings.
Gold: Brilliant/Newman Silver: Johnson/Johnson. Bronze: David/Wilson
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Males’s Professional Doubles
The cream is beginning to rise to the highest of the Males’s professional doubles sport, as exhibited on this weekend’s draw. The highest eight seeded groups all superior to the quarters, and even the sooner rounds noticed little in the best way of serious upsets. Only one upset-by-seed occurred within the quarter finals, with the #5 seeded workforce of A.J. Koller & Dekel Bar taking out #4 Tyler Loong & Callan Dawson 14-12 within the third.
The #1 seeded Johns brothers superior to the gold medal match from the highest half of the draw by topping the Koller & Bar in a breaker within the semis. From the underside half, #2 seeded Riley Newman & Matt Wright held serve to make the gold medal match with a dominant 3,6 win over #3 J.W. Johnson & Dylan Frazier. Johnson & Frazier took the bronze medal match for his or her second straight third place efficiency on tour.
Within the gold medal match, we’ve the third straight finals assembly between the 2 high seeded groups. The 2 groups traded sport wins backwards and forwards, and Wright/Newman squandered sport factors in sport 4 to increase the match to a decisive fifth sport earlier than the Johns brothers took the fourth sport and the match. Remaining rating: 7,(7),4,12. Three in a row for Ben and Collin Johns to start out the 2023 PPA season and the rostrum precisely matched the Desert Ridge podium from two weeks in the past.
Gold: Johns/Johns. Silver: Wright/Newman. Bronze: Johnson/Frazier.
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Ladies’s Professional Doubles Recap:
The jumbling of companions amongst the highest gamers on the Ladies’s Professional Doubles tour continues, however every match this season has yielded the identical winner. #1 Anna Leigh Waters took again Anna Brilliant as her companion in Mesa, the identical companion with whom she gained the season opener with in Rancho Mirage. They floor out a semi-finals win over #4 seeds Lea Jansen/Allyce Jones (the silver medalists in Scottsdale) to make the gold medal match from the highest half. Jansen & Jones salvaged a podium spot with a win within the bronze medal match.
Catherine Parenteau, who teamed with Waters to earn gold two weeks in the past, teamed up this week with the younger professional Jorja Johnson to type the #3 seeds, however they had been upset by #6 Jessie Irvine & Jackie Kawamoto in a breaker. Irvine & Kawamoto then blitzed the #2 seeds Lucy Kovalova/Callie Smith, the silver medalists within the season’s first occasion), to make the ultimate.
Within the gold medal match, the 2 groups cut up the primary two video games earlier than Waters & Brilliant went on a tear by giving completely different positional appears to be like and attacking balls, which appeared to flummox Irvine & Kawamoto. The #1 seeds cruised via video games three and 4 to win 7,(7),1,3 to take gold. It’s Waters’ third girls’s doubles gold medal in as many tries this season, and she or he’s taken Brilliant alongside for the trip twice.
Gold: Waters/Brilliant. Silver: Irvine/Kawamoto Bronze: Jansen/Jones
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Senior Professional Competitors Fast Recap
· Males’s Senior Professional Singles: #1 Mattias Johansson takes his third straight PPA Males’s senior singles title of 2023.
· Males’s Senior Professional Doubles: Dayne Gingrich continues to dominate the Males’s Senior professional doubles circuit on the PPA, profitable his third straight title. He teamed with Scott Crandall in Mesa for the gold Medal.
· Blended Senior Professional Doubles: Gingrich did the senior double, taking the Blended Senior professional doubles division with companion Kara Williams by outlasting 4 different groups in a spherical robin competitors.
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Subsequent up on the PPA Tour? In line with the PPA’s schedule, the subsequent occasion sees the tour transferring to Minnesota for the Indoor Nationwide championships in two weeks’ time.
Kris Mayes, the attorney general of Arizona, has vowed to fight the incoming Trump administration over key aspects of its immigration policy, including any attempt to set up deportation camps on Arizonan soil or remove thousands of migrant “dreamers” who came to the US as children.
In an interview with the Guardian, Mayes said that any move by Donald Trump in his second presidential term to unpick the rights of dreamers to remain and work in the US would be a “bright red line for me. I will not stand for an attempt to deport them, or undermine them.”
Arizona, a critical border state that will be on the frontline of the struggle over Trump’s plans for mass deportations, has more than 30,000 dreamers, undocumented migrants who entered the US unlawfully as children but who were afforded rights under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca). The program was introduced by Barack Obama in 2012 but has been under relentless attack by Republicans ever since.
“I definitely will be fighting on behalf of dreamers,” Mayes said. “These folks are firefighters, police officers, teachers – they are part of the very fabric of our state and we will protect them.”
Trump tried to scrap Daca protections during his first presidency and was only stopped by a narrow ruling from the US supreme court. He recently softened his position, telling NBC News that he wanted to find a way to allow dreamers to stay in the country, though his apparent U-turn has left many skeptical of his intentions.
The Daca program is already being challenged by Republican states in a lawsuit that is currently before the ultra-conservative fifth circuit court of appeals. The case is almost certain to reach the supreme court, which has a six-to-three supermajority of rightwing justices.
Despite the hurdles facing dreamers, Mayes said she remains optimistic.
“I think the supreme court will ultimately see the merits of protecting them. We want to give the courts the opportunity to make the right decision here, and we’ll be making very strong arguments on that proposition,” she said.
Arizona’s attorney general also had strong words about any attempt by Trump to construct detention camps in her state as part of his plans to mass-deport millions of undocumented immigrants. She said her army of lawyers were also primed to push back on any move to renew family separation, the policy under which thousands of children were taken away from their parents at the Mexican border as part of a “zero tolerance” strategy.
“If Trump tries to engage in family separation, or build mass deportation camps, I will do everything I can legally to fight that. That is not happening in Arizona, not on our soil,” she said.
Mayes added that family separation – which has left up to 1,000 families still rent apart six years later – was “fundamentally anathema to who Arizonans are”.
Mayes and her team have been preparing for months for the anticipated whirlwind of activity as soon as Trump re-enters the White House on 20 January. They have “scoured”, as she put it, Project 2025, the rightwing playbook for a Trump second term compiled by the Heritage Foundation.
She has also been working closely with other Democratic state attorneys general, noting that between them they filed more than 100 lawsuits during Trump’s first presidency, winning 80% of them.
“One of our strengths is that we are doing this very much together, we are united and we are organized,” Mayes said.
The importance of cross-state cooperation is likely to be all the more critical over border issues.
Mayes said that she was working with her Democratic counterparts Rob Bonta of California and Raúl Torrez of New Mexico – with only the Republican attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, taking a very different, anti-immigrant approach.
“Three of the four border states have attorneys general in Democratic hands and we are going to fight for due process and for individual rights,” she explained.
A complicating factor is Proposition 314, the ballot measure passed in Arizona in November with a resounding 63% of the vote. It allows state police to arrest any undocumented person who crosses into the US other than at legal ports of entry.
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Mayes said that the decision would not deter her from resisting Trump’s unconstitutional moves.
“Proposition 314 tells us that Arizonans are fed up with a dysfunctional border,” she said.
“We are facing a serious fentanyl crisis in our state, and there’s no doubt that Arizonans want our border addressed. But when Arizonans voted for Donald Trump they did not vote to shred the Arizona and US constitution – I strongly believe that.”
What was needed at the border was more federal resources to increase border patrol boots on the ground, boost the interception of fentanyl, and enhance prosecution of drug cartels. What was not needed, Mayes insisted, was Trump’s threatened plan to send in the national guard and even the US military to act as a souped-up deportation force.
“There’s nothing more unAmerican than using the military against Americans,” she said. “It’s clearly unconstitutional, and it’s not something Arizonans want to see.”
Since being elected to the position of Arizona’s top law enforcement officer in 2022, Mayes has established herself as a rising star in the Democratic party capable of negotiating the at times fraught politics of a border state. Her most high-profile act came in April when she indicted 18 people including Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former chief of staff Mark Meadows for participating in the 2020 “fake electors” conspiracy.
A similar prosecution of fake electors in Georgia was recently upended after an appeals court disqualified the Atlanta prosecutor in charge of the case, Fani Willis.
Mayes told the Guardian that despite Trump’s victory in November, she had no intention of dropping the fake electors case. “These indictments were handed down by a state grand jury, and you don’t do justice by popular vote. The case is in the courts now, and that’s where it’s going to stay until it’s over.”
Such a prominent prosecution could place her in the crosshairs of Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for director of the FBI. Should Patel be confirmed for the job by the US Senate, he has made it clear he will pursue revenge investigations against those deemed to be Trump’s enemies.
Mayes didn’t want to discuss Patel’s nomination. But she did say: “I’m not afraid of anyone. I’m going to do my job, uphold the law and protect Arizonans. I’m going to do it no matter who is at the helm of the FBI.”
Christmas arrived a day early for Keshad Johnson.
The Arizona Wildcats alum has secured a two-year contract with the Miami Heat after beginning the season on a two-way contract. Shams Charania of ESPN was first to report the contract conversion.
Johnson made two appearances for the Heat this month but otherwise has played with the organization’s G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce.
He averaged 21.2 points and 8.3 rebounds in the G League. Johnson helped lead the Skyforce to the G League Winter Showcase championship game over the weekend.
Johnson went undrafted after a standout redshirt senior season at Arizona where he averaged 11.5 points and 5.9 rebounds. Johnson played his first four collegiate seasons at San Diego State.
Johnson’s promotion to the Heat means he’ll be teaming up with Pelle Larsson. Miami is one of two NBA teams to feature a pair of Arizona players, joining the Indiana Pacers (Bennedict Mathurin and T.J. McConnell).
The last time two former Arizona teammates played together in the NBA was 2019-20, when Stanley Johnson and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson were on the Toronto Raptors.
Before that was the 2018-19 season, when Kadeem Allen and Allonzo Trier suited up for the Knicks.
Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill shared a front court with the Houston Rockets across parts of three seasons (2009-12).
MESA, AZ (AZFamily) — It was an exciting Christmas Eve morning for one Mesa girl who received an early (and furry) surprise from Santa and Mrs. Claus.
On Tuesday, Santa and Mrs. Claus teamed up with the Maricopa County Animal Care and Control to deliver adopted dogs to their new homes.
Santa and Mrs. Claus pulled up in a “sleigh” and took out a puppy wearing a cone. They then walked up to a decorated Mesa home, rang the doorbell and gave little Maya her early Christmas gift—a furry four-legged friend named Domino!
“He’s amazing, cute,” Maya said. “I just love holding him.”
Maya said Domino also loves her.
“He has an extra toe, and I think it’s a mistletoe,” she said.
What a sweet surprise from Santa and Mrs. Claus and the team at MCACC!
“It’s a great time to add another family member to join them under their Christmas tree this year,” said Kim Powell, Communications Supervisor for MCACC.
Powell said there are still 650 pets at the shelter looking for their “fur-ever” home. To learn more about adoptable pets at MCACC, click/tap here.
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