Jorja's Streak
It appears that Jorja Johnson may be taking her double’s game to another level. This weekend was Jorja’s third straight gold medal performance in women’s doubles. She took gold in Alabama a few weeks ago with Bobbi Oshiro, taking down Lauren Stratman and Maggie Remynse in the gold medal match. Then last week, she and Vivienne David took first in a field that featured the teams of Anna Bright and Parris Todd and Simone Jardim and Andrea Koop (Watch Gold Medal Match). Finally, this week, Jorja partnered with Andrea Koop to take down Simone Jardim and Anna Bright in the gold medal match. It’s interesting because, heading into each of the weekends, you could have argued that Jorja was not favored to win gold in any of these tournaments yet she and her partner won each of the tournaments in pretty dominant fashion – noting the gold match at Hilton Head was very close.
It is very apparent that Jorja is becoming a dominant left side force in the women’s doubles game. She has as much power, if not more, than any other woman in the world, and has the hand speed to pair with that power, which makes her extremely dangerous in hand battles. Also, not coming from a big tennis background, some of her shots and style are not what you would call conventional, in particular her wristy two hand backhand. However, the somewhat unconventional nautre of her game seems to add deception to her shots, as players struggle to get a good read on them. When you pair her with a strong, consistent right side player, she is clearly a favorite to win pretty much any APP tournament at this point. Which is also an impressive statement, as that was the not the case earlier this year, so it also speaks to her continued development.
She still has some inconsistency issues, and probably misses a few more shots than you would want an elite player to, which is why at this point, her having a consistent partner to offset that, is so important. If she can clean up the consistency side though, and continue to work on the mental game, it would seem that at this point that the sky is pretty much the limit for Jorja Johnson. - NML Blog - 5 Takeaways – Jorja’s Streak
