Sunday in Las Vegas
On Sunday at the Rate Las Vegas Open, two teams walked onto the same court carrying two very different kinds of pressure.
On one side stood Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns, the most dominant mixed doubles team in the sport. Anna Leigh was one win away from her 200th career PPA Tour title.
On the other side stood Anna Bright and Hayden Patriquin. Chasing. Hungry. Still writing their story together.
Bright and Patriquin won, 11—9, 11—7. It was only their second win over Waters and Johns as a team and their third title together. With two titles that day, Anna Bright also became just the fourth player in history to earn 40 career PPA Tour titles.
Afterward, Anna said: “It’s really exciting to see a lot of the things that you’ve been working on translate into a big match. The satisfaction is definitely really high.”
So let me ask you, no matter your level:
What happens to your mental game when you’re on your way up?
And what happens when you’re at the top… and the cracks begin to show?
Two Kinds of Pressure: Chasing and Protecting
Every player I have ever coached lives in one of two places. You are either chasing something or you are protecting something.
Chasing pressure says: Prove it. You are the underdog. The scoreboard is an opportunity. There is freedom here, because you have less to lose. You swing a little more freely. You take the ball out of the air. You play.
Protecting pressure says: Keep it. Now there is a streak. A ranking. A reputation. A version of yourself that everyone expects to show up. The scoreboard stops being an opportunity and starts feeling like a threat.
Same court. Same ball. Same 11 points. Two completely different internal experiences.
And here is what I want you to notice. This is true at the pro level, and it is just as true at your local club. The 3.5 player climbing the ladder is chasing. The player who has won the club championship three years running is protecting. Both feel pressure. They feel different pressure.
The Climb: 0–6, Then Gold
Let’s look at the chase first.
Before this year’s Mesa Cup, Anna and Hayden had repeatedly come up short against Waters and Johns. Weeks earlier in Cape Coral, they held match point and watched it slip away in five games. Then in Mesa, they swept the top seeds 11–8, 11–9, 11–3.
Three weeks later, Waters and Johns won the rematch in Texas. And on Sunday in Las Vegas, Anna and Hayden won again.
That is what the climb actually looks like. It is a series of near-misses, breakthroughs, setbacks, and breakthroughs again. It zigzags.
So what do you do with a match point that slips away? You can treat it as proof that you’re not good enough. Or you can treat it as a data point. An invitation to discover what your brain does when the moment gets big.
When I worked with Anna, she was already one of the best players in the world. What she was building was the mental infrastructure underneath her game. Listen to her words again: “The things that you’ve been working on translate into a big match.” That is the whole point. Training that shows up when it counts.
That’s Mental Edge: The X Factor™.
When the Cracks Show
Now let’s look at the other side of the net.
I want to be clear. I don’t know what was happening inside Anna Leigh or Ben on Sunday. They are extraordinary champions, and one match tells us very little. What I do know is the pattern that shows up in anyone who has been at the top for a long time, at any level.
When you have been winning, something subtle can happen. Winning stops being something you do. It becomes something you are. And when a loss shows up, it no longer feels like a lost match. It can feel like a threat to who you are.
That is when the cracks may begin to show. And they can show up in the body before they show up on the scoreboard:
- The pace between points speeds up.
- The breath gets shallow and high in the chest.
- The tone with your partner sharpens.
- You start playing not to lose instead of playing to win.
The Inner Critic gets loud: You should be beating this team. Everyone is watching. Don’t let it slip. Now you are carrying the last 100 matches onto the court with you. Plus the milestone. Plus everyone’s expectations.
That is a heavy paddle to swing.
And for the climber? Winning brings its own version of this. The moment you beat the team at the top, you become the team everyone wants to beat. The chaser becomes the protector. The pressure Shifts to a new address.
Pressure Lives in Your Mind
As I shared in my last column, The Pressure Myth: What We’ve Been Getting Wrong, all pressure is perceived. It lives in our minds, then shows up in our bodies.
Think about it. The score was the same for all four players on Sunday: 11–9. 11–7. Same points, same court, same crowd.
What may have been different was the story each player was telling about those points. I’m chasing. I’m protecting. This is my chance. This is my milestone.
The pressure is real in your body. But the source is the meaning your brain attaches to the moment. And here is the good news. Meaning can be re-trained.
How you respond to perceived pressure is the key. Which brings us to the real question:
What kind of mental infrastructure supports you when the pressure arrives, whether you’re chasing or protecting?
The Infrastructure That Holds You
Intention + Infrastructure = Impact™
Every player on that court had the intention to win. The difference under pressure is the infrastructure underneath that intention. And here is something many players miss: the infrastructure that carried you up the mountain may need to be re-trained to keep you steady at the top.
Two tools do this work, moment by moment.
The 3 N’s: Notice It. Name It. Neutralize It.
- Notice It. Where are you feeling the pressure in your body right now? Tight shoulders? Fast breath? A grip that’s squeezing the paddle?
- Name It. Is this chasing pressure or protecting pressure? Simply naming it calms the alarm system in your brain.
- Neutralize It. Interrupt the Inner Critic’s story and return to your Inner Wisdom. Now you’re ready to Tame It.
ACR: Awareness. Choice. Reset.
This is your in-the-moment tool, between points, when it counts most.
- Awareness: What story am I telling about this point?
- Choice: Will I play to protect, or will I play this point?
- Reset: One breath. Feet on the ground. This point is the only one that matters.
For the climber, ACR keeps the freedom of the chase from tipping into desperation. For the champion, it lets go of the streak and brings you back to the ball in front of you.
These are moment-by-moment daily MindShifts. Small, repeatable, trained. That is how you Re-Train Your Brain™ so it works optimally for you.
Your Turn: Questions to Sit With
Let’s slow this down for a moment. Before your next match, ask yourself:
- Right now, am I chasing something or protecting something?
- When I’m winning, what am I afraid to lose?
- Where do I feel “protect” in my body? Where do I feel “play”?
- Who am I on the court when the streak ends?
There are no wrong answers. Every answer is a data point. And every struggle, on or off the court, is an invitation to discover who you really are beneath the stories you’ve been telling yourself.
Whether you’re climbing or standing at the top, the truth is the same. You don’t rise under pressure. You fall to your level of training.
So keep re-training your brain. One point. One breath. One MindShift at a time.
The X Factor is YOU.
About the Author: Dotti Berry, know as Coach B. spent more than 50 years coaching elite athletes and high-performing executives. She is the creator of Mental Edge: The X Factor™ Peak Performance System, built on her Re-Train Your Brain™ framework, and a certified Positive Intelligence© Coach.
Her past clients include Anna Bright, the #2 player in the world. She is the 2026 PPR Humanitarian Award recipient, founder of Pickleball Unites, and author of EMPOWER: Pickleball Stories that INspire.
