Turkovic Chases Columbus Double as APP Open Reaches Championship Sunday

Domenika Turkovic has reached two finals at the APP Columbus Open, continuing a remarkable late-season run as Ronan Camron falls in men’s singles and Championship Sunday prepares to decide five professional titles.

Domenika Turkovic has spent the APP Columbus Open creating two very different routes towards the same destination.

In women’s singles, she has been forced to survive. Her semi-final against Amanda Policare stretched to three games and was decided by the narrowest possible margin, Turkovic eventually winning 13-11, 6-11, 12-10. In women’s doubles, alongside Glauka Carvajal Lane, her progress has been considerably more controlled, with the pair reaching Sunday’s final in straight games.

Together, those two runs have made Turkovic the central figure of Championship Sunday in Columbus, but they also continue a much broader trajectory. The 26-year-old Croatian won women’s singles at the Proflex English Open in August before taking silver at the APP Dillons Overland Park Open two weeks ago. Columbus now gives her two more opportunities to add to that progress.

This has hardly been a tournament controlled by its leading seeds. The top women’s doubles partnership is already gone. The No. 1 seed in men’s singles has been eliminated. The No. 2 men’s doubles seeds have fallen to a partnership seeded sixth. Even where the bracket has held, as it has in mixed doubles, both finalists were pushed through three-game semi-finals before reaching the title match.

Columbus has spent the weekend creating opportunities. Sunday will reveal who is capable of converting them.

Turkovic’s First Challenge Is Evanier

Turkovic’s pursuit of two titles begins in women’s singles, where her semi-final provided one of the tightest matches of the professional draws.

Amanda Policare pushed her immediately. Turkovic edged the opening game 13-11, Policare responded 11-6, and the deciding game again went beyond 11 before Turkovic finally closed it 12-10.

There is an important distinction between winning a close match and repeatedly having to win the decisive points within it. Turkovic did the latter twice against Policare, first to secure the opening game and then with the match itself on the line.

That matters entering a final against Jillian Evanier.

Evanier’s semi-final against Amanda Hendry followed a different pattern. She established immediate control with an 11-3 opening game, then handled a much closer second to win 12-10 and avoid a decider.

Her wider tournament has not been entirely comfortable. Earlier, Evanier dropped the middle game against Ashlyn Burkhalter before recovering decisively to win 11-3, 10-12, 11-1, and later beat Emily Schmidt 11-3, 11-6.

That leaves Sunday’s final with two players who have already shown different forms of resilience. Turkovic has survived the scoreboard tightening around her. Evanier has shown she can respond when a match temporarily moves away from her.

For Turkovic, however, the stakes extend beyond one trophy. Whatever happens against Evanier, she has another final still to play.

Turkovic’s Late-Season Rise Continues

Columbus is becoming particularly significant because it is not an isolated result.

Turkovic, from Zagreb, Croatia, has increasingly established herself on the APP stage during the second half of 2026. She defeated Roos Van Reek to win the women’s singles title at the Proflex English Open in August, then reached another singles final at Overland Park in September.

The APP subsequently included Turkovic among its latest group of professional player signings, describing her as a regular podium presence coming off her English Open victory.

Columbus therefore represents another step in a developing sequence. A player who was already reaching finals has now created the possibility of winning in two disciplines at the same tournament.

Lane and Turkovic Take Control of an Open Draw

The women’s doubles bracket changed dramatically when top seeds Amanda Hendry and Megan Fudge were eliminated.

No. 8 seeds Alex Butler and Allyce Quintanilla produced the upset, winning 12-10, 3-11, 11-9. It was exactly the sort of result that can alter a tournament, removing the favourites while creating an opening for everybody remaining in that half of the draw.

Lane and Turkovic made sure the opportunity became theirs.

After beating Harris and Simone Jardim 11-7, 11-1, they met Butler and Quintanilla in the semi-finals. The opening game remained tight, but Lane and Turkovic took it 12-10 and then accelerated away in the second, winning 11-3.

There is something significant in that sequence. Butler and Quintanilla had already proved capable of beating the tournament’s leading partnership. Lane and Turkovic did not merely inherit the space created by somebody else’s upset. They then beat the team responsible for it.

Their opponents on Sunday, Christie Maddox and Shelby Bates, have reached the final through a different type of tournament.

Close games have followed them. Maddox and Bates beat Reichert and Matthews 10-12, 11-9, 11-9 before their semi-final against Emily Schmidt and Jill Braverman produced another three-game contest. They won that one 11-9, 10-12, 11-8.

Carvajal-Lane and Turkovic have increasingly taken control as their matches have developed. Maddox and Bates have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to stay alive when matches refuse to settle.

For Turkovic, it is the second half of the double.

Dussault Removes No. 1 Seed Ronan Camron

If Turkovic represents the clearest multi-title story, Dussault has produced the result that most dramatically changed the men’s singles tournament.

Top seed Ronan Camron had looked secure in the previous round, beating Jay Devilliers 11-4, 11-4.

Dussault did not allow that control to continue.

The No. 4 seed won a tight opening game 12-10 before Camron responded 11-7. At that stage, the match could easily have moved back towards the favourite, but Dussault took the deciding game 11-7 and removed the highest-ranked player from the bracket.

That victory does two things. It gives Dussault a place in the final, but it also transfers the opportunity created by the upset onto him. Removing the favourite matters considerably more if the opening is then converted.

No. 2 seed Dusty Boyer will test exactly that.

Boyer has not reached Sunday by cruising through the draw. His semi-final against No. 6 seed Millet went the distance, with Boyer taking the opener 11-6, losing the second 11-7 and recovering to win the deciding game 11-7.

The final therefore gives Dussault a particularly revealing follow-up.

He has beaten No. 1. Now he has to beat No. 2.

Devilliers and Tomassi Have Earned Their Shot at No. 1

The men’s doubles final presents a similar challenge to the established order.

Top seeds Richard Livornese and Jack Munro are where the bracket expected them to be. Their opponents are not.

The No. 6 pairing of Jay Devilliers and Tomassi have earned their place by removing increasingly difficult opposition without dropping a game through the latter stages.

They beat Fu and DeHeart 11-5, 11-6, followed that with an 11-2, 11-6 victory over Palm and Camron, then faced No. 2 seeds Dawson and Blaszkewycz for a place in the final.

Again, there was no deciding game. Devilliers and Tomassi won 11-7, 11-6.

That progression prevents their run being dismissed as the consequence of an opened bracket. They have already beaten the No. 2 seeds themselves.

The final brings the ultimate escalation.

Livornese and Munro were ruthless at the start of their semi-final against Schenk and Duong, winning the opening game 11-0. Schenk and Duong made the second substantially more competitive, but the top seeds still closed it 11-9.

Livornese and Munro have defended their position at the top of the bracket. Devilliers and Tomassi have climbed through it.

One partnership is attempting to complete the expected result. The other is trying to prove that its run represents something more.

Mixed Doubles Holds to Seeding, but Not to Script

Mixed doubles is the exception to the broader Columbus pattern.

The top two seeds have survived.

No. 1 seeds Schenk and Megan Fudge will meet No. 2 seeds Jill Braverman and Jack Munro for the title, but neither partnership arrives having dominated its semi-final.

Schenk and Fudge were pushed to the limit by Christie Maddox and Lane. The challengers took the first game 13-11 before the top seeds responded 11-9. The deciding game became tighter still, with Schenk and Fudge eventually escaping 12-10.

Braverman and Munro also needed three. They edged Wheatley and Livornese 12-10 in the opener, lost the second 11-6 and then restored control to win the third 11-5.

The final may therefore have been predicted by the numbers beside the teams, but Saturday demonstrated how little separation there can be once the matches begin.

There is also an individual crossover. Munro will play two finals, partnering Braverman in mixed before joining Livornese in men’s doubles. Fudge, by contrast, enters the mixed final after her top-seeded women’s doubles partnership with Hendry was eliminated before the semi-finals.

For Munro, Sunday offers two routes to a title. For Fudge, mixed doubles provides the chance to make sure an earlier disappointment does not define her weekend.

Columbus Has Been a Tournament of Second Questions

The deeper pattern running through the weekend is not simply that favourites have lost. It is what has happened immediately afterwards.

Butler and Quintanilla knocked out the No. 1 women’s doubles seeds, then had to face Lane and Turkovic. Dussault removed the men’s singles No. 1 and now gets the No. 2. Devilliers and Tomassi eliminated the No. 2 men’s doubles partnership and have been rewarded with No. 1.

Turkovic survived one of the tightest singles matches of the weekend and now has to reset for a final before returning to chase another title in doubles.

That is the second question a tournament asks after every significant result: can you do it again?

The answer is often what separates a memorable match from a memorable tournament.

Turkovic Has the Biggest Opportunity

That is why Turkovic remains the natural centre of Championship Sunday.

There have been bigger individual upsets elsewhere in Columbus, and there are top seeds still protecting their positions, but nobody enters the final day with quite the same opportunity.

Her singles route has required patience under pressure. Her doubles partnership with Lane has increasingly imposed itself as the women’s draw has opened around them. One path has been difficult and narrow. The other has become progressively more convincing.

More importantly, this is no longer simply one good tournament. English Open gold was followed by Overland Park silver. Columbus has produced another singles final and a chance to win women’s doubles as well.

Two finals remain.

If Turkovic wins neither, Columbus will still represent another significant weekend in her progression. If she wins one, she leaves with another title. If she wins both, the entire tournament acquires a clear defining figure.

The APP Columbus Open has spent the weekend creating openings.

Turkovic has two of them.

Championship Sunday decides what she does with them.

Chris Beaumont

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine. Chris follows the global game closely, reporting on the latest news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball Podcast, interviewing people at…

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