Dancing with the Stars judges' leaderboard was topped by Jenkins and Ballas during Monday night's broadcast of the fourteenth season's tenth performance show and finals round, which featured the Top 3 finalists each performing two individual ballroom routines -- a judges' pick dance and a freestyle performance.
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The opera singer and her professional partner finished in first place on the judges' leaderboard after they received a perfect total score of 60 out of 60 possible points from Dancing with the Stars judges Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli during the live broadcast.
Jenkins and Ballas danced a paso doble for the judges' pick round, which required the celebrity and professional pairings to each perform a new routine to new music in a style the judges would like to see the stars improve upon. The couple received a perfect score of 30 points for their initial routine and followed it with their freestyle dance that earned 30 additional points.
Telenovela star William Levy and partner Cheryl Burke and NFL player Donald Driver and partner Peta Murgatroyd tied for second place on Monday night's leaderboard, trailing Jenkins and Ballas by only one point, with 59 total points.
Levy and Burke danced a cha cha routine which received 30 points and then performed a freestyle dance which earned them 29 points from the judges.
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In a similar boat, Driver and Murgatroyd first took to the stage and danced an Argentine tango that received 29 points and then returned to the dance floor and performed their freestyle routine which earned 30 additional points from the judges.
Last night's Dancing with the Stars episode featured the first part of the fourteenth season's special two-night finale in which each couple performed two routines. During tonight's season finale broadcast, each pairing will dance one more routine to complete the judges' scores -- which will count for half of each couple's total score.
Although home viewer votes will count for the other half of each celebrity and professional pairing's total score, America will not be able to cast their votes for tonight's final set of performances.
The judges' scoring and home viewer votes will then be combined to determine which couple will be crowned Dancing with the Stars' fourteenth-season champions.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski