Court Report

Pickleball’s grassroots momentum got a campus-sized boost this week. The Paddle House, a proposed 24/7 indoor pickleball facility dreamed up by Binghamton University students, won first place in the 2026 Binghamton Business Plan Competition, the city announced May 27.

The win comes with a $7,000 cash prize plus a package of startup support: help with online marketing, legal and accounting services, a professional business association membership, and business signage. For a student venture, that combination of cash and hands-on services is often more valuable than the check itself.

Founding member Kai Chen framed the award as a launching point rather than a finish line. “It brings us one step closer to making the facility a reality,” Chen said. “We’re grateful for anyone who supports local entrepreneurs.”

The concept targets a real gap in Broome County: year-round, always-open court access in a region where winter weather routinely sidelines outdoor play. A 24/7 indoor model would let early risers, shift workers, and night owls all find court time — a flexibility most public facilities can’t match.

Binghamton Mayor Jared Kraham praised the pitch for what it could add locally, saying the facility “adds something, I think, really new to our local landscape,” and pointing to its potential to create jobs and community opportunities. Rounding out the competition, Thready or Not, a sustainable textiles workshop, took second, with AI detection startup Serva LLC in third.

Why it matters: while national headlines focus on $225 million investment rounds and pro league expansion, stories like this one show where pickleball’s growth is actually compounding — in college towns and mid-size cities where a handful of students can spot unmet demand and build something around it. The sport’s next wave of facilities won’t all come from chains and private equity. Some will come from a campus pitch competition.

Major League Pickleball wrapped its 2026 regular season opener over Memorial Day weekend at Pickler Universe in Dallas, and the team that walked out with the most chips on the table wasn’t the host.

The Los Angeles Mad Drops were the only team to finish group play undefeated. That earned them the Group B top seed heading into Super Monday’s crossover matches, and a win there locked in 25 standings points — the most any team can pull from a single event this year. It’s a real early statement from a Mad Drops roster that was a quarterfinal-and-out story for most of last season.

Group A played closer to script. The Dallas Flash, hosting on their own floor with the league’s promotional weight behind them, navigated a tight pool that included the Brooklyn Aces and a reloaded New Jersey 5s. The much-hyped Jorja Johnson revenge angle delivered ratings if not the win column the 5s wanted — New Jersey leaves Dallas with work to do.

A few quick takeaways before the league moves on to its next stop:

• The LT Pro 48 played fine. First MLP event using the new league ball, and outside of a few players adjusting on serves and resets, it wasn’t the story.
• Crossover format is doing its job. Splitting standings points between Sunday seeding and Super Monday means a single bad day doesn’t end your event — but it also means group winners can still pad their lead, which is what LA did.
• Defending champion Columbus Sliders looked human. A mid-pack finish in their group is not a panic moment in May, but it’s a reset on the “repeat” conversation.

Next up: the regular season rolls on through August, with the expanded three-week playoffs returning to Dallas August 6-9. Full standings update on the MLP site.

The Picklr is going international. The franchise — already in 31 U.S. states — announced a multi-unit development agreement with Saskatchewan Pickleball Clubs Ltd. that will bring its indoor club model to Saskatoon and Regina, the company’s first locations in Canada.

The Saskatoon site is already under construction at 830 43rd Street East, where a 31,000-square-foot industrial space is being converted into a 10-court complex with locker rooms, a community lounge, and full league and clinic programming. Doors are targeted to open later this year. Regina is next, with site selection underway and a temporary pop-up planned for the summer to keep momentum going while the permanent build is finalized.

Local ownership is led by Larry Owen, a longtime Saskatoon pickleball organizer who has spent years building leagues and growing the sport at the grassroots level in the province. That kind of local-operator-meets-national-franchise structure is the same playbook The Picklr has used to scale quickly in U.S. markets without losing the community feel that drives recurring memberships.

Why It Matters

Pickleball Canada says participation in the sport more than doubled in the country over the last three years, and Saskatchewan in particular has been a quietly strong market. Until now, growth has been almost entirely organic — community courts, converted gyms, municipal builds — without a dedicated franchise operator with national resources behind it.

The deal also signals where the next leg of the franchise-club boom is heading. Most of the build-out story over the last two years has been Sun Belt cities, where outdoor play is brutal in summer and indoor courts are a heat-relief play. The Saskatchewan move flips the seasonality argument: indoor pickleball as winter infrastructure, in a market where outdoor courts are unusable for five months a year. If the Saskatoon opening proves out the membership math, expect more Canadian announcements before the year is over.

Paddletek officially unveiled the Honeyfoam TKO-X on May 13, the brand’s first elongated foam-core paddle and a clear signal that the company most associated with honeycomb construction is now competing in earnest on foam.

What’s In It

The TKO-X uses Paddletek’s three-foam Honeyfoam Multi-foam Core — a low-density EPP center, an EVA wrap, and a perimeter foam ring — under a PT-700 unidirectional raw carbon fiber face. It ships in both 14mm and 16mm versions at $249.99, sitting just below the top of the premium tier. An elongated shape and Shock Arrestor edge guard target players who want power without the trampoline feel that has gotten some Gen 4 foam paddles into hot water.

The Approval Wrinkle

Worth knowing before you buy: the 14mm TKO-X is approved for UPA play (PPA Tour and MLP) but did not pass USA Pickleball’s PBCoR testing in March, so it is not legal at USAP-sanctioned amateur events. The 16mm version cleared both governing bodies. If your league or tournament runs under USAP rules, the 16mm is the safer pick.

Why It Matters

Paddletek’s first foam paddle, the limited-edition Reserve Honeyfoam, sold out almost immediately when it dropped in January. The TKO-X is the production follow-up, and it puts a legacy honeycomb brand directly across the table from foam-first competitors like Bread & Butter, Honolulu, and Vatic.

For recreational players, the bigger takeaway is that the foam-core era is no longer the future — it’s the present. If you’re shopping in 2026, almost every major brand now has a foam paddle in the lineup, and the question is less “should I try foam” and more “which approval list do I need to be on.”

The Picklr added another Texas pin to its map on May 16, opening a 14-court indoor facility in Live Oak, the suburb just off Loop 1604 on San Antonio’s northeast side. It’s the latest stop on a franchise expansion that has already pushed The Picklr into 31 states.

What’s On The Floor

Picklr Live Oak follows the chain’s now-familiar template: purpose-built indoor courts with cushioned outdoor-style surfaces, a pro shop, programming for open play, leagues, and clinics, and reservation slots for private bookings. Fourteen courts is on the larger end of the Picklr footprint and gives the location enough capacity to host UPA-sanctioned amateur events and travel league nights without choking off drop-in play.

San Antonio Catches Up

San Antonio has been one of the more under-served big-city markets for dedicated indoor pickleball, especially compared with Austin two hours up I-35. Most local play has happened on converted tennis courts, shared rec center gyms, or outdoor public complexes that get unusable when South Texas hits triple digits in July and August. The Live Oak opening gives the metro area a legitimate climate-controlled option just as summer heat rolls in.

The Broader Pattern

It also fits the trend we’ve been tracking all spring: dedicated indoor clubs are quietly becoming the default infrastructure for pickleball growth, especially in Sun Belt markets where outdoor play is seasonal in the wrong direction. Boulder is breaking ground on a 12-court public complex this month, Rocklin just approved a $2.9 million 16-court build at Sunset Whitney, and Santa Barbara cut the ribbon on its own indoor club earlier in May. The Picklr is simply the franchise version of a shift that is now showing up at the municipal level too.

The 2026 Major League Pickleball regular season starts Friday. The Dallas Flash will host all 11 teams at Pickler Universe over Memorial Day weekend, May 22-25, for the league’s first stop of the season.

The format splits the field into two groups for round-robin play across the first three days, with seeded crossover matches on Sunday determining event points. Group A features the Dallas Flash, New Jersey 5s, and Brooklyn Aces. Group B is the bigger bracket: Bay Area Breakers, Carolina Hogs, St. Louis Shock, Los Angeles Mad Drops, Texas Ranchers, and Utah Black Diamonds.

The storyline writes itself. After two trade windows and a chaotic keeper deadline, Jorja Johnson lands at New Jersey on an $800K deal — and her first event of the season is against Dallas, the team that let her walk. Whether that matchup falls in group play or the Sunday crossovers, it’s the headliner.

Beyond the revenge angle, Dallas opens a season under real pressure. The Flash are the 2024 league champions and the hosts of both the season opener and the playoff opener (August 6-9), which means the schedule is built around them performing on their own floor. New Jersey, Bay Area, and Brooklyn all reshaped their rosters in the offseason and arrive in Dallas with something to prove.

This is also the debut of the LT Pro 48 as MLP’s exclusive on-court ball — the first season in which both MLP and the Carvana PPA Tour use the same ball. Expect rallies to look and sound a little different than what fans remember from last year. Tickets are available through Tixr, with streaming details on the MLP site.

Selkirk has bought one of pickleball’s most beloved boutique paddle brands. The Idaho-based equipment giant announced on May 12 that it has acquired Bread & Butter Pickleball Company, the family-owned label behind the Loco, the Filth, and the Invader paddles. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2022 by the Sapusek family, Bread & Butter built a devoted following on a fun-first identity and unusually loud paddle designs — the Loco picked up “Paddle of the Year” nods in 2025 from multiple outlets. The brand’s blend of legitimate performance and meme-friendly marketing made it one of the few independents that consistently punched above its weight against the major manufacturers.

The press release is unusually specific about what will not change. Bread & Butter will keep its own website, marketing channels, and product strategy. The Sapuseks will continue to run creative, marketing, and product development. Selkirk’s contribution is operational: wholesale reach, international distribution, and back-end scale that a family-run shop simply can’t build overnight.

For players, the practical near-term effect is wider availability. Bread & Butter paddles have been notoriously hard to get during drops, with limited inventory and frequent sellouts. Selkirk’s distribution network should ease those bottlenecks and push the lineup into more brick-and-mortar shops.

The bigger picture is consolidation. Paddletek absorbed several brands in its post-merger reorganization, Joola continues to expand its roster, and now Selkirk has added arguably the hottest independent on the market. The era of paddle startups going it alone may be coming to a close — at least for the ones that get big enough to matter.

Major League Pickleball is building a feeder system. The league announced a partnership with Minor League Pickleball (MiLP) to run a series of Regional Showdowns inside select 2026 MLP event weekends, creating an amateur competition track that runs alongside the pro broadcasts and ends in a national championship.

The format is the part worth paying attention to. MiLP Regional Showdowns will be offered in two configurations: a four-player coed team event with two women and two men — directly mirroring the MLP roster format — and a three-player gendered team event. Both are designed to give recreational players the experience of competing on a team, on event-grade courts, in front of the same crowds that show up for the pros. Winners advance through the regional bracket toward a national title.

The bigger picture here is structural. Until now, the on-ramp from rec play to MLP-style team competition was basically empty: you could grind tournament singles and doubles, you could chase a DUPR rating, but there was no organized amateur version of the team format the pros play. MiLP fills that gap and gives the league a development pipeline it has been quietly missing.

It also gives MLP something useful on event weekends — a way to get hundreds of amateurs through the gates of every stop, paddles in hand, with skin in the game. That changes the energy of a venue in a way that pure spectating doesn’t, and it gives clubs and recreational organizers a national bracket to point their best teams toward.

For 4.0-and-up players who have been looking for something more structured than open-play and more accessible than the pro circuit, MiLP is the first organized answer. Expect registration details to roll out alongside each host MLP event over the coming weeks.

The fight over pay-to-play at Tucson’s Morris K. Udall Park is over, and the players won. On May 5 the Tucson City Council voted unanimously to rescind a Parks and Recreation proposal that would have charged $3.50 per player for every 90 minutes of court time, with an additional 25% to 50% surcharge for non-residents. The reversal came after weeks of organized opposition, packed council meetings, and a coordinated push from Tucson Area Pickleball (TAP).

Udall is one of the most heavily used pickleball venues in southern Arizona, with more than a dozen courts and a daily rotation of regulars who treat the place as a community hub. The proposed fees would have made it the only court complex in the city to charge per-session, and players argued that pickleballers were being singled out to plug a parks budget gap that other sports were not being asked to fill.

The deal that replaced the fees flips the maintenance arrangement: TAP will now oversee upkeep and future improvements at the courts instead of the city. Since the vote, roughly 30 new members have joined the group, and the organization plans to fund operations through a $25 annual donation model rather than per-session fees. About 80 players gathered at Udall on May 8 to celebrate the reversal — mid-game, on the courts, in a scene that probably tells you everything you need to know about how this community organizes.

For the rest of the country, the Tucson story is worth filing away. As parks departments wrestle with how to pay for booming pickleball demand, the volunteer-maintenance model is becoming a real alternative to user fees — provided there’s a local group willing to do the work.

Boulder, Colorado is finally getting a public pickleball home. After several years of pressure from a fast-growing local player base — and equally vocal pushback from tennis players over shared-court conversions — the city is breaking ground on a dedicated 12-court complex at Tom Watson Park near Boulder Reservoir.

The plans call for twelve lighted courts, three court shelters, and a network of walking paths connecting the facility to the rest of the park. Construction is expected to begin in late May or June, depending on final permitting and planning reviews, with a November target for opening play.

The project is the largest dedicated public pickleball build in the city’s history and reflects a broader trend playing out in parks departments across the country: cities that once let pickleball share painted lines on existing tennis courts are now committing capital to standalone facilities to ease the friction. Boulder’s tennis community had publicly objected to further shared-use conversions, and a dedicated complex is the compromise that keeps both sports separate and happy.

Lighting is the part that locals are watching most closely. With Colorado’s evening temperatures and limited daylight in the shoulder seasons, lit courts effectively double the usable hours of the facility — turning twelve courts into something that plays much larger.

For recreational players, it’s also a reminder that growing the sport is no longer about converting tennis courts; it’s about cities recognizing pickleball as a standalone amenity worth funding. Salt Lake City, Raleigh, and Murrieta have all announced similar dedicated builds in the past 12 months. Boulder is the latest, and likely not the last.

The 2026 PPA Tour season closed out at Life Time Rancho San Clemente over the weekend, and the brackets read like a coronation. Top seeds advanced almost everywhere they could, and the two names that have defined the past three seasons of professional pickleball took home the headline trophies.

In mixed doubles, Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns dispatched Federico Staksrud and Tina Pisnik 11-7, 11-2 in a final that, despite the brevity of the second game, lived up to its billing. The same pair has now owned mixed at virtually every major stop on the 2026 calendar.

Men’s doubles went to Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio, who did not drop a game all week and closed out Christian Alshon and Hayden Patriquin in four in the final. On the women’s side, Anna Bright and Anna Leigh Waters cruised past Parris Todd and Rachel Rohrabacher 11-7, 11-6, 11-2.

The singles finals were the only place where the storylines diverged. Federico Staksrud beat Chris Haworth in a tight semifinal swing before claiming the men’s title, while Kate Fahey didn’t lose a single game across the women’s draw — and famously pickled her good friend Brooke Buckner 11-0 in the final.

For the touring pros, there’s almost no time to exhale. The MLP regular season opens May 22-25 in Dallas, giving the field roughly ten days to recover, regroup with team rosters, and shift into league mode. For paddle sponsors and bracket trackers, San Clemente was as clean a confirmation of the current pecking order as the tour will see all year.

Hollywood and pickleball cross paths again on May 17, when the Television Academy Foundation hosts its second annual Emmys Pickleball Slam at the Calabasas Pickleball Club. Jason George (Grey’s Anatomy) and Phil Keoghan (The Amazing Race) return as cohosts for the doubles-format charity tournament, which runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The celebrity field is stacked. Wayne Brady, Nancy Cartwright, Da’Vinchi, Shawn Hatosy, Simone Kessell, Jonathan Mangum, Jessie Prez, and chef Jet Tila are all confirmed to play. Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard rounds out the lineup — a notable crossover for a fundraiser that raised more than $450,000 in its inaugural year alongside the Emmys Golf Classic.

Proceeds support the Television Academy Foundation’s education and workforce development programs, which fund scholarships and mentorship for emerging television professionals. The Foundation has used the event to anchor pickleball as a sister fundraiser to the long-running golf classic, and last year’s debut performance suggested the new addition could eventually surpass the older event in reach.

Tickets are open to the public. Single-player entry is $200, doubles teams are $350, and VIP spectator passes go for $100 with a gift bag. Single entries get paired into doubles teams at registration, so anyone with a paddle and a charitable streak can effectively buy their way onto a court next to Wayne Brady.

For pickleball, events like this matter beyond the leaderboard. Celebrity tournaments are a steady drip of mainstream visibility — the kind of coverage that lands in entertainment columns rather than sports pages. They normalize the sport for an audience that may not yet have a paddle hanging by the door, and they keep the cultural runway open as participation numbers continue to climb.

The 2026 PPA Tour season is rolling into its final weekend, with the Toys ‘R’ Us PPA Finals running May 4-10 at Life Time Rancho San Clemente in San Clemente, California. Pool play sessions occupied Wednesday through Friday, setting the bracket for semifinals on Saturday (9 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT) and championship matches Sunday (9 a.m. to 4 p.m. PT).

The event drew more than 1,500 amateur entries alongside the pro field, making it one of the largest stops of the season. Coverage airs across PickleballTV and Fox Sports platforms over the weekend.

Anna Leigh Waters arrives in San Clemente on a hot streak, having taken the women’s doubles in Atlanta last weekend with partner Anna Bright. On the men’s side, Chris Haworth claimed his first title since rising to the top of the men’s singles rankings, and he’ll be looking to defend that position against a deep field that includes Ben Johns, Gabe Tardio, Federico Staksrud, and Hayden Patriquin.

This year’s calendar marks a streamlined approach for the PPA. After consolidating tour stops earlier in the spring, the Finals serve as the season-ending showcase before MLP team play takes over the summer schedule. The MLP regular season opens May 22-25 in Dallas, giving pros barely two weeks between PPA’s final point and the start of league action.

For fans, the Finals are also a useful checkpoint heading into the back half of the year. Rankings shift, paddle deals get tested under pressure, and partnership chemistry on the women’s side gets one last look before MLP scrambles the lineups. With singles, doubles, and mixed all on the line in a single weekend, San Clemente is shaping up to be a busy three days for everyone keeping score.

The capital raise we previewed in late April has officially landed, and it’s bigger than the early reporting suggested. Pickleball Inc. — the parent company of the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball — closed a $225 million investment round on May 1, led by Apollo Global Management’s newly created Apollo Sports Capital fund alongside Tom Dundon’s Dundon Capital Partners. The deal values Pickleball Inc. at $750 million and brings total outside investment in the company to roughly $315 million.

Dundon, who already owns the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes and the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers and was an early backer of the sport, is doubling down rather than cashing out. Apollo Sports Capital is a brand new vehicle for the private-equity giant, and pickleball is one of its first major bets — a notable signal of where institutional sports money thinks growth is headed next.

Per the announcement, the new capital is earmarked for media expansion, event infrastructure, and acquiring additional pieces of the pickleball stack. Pickleball Central, the largest online retailer in the sport, and tournament-software assets are explicitly named as portfolio additions. That fits the vertically integrated platform thesis: own the league, the tour, the broadcast, the entry portal, and the gear funnel.

The numbers underneath the deal are worth pausing on. The MLP and PPA combined for roughly $30 million in sponsorship revenue and $60 million in total top-line revenue in 2025, with management projecting $74 million combined in 2026. USA Pickleball estimates 24 million American players. A $750 million valuation prices the upside of those participation numbers translating into media rights, ticket sales, and consumer spending over the next several years.

For recreational players, the immediate effect is invisible. The medium-term effect is that more of the apps, tournaments, broadcasts, and retailers you interact with are likely to share a parent company.

USA Pickleball and Pickleball Instruments have officially launched a field-testing program that puts professional-grade paddle verification into the amateur tournament tent. The rollout begins at the 2026 Golden Ticket event in Glendale, Arizona and will expand across the Golden Ticket calendar over the next two months before reaching clubs and other sanctioned venues.

Here’s how it works. Players bring any paddle they intend to use in competition to an on-site testing station. The check takes under five minutes per paddle and verifies compliance with USA Pickleball’s deflection, surface, and dimensional standards — not just whether the model appears on the approved list, but whether the specific paddle in your bag still meets spec. Each paddle that passes gets an RFID sticker. A companion mobile app, slated for broader release before this summer, lets players scan the sticker and pull up the test data, including how a given paddle’s readings drift over time.

The program is the most concrete answer yet to two problems that have been quietly eroding confidence in tournament play: paddles that pass at the factory but break in past the legal limit, and an emerging counterfeit market that piggybacks on popular approved models. Pickleball Instruments is positioning the framework as something that can eventually flag suspect paddles by cross-referencing manufacturers, factories of origin, and distributor records.

For Golden Ticket competitors, the practical change is small but meaningful. You can pre-test paddles during off hours to avoid lines on game day, and you can bring backups through the same process. Players caught using a non-tested or non-compliant paddle in a sanctioned match still face the 2026 rulebook’s forfeiture penalty, so the new program is best understood as the carrot that makes that stick more enforceable.

For everyone else, this is the first real preview of what equipment compliance is going to feel like at the local level a year or two from now.

Major League Pickleball has a new official ball. Life Time and MLP announced on April 29 that the LT Pro 48 will be the league’s exclusive on-court ball starting with MLP Dallas, May 22-25. The move makes it the only pickleball used across both of the sport’s two biggest pro properties, after the Carvana PPA Tour adopted the same ball last year.

The LT Pro 48 launched in 2024 and quickly became Life Time’s house ball at its athletic country clubs. It uses a 48-hole, precision-molded design with symmetrically spaced holes and chamfered edges meant to address two of the sport’s most persistent complaints: inconsistent flight and balls that crack within a few sessions in cold weather. Pro players have generally praised its bounce and durability since the PPA switched.

For MLP, the timing matters. The league is heading into a 2026 season that’s been retooled under new ownership, with team rosters reshuffled in back-to-back trade windows and a packed schedule that runs through the fall. Standardizing the ball with the PPA removes one of the small but real differences players had to adjust for when bouncing between formats — singles, doubles, and team play all on the same equipment.

For recreational players, the practical takeaway is simpler. If you’ve ever wanted to train with the exact ball the pros are using on television, you now only have to buy one. The LT Pro 48 is available at most major pickleball retailers and direct from Life Time, typically in the $30-40 per six-pack range.

Whether the ball lives up to its billing under the brighter lights of MLP — where rallies tend to be longer and matches more chaotic than PPA singles — will be one of the quieter storylines worth watching when Dallas opens the season three weeks from now.

Pro pickleball is about to get the reality-TV treatment. “Partners,” a six-part docuseries produced by Shutterstock Studios in association with Wavelength Productions, premieres May 5 on Prime Video, the Carvana PPA Tour’s YouTube channel, and PickleballTV.

The show follows more than 25 players, coaches, and executives across one full season of the Carvana PPA Tour, with cameras embedded everywhere from training sessions and locker rooms to the hotel bars where, as the press release puts it, players “train together, party together, date each other, and show up at the same hotel the morning after a loss, a breakup or a contract dispute.” Dan Bradley, who ran point on Netflix’s “Sprint,” serves as showrunner.

This is the first scripted-style sports docuseries the PPA has greenlit, and the multi-platform distribution is pointed. Prime Video gives it a mainstream audience that has never bought a paddle. PickleballTV covers the existing fan base. The PPA’s own YouTube channel — which has been steadily growing past the million-subscriber mark — handles the casual scrollers. It’s the kind of cross-platform play “Drive to Survive” used to make Formula 1 a household name in the United States, and the comparison isn’t subtle.

For the sport, this is a genuine inflection point. Pickleball has had no shortage of growth-stat headlines, but personality-driven storytelling has been the missing piece. Casual viewers know Anna Leigh Waters and maybe Ben Johns; they couldn’t pick Federico Staksrud or Catherine Parenteau out of a lineup. A reality series that turns 25 pros into actual characters could change that math fast — and likely accelerate the gap between players who can market themselves and those who can’t.

The trailer is already live on the PPA’s channels. The first episode drops Tuesday.

The Veolia Atlanta Pickleball Championships are underway at Life Time Peachtree Corners, where more than 1,700 players have descended on the 30-court complex for the final stop of the 2025–26 PPA season. Pro play runs through Sunday, May 3, with PickleballTV coverage starting at 10 a.m. Eastern most days.

The headline storyline on the men’s side: Ben Johns is not defending his Atlanta singles title. He’s still in the doubles draw with Gabriel Tardio — the pairing remains undefeated in calendar year 2026 and enters as the top seed — but the singles bracket is wide open. Chris Haworth comes in ranked No. 1 in the world, with Federico Staksrud seeded No. 2 after his Sacramento singles win last weekend. It’s a rare chance for someone other than Johns to walk away with a Slam-tier singles trophy.

Atlanta carries 2,000 ranking points, double what most regular tour stops offer, which makes the result outsized for the 2026 Race to the Finals standings. Expect a few mid-pack pros to play their hearts out this week — there’s real ladder movement available for anyone who can get hot through a progressive draw.

The pro side is using a one-round-per-bracket-per-day format, which means the early rounds bleed across multiple days rather than getting cleared out in a single afternoon. Saturday and Sunday are when the bracket compresses and the gold-medal matches land.

For recreational players, the bigger story is the venue itself. Life Time Peachtree Corners is one of the largest pickleball-tennis hybrid facilities in the country — 30 pickleball courts plus 18 tennis courts under one roof — and pro events there are increasingly being treated as templates for what a serious club build-out looks like in 2026.

USA Pickleball announced a national partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) this month, naming the governing body the official pickleball provider for the organization’s network of clubs. It’s one of the larger youth-access initiatives the sport has seen on the grassroots side, and the rollout numbers are concrete enough to take seriously.

The launch state is Arizona — fitting, given USA Pickleball’s headquarters in Surprise — where all 75 BGCA locations across the state will receive pickleball starter kits. That puts the equipment in front of more than 50,000 youth in the first wave alone. USA Pickleball is putting up an initial $100,000 to support implementation and has committed to installing one new pickleball court at a Boys & Girls Club location every year as part of the program.

The framing matters. Pickleball’s growth story has been heavily skewed toward adults — the average rec player still trends older than every other racket sport — and youth participation has lagged the overall numbers. A direct pipeline through BGCA’s existing footprint is one of the more efficient ways to fix that. Clubs already have facilities, supervision, and after-school programming structures in place. Adding pickleball to that mix is closer to a software update than a ground-up build.

For the long-term health of the sport, this is the kind of news that doesn’t move the needle this week but matters a lot in five years. The pros currently dominating the PPA Tour mostly came from tennis or junior racket programs. The next generation of American pickleball talent — the players who grew up with the sport rather than converting to it — is going to come from initiatives like this one.

Whether other states get the same scale of rollout will depend on how the Arizona pilot performs. USA Pickleball hasn’t announced a timeline for expansion beyond the initial launch.

A lawsuit filed this week has pulled former “Real Housewives of New York” personality Jill Zarin into a messy legal fight over one of the pickleball world’s more curious new products: the Go-No-Go, a device marketed to recreational players as a way to verify their paddles meet USA Pickleball’s equipment standards before a tournament.

Plaintiff Noah Springer claims he helped develop the Go-No-Go and is seeking an injunction against GNG Enterprises — connected to Zarin and her partner Gary Brody — to stop sales, along with damages. The legal specifics will play out in court, but the existence of a consumer paddle tester finding a market at all tells you a lot about where the sport is right now.

USA Pickleball’s 2026 rulebook tightened enforcement considerably. Tournament players caught using a non-approved paddle during a match now face immediate forfeiture, with only pre-match discoveries allowing a penalty-free swap. Surface alterations, decals, and anything that could juice spin are under sharper scrutiny. That has rattled a lot of recreational competitors who own paddles purchased before the latest approved-list updates, or who have gear that’s been “broken in” enough to drift out of spec.

That’s the niche Go-No-Go and devices like it are trying to fill — give players a way to self-check before they show up to a sanctioned event and get disqualified. Whether a simple go/no-go gauge can meaningfully replicate USAP’s lab-grade testing is debatable, but the demand is real.

For players, the practical takeaway is unchanged: if you’re competing in sanctioned events, confirm your paddle is on the current approved list at usapickleball.org before you pay the entry fee. The gadget market will sort itself out in court.

Seattle’s pickleball community is bracing for a critical moment tonight as the city’s Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners receives an official briefing on a draft Racquet Sports Strategy that could erase roughly 40 percent of the city’s public pickleball courts.

Under the proposal, Seattle Parks and Recreation would remove pickleball lines from many of the shared-use “dual” courts that were striped on top of existing tennis courts during the pandemic-era boom. The net effect: 92 pickleball courts reduced to 56, with seven neighborhoods losing 36 courts as soon as June. Tennis, by comparison, would retain 107 courts.

The city’s rationale is that dual courts create friction — competing demand, net confusion, and maintenance headaches — and that separating the two sports will produce better facilities for both. Pickleball players aren’t buying the timeline. The Seattle Metro Pickleball Association has launched a petition asking the city to pause the plan until new dedicated pickleball courts are actually built, arguing that removing lines in June without replacement capacity effectively displaces thousands of active players.

It’s a preview of a fight happening in dozens of cities. Dual-striping was the fast, cheap solution that let pickleball scale during the boom. Now that both sports are competing for the same concrete, parks departments are being forced to choose — and pickleball, despite its participation numbers, often doesn’t have the entrenched infrastructure or political muscle that tennis does.

Tonight’s 6 p.m. briefing downtown is informational, not a final vote, but it will set the tone for how aggressively the Racquet Sports Strategy moves forward. Expect a packed room.

The Fasenra Sacramento Open presented by Zimmer Biomet wrapped up Sunday at Life Time Arden, and one of the week’s most memorable storylines played out in mixed doubles. Eric Oncins and Tyra Black — competing together as PPA partners for the first time — outlasted the sibling duo of JW and Jorja Johnson in a five-game final to claim gold.

It was Oncins’ first PPA mixed doubles title and his first gold on American soil. For Black, it was her second mixed doubles title of the 2026 season, following her Indoor National Championships win with Christian Alshon earlier this year. Pairing up with a new partner mid-season and immediately walking away with a Slam-caliber result is exactly the kind of chemistry test that usually takes months to develop.

Women’s doubles delivered another breakthrough. Parris Todd and Rachel Rohrabacher secured their first title as a partnership, a result that reshuffles the conversation near the top of the women’s doubles ladder heading into the Atlanta stretch.

Sacramento is always a bit of an outlier on the calendar — a mid-tier event sandwiched between bigger Slams — but the parity on display was noteworthy. Several matchups that looked like routine seeding exercises on paper turned into three- and four-game grinders, with qualifiers pushing deeper into draws than expected.

The tour now turns its attention to the Veolia Atlanta Pickleball Championships, a Slam-tier event running April 27 through May 3 at Life Time Peachtree Corners. Winners in Atlanta will take home 2,000 ranking points — double the haul available at most regular tour stops — making it a pivotal weekend in the 2026 Race to the Finals standings.

The United Pickleball Association — the holding company behind the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball — is reportedly planning a capital raise of $150 million to $200 million, with a goal of building what sources describe as a vertically integrated pickleball platform. That means media rights, software, real estate, and league operations all under one roof.

The raise would value the combined entity somewhere near or above $800 million enterprise value, according to reporting from The Dink and Front Office Sports. Billionaire Tom Dundon, who already sits at the center of the UPA’s current structure, is positioned as the connective tissue linking the tour, the league, and a rumored merger with Pickleball Inc.

Why does this matter if you’re a recreational player who just wants to find a court on Saturday? Because the downstream effects reach further than the pro broadcast. A consolidated platform would likely influence paddle certification pathways, sanctioning and tournament software (DUPR is already in that conversation), court development deals with operators like Life Time and The Picklr, and the apps most of us use to find open play. Infrastructure decisions made at the top of the pyramid tend to shape what the bottom of the pyramid looks like a year or two later.

It’s also a notable tonal shift for the sport. For most of pickleball’s modern boom, the narrative has been about grassroots participation outpacing the institutions trying to catch up. A nine-figure private-equity-style rollup is a very different kind of growth story — one that looks more like the early days of MLS or F1 than a community rec league.

Terms, timing, and final structure are still reportedly in flux, and the raise is in its early stages. But if it closes anywhere near the rumored range, 2026 will be remembered as the year pro pickleball stopped being a collection of leagues and started being a company.

Andre Agassi is officially a pro pickleball player — with a win on the record to show for it.

The tennis Hall of Famer made his professional pickleball debut at the Franklin US Open Pickleball Championships in Naples on Wednesday, teaming with 18-year-old Anna Leigh Waters in the mixed pro division. One day after turning 55, Agassi and Waters took down a pair of teenagers 11-8, 9-11, 11-7 in the opening round before losing a tight Round of 16 match to Trang Huynh-McClain and Len Yang, 7-11, 11-4, 11-7.

A Milestone Cameo, Not a Career Change

Agassi has been circling pickleball for years as a JOOLA-sponsored ambassador, as the inaugural chair of Life Time’s pickleball and tennis board, and most recently as the face of the new World Series of Pickleball launching out of Las Vegas. But this is the first time he stepped into a sanctioned pro bracket.

He’s not pivoting careers. Agassi has been clear he doesn’t plan to chase the PPA Tour full-time. The US Open was a one-off — a chance to play alongside the greatest women’s player in the sport and see what pro pickleball actually feels like from inside the ropes.

Why It Matters

For the sport, Agassi on a pro scoreboard is exactly the kind of crossover moment that keeps pickleball in front of mainstream sports audiences. CBS Sports Network is broadcasting the US Open’s closing weekend, and Agassi-Waters clips will almost certainly outlast the Round of 16 result.

For Waters, it’s one more flex on an already unreal résumé — 173 PPA titles and counting, and now a pro debut partner who won eight Grand Slams. For Agassi, it’s a reminder that the pickleball-to-tennis crossover goes both directions now.

The paddle arms race just got another entrant. Honolulu Pickleball Company’s long-awaited Gen 4 lineup — the J6CR, J2CR, and J3CR — started shipping April 15 after pre-orders going back to last winter.

What’s Actually New

The headline tech is a patent-pending Core Reactor™ system paired with Control Joint Technology™, both wrapped around a Gen 4.5 multi-density foam core. That core is EPP (expanded polypropylene) in the center, interlaced with an EVA perimeter foam — a construction aimed at giving you plush feel in the middle of the face without losing pop near the edges. All three models use a CFC carbon fiber surface and all three are 16mm thick.

USA Pickleball approvals landed across the last four months: J6CR on December 11, 2025, J2CR on January 13, and J3CR on February 4. The Crystal Blue Endurance Surface variant of the J6CR — with crystal-infused grit for spin durability — is still pending UPA-A approval and ships in May.

The Price

All three paddles are priced at $195, putting Honolulu in the premium tier alongside Joola, Gearbox, and the post-merger Paddletek Group. That’s not a beginner price — but it’s also not the $250+ territory that some flagship paddles have drifted into.

Why It Matters

Honolulu has been one of the more interesting boutique brands of the last two years — the kind of shop that posts on paddle forums before it shows up at big-box retailers. With a full Gen 4 lineup now in hands, reviewers will start putting real numbers behind the Core Reactor claims.

For recreational players, the broader story is the same one we’ve been tracking all year: the sub-$200 premium category is getting crowded fast, and the gap between “boutique” and “pro-level” paddles is collapsing.

CityPickle is heading back to Central Park’s Wollman Rink for its fourth season, opening April 21 and running through early fall. The operation will once again transform the iconic skating venue into a 14-court pickleball destination — and this year, they’re adding a summer camp for kids.

What’s New

The biggest addition for 2026 is CityPickle’s first-ever summer camp, running July 27 through August 21 with half-day and full-day options. The program features expert coaching at an 8:1 camper-to-coach ratio, which is a solid setup for younger players looking to develop real skills rather than just whack a ball around. It’s also a sign that CityPickle sees long-term demand from families, not just the after-work crowd.

The Court Setup

The facility will offer 182 hours of pickleball play daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., with court rentals accommodating up to eight players per session. For players who don’t want to commit to a full rental, six court hours of Community Play are available daily at just $5 per person — serving roughly 336 players per week. Reservations open one week before opening day, with rolling seven-day-advance booking after that.

Why It Matters

When CityPickle first landed in Central Park in 2023, it was a novelty. Now it’s an institution. Turning one of the most famous public spaces in the world into a pickleball venue for four straight summers says something about where the sport sits in mainstream culture. The addition of youth programming is particularly notable — it suggests that CityPickle is evolving from a trendy pop-up into something more like permanent urban sports infrastructure, just without the permanent part. If you’re in New York this spring or summer, it remains one of the best places to play in the city.

India made a serious statement at the 2026 Franklin US Open Pickleball Championships in Naples, Florida, walking away with three gold medals in a performance that underscores the sport’s rapidly expanding global footprint.

The Wins

The standout was Arjun Singh, who pulled double duty and came away with two golds. In the Men’s Singles 5.0 bracket, Singh dispatched American Ashton Patterson in straight sets, 13-11, 11-6. He then teamed up with his older brother Aditya Singh to dominate the Under-18 Boys Doubles final, routing top-seeded Americans Ryder Brown and Soli Messiri 11-1, 11-5 in a match that was never really in doubt.

India’s third gold came from Dhiren Patel, who gutted out a three-set thriller in the 40+ Pro Men’s Singles final, winning 11-9, 3-11, 11-9 to claim the title.

How They Got There

The Indian contingent earned direct entry into the US Open through a partnership between the Indian Pickleball Association (IPA) and tournament organizers — a pipeline that’s starting to pay real dividends. India’s competitive pickleball scene has been building momentum since the IPA-sanctioned PWR 1000 Indian Open drew over 1,500 competitors from 19 countries earlier this month.

Why It Matters

The US Open is pickleball’s biggest stage, and international players winning gold there signals that the sport’s talent pool is genuinely globalizing. India, in particular, has emerged as one of the fastest-growing pickleball markets outside North America, with organized leagues, dedicated facilities, and now results at the highest amateur levels to show for it. For recreational players stateside, it’s a reminder that the next time you step on the court, your sport is truly worldwide.

College pickleball’s biggest weekend is officially here. The 2026 College Pickleball Tour Nationals kicked off today in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, with 64 schools descending on Life Time Peachtree Corners for a four-day, March Madness-style bracket tournament that runs through April 12.

Now in its fifth year, the event has grown from a niche gathering into a legitimate spectacle — and the stakes reflect it. Over $40,000 in prize money is up for grabs, with the first-bracket champion taking home $15,000. Second place earns $5,000, while third and fourth split $5,000 between them. A second bracket ($3,000 top prize), third bracket ($1,000), and a new singles tournament ($500 to the winner) round out the payout structure.

Who’s Favored?

Florida Atlantic enters as the team to beat, boasting the highest team DUPR rating at 21.937. That’s notable given that a separate FAU squad just captured the APP Collegiate Championship in Cape Coral last month. Utah Tech (21.641) is nipping at their heels, while defending champion Texas (20.161) will look to repeat despite a lower overall rating.

New Format Wrinkles

This year’s edition introduces several format changes designed to get more players on the court. A Thursday singles tournament opens the action, followed by a third-team bracket (up to 16 teams) running Friday and Saturday. A Challenger Bracket allows players to enter both mixed and gendered divisions, giving competitors more chances to play — and more paths to prize money.

Why It Matters

College pickleball is quickly becoming one of the sport’s most important pipelines. Events like this give young players competitive reps, visibility, and a taste of tournament culture before they ever step onto a pro court. With DUPR integration providing standardized ratings and the bracket expanding year over year, the CPT Nationals are starting to look like what the NCAA tournament is for basketball — the place where future stars announce themselves. Keep an eye on Peachtree Corners this weekend.

Pickleball’s global footprint just got a whole lot bigger. The Indian Open 2026, which wrapped up April 5 at Crosscourts in Hyderabad, became the first event in India to earn the IPA-sanctioned PWR 1000 designation — a milestone that signals the sport is moving from recreational curiosity to organized competitive infrastructure in one of the world’s largest markets.

The numbers tell the story: over 1,500 players from 19 countries competed across 56 categories for a $50,000 prize pool. Now in its fourth edition, the Indian Open — organized by Global Sports in partnership with the Indian Pickleball Association (IPA) — has attracted more than 4,000 total participants across its history.

What Does PWR 1000 Mean?

The PWR (Professional World Rankings) 1000 designation integrates the tournament into a unified international ranking system, meaning results from the Indian Open now carry weight on the global stage. For Indian players, this is huge — it means they no longer have to travel abroad to earn meaningful ranking points. For the sport’s governing bodies, it represents a model for how private tournament organizers and national associations can work together to legitimize the competitive ecosystem.

Why India Matters

India has emerged as one of pickleball’s fastest-growing markets, driven by a young population, an established racquet-sport culture (badminton and tennis are deeply rooted), and a growing middle class with access to indoor facilities. The IPA sanctioning lends the kind of institutional structure that can accelerate the sport from weekend hobby to genuine competitive pathway.

The Bigger Picture

This follows a trend of pickleball going increasingly international. Between the Pickleball Japan Federation events that made headlines earlier this year, growing interest in Southeast Asia, and now a flagship event in India drawing nearly 20 countries, the sport is no longer a North American story. Recreational players in the U.S. might not feel the impact directly, but a larger global player pool means more competition, more investment, and ultimately a higher ceiling for the sport overall.

The Picklr opened its newest indoor pickleball facility in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood on Saturday, converting the former Theo Chocolate factory at 124 N 35th St into a 27,000-square-foot pickleball hub. The location features 10 indoor courts — including one championship-size court — plus a pro shop and private event space.

The Details

The Fremont courts use pro-quality, outdoor-style surfacing, which should appeal to players who want their indoor game to translate to outdoor play without a jarring transition. The facility is open daily from 6 AM to 11 PM, and programming includes open play, leagues, clinics, and private court reservations.

The Picklr, which now operates locations in 31 states, has been on an aggressive expansion tear over the past two years. The franchise model has helped fill a gap in the market — purpose-built indoor facilities that offer consistent court quality and programming without the country club price tag.

Why Seattle Matters

There’s a nice bit of symmetry here. Pickleball was invented on Bainbridge Island in 1965, just a ferry ride from Seattle, making Washington state the sport’s literal birthplace. The Fremont opening adds to a growing cluster of dedicated pickleball facilities in the Seattle metro area, which has seen several new clubs and court complexes open in the past year alone.

The Bigger Picture

The Picklr’s continued expansion is part of a broader trend we’ve been tracking: the shift from repurposed gymnasiums and shared tennis courts to dedicated, amenity-rich pickleball facilities. For recreational players in the Pacific Northwest, more indoor courts mean fewer weather-related cancellations and more consistent play year-round — which, in a region famous for its rain, is no small thing.

The Franklin US Open Pickleball Championships is back in Naples, Florida from April 11-18, and this year’s edition comes with a milestone: the tournament turns 10. What started as a scrappy upstart event at East Naples Community Park has grown into the largest and most prestigious pickleball tournament on the planet — and the 2026 version is shaping up to match the occasion.

By the Numbers

Last year’s US Open drew more than 55,000 spectators and 3,400 players from all 50 states and 40 countries. The USOP National Pickleball Center will host play across roughly 60 courts surrounding the Zing Zang Championship Court, with the full festival atmosphere — vendor tents, food trucks, sponsor activations, and live entertainment — transforming the park into a weeklong pickleball campus.

What’s on the Line

The pro draw features the biggest names in the sport, including world No. 1 Anna Leigh Waters, who’ll be looking to add to an already absurd trophy collection. But the US Open has always been about more than the pros. The tournament’s amateur brackets are what give the event its unique energy — thousands of recreational and competitive players getting to compete on the same grounds, in the same atmosphere, as the sport’s elite.

How to Watch (and What It Costs)

Here’s the best part for casual fans: you can watch pro and amateur matches on 59 courts for free. Parking runs $10/day or $60 for a weekly pass. Tickets are only required for the Zing Zang Championship Court, where the marquee pro matches go down.

Why It Matters

Ten years ago, a pickleball tournament drawing 55,000 spectators would have sounded delusional. Now it’s just April in Naples. The US Open’s growth mirrors the sport’s trajectory — and for recreational players, it remains the best opportunity to experience top-level pickleball in person without a massive price tag. If you’re anywhere near Southwest Florida next week, it’s worth the trip.

The New York metro area just got a major upgrade on the pickleball front. PickleRage opened its doors on March 26 at 173 Huguenot Street in New Rochelle, debuting a 42,000-square-foot indoor facility that immediately becomes the largest dedicated pickleball complex in Westchester County.

What’s Inside

The facility features 13 regulation-size courts with CushionX surfaces — a joint-friendly flooring system that’s becoming the standard at higher-end pickleball clubs. Beyond the courts, PickleRage includes smart court technology with video recording and livestreaming capabilities, advanced LED lighting, locker rooms with showers, three Full Swing golf simulators, a pro shop, and a players’ lounge.

Programming is led by certified instructor Geoffrey Jagdfeld, who brings more than 30 years of racquet sports coaching experience. The club offers leagues, tournaments, clinics, open play, and private lessons across all skill levels.

Why It Matters

New Rochelle is PickleRage’s first New York location, and it fits a pattern we’ve been tracking all year: purpose-built pickleball facilities are getting bigger, more polished, and more amenity-rich. The days of repurposed tennis courts and community center gymnasiums aren’t over, but they’re increasingly sharing the market with clubs that treat pickleball as a premium experience.

Founding memberships are currently available at reduced rates, with a grand opening celebration planned for early April. If you’re in the lower Westchester area and tired of waiting for outdoor court time, this one’s worth a look.

Championship Sunday at Black Desert Resort delivered — and then some. Anna Leigh Waters captured her latest PPA Triple Crown, Christopher Haworth seized the world No. 1 men’s singles ranking, and the Ben Johns/Gabriel Tardio doubles partnership continued to look unbeatable.

The Results

Men’s Singles: Christopher Haworth defeated Federico Staksrud 11-9, 11-5 to claim his first No. 1 overall ranking. Six months ago, Haworth was seeded 57th. Now he sits atop the men’s singles standings — one of the most dramatic climbs the sport has seen.

Women’s Singles: Anna Leigh Waters beat Kate Fahey 8-11, 11-3, 11-2. Fahey took the opening game, but Waters flipped a switch and ran away with the match from there. The win extends a singles streak that’s become less of a streak and more of a geological era.

Men’s Doubles: Ben Johns and Gabriel Tardio outlasted Hayden Patriquin and Christian Alshon in a five-game battle, 13-11, 3-11, 3-11, 11-2, 11-7. Down two games to one, Johns and Tardio responded with a dominant final two games that showed why this partnership is the one everyone else is chasing.

Women’s Doubles: Anna Bright and Anna Leigh Waters steamrolled Parris Todd and Kate Fahey 11-3, 11-3, 11-0. The scoreline speaks for itself.

Mixed Doubles: Waters and Johns closed out the weekend with an 11-5, 11-0, 15-13 win over Anna Bright and Hayden Patriquin. The third game was the only real drama, but the result never felt in doubt.

What It Means

Haworth’s rise is the story of the 2026 PPA season so far. The former tennis prodigy has gone from virtual unknown to the top of the rankings in under a year — exactly the kind of talent pipeline the sport needs as it continues to grow.

For Waters, it’s business as usual. Another tournament, another Triple Crown. At this point, the conversation isn’t whether she’s the best women’s player in pickleball — it’s whether anyone can even make it interesting.

There’s something fitting about professional pickleball returning to Washington state — the place where the whole sport started on Bainbridge Island back in 1965. The APP Tour’s 2026 AARP Open kicks off today at Sideout Tsunami Pickleball Center in Seattle, running through Sunday, March 29.

What to Expect

The tournament features the full spectrum of competitive play, from 3.0 amateurs all the way up to the APP Tour’s top professionals. But the AARP Open has always been about more than just the pro brackets — it’s built around the idea that pickleball is a sport for every generation, and this year’s event leans into that harder than ever.

AARP Champions and AARP Masters divisions will run alongside the pro draw, giving senior players their own competitive spotlight. It’s the kind of intergenerational format that sets pickleball apart from virtually every other racquet sport.

Fan Experience

If you’re in the Seattle area, general admission and VIP tickets include access to on-court activities led by APP Ambassadors from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day — a nice touch for anyone who wants to hit a few dinks between watching the pros do their thing.

Why It Matters

The APP Tour continues to carve out its own identity alongside the PPA, and events like the AARP Open are a big part of that strategy. While the PPA leans into its marquee pros and resort-venue aesthetics, the APP’s partnership with AARP taps into the recreational player base that actually drives pickleball’s growth numbers. With participation still climbing year over year and the 50-plus demographic representing one of the sport’s fastest-growing segments, this kind of event makes both competitive and business sense.

Catch the action streaming on the APP’s channels through Sunday.

The PPA Greater Zion Cup is rolling through its second half this week at Black Desert Resort in Ivins, Utah, and there’s no shortage of storylines heading into Championship Sunday on March 29.

Early Results and Bracket Watch

Hunter Johnson turned heads in men’s singles with a three-game thriller over Federico Staksrud in the finals — a statement win that continues Johnson’s surge up the PPA rankings this season. In men’s doubles, Ben Johns teamed with Gabe Tardio to take the title, knocking off Christian Alshon and Hayden Patriquin in four games.

The mixed doubles bracket is shaping up as the marquee event of the weekend, with Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns, Jorja and JW Johnson, Anna Bright and Hayden Patriquin, and Rachel Rohrabacher and Christian Alshon all advancing to the semifinals.

Women’s Singles: Can Anyone Stop ALW?

Anna Leigh Waters enters the women’s singles draw riding a nearly two-year win streak in the discipline — a run so dominant it’s hard to even call it a streak anymore. Brooke Buckner, Kate Fahey, and Kaitlyn Christian are the names to watch as potential challengers, but unseating Waters in singles remains one of the hardest tasks in professional pickleball.

The Venue

Black Desert Resort, nestled in southern Utah’s red rock landscape, is quickly becoming one of the tour’s most scenic stops. The resort-style setting offers a refreshing change from the convention-center vibes of some PPA events, and the outdoor courts have delivered excellent conditions so far.

Championship Sunday broadcasts air March 29 on PickleballTV. If you’re looking for a reason to park yourself on the couch this weekend, this is it.

Metro Detroit just got a whole lot dinkier. Greystone Pickleball Club officially opened its doors in Auburn Hills, Michigan on March 14, unveiling a 60,000-square-foot facility that immediately becomes the state’s premier indoor pickleball destination.

The Details

The club features 17 indoor courts, including a championship court with seating for over 300 spectators — designed to host sanctioned tournaments and league play. The facility also includes a full kitchen, bar, lounge areas, and pro shop, positioning it as more than just a place to play. It’s a full social hub built entirely around pickleball.

Greystone joins a growing wave of purpose-built pickleball complexes popping up across the country. The PICKLR franchise is opening a location in Santa Barbara (converting a former Bed Bath & Beyond, naturally), and the New York Pickleball Club is targeting a spring opening in New City with nine cushioned courts and 22-foot ceilings.

What This Means for the Sport

The opening of dedicated, large-scale pickleball facilities like Greystone is one of the clearest signs that the sport’s growth isn’t slowing down. For years, players have been squeezing onto converted tennis courts and fighting for gym time. Purpose-built clubs with proper lighting, surfaces, and social spaces represent a maturation of the pickleball infrastructure — and they’re popping up in markets well beyond the Sun Belt.

For Michigan players who’ve been braving outdoor courts in questionable weather or waiting for court time at multipurpose rec centers, Greystone is a game-changer. Seventeen courts under one roof means more play, less waiting, and a reason to keep dinking year-round.

The Pickleball Slam is back for round four, and this year’s matchup might be the most intriguing yet. On April 15, tennis legends Andre Agassi and James Blake will square off against Anna Leigh Waters and Genie Bouchard in a mixed-gender doubles exhibition at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida — with $1 million on the line and the whole thing airing live on ESPN.

What’s Different This Time

Previous Slams have largely been tennis-vs.-tennis affairs, but the 2026 edition flips the script by pitting two of the sport’s crossover icons against two players who represent different sides of pickleball’s growing appeal. Waters, the undisputed queen of pro pickleball with 42 career PPA Triple Crowns, teams up with Bouchard, the former tennis star who’s become a legit force since joining Major League Pickleball’s LA Mad Drops.

On the other side, Agassi — a Pickleball Slam veteran at this point — partners with Blake, whose athleticism and hand speed have translated well to the smaller court.

Why It Matters

Love it or roll your eyes at it, the Pickleball Slam has become one of the sport’s biggest mainstream visibility events. Last year’s edition drew strong ESPN ratings and introduced pickleball to audiences who might never tune into a PPA broadcast. The mixed-gender format this time around feels like a smart evolution — it showcases the sport’s accessibility while raising the competitive intrigue.

For recreational players, the Slam is a reminder that pickleball continues to attract serious star power and serious money. ESPN’s commitment to broadcasting the event in primetime signals that networks still see the sport as a ratings draw, which bodes well for everything from MLP broadcast deals to local facility investment.

Mark your calendars: April 15, Hard Rock Live, ESPN. Paddles up.

If you needed more proof that pickleball is a genuinely global sport now, look no further than Ho Chi Minh City this week. The Pickleball D-Joy Tour 2026 — Leg 1, presented by Petrolimex, runs March 19–22 at the D-Joy South Saigon Complex and features a field that would be competitive at any tournament in the world.

Who’s Playing

The confirmed entry list reads like a greatest-hits collection of international pickleball talent: Kyle Yates, Sofia Sewing, Casey Diamond, Ryler DeHeart, Megan Fudge, and Jack Munro are among the pros making the trip. They’ll be joined by rising stars from India, Vietnam, and across Southeast Asia, including local favorites Quang Duong and Trinh Linh Giang.

Sewing is coming in hot after a Triple Crown performance at the APP Tour’s Kuala Lumpur stop — the first-ever Asian event on that circuit — which drew 1,760 players from 28 countries.

Why It Matters

This isn’t just an exhibition. The D-Joy Tour awards Global Pickleball Alliance (GPA) world ranking points and DRP rankings credit, meaning results here carry real weight on the international stage. The prize pool totals nearly 3 billion VND (roughly $120,000 USD), and Yates has even launched an academy in partnership with the D-Joy organization to develop local talent.

Vietnam’s pickleball scene has exploded over the past two years, building on a breakout 2025 Masters event that put the country on the competitive map. The government and corporate sponsors — Petrolimex is one of Vietnam’s largest state-owned enterprises — are investing heavily in facilities and events.

The Bigger Picture

Between the APP Tour’s expansion into Asia, the D-Joy Tour’s growing prestige, and the sport’s Olympic ambitions, international pickleball is entering a new phase. For American players and fans, it’s worth paying attention — the next wave of elite competition might not come from Texas or Florida, but from Ho Chi Minh City or Kuala Lumpur.

The PPA Veolia Texas Open wrapped up in McKinney over the weekend, and if you’re keeping count — and ALW definitely is — Anna Leigh Waters just picked up career Triple Crown No. 42.

Wind Was the Story

Mother Nature nearly stole the show. Gusting winds turned the outdoor courts at The Courts of McKinney into a chaotic proving ground, with players scrambling to adjust shot selection and dealing with unpredictable ball flight all weekend. It didn’t change the final outcomes much, but it made for some wild rallies and a few bracket upsets along the way.

Singles: Jansen and Johns Weather the Storm

Lea Jansen took women’s singles gold with a gutsy comeback against Salome Devidze, dropping the first game 9–11 before rattling off two convincing wins (11–7, 11–2) to claim the title. On the men’s side, Ben Johns did what Ben Johns does — lose the first game 2–11 to Chris Haworth, then flip the switch and close it out 11–3, 11–9.

Doubles: Dominant Performances

Waters and Catherine Parenteau were surgical in women’s doubles, dispatching Smith and Kovalova 11–3, 11–3, 11–4 in a match that never felt close. In men’s doubles, Dylan Frazier and JW Johnson took the title over Wright and Bar with a 9–11, 11–3, 11–5, 11–4 scoreline — dropping one tight game before pulling away decisively.

Waters and Johns paired up in mixed doubles to beat the Johnson siblings 11–2, 11–7, 11–9, completing Waters’ Triple Crown and giving Johns titles in two divisions.

What It Means

The Texas Open reinforced what we already suspected: the top of the PPA Tour is as stacked as it’s ever been, but the very best — Waters, Johns, Jansen — keep finding ways to win even when conditions conspire against them. For recreational players watching at home, the takeaway is simple: if the pros can dink in 30 mph gusts, you can handle a little breeze at your local courts.

College pickleball has a new powerhouse. Florida Atlantic University swept through the 2026 APP Selkirk U.S. Collegiate Championships in Cape Coral, Florida, claiming the team title over Utah Tech and stacking up individual hardware in the process.

The March 6–8 event brought 40 of the nation’s top college pickleball programs together for team and individual competition, and FAU left little doubt about who the best program in the country is right now.

FAU’s Alec LaMacchio Leads the Charge

Freshman standout Alec LaMacchio was the story of the tournament. He took the men’s singles crown with a 15-11, 11-15, 15-7 win over teammate Jayden Broderick in an all-FAU final, then teamed up with Broderick to win men’s doubles in a comeback thriller against Texas’s Jack Munro and Eli Trumeter, 4-11, 11-7, 11-9.

Florida State’s Tate Keber grabbed the women’s singles title with a dominant 15-9, 15-4 performance over Utah Tech’s Lauren Mercado, while Utah Tech’s Mary Monson and Liam Duffin took mixed doubles convincingly, 15-2.

Why This Matters

The collegiate pickleball scene has exploded over the past two years, and results like these are starting to matter for the pro pipeline. Players like Munro — who’s already registered for the D-Joy Tour in Vietnam later this month — are proving that the college-to-pro pathway is real and accelerating.

With USA Pickleball’s collegiate division continuing to expand and DUPR ratings now integrated into college play, expect the talent level at these events to keep climbing. FAU just set the bar for everyone else.

The PPA Tour rolled into The Courts of McKinney this week for the Veolia Texas Open, and the early rounds have already produced some storylines worth watching.

Over 1,100 pro and amateur players are competing at the March 9–15 event, one of the biggest PPA stops of the spring swing. The progressive draw format — one round per bracket per day — has kept the action spread across the week, with championship Sunday still ahead.

Haworth Takes Men’s Singles

The biggest headline so far: Chris Haworth captured men’s singles gold, defeating Christian Alshon in the final. Haworth worked his way through a stacked semifinal bracket that included Federico Staksrud and Matthew Finnerty, and his title run marks a significant moment in what’s been a steady climb up the PPA rankings.

Men’s Doubles: Johns and Tardio Roll

In men’s doubles, the top-seeded pairing of Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio lived up to their billing, taking down the No. 2 seeds Christian Alshon and Hayden Patriquin in the final. Johns continues to look unbeatable in doubles formats this season, and his partnership with Tardio has quickly become one of the most feared on tour.

What’s Still to Come

Women’s singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles championship matches are still on the schedule as the tournament progresses through the week. With the competitive depth on display in McKinney — and the momentum from an unpredictable early-season stretch — the remaining brackets should deliver plenty of drama heading into the weekend.

The Texas Open is the latest stop in what’s shaping up to be one of the most competitive PPA seasons yet, with parity across the board and new names challenging the established order.

DUPR announced it is developing a dedicated rating system for wheelchair pickleball athletes, with the framework set to officially launch at the 2026 Franklin US Open Pickleball Championships in Naples, Florida.

What It Does

The new system will be integrated directly into DUPR’s existing global platform — the same infrastructure that rates millions of able-bodied players worldwide. For wheelchair athletes, that means access to the same kind of reliable, data-driven ratings that have become standard across the rest of competitive pickleball.

The primary goals are practical: standardize tournament bracketing, reduce early-round mismatches, and give adaptive competitors consistent data to track their development over time.

Why It Matters

Wheelchair pickleball has been growing steadily, but competition has largely lacked the structured rating infrastructure that the broader sport takes for granted. Without standardized ratings, tournament organizers have had to rely on self-reported skill levels or subjective seeding — which can lead to lopsided brackets and a frustrating experience for players at every level.

A DUPR-backed system changes that. It brings the same algorithmic objectivity to adaptive play that has helped the platform become the default rating tool across recreational leagues, PPA events, and MLP.

Endorsed by the US Open

US Open president Ben Weinberger endorsed the initiative. The US Open already features a dedicated wheelchair division, making Naples a natural venue for the debut. The collaboration between DUPR, wheelchair athletes, and tournament organizers suggests this isn’t a token gesture — it’s being built with input from the community it’s designed to serve.

For recreational players who may not follow adaptive pickleball closely, this is a sign of how rapidly the sport’s infrastructure is maturing. Inclusion isn’t just a talking point anymore — it’s getting baked into the competitive framework.

The SXY Newport Beach Open delivered exactly what the preview promised — and then some. Anna Leigh Waters claimed her second triple crown of the 2026 PPA Tour season, winning women’s singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles across a dominant weekend in Southern California.

Waters Keeps Rolling

The women’s singles final was never in doubt. Waters dispatched Lea Jansen 11-2, 11-1 in a performance that extended one of the most staggering streaks in pickleball: she hasn’t lost a singles match in over 647 days. At this point, the question isn’t whether she’ll win — it’s whether anyone can take a game off her.

In women’s doubles, Waters and Anna Bright continued their perfect 2026 run, beating Rachel Rohrabacher and Parris Todd 11-4, 11-5, 11-3. The pair remain undefeated on the season. And in mixed doubles, Waters teamed with Ben Johns to top Tina Pisnik and Eric Oncins 11-4, 11-2, 12-10 — with the third game offering the only real resistance of the weekend.

Hunter Stays No. 1

On the men’s side, Hunter Johnson won his second singles title of 2026, edging Federico Staksrud in a tight final, 12-10, 11-9. Johnson maintains his grip on the No. 1 overall ranking and the top seed heading into the second half of the season.

Johns and Tardio Make It Four Straight

Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio captured their fourth consecutive men’s doubles gold, defeating Christian Alshon and Hayden Patriquin 11-6, 11-2, 3-11, 11-8. The third-game hiccup was a rare moment of vulnerability for a pairing that has looked nearly unbeatable all season.

Cinderella Run in Mixed

The mixed doubles bracket produced the tournament’s best underdog story. The 10th-seeded team of Tina Pisnik and Eric Oncins knocked off multiple higher-ranked opponents — including the No. 3 and No. 2 seeds — before falling to Waters and Johns in the final. It’s the kind of run that makes the progressive draw format compelling, even when the top seed ultimately prevails.

The PPA Tour now heads toward its second half, with players eyeing qualifying spots for May’s PPA Finals in San Clemente.

Alex Crum stepped back onto a PPA Tour court this week at the SXY Newport Beach Open, marking his first competitive action since undergoing surgery in late 2025 to repair a torn lateral meniscus. The 34-year-old had been sidelined for roughly three months — an eternity in a sport where the tour schedule barely pauses.

A Quiet Comeback for a Loud Singles Game

Crum became one of the more compelling stories on the 2025 PPA Tour with several deep singles runs that established him as a legitimate threat to the top of the draw. His aggressive, athletic style made him a fan favorite, and his absence from the first four stops of the 2026 season left a noticeable gap in the singles brackets.

At Newport Beach, Crum entered both men’s singles and men’s doubles, partnering with Chris Haworth in the doubles draw. The pairing is an intriguing one — Haworth rides momentum from his Mesa Cup singles title into the event and brings a complementary mix of touch and power.

What to Watch

The key question for Crum isn’t talent — it’s whether the knee holds up through a full tournament week. Meniscus injuries can be tricky, and competitive pickleball demands constant lateral movement, quick stops, and explosive transitions from the baseline to the kitchen. A few early-round wins would go a long way toward proving the rehab is fully behind him.

With the PPA Tour now at its midway point, Crum faces a compressed window to accumulate enough points for a top-8 singles qualifying spot at May’s PPA Finals in San Clemente. He’ll need strong results at Newport Beach and the remaining stops to make that math work, but if the knee cooperates, few players on tour match his raw singles ability.

Broadcast coverage of the Newport Beach Open continues through Sunday on Pickleballtv, with the Round of 16 beginning Thursday at 1 p.m. ET.

It didn’t take long for MLP Trade Window #2 to heat up. Just one day after the window opened on March 2, three trades involving six teams were announced on Tuesday, March 3 — several of which had reportedly been agreed upon during draft weekend and were waiting for the window to officially open.

The Deals

LA Mad Drops acquire Genie Bouchard from Florida Smash

The biggest name to move was Bouchard, the former Wimbledon semifinalist who has become one of pickleball’s most compelling crossover stories. Currently tied for No. 8 in the PPA Tour women’s singles rankings, Bouchard gives Los Angeles a potentially devastating singles lineup alongside Catherine Parenteau, Ben Johns, and Callan Dawson Joseph. Florida gets Paula Rives Palau and cash in return.

Brooklyn acquires Christian Alshon and Luca Mack from Texas Ranchers

Brooklyn shipped Dylan Frazier, Matthew Barlow, and cash to Texas in exchange for Alshon and Mack. Frazier is one of the more talented young players in the league, but Brooklyn appears to be betting on Alshon’s doubles versatility and Mack’s upside.

Texas Ranchers acquire Layne Sleeth from California Black Bears

In a separate deal, Texas picked up Sleeth while sending Sahra Dennehy and cash to California. Combined with the Frazier acquisition, the Ranchers clearly overhauled their roster philosophy in a single afternoon.

What It Means

The speed of these moves signals that teams are treating roster construction more aggressively than ever. With the trade window open through July 15 and a new waiver wire period available on July 1, expect more deals as teams evaluate early-season performance and look for the right chemistry heading into the playoff push.

For fans still getting used to MLP’s franchise model, this is the kind of offseason drama that builds emotional investment — knowing that your team’s roster can shift in meaningful ways between events. Whether these moves pan out won’t be clear until group play begins, but the early action suggests 2026 could be the league’s most competitive season yet.

Major League Pickleball’s second trade window of the 2026 season opened Monday, March 2 at 10 a.m. ET, giving teams until July 15 to make roster moves. After an offseason that featured a blockbuster draft and a flurry of Trade Window #1 deals, teams now have months to assess their lineups and make adjustments heading into group play.

What Happened in Trade Window #1

The first window closed February 15 and produced several notable moves. Among the highlights:

• Chicago acquired Zane Navratil from New Jersey, adding one of the sport’s most marketable and versatile players to their roster.
• Atlanta made two big additions, landing Kaitlyn Christian from Texas and Jay Devilliers from Miami to bolster their doubles depth.
• A three-team deal between Bay Area, Carolina, and Las Vegas reshuffled multiple rosters, with Carolina picking up DJ Young and Angie Walker while Las Vegas added Brandon French and Liz Truluck.
• Bay Area was the busiest team, involved in multiple trades and acquiring Pablo Tellez, Samantha Parker, and Mya Bui across several transactions — while sending Alix Truong to Miami.
• Palm Beach picked up Dekel Bar from Brooklyn and Tina Pisnik from Texas, investing in roster upgrades with cash-heavy deals.

What’s New in Window #2

The rules for Trade Window #2 include a waiver wire period on July 1, during which teams can swap out one rostered player for an available UPA-signed, non-rostered player. It’s a new wrinkle designed to give teams one last adjustment before the playoff push.

For recreational players, the trade activity is a reminder of just how much the team-based format has matured. MLP’s expanded 16-team structure — combined with keeper rules, drafts, and now multi-window trade periods — increasingly mirrors the roster-building mechanics of major North American sports leagues. Whether that translates to deeper fan engagement remains the big question for MLP’s 2026 season.

The 2026 PPA Tour rolls into Southern California this week for the SXY Newport Beach Open, running March 3–8 at the Tennis and Pickleball Club at Newport Beach. It’s the fifth of ten PPA Tour stops this season, and the stakes are quietly building as players jockey for top-8 singles and top-16 doubles qualifying spots ahead of May’s Finals in San Clemente.

Doubles Dominance

The biggest storyline heading into Newport Beach: two teams are still unbeaten in 2026. Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio haven’t dropped a men’s doubles match this season and enter as prohibitive favorites to keep that streak alive. On the women’s side, Anna Bright and Anna Leigh Waters have been equally dominant, rolling through every draw without a loss.

Both partnerships will be tested by the progressive draw format, which means the competition tightens as the week goes on, with broadcast coverage on Pickleballtv beginning Thursday.

Singles Shakeups

The singles draws have their own intrigue. Catherine Parenteau is sitting out the event entirely, while Ben Johns and Parris Todd are skipping singles to focus on doubles only. That opens the door for Chris Haworth, who rides momentum from his Mesa Cup victory into the No. 3 seed, and for other contenders looking to make a move in the standings.

Anna Leigh Waters remains the heavy favorite on the women’s side.

New Mixed Partnerships

Mixed doubles features some fresh pairings worth watching, including Alix Truong teaming with Christian Alshon and Tyra Black partnering with Noe Khlif. With the progressive draw format giving every match weight, new partnerships will be tested quickly.

The Newport Beach Open comes just eight days after the Mesa Cup — a tight turnaround that could reward depth and fitness as much as pure skill.

If you’ve ever screamed “that was out!” at a rec game — or, worse, watched a pro match decided by a questionable line call — Major League Pickleball just announced the beginning of the end for that particular brand of heartbreak.

MLP has partnered with Owl AI, a sports technology startup, to bring automated line calling and faster video challenge resolution to the 2026 season. The league is joining Owl AI’s Trailblazer Program, which will integrate AI-powered computer vision with existing broadcast camera feeds — no expensive proprietary hardware required.

The system uses generative AI and computer vision to analyze video in real time, delivering what Owl AI calls “human-level accuracy” in line-call judgments. It will work alongside MLP’s existing referees rather than replacing them, providing an additional layer of accuracy and dramatically speeding up the challenge process.

“It is paramount for MLP to strategically align with innovative companies like Owl AI to enhance the reliability of our challenge system,” said MLP Commissioner Samin Odhwani.

The technology is set to debut at the Carvana PPA Tour event in Zion, Utah in March before rolling out across the full MLP 2026 season.

Why This Matters

Line calls have been one of the most persistent pain points in professional pickleball. Unlike tennis, which has used Hawk-Eye electronic line calling for years, pickleball has relied almost entirely on human referees and player honor calls. At the pro level, where points are worth prize money and ranking points, disputed calls have led to some genuinely ugly moments.

Owl AI’s software-only approach is notable because it keeps costs down — a critical factor for a sport still building its infrastructure. The company, founded in May 2025, previously gained attention for AI-judging professional snowboarding at X Games Aspen earlier this year.

For rec players, the immediate impact is zero — nobody’s installing computer vision at your local YMCA. But if the tech proves reliable at the pro level, it sets a standard for how the sport handles disputed calls as it continues to grow.

If you’ve been eyeing a shot at the USA Pickleball National Championships, the path just got wider. USA Pickleball has released the 2026 Golden Ticket Tournament schedule, and it features returning favorites alongside new stops stretching from coast to coast.

Golden Ticket Tournaments remain one of the most direct routes to Nationals qualification. Every Golden Ticket event automatically awards 4,500 Tiered Point System (TPS) points — exactly the minimum needed to meet Nationals eligibility. Medal with gold, and you’ll earn priority registration on top of that.

2026 Golden Ticket Stops

The schedule includes tournaments in Jacksonville, FL (May 13–17), Glen Allen, VA (May 15–17), Wayne, NJ (June 5–7), Grand Rapids, MI (July 7–12), and Seattle, WA (July 8–12), with additional stops expected to be announced. The geographic spread is deliberate — USA Pickleball partnered with local tournament directors to bring sanctioned events to regions that haven’t historically had a direct pipeline to Nationals.

Senior Players Get More Opportunities

One of the biggest changes for 2026 is the expanded access for players in the 70+, 75+, and 80+ age brackets. USA Pickleball has significantly increased opportunities for senior players to obtain early registration to Nationals, reflecting the sport’s massive and growing older demographic.

The Big Picture

The 2026 USA Pickleball National Championships return to Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego from October 31 through November 8. It’s a familiar venue that hosted a well-regarded Nationals in previous years.

For competitive rec players, the Golden Ticket system is worth understanding even if you’re not planning to compete at Nationals this year. These tournaments draw strong fields and offer a level of organization and officiating a step above typical local events. They’re also a good benchmark for where your game stacks up regionally.

Full details and registration links are available at usapickleball.org/goldenticket2026.

Hampton Roads is quickly becoming one of the hottest pickleball markets on the East Coast, with multiple new indoor facilities either opening now or on deck for 2026.

Palace of Pickleball — Virginia Beach

The newest addition is Palace of Pickleball, opening this month at 4239 Holland Road in Virginia Beach. The facility features seven regulation-size courts with CushionX surfaces, along with locker rooms, a party room for private events, and grab-and-go food options. VIP members get keyless entry for maximum flexibility.

Owner Lisa Cardona said the project grew from a personal obsession. “I fell in love with the sport, but even more than that, I fell in love with the way it brings people together,” she told the Daily Press.

The Pickle Pad — Newport News

Coming this summer, The Pickle Pad will take over a 22,000-square-foot space inside Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News. The concept goes beyond courts — the facility will feature tournament-ready playing surfaces alongside social yard games and Crave Social Eatery, a full-service bar and restaurant. It’s the latest example of the “pickleball as social hub” model that’s driving the indoor facility boom nationwide.

A Region Catching Up to Demand

Hampton Roads already has the Hampton Roads Pickleball Club, which opened eight climate-controlled courts at the DW Center in Newport News last September and has been running beginner lessons, clinics, and round-robin play seven days a week. Norfolk Indoor Sports Turf also offers a single court available 24/7 in the Ghent neighborhood.

The wave of openings tracks with a national trend. USA Pickleball added over 2,300 new playing locations to its database in 2025, pushing the national total past 18,000. For recreational players in Hampton Roads, the days of fighting for outdoor court time are quickly becoming a thing of the past.

The PPA Tour’s Carvana Mesa Cup wrapped up Championship Sunday in Mesa, Arizona with a pair of statement upsets that shook up the early-season picture.

The Mixed Doubles Stunner

Anna Bright and Hayden Patriquin finally got over the hump against Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns, taking the mixed doubles title 11-8, 11-9, 11-3. The win was especially sweet — Bright and Patriquin had lost all six of their previous meetings with the top-seeded duo, with most going the distance. This time, they didn’t just win. They dominated in the third game.

It’s a huge confidence boost for a partnership that’s looked increasingly dangerous in 2026 and signals that the mixed doubles field may be more open than anyone expected heading into the season.

Haworth’s Perfect Run

Chris Haworth turned in the most impressive individual performance of the weekend, rolling through the men’s singles bracket without dropping a single game — including a decisive 11-6, 11-6 win over Ben Johns in the final. It’s Haworth’s second gold of 2026 and moves him to third in the PPA men’s singles rankings. Johns, who had a packed Championship Sunday across multiple events, didn’t have his sharpest stuff in the final.

Business as Usual Elsewhere

Anna Leigh Waters reasserted her dominance in women’s singles, losing just 21 points across five matches en route to gold, capping the run with an 11-3, 11-1 demolition of Kate Fahey in the final.

In women’s doubles, Waters teamed with Bright to take the title over Jorja Johnson and Tyra Black in three games. And Ben Johns bounced back from his singles loss by pairing with Gabe Tardio to win their fourth consecutive men’s doubles gold, edging Patriquin and Christian Alshon in a tight four-game final.

What It Means

Two tournaments into 2026, a clear theme is emerging: Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters are still the standard, but the field is closing in — especially in mixed doubles and men’s singles. With MLP’s first event on the horizon, the battle for partner chemistry and ranking points is only going to intensify.

Andre Agassi is getting into the pickleball business — and he’s not messing around.

The tennis legend and longtime Las Vegas resident announced the launch of the World Series of Pickleball, a new professional competition that will be headquartered in Las Vegas. Agassi Sports Entertainment Corp. has partnered with TEAM Marketing AG, a Switzerland-based sports events development company with over 30 years of experience — including work on the UEFA Champions League — to build the series into a global property.

“Pickleball has become a meaningful part of my life as a player, a fan, and someone who genuinely enjoys the sport,” Agassi said. He emphasized the sport’s unique accessibility and competitive potential, saying the series aims to provide “a global stage, where anyone who steps onto the court has the opportunity to compete and win.”

TEAM Marketing CEO Ronald Boreta pointed to the firm’s deep background in developing major international sporting events as a foundation for building the World Series of Pickleball into a commercially viable, lasting property.

What This Means

Details on format, schedule, prize money, and player involvement haven’t been announced yet — but the partnership alone signals serious ambition. TEAM Marketing’s resume includes some of the biggest events in world sports, and Agassi’s name carries enormous crossover appeal.

The pickleball landscape already features the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball as established circuits. Where the World Series of Pickleball fits into that ecosystem remains to be seen, but Agassi’s involvement and the Las Vegas headquarters suggest a competition designed for spectacle and mainstream attention.

For recreational players, the bigger story is what another high-profile investment means for the sport’s trajectory. More money, more eyeballs, more legitimacy — and Las Vegas as a potential pickleball destination city.

The Zimmer Biomet Cape Coral Open (Feb. 10–15) delivered drama, milestones, and a reminder that the sport’s top players aren’t loosening their grip anytime soon.

The Highlights

Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns each walked away with two gold medals. They teamed up to win mixed doubles in a five-game thriller against Anna Bright and Hayden Patriquin, surviving a match point in game four before closing it out 11-7, 9-11, 3-11, 12-10, 11-5. Waters also paired with Bright to sweep women’s doubles without dropping a single game, averaging a dominant 11-3.6 scoreline per match.

In men’s singles, Argentina’s Federico Staksrud earned his 18th career singles gold — on his 30th birthday, no less — defeating Hunter Johnson 11-9, 11-7 in a tactical cat-and-mouse final. Kaitlyn Christian took the women’s singles title with a come-from-behind win over Genie Bouchard, losing game one 15-13 before rattling off 11-6, 11-2 victories. Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio claimed men’s doubles gold over CJ Klinger and JW Johnson.

Milestones

Anna Bright reached a notable career landmark, joining the exclusive 30-30-30 Club — 30 gold, 30 silver, and 30 bronze medals on the PPA Tour. Catherine Parenteau is the only other player to achieve the feat.

Full Results

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Women’s Singles	Kaitlyn Christian	Genie Bouchard	Lea Jansen
Men’s Singles	Federico Staksrud	Hunter Johnson	Christian Alshon
Women’s Doubles	Bright / Waters	Jade & Jackie Kawamoto	Johnson / Black
Men’s Doubles	Tardio / Johns	Klinger / JW Johnson	Alshon / Patriquin
Mixed Doubles	Waters / Johns	Bright / Patriquin	Rohrabacher / Alshon

The PPA Tour continues its 2026 season with events running through May before the MLP season kicks off.

Anna Leigh Waters’ new signature paddle with Franklin Sports — the Aurelius — has officially received UPA-A certification, clearing the way for the world’s top-ranked player to use it in professional competition.

The approval, granted on February 6, came roughly a month after Waters announced her departure from longtime sponsor Paddletek and signed a long-term deal with Franklin. The Aurelius name draws from the Latin word for “golden,” a fitting nod to ALW’s dominant run atop the sport.

The paddle is available in three core thicknesses: a 12.7mm model (which Waters will compete with), a 14mm, and a 16mm. All three share the same 15.7” x 7.9” face dimensions and 5.1” handle. Under the hood, the Aurelius features Franklin’s T700 carbon fiber surface for spin, double thermoforming construction, and a PowerFlex core designed for pop without sacrificing stability.

For recreational players eyeing the same setup as pickleball’s most decorated pro, the Aurelius is currently available for pre-order and should start shipping March 1. It’s worth noting the paddle has UPA-A approval but has not yet received USA Pickleball certification — something to keep in mind if you play exclusively in USAP-sanctioned events.

Waters joins a growing Franklin pro roster that includes Parris Todd, Hayden Patriquin, Megan Fudge, and Will Howells. With Nike handling her apparel and footwear as of January, ALW’s brand refresh heading into 2026 is now complete — and the rest of the tour is officially on notice.

Major League Pickleball’s keeper deadline came and went on February 15, and the fallout is significant. All 20 teams submitted their keeper rosters, and several franchise-caliber players are now headed to the draft pool.

The biggest surprises? Anna Bright was released by the St. Louis Shock, Jorja Johnson was dropped by the Dallas Flash (most analysts expected teammate Tyra Black to go instead), and reigning champion Columbus Sliders voluntarily parted ways with Lea Jansen — a move nobody saw coming from a team that didn’t need to make it.

Perhaps the most dramatic overhaul belongs to the Phoenix Flames, who kept only Jessie Irvine and released their entire remaining roster, including Tyson McGuffin, Jack Sock, Genie Bouchard, Alex Walker, and Pesa Teoni. On the opposite end, the Palm Beach Royals stood pat and dropped nobody, while the SoCal Hard Eights went full teardown with zero keepers.

The LA Mad Drops are going all-in, retaining Ben Johns, Catherine Parenteau, Jade Kawamoto, and Max Freeman at a league-high roster cost of $805,000. Over in New Jersey, the 5s locked up Anna Leigh Waters, Will Howells, and Noe Khlif as their core heading into the season.

With this many elite players now available, the upcoming MLP draft is shaping up to be one of the deepest talent pools in league history. For fans, that means more competitive parity — and for team owners working the phones, a very busy few weeks ahead.

The MLP season kicks off May 22.

Major League Pickleball has officially announced its 2026 season will feature 16 teams, up from 12 in 2025. The expansion includes new franchises in Nashville, Denver, Portland, and Philadelphia.

Team ownership groups include a mix of professional athletes, entertainment figures, and private equity firms. The expanded format will include a longer regular season with more events across the country, giving fans more opportunities to see top-level professional pickleball in person.

“This expansion reflects the incredible momentum our sport is experiencing,” said MLP Commissioner. “Each of these four cities demonstrated overwhelming demand for professional pickleball, and we’re thrilled to bring the competition to them.”

The 2026 season is expected to begin in March with a new draft format that will allow expansion teams to build competitive rosters from day one.

The Dink City Sports Complex opened its doors in Austin, Texas this week, boasting 48 indoor courts across 120,000 square feet. The facility represents the largest single-site pickleball complex in the world.

Features include climate-controlled courts with professional-grade surfaces, two fully stocked pro shops, training academies run by certified professionals, recovery suites with cold plunge and sauna facilities, and a restaurant with views overlooking the main show courts.

“We wanted to create a destination, not just a place to play,” said the facility’s founder. “Pickleball is a lifestyle, and this space reflects that.” The complex also includes dedicated spaces for youth programs and adaptive pickleball for players with disabilities.

Court reservations are already booking out weeks in advance, with membership options starting at $79 per month for unlimited court time during off-peak hours.

New data from USA Pickleball and the Sports & Fitness Industry Association shows continued explosive growth, with an estimated 48.3 million Americans having played pickleball at least once in the past year.

The core player base — those playing 8 or more times per year — grew 25% to 11.2 million. The sport remains the fastest-growing in America for the fifth consecutive year, outpacing padel, flag football, and trail running.

Growth is strongest in the 25-34 age demographic, challenging the perception that pickleball is primarily a retirees’ sport. Facility construction has responded accordingly, with over 1,500 new dedicated pickleball venues opening in 2025 alone.

“We’re seeing a generational shift,” said the SFIA’s director of research. “The sport has crossed from niche to mainstream, and there’s no sign of it slowing down.”

USA Pickleball’s rules committee has announced that rally scoring and modified serve rules will be tested in select tournaments throughout the 2026 season.

The proposed rally scoring format would award a point on every rally regardless of which team served. Proponents argue it creates more predictable match durations for broadcast schedules and increases excitement. Critics worry it fundamentally changes the strategic nature of the game.

The serve modifications under review would allow a drop serve from any height, removing the current below-waist restriction. This change aims to simplify the rules for new players while maintaining competitive balance.

“These aren’t final decisions — they’re experiments,” clarified the rules committee chair. “We’re committed to evolving the sport thoughtfully, and player feedback from these test events will drive any permanent changes.”

The first test events are scheduled for April, with results expected to inform the 2027 rulebook.