Yuta Funemizu (L) and Nico Acevedo (R) shocked the Men’s Doubles field with a run to the finals to secure their first ever pro medals.
PPA
The Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) held the second event of its new 2026-27 season last weekend at one of the most famous facilities in the sport; the Arizona Athletic Grounds in Mesa, Arizona. This facility holds a special place in the hearts of the PPA in that it was the site of their first ever tour event. For a trip down memory lane, here was a quick recap of the very first PPA event in Mesa, way back in February 2020:
- Men’s Pro Doubles: Ben Johns & Matt Wright beat Adam Stone & Collin Johns in the final. This was years before Ben and Collin decided to team up and summarily dominate for a 3 year period running from 2022 to 2024, a move that made Wright pivot to Riley Newman starting in January 2022 and which led to 8 gold medals and a streak of consecutive podiums made that lasted months. Stone, of course, is now the PPA’s lead broadcaster along with the venerable Dave Fleming.
- Men’s Pro Singles: Ben Johns topped Tyson McGuffin in that event, with podcast maven Tyler Loong taking Bronze. Johns-McGuffin was a regular pro final in the late teens and early points of the tour; in North Carolina two weeks ago it was a round of 64 match.
- Mixed Pro Doubles: Ben Johns teamed with Simone Jardim to win the gold, topping Matt Wright & Lucy Kovalova in the final. This gave Johns a triple crown at the tour’s first event, and started a streak in Mixed doubles that he’s never relinquished: being ranked No. 1 in the discipline. Jardim eventually stepped back from touring full time in mid-2022, an event that caused Johns to pivot to Anna Leigh Waters. They are (heading into Mesa) 299-8 as a team and have won 64 gold medals.
- Women’s Pro Doubles: Simone Jardim/Lucy Kovalova topped Anna Leigh Waters and Leigh Waters in the final, which started a streak of 12 straight Doubles titles for the pair to open up the tour. When Jardim stepped back, Kovalova picked up Callie Smith and continued to be the top ranked pair, but the rivalry with the Waters duo continued all the way to November 2022 when they finally took over the top spot on tour.
- Women’s Pro Singles: Irina Tereschenko took the first singles title on tour, topping Michelle Esquivel in the final with Cammy MacGregor taking the bronze. Jardim did not enter singles at this event for some reason, but won the next six singles titles on tour to be the dominant early PPA singles pro.
In fact, the PPA likes this facility so much that, in a first for the tour, they announced a facility partnership this week with the Arizona Athletic Grounds. This “multi-decade” deal gives PPA sweeping control of the 41-court facility, The tour plans on making this facility its training center, its national junior development center, and otherwise treat it similarly to the way that the APP treats the Fort facility in Florida. The tour had earlier agreed to host two events at the grounds annually, but this relationship seems set to expand on that presence in the future.
The Mesa draws were missing some big names, and featured some “different” partnerships as some players opted to skip this event after having played over seas, or to get a breather given the back to back MLP finals/North Carolina slam. This opened up opportunities for some new names to shine, as we’ll soon see.
After the heat issues that players experienced in North Carolina, the PPA experimented again this week with an “alternative” schedule, playing mostly in the mornings and evening and avoiding the Arizona mid-day sun. This led to some crazy late matches, including some quarterfinal matches running well past midnight. This spurred comparisons to the late nights that the US Open has every year and raises an interesting question for the tour; could they market an “evening session” of marquee matches each night to get a different crew into the venue?
One additional news item; for those who did not read my Season Preview and may not have been aware, this event in Arizona was the first time we’ve seen the seeding implications of the new World Pickleball Rankings, and they’re definitely a talking point. In short, top 8 WPR ranked players are guaranteed byes into the round of 16 irrespective of their seeds, while the top ranked players of that discipline (if they’re not also ranked in the top 8), have to start play at the round of 64. This impact was most immediately seen in the Men’s Singles draw, where the 47th seed Andrei Daescu, who has not played in a pro singles draw in years and who has NEVER medaled in singles on the PPA tour, got a 2-round bye and then was summarily spanked in the 16s by No. 11 Vich.
This event is also the first time the PPA’s new non-Grand Slam finals rules are in place; no more best 3-of-5 for gold medal matches unless its a major, so the finals in Mesa were all best 2 of 3.
With that said, let’s recap the action. Reminder, the PPA has eliminated Bronze medal matches starting in September 2026.
Click here for the PickleballTournaments.com home page for the event, where you can get tournament details, draw sheets, and results.
Men’s Pro Singles Recap
Christopher Haworth takes the gold.
PPA
The top four seeds advanced to the semis, just as they had done in the North Carolina grand slam, but the early rounds had some notable results worth discussing. No. 23 Yates Johnson, twin brother of No. 3 Hunter Johnson, made a solid run to the quarters by beating Shaffer, Garnett, and Oncins. No. 9 Noe Khlif continues to impress in singles, putting another heavy loss on No. 8 Goins and taking a game off of No. 4 Alshon before falling in the quarters. No. 19 Ben Johns took advantage of his double bye to beat No. 5 Bellamy in the 16s, but was dominated by Staksrud in the quarters 8,3.
In the semis, Haworth obliterated Alshon 3,1 (which probably works out best for Christian; now he doesn’t have to play singles on Sunday before his doubles final) while Staksrud went the distance to top Hunter 11-8 in the third. In the final, Haworth improved to 7-3 lifetime over Fed in singles with another 3 game battle. It’s Haworth’s 9th career singles title; not bad for only playing the PPA tour full-time for about 15 months.
Gold: Haworth. Silver: Staksrud.
Women’s Pro Singles Recap
Seven of the top eight ranked singles players were in town (only missing No. 8 Sahra Dennehy, who’s back home doing MLP Australia duties for their opening weekend), but there were a few interesting storylines early in the draw. New PPA signing No. 32 Sofia Sewing won two rounds once again before falling 8,8 in the 16s to Brooke Buckner; her two losses so far are both to top-4 players on tour and she’s had little difficulty with the other seeded players she’s encountered thus far, and I foresee a Haworth-esque run to the top of the rankings in short order. No. 46 Maria Ford had a fantastic run; she got a walkover against Kong, then beat Walker and No. 6 Wang to make the quarters.
However, the big story was No. 13 Jalina Ingram, the Arizona based teenager who is playing nearly one home soil. She beat a couple of underrated opponents in the early rounds (Trevino and Ampon), then had two career-defining wins in a row when she topped No. 3 Christian and No. 7 Parenteau to make it to the semis.
In the semis, Waters put an end to the Ingram story, double-pickling her 0,0 to move into the final. There she met her frequent finals opponent No. 2 Kate Fahey, who had similarly crushed her semis opponent Buckner 3,1 to help clearly establish where the Women’s singles game is right now. In the final, ALW improved to 18-0 against Fahey with a 9,4 win.
Gold: Waters. Silver: Fahey.
Mixed Pro Doubles Recap
No. 1 Ben Johns was back in action in Mixed with partner Anna Leigh Waters after last week’s shock loss, looking to get back on top. They cruised in the early rounds, which included a quarter finals match over the upstart No. 35 seeded team of Elliott Schupp and teenager Kiora Kunimoto, who got three very solid wins in the early rounds before falling to the top seeds in the quarters. PPA newcomers No. 44 Sofia Sewing & Casey Diamond also made a deep run, easing past the 4th seeded Khlif & Black before falling in the quarters themselves to the 6 seeds.
Top Seeds ALW/Johns were pressed in the semis, needing 3 games to top Fahey & Staksrud from the top half of the draw. Similarly, the No. 2 seeds Rohrabacher & Alshon needed to go the distance to beat No. 3 Todd & Daescu to give both Rachel and Christian a two-final Sunday. In the Mixed pro final, Johns & Waters made fast work of Alshon & Rohrabacher 3,6 to claim their 65th mixed title together.
Gold: Waters & Johns. Silver: Rohrabacher & Alshon.
Men’s Pro Doubles Recap
With normal partner Tardio bowing out of this event with Jet lag after winning the double in Kuala Lumpur last weekend, Ben Johns teamed with Federico Staksrud as the top seed in Arizona. They did not last long; No. 15 Nico Acevedo and Yuta Funemizo dominated the pair in the 16s 4,5 as they just looked uncomfortable with each other. Fed was pushed to the right-side and couldn’t gel with John’s tried-and-true left side dominance, and the sparkling play of Acevedo continues after a stellar MLP season. The 15th seeds continued their run into the semis with a 12-10 nail biting win over No. 9 McGuffin & Diamond in the quarters.
The other major shock of the early rounds was the play of No. 24 Austin Bricker & Michael Loyd, who won two early rounds, then shocked the No. 5 seeds Bar & Frazier before falling in the quarters to Khlif & Oncins. Loyd’s known more as a singles specialist, and Bricker has never once even appeared on a MLP roster (h/t to Zoey Weil for this one).
In the semis, Acevedo and Funemizo got another 12-10 3rd game win over No. 3 seeds CJ Klinger & Cam Chaffin, who otherwise would be the story of this draw for making it so far with a teenager. With the win, both players guarantee themselves their first ever PPA medals. Podium regulars No. 2 Daescu & Alshon survived a 3 game challenge from Khlif & Oncins at the bottom to setup an unlikely final. Fans who stuck around for the gold medal match were given a heck of a treat, as the two teams split the first two games and played a neck and neck 3rd game. The underdogs got to 10-8-1, but Daescu & Alshon quickly saved 2 match points and evened the match at 10-10 on their serve in the next cycle, but from there the two teams traded blows and match point opportunities for another 15 minutes. Daescu & Alshon saved 7 (seven!) match points against and ground out a 15-13 game three win for the title.
Gold: Daescu & Alshon. Silver: Acevedo & Funemizo.
Women’s Pro Doubles Recap
Rachel Rohrabacher (L) and Parris Todd (R) had to dig deep to claim the title.
PPA
With no Anna Bright at this event, the No. 1 pair of Bright & Waters were absent. This led to Parris Todd & Rachel Rohrabacher getting the top seed and a relatively chalk draw throughout. Just one minor upset in the round of 16 broke an all-favorites draw into the semis, as all four top seeds advanced without much fanfare. Todd & Rohrabacher got pressed to three games in the quarters by Humberg & Castillo, both of whom had excellent tournaments this weekend, but they ended up persevering 11-8 in the third to survive.
In the semis, the two top seeds advanced easily to setup a solid, if unexpected final. In the final, after cruising to what was looking like a comfortable 2-game win, No. 1 Todd & Rohrabacher gave up 10 unanswered points to lose game two 12-10 to No. 2 Hurricane Tyra Black and Megan Dizon, but rebounded to take game 3 comfortably 11-6 for the title.
Gold: Todd & Rohrabacher. Silver: Black & Dizon.
Senior Pro Competition Quick Recap
- Men’s Senior Open Singles: It was 1v2 in the final, and Mattias Johansson topped Joshua Cooperman. These two own 46 of the 102 Senior singles titles ever held on tour.
- Men’s Senior Open Doubles: Missing his regular partner, Steve Deakin partnered with Daniel Roditi to take the title.
- Mixed Senior Open Doubles: Jennifer Douglas & Joshua Cooperman got a rare Mixed senior win, topping Deakin and Strippoli in the final.
The Pro Pickleball Medal Tracker spreadsheets have now been updated with these results. Click here for the Pro-only Medal Tracker, and click here for the Senior Pro Medal Tracker. These spreadsheets hold Medal winners for every pro event going back to the beginnings of the tours.
Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, the PPA gets the week off before heading to Vegas for the 2026 Rate Las Vegas Open the first weekend in October.
Any Head to Head or career match stats quoted in this article are courtesy of PickleWave. Visit picklewave.com for the premier source of Pro Pickleball data, including match replays, highlights, stats, and discussion. PickleWave has more than 31,000 matches in its database across all the pro tours, and has started a fantastic new Bracket Challenge feature for Fantasy-style sports fans to try out.
Other resources I use frequently to cover Pickleball include:
For a full list of my “Pickleball Bookmarks,” including a summary of my “go-to” links for coverage as well as a relatively comprehensive list of links for the industry, click here.
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