Tama Shimabukuro shows off his unique grip enroute to two golds in Macao
PPA Asia
The Professional Pickleball Association Asian Tour held its third event of the season, the 2026 Macao Open, on China’s south coast just down the way from Hong Kong, over the weekend. It was a 500-point event, thus worth “half” the points of a regular PPA domestic stop, and it drew a smattering of Aussie, Asian, and even a few enterprising US-based pros, who decided to fit in a quick trip to China (?!) in-between MLP events.
Click here for the PickleballTournaments.com home page for the event.
KOTC recently had a bit of a rant talking about how some players are “gaming” the system by traveling to Asia to win points in this manner, but there’s no real other answer. PPA assigned the points level to these events, called them a “500” event, so 500 points goes to the winner. By way of comparison, 500 points is more than you’d get for 4th place in a PPA 1000, and more than you’d get for making the quarters of a PPA slam. Is that fair? Well, fair or not, the tour is clearly going global and there’s no longer a differentiation between players ranked in Asia, or Australia, or in the US. A PPA point is a point, no matter where earned.
Let’s do a quick recap of the results, highlighting the winners, the upsets, and the top players who made waves.
Men’s Pro Singles Recap
Tama Shimabukuro took a close 11-9, 11-9 win over top seed Hong kit Wong to win the Singles title in China without dropping a game. Well traveled Brit Matthew Finnerty got solid early wins over Matthew Hargreaves and Luc Pham before settling for bronze.
Women’s Pro Singles Recap
Former WTA Japanese tennis star Rika Fujiwara upset top seed Yufei Long in the semis and then beat first-time medalist Ho Tam in the final.
Mixed Pro Doubles Recap
In an upset-laden draw, Kara Wheatley & Armaan Bhatia survived as the No. 5 seeds to take gold and give India-based Bhatia a double for the weekend. In the final they topped Nok Yiu Tang & Eunggwon Kim. Shimabukuro fell in the semis in his quest for a Triple Crown.
Men’s Pro Doubles Recap
US-based teenager Tama Shimabukuro made the long flight over, teamed up with his favorite international partner Armaan Bhatia, and took gold. The pair improved upon their silver medal at the KL Open last month by taking out the best Asia-based team (Hong Kit Wong & Eunggwon Kim) in the semis and then topping Mitchell Hargreaves & Kenta Miyoshi in the final.
Notably, the champs of the Kuala Lumpur Open Collin Johns & Len Yang had to retire in the round of 16 due to injury.
Women’s Pro Doubles Recap
Jamie Haas (L) and Pei-chuan Kao (R) took gold.
PPA Asia
Pei-chuan Kao teamed with Aussie Jamie Haas to take the gold over Ho Tam and Mihae Kwon.
With this story published, the Medal Tracker is updated online. Please visit the “PPA Int’l” tab for a complete list of all prior Medal winners at all PPA A
Next up for the PPA International tours? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, PPA Asia returns in 3 week’s time in Bejing, while PPA Australia has an event in Wellington in two week’s time. Reminder, PPA just announced an entire tour in Spain, with those events kicking off in Barcelona in September. Combined with events on the books in Canada and Italy, we’re seeing a ton of international expansion for the tour.
Resources I rely on while covering the PPA International events:
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