Anna Leigh Waters Defends Her Triple Crown At The 2026 Pro Pickleball Association World Championships

The biggest event on the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) schedule was last weekend, with the entire tour and a huge chunk of its signed international players descending on Dallas for the 2026 Open Door Pickleball World Championships. This 3,000 point event is the marquee tournament for the PPA globally, and the champions named on Sunday finish off a 10-day spectacle at the Brookhaven Country Club that included the inaugural MLP Nations Cup event, the largest pro event of the season, and thousands of amateurs and fans onsite all week to watch and play. This year’s Pickleball tournament’s headcount hit 4,076 players registered, which didn’t count the big college event held earlier in the week, meaning this was the biggest event ever held.

News and Noteworthy ahead of the Event

Here’s a quick recap of notable news items of import to the tour or this event:

• 10/25/26: PPA announces the first half of their 2027 slate of PPA Asia events, with four 500-level events in four different countries for the first four months of April.
• 10/14/26: PPA announces its 2027 slate of Challenger events, with a slate of 18 150-point events around the country. A large number of them are to be hosted at Life Time facilities, and the tour will be holding events in new cities for 2027, including Jacksonville, FL; Ocotillo, AZ; Peachtree Corners (Atlanta), GA; Chicago, IL; Roseville, CA; Chanhassen, MN; and Richmond, VA.

With that said, let’s recap the action. Reminder, the PPA has eliminated Bronze medal matches starting in September, 2026, however due to the “major” status of this event, the finals are best 3 of 5.

Men’s Pro Singles Recap

We always start these recaps with Men’s Singles, which is great because usually this division has the most upsets, has the biggest surprises, and is the least predictable. Certainly that was the case this week in Dallas, as top-8 seeds fell round by round. This included No. 8 Garnett in the 64s (to Jaxon Madsen), No. 6 Tama Shimabukuro in the 32s (to Donald Young), and No. 2 Federico Staksrud, who fell to No. 13 Jack Sock in the 16s, certainly an upset but not a shocking one. No. 1 Christopher Hayworth then fell in the quarters to the streaking teenager No. 7 John Lucian Goins, which (combined with JW Johnson’s round of 16 loss and Ben Johns’ round of 32 loss to Noe Khlif) guaranteed a new Worlds champion.

It ended up being Goins taking the opportunity. After beating Haworth 5,5 in the quarters, he vanquished Alshon in the semis with ease, then beat Sock in a relatively close final 5,10 . Sock had advanced past Hunter Johnson in the semis to reach his 4th career pro singles final, but once again he couldn’t get to the top.

A special recognition to Hong kit “Jack” Wong, who made the quarters and was the highest finishing “international traveling” pro in the draw.

Gold: John Lucian Goins. Silver: Jack Sock.

Women’s Pro Singles Recap

The Women’s pro draw saw the expected top four ranked ladies into the semis, but the pathway there for the rest of the field highlighted an interesting feature of the new global PPA rankings. The semis featured Waters, Buckner, Christian, and Fahey as expected, but where were the rest of the top eight players?

Thanks to opportunistic points gathering in international events, the back of the top 10 in the singles discipline is filled with players who, frankly, may not be nearly as good as their ranking, and in a full field like Worlds, were exposed. No. 5 Chao-Yi Wang was upset in the 64s by Shannon Pretorius, No. 6 Kiora Kunimoto was taken out in the 16s by Jorja Johnson, No. 8 Judit Castillo was ousted in the 32s by Sofia Sewing, and No. 9 Sahra Dennehy was blasted in the 32s by Helena Jansen. To be fair, in some cases the low seedings of these upset winners (especially Sewing and Johnson) are more due to their lack of singles play and not due to talent), but the point remains. We’ll continue to see these discrepancies in rankings until we get to the point where US-based pros more regularly compete overseas and vice versa.

Sewing’s run fell at the hands of ALW in the quarters as one might expect. Jorja pressed No. 3 Christian to a third game but fell. One of the best international women’s singles players (Rika Fujiwara) advanced to the quarters before falling, while No. 7 Parenteau, the long-time second fiddle to Waters’ Nero on tour, fell in the quarters to No. 2 Fahey.

In the final, it came down to 1 vs 2, Waters vs Fahey, with not only the singles title on the line, but the Triple crown for the sport’s top player. Unfortunately for those who waited all afternoon for this match, it wasn’t close. Waters beat Fahey 3,2, locking in after a very long day of gold medal matches, to secure the title, defend her 2025 Worlds Triple Crown, and take the 46th career Triple in her career.

Gold: Anna Leigh Waters. Silver: Kate Fahey

Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

As has mostly been the case for some time on the PPA, the Mixed pro draw is the deepest and seems to be the most likely to play to seeds of the disciplines. Even with the global talent on hand in Dallas, this mostly turned out to be the case at Worlds, with 7 of the top 8 seeds advancing into the quarters. The lone exception was No. 11 Sahra Dennehy & Tama Shimabukuro, who took out No. 7 Staksrud & Fahey for the only “upset” of the round of 16.

No. 1 Ben Johns & Anna Leigh Waters took care of the upstart Dennehy/Tama team in the quarters and moved past No. 4 Alshon & Rohrabacher to get to the finals. There, they met a fairly regular opponent in the Johnson siblings, a rematch of the 2025 Worlds mixed final, who destroyed the No. 2 seeds Bright & Patriquin to make the Mixed Pro finals for the 24th time together. In the final, the Johnsons gave Ben & Anna Leigh everything they could handle, pushing them to a 5th game before falling. This is the 4th straight Worlds title for the duo, and their 68th together on tour.

Gold: Waters & Johns. Silver: Johnson & Johnson.

Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

The heavyweight teams came out to play in Dallas in Men’s Doubles, and the sport’s top teams mostly cruised into the back end of the draw. The one real wild card team as of late (Acevedo & Vich) was out early due to Nico pulling a hamstring in singles; this paved the way for No. 18 Will MacKinnon & Hunter Johnson to make a quarter finals run. Last year’s surprise champions and new regular partnership No. 2 Federico Staksrud & Hayden Patriquin were shocked in the quarters, losing to No. 5 Eric Oncins & CJ Klinger; otherwise the top seeds advanced into Super Saturday.

There, we got a potentially monumental result. No. 1 Ben Johns & Gabriel Tardio were beaten in the semis rather easily by No. 3 Alshon & Daescu 9,6. This is now the 4th straight Men’s Doubles event that Ben Johns has entered on tour but failed to win, a streak that has not been seen on tour since mid-2024 as it became apparent that Ben and Collin were set to split. It also extends a streak of 6 winless events for the sport’s top player, due to either absence or loss, and certainly will not stem the growing conversations in the sport about whether Ben’s time at the top is coming to an end. In the other semi, JW Johnson and his new partner Tama Shimabukuro cruised into the final, topping Oncins & Klinger 4,6.

In the final, Johnson & Tama lost the first two games to the veteran Alshon/Daescu team, but then clawed their way back to win three straight games and take the title. It is Shimabukuro’s first Men’s Pro doubles gold, and the first time JW has stood atop this pile in nearly a year.

Gold: Johnson & Shimabukuro. Silver: Alshon & Daescu.

Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

Anna Leigh Waters & Anna Bright put on their typical display of dominance in Doubles and cruised to the title without dropping a game and continuing their winning streak that dates to September of 2025. In the final, they topped No. 5 Catherine Parenteau & Sofia Sewing, who had two statement wins in this event after some questioned the “validity” of their Virginia Beach title. They topped No. 2 Jorja Johnson & Hurricane Tyra Black in the quarters 7,3 and then dominated No. 4 Pisnik & Fahey 5,5 to earn the Sunday title slot, clearly putting their claim amongst the elite teams in Women’s Doubles right now.

As for the dominant top pair, this is now their 28th title together and they continue to be perhaps the most dominant of the No. 1s in any of the five disciplines (with of course due respect to ALW’s singles).

Gold: Bright & Waters. Silver: Sewing & Parenteau.

Senior Pro Competition Quick Recap

Note; with the USA Pickleball Nationals competing against PPA worlds, the Senior pro pool was split between Dallas and San Diego.

• Men’s Senior Open Singles: Blake Arrant, who has been making waves in Senior Pro across all tours, took the title as the top seed in his home-town event.
• Men’s Senior Open Doubles: Steve Deakin/Brian Baker cruised through the draw as the top seed to win.
• Women’s Senior Open Doubles: Cara Beth Lee & Kitri Boser surprised the field to take the title.
• Mixed Senior Open Doubles: Andrea Olson & John Hedberg upset the top seed in the final to take the Mixed gold.

Split Age Pro Divisions Recap

We got a rarity at the PPA Worlds: PPA Split age events. I can’t quite remember the last time the PPA did split pro, but they held all three doubles divisions in fun early week action. Here’s a recap of the winners:

• Men’s Split-Age Doubles: Andrei Daescu & Steve Deakin teamed up to blitz through this draw in what probably wasn’t a surprise, given that both are at the top of their respective age groups.
• Women’s Split Age Doubles: Carolina Lopez Ascarate, who has become one of the top senior pros in her “rookie” age 50 season, took this title with Christina Gecheva, dominating in the title game and winning gold 11-1, 11-1.
• Mixed Split Age Doubles: Brett Warner & Jacqueline Burdette took the small Mixed pro split age draw.

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, Next up for the PPA? The tour players get a well-deserved break and have the next couple of weekends off. The next PPA stop is the final weekend of November in Jimmy Miller’s favorite town, Daytona Beach. In the meantime, MLP Asia will kickoff next weekend, and MLP Australia continues in Mid-November, giving some of the PPA’s international players some court time in the interim.

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:

• PPA Current Rankings, both the WPR and per-discipline.
• DUPR Player Profiles and Ratings (login/account required)
• Pickleball.com Player bios and Stats

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, Anna Leigh Waters Defends Her Triple.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com

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