USA Pickleball Nationals crowns 2025 Champions In Rainy San Diego

This past weekend, the USA Pickleball hosted its 16th annual USA Pickleball Nationals tournament at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego, California. This is the culminating event of a year-long set of “Golden Ticket” qualifiers and endows national championships to both pros and amateurs alike. It’s the longest running tournament in the sport, and is the signature event of the season for a large contingent of players in the country.

This year, more than 2,400 competitors headed to Southern California to compete, a far cry from the 393 or so who competed in the first annual Nationals event back in 2009, when it was held in Buckeye, Arizona. The event has been held every year since save for the 2020 Covid year, and has maintained the 2,400 player volume even after the introduction of competing major events in the month of November.

Thanks to its partnership with the Association of Pickleball Players (APP) and its $225k prize purse, USAP Nationals counts as a Tier 1 APP pro event for both its touring pros and the Champions/Masters Pros.

Click here for the UTRSports.net home page for the event, where you can get tournament details, draw sheets, and results.

We’ll recap the various pro draws below.

Men’s Pro Singles Recap

Ronan Camron, the winner of the most recent APP event, secured the No. 1 seed in the draw and promptly took out Richmond native and former NCAA finalist David Bieger to open his event. He held firm into the finals, topping No. 8 Max Green in the quarters and No. 5 Brandon Lane in the semis to make the event finals from the top half.

The bottom half featured a big early upset, as No. 3 Livornese fell at the hands of 19yr old Jae Centonze, who has been making waves in both APP Next and in the Florida Pro-Am circuit lately. Centonze fell to the No. 2 seed Patrick Kawka easily in the next round, and Kawka built on that momentum to make his own run to the final to set up a 1 vs 2 singles match for the title.

In the final, Camron took game one 11-6, then Kawka blanked him in game two 11-0 before cruising to the gold medal (6),0,6. Kawka improves upon his finish last year at Nationals, where he fell in the singles final to Haworth.

Gold: Patrick Kawka. Silver: Ronan Camron. Bronze: Naveen Beasley.

Women’s Pro Singles Recap

The Women’s Pro singles draw went very much according to seeds, with just a couple of minor upsets in the early rounds, leaving neutrals with the best possible matchups of singles players at Nationals. No. 1 Sofia Sewing, the dominant top-ranked APP singles player, cruised into the final without dropping a game. There, she met No. 2 Kat Stewart, who survived a tough semi-final against Oshiro to set up the 1-versus-2 final.

In the final, we got a frequent matchup on the APP tour; Sewing and Stewart have met for the gold medal twice this year, and have split matches in earlier rounds all season. Stewart took the first game 11-5 and had Sewing shaking her head. However the Boca Raton-based pro rebounded from the game one loss to take the next two in style and sew up her first National title.

Gold: Sofia Sewing. Silver: Kat Stewart. Bronze: Domenika Turkovic.

Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

The APP’s top Mixed pair Megan Fudge & Jack Munro were the top seeds, but were toppled in the semis by Sofia Sewing (who is becoming increasingly dangerous in Doubles) and Casey Diamond. The pair continued their run into the final, where they topped the No. 6 seeds Jill Braverman & Aidan Schenk in two close games 9,9 for the title.

Gold: Sewing & Diamond. Silver: Braverman & Schenk. Bronze: Camron & Bates.

Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

APP No. 1 Men’s Doubles player Jack Munro was missing his normal partner Howells, so he took Richard Livornese and tried to repeat his 2024 title. The pair took a bit of getting used to each other, and were extended to 3rd games in both the quarters and semis before advancing.

Livornese’ regular partner, Lefty Tanner Tomassi teamed up with Mario Barrientos and ground their way into the semis before falling to the No. 2 seeds, the veteran duo of Erik Lange & Max Manthou. In the 1 vs 2 seed final, Munro was able to get the win against his frequent APP finals rivals and repeat as National Champ.

Gold: Munro & Livornese. Silver: Lange & Manthou. Bronze: Lane & Slutsky

Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

The top APP pair of Megan Fudge & Jill Braverman defended their 2024 National title with a solid title defense that saw them not dropping a game until the final. In the gold medal match, they faced Simone Jardim turning back the clock, teaming with Christine Maddox to return to a major tournament final. Jardim hasn’t medaled on the APP tour since April, but she’s got a knack for getting to the finals of Nationals and the US Open when the chips are down.

In the final, Fudge & Braverman were too much for the Hall of Famer, bookending two 11-3 game wins with a 2nd game loss to repeat as champs.

Gold: Fudge & Braverman. Silver: Jardim & Maddox. Bronze: Stewart & Carvajal Lane.

Champions (50+) Pro Competition Quick Recap

• Men’s Champions Pro Doubles: Youssef Bouzidi/Patrick Cote, who took the APP’s AARP Open in October, added a national title to their resume.
• Women’s Champions Pro Doubles: Lee Whitwell & Jennifer Dawson held on as the top seeds and took the title.
• Mixed Champions Pro Doubles: Lisa Alipaz & Marcello Jardim had a hard-fought 3-game win for the title.
• Men’s & Women’s Champions Pro Singles: The pro singles draws were rained out unfortunately in the quarter final round by the storms that plagued the event all weekend.

Masters (60+) Pro Competition Quick Recap

• Men’s Masters Pro Singles: Warren Pretorius took out the top seed Treister in the quarters, then raced to the title.
• Women’s Masters Pro Singles: the three entrants all beat up on each other, each finishing 1-1, but Laura Albano won on points differential.
• Men’s Masters Pro Doubles: Todd Murphy & Scott Scurfield dominated the field to take the title.
• Women’s Masters Pro Doubles: Anna Shirley & Beth Bellamy held serve as the top seeds and took the title without dropping a game.
• Mixed Masters Pro Doubles: Scott Moore & Beth Bellamy took the title, giving Bellamy a Nationals double for the weekend.

The Pro Pickleball Medal Tracker has now been updated with these results; check out this link online for a complete pro medal history for all tours and all pro events dating to the beginnings of all the major pro tours, plus pro events that predated 2020.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, we have a break for Thanksgiving in the US, then December gives us the APP Next finals in Fort Lauderdale, a couple of big international events, plus the final events of the season for both domestic tours.

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 22,000 matches in its database across all the pro tours.

Other resources I use frequently to cover Pickleball include: