Anna Leigh Waters Celebrates New Sponsorships With 40th Triple Crown At Pro Pickleball Association Masters

The Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) kicked off the second half of its 2025-26 season with one of its most iconic events, the 2026 Carvana PPA Masters, held at one of its most iconic venues, the Mission Hills Country Club in Palm Springs, California. The players wear all white in a nod to Wimbledon, and the tour has succeeded over the years in making the tradition stick.

There was an absolutely massive draw at this event, nearly 1,800 amateurs and pros are crammed into Mission Hills for this event. Furthermore, this is one of just a handful of “Slam” level events on the PPA’s schedule, worth double the points of a regular tournament, which means a packed pro draw as well. My primary marker for gauging the “size” of a draw is the Men’s Singles pro qualifier; 71 men entered this weekend, indicating a healthy draw.

The Sunday finals got picked up by CBS Nationals, with a two hour block right in the middle of Sunday afternoon showing the fantastic Men’s Doubles final before the rest went back to PickleballTV.

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

News and Noteworthy ahead of the Event

Here’s a quick recap of notable news items of import to the tour since we last saw them in action a month ago.

• On 12/17/25: The United Pickleball Association (UPA) and UPA Pro Player Committee President Zane Navratil have established the UPA Player Fining Committee in an effort to bring more clarity and transparency to the fining process.
• On 12/20/25: In a rare show of unity amongst fierce rivals in the pickleball space, nearly ever major pickleball entity issues a joint statement condemning the fast rise of counterfeit paddles on the market place. This comes two days after UPA-A president Jason Aspes buys a blatantly counterfeit Joola paddle on Walmart’s website, indicating the rise of the problem and the lack of patent-abiding integrity in the international manufacturing market.
• On 12/22/25: MLP released its 2026 schedule. It runs from May to August, starting in Dallas and finishing at the Wollman Rink in NYC. It will have nine regular season events, the Mid-Season Tournament in Grand Rapids, and an expanded three-week MLP Playoffs.
• On 1/8/26: Anna Leigh Waters announces that she is partnering with Franklin Sports as her official paddle partner. As part of this long-term deal, she will co-design a signature line of products, including pickleball paddles, bags, and accessories. Financial details are not disclosed.
• On 1/13/26: Anna Leigh Waters continues her brand makeover with a multi-year deal with Nike. We covered this announcement in this space, along with nuggets from an interview done with ALW and her team last fall.

With that said, let’s recap the action.

Men’s Pro Singles Recap

The pro singles draw was notable for one player missing, as opposed to the 70-something pros in the main draw. Specifically, Ben Johns did not play. My working theory for Johns’ singles pursuits has been as follows: pare back participation in every PPA event, focus on the Cups and Slams, and try to get enough points in order to qualify for the Tour Finals. He seemed to be following this pattern somewhat for most of 2025, but suffered a slew of early round losses when he did play (Lenhard in the 64s in Orange County, Freeman in the 32s in Bristol, Crum in the 32s at Worlds, Joseph in the 16s in Vegas). He also had two last minute W/Ds, one of which was a likely loss to the red-hot Haworth in Cincinnati. He’s fallen to 10th in the standings, meaning he’s already out of the Tour Finals projected field. However, his skipping one of the two remaining slams on the spring schedule likely seals it: it seems that he’s recognized that the singles game has caught up to him on tour, and he’s better served by focusing on doubles going forward. Zane and Nico debated on their recent podcast whether Johns would EVER win another singles title, and both came to the same conclusion, predicting that Johns would not win again, and would summarily be out of the singles game by 2027. I’m not sure I’m ready to go out on that limb, especially if/when the tour goes to pure prize money models (where Johns would likely pursue a bigger pay-day by playing), but it’s not something I’d bet the house on.

Let’s get back to the Masters. Qualifier draws on the West Coast always seem tougher, thanks to the glut of tennis players up and down the coast, and this event was no different. A couple of well-known names survived qualifying (Rio Newcome and Naveen Beasley) along with PPA Australia top-ranked pro Harrison Brown. The eight qualifiers fed into a draw already filled with 68 signed PPA pros and a round of 128 for their troubles.

Interesting early round results included: twin brothers Hunter & Yates Johnson meeting for the first time on the PPA (they met a slew of times in 2023 on the APP). Brown had to play fellow PPA International Armaan Bhatia in the round of 128 and advanced, then took No. 10 John Lucian Goins to a breaker before falling. Will Howells, now full-time on the PPA tour, was seeded No. 71 and won his opener before falling to No. 2 Federico Staksrud 0,4 in an abrupt end to his well-documented PPA debut. JW Johnson barely got by Hawaiian teenager Tama Shimabukuro 12-10 in the third; it’s just a matter of time before the 15-yr old is making the backend of these events. The biggest upset of the round of 64 was No. 5 Jaume Martinez Vich falling to qualifier Matt Burkhardt 11-7 in the third game.

After some early round fireworks, the round of 16 was nearly to seed, with just a couple of interlopers (No. 21 Alhouni, who took out Frazier, and No. 29 Grayson Goldin, who took advantage of Burkhardt’s huge upset to advance himself. From there, the top seeds shone out, setting up some great quarter finals. No. 6 Christopher Haworth ground out a 10,10 win over No. 3 Alshon in the match of the round to set up a semi against top seed Hunter Johnson in the upper half, while N0. 7 Jack Sock had one of his best events in a while, topping No. 2 Staksrud to take on the red-hot Roscoe Bellamy.

In the first semi, Haworth made a huge statement about the true pecking order on tour with a 1,6 beatdown of the tour’s No. 1 player, while Jack Sock advanced to just his third ever gold medal match with a win over Bellamy 12,1.

In the final, Haworth outslugged Sock to win 8,8. Sock seemed to badly injure himself at the tail end of game two, which hopefully isn’t a long term injury. Haworth wins his third PPA event and gives support to his claim as the best singles player in the sport, irrespective of his current rank.

Gold: Christopher Haworth. Silver: Jack Sock. Bronze: Roscoe Bellamy

Women’s Pro Singles Recap

As has become the norm in the Women’s singles draw, the top seeds had little difficulty matriculating deep into the tournament. There were just a couple of interlopers into the quarters outside the top 8 seeds, and those two (No. 12 Jorja Johnson and No. 10 Liz Trulock) aren’t really that surprising to see competing deep in a singles event on tour.

No. 1 Anna Leigh Waters, sporting both a new paddle and new apparel at this event thanks to the two multi-year, multi-million dollar deals she signed earlier this month with Franklin and Nike respectively, showed little impact to her game from her new sticks, cruising past No. 5 Jansen in her quarterfinal. In the other quarterfinals, No. 3 Kaitlyn Christian crushed the rapidly improving Bouchard, No. 2 Kate Fahey made fast work of Johnson, and in the round’s biggest upset, Trulock shocked No. 4 Brooke Buckner in three in her continuing effort to win her first medal on tour.

The semis were a tale of two matches: from the top half, Christian gave Waters all she could handle, losing in three games where the score line didn’t indicate the grueling nature of their rallies. Meanwhile, Fahey ended Trulock’s run to set up a rematch of 1 versus 2 in Women’s Singles, and a rematch of the Worlds final from Dallas last November.

In the final, Waters entered the match completely gassed from a 5-game Mixed thriller, but with her 40th career PPA Triple Crown chances still intact. In the last match of the event, Waters bore down, found a new level of focus and crushed her closest rival 1,4 to finish off her 40th career triple crown on tour. Waters expended no extra energy, but was clearly at the end of her energy rope and found a new level of focus to take the title against Fahey, who was playing well but just not quite well enough.

Gold: Anna Leigh Waters. Silver: Kate Fahey. Bronze: Liz Trulock

Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

The two top Mixed teams in the sport (No. 1 Waters & Johns and No. 2 Jorja & JW Johnson) have met for gold seven times in the last year on tour, so it’d be understandable if the expectation was that they’d make it an 8th meeting here in California. However, a couple of spirited runs from relatively new Mixed teams conspired against the normal in this draw.

First, the No. 23 seeded team of Mari Humberg & Jack Sock shocked two higher ranked seeds early to make it to the quarter finals. On paper, Humberg/Sock seems like a poor fit, in that Humberg is very much a left-sided female whose strength comes in her slice backhand skills, while Sock is a forehand-first male who almost by definition has to play the left, lest his backhand get exposed. However, they made it work, and Sock made a Mixed quarterfinal for the first time since the 2024 Bristol event.

Next, the N0. 10 seeds Pisnik & Khlif, another team with a left-sided trending female in Pisnik, squeaked by No. 6 Daescu & Schneemann in the 32s, then out-lasted the Johnsons in the round of 16 13-11 in the third to surprisingly make the quarters.

One of the matches of the event was a round of 16 between PPA newcomer Will Howells, paired with Rohrabacher, facing off against No. 8 Fahey & Staksrud. The match was back and forth action, amazing defense, and really highlighted how good Howells can be despite having zero ranking points. It’s just a matter of time, especially if paired with a top-notch female partner like Rohrabacher, before this team is playing on Sunday.

The finals unsurprisingly came down to the two top teams remaining; the No. 1 seeds (who haven’t lost since April) versus the No. 3 pairing of Anna Bright & Hayden Patriquin. ALW made some early waves with a high lob serve, one that seemed to be relatively effective in pinning players back. That is until she left one short to Jack Sock, who hit a jumping forehand return for a missile winner that Johns could only wave at. Nonetheless, the deep lob serve certainly seems to have some strategic value, and it may be something we start to see more of.

In the final, the fans got a barn-burner, and the CBS executives likely got FOMO for showing the Men’s match instead of the Mixed match (by the way, why wouldn’t the tour switch up the finals so as to showcase their newly signed Nike athlete, and take advantage of having a Mixed match with both genders playing on national TV? Wouldn’t that have been a better choice?). Bright & Patriquin took a 2 games to 1 lead, then the top pair hunkered down and won games 4 and 5 to take the title.

Gold: Waters & Johns. Silver: Bright & Patriquin. Bronze: Pisnik & Khlif

Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

After seeing some one-off partnerships in 2025’s last event in Florida, all the top Men’s doubles teams were back in action together, and the performances on the court showed. There were two minor upsets in total in the round of 32, and just one non-top 8 seed made its way into the quarter final round, as a resurgent Jack Sock partnered with super-lefty Pablo Tellez to take out No. 6 Wright & Vich and earn Sock a quarter final appearance in all three draws for the first time in his career.

From there though, chalk, as we got 1v4 in one semi, and 2v3 in the other. From the top side, No. 1 Ben Johns & Gabriel Tardio controlled No. 4 JW Johnson & CJ Klinger 7,4, improving to 5-1 as a pair against the rising Johnson/Klinger partnership. In the other semi-final, No. 3 Christian Alshon & Hayden Patriquin took out No. 2 Staksrud & Daescu in a battle of four ex-partners (Staksrud & Patriquin partnered for most of 2025, and Alshon/Daescu did as well, both with some success).

In the final, which aired on CBS nationally, we got to see friends and roommates Patriquin & Tardio matched up across the net for the second time in as many days. Unfortunately, Hayden couldn’t do much to impact the match, and the No. 1 pair rolled to a 9,4,5 win on national TV. It is their 10th title together (and 12th final in 12 events), and they’re well on their way to setting the new standard for wins by a doubles team. They already have more wins together than Ben had with Matt Wright.

Gold: Johns & Tardio. Silver: Alshon & Patriquin. Bronze: Johnson & Klinger

Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

The Women’s Pro doubles draw exposed some “chinks” in the armor of the leading teams on tour, some damaging, but some fatal. The No. 2 team of Catherine Parenteau & Rachel Rohrabacher was upset early, taken out rather easily by No. 5 Lacy Schneemann & Etta Tuiotenoa (though this may have been injury related, as Parenteau had to retire from her singles match earlier in the event). The top pair of Anna Leigh Waters and Anna Bright was stretched to a third game in both their quarterfinal win and their semi-final win, though in both cases they ended up advancing with relatively comfortable game three wins.

In the final, the No. 1 ranked Waters/Bright pair took on none other than the Kawamoto Sisters, seeded fourth here and coming off a crushing 1,6 semis win over Etta & Lucy. Jackie & Jade don’t often play together on tour (just four times in all of 2025), but they’ve had increasing levels of success lately when they do: a Bronze in North Carolina, a Gold in Cincinnati, and the silver in Lakeland for medals in their last three successive events. Make it four in a row, as the pair played for gold on Sunday.

In the final, the Kawamotos kept it close in game one, losing 12-10, before the top pair ran away with the title 10,3,2.

Gold: Waters & Bright. Silver: Kawamoto & Kawamoto. Bronze: Black & Johnson

Senior Pro Competition Quick Recap

In a rarity, and as a nod to the size of the draw and the importance of the event, the PPA held all five of its disciplines for senior Pros this time around.

• Men’s Senior Open Singles: In a California-heavy podium, No. 1 Morgan Shephard topped No. 2 Dana Treister for the singles title.
• Men’s Senior Open Doubles: Altaf Merchant/Steve Deakin maintained their dominance together on tour, winning the title with ease.
• Women’s Senior Open Singles: Marcela Truxal took the rarely held Senior Women’s Singles event.
• Women’s Senior Open Doubles: Jennifer Galwas/Natalie Hill nabbed the Women’s title.
• Mixed Senior Open Doubles: As they normally do in these Mixed Senior draws, Julie Johnson & Steve Deakin cruised to the title.

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, the PPA heads right to Minnesota for 2026 National Indoors. There’s also a slew of international events happening next week, including a pickleball tie-in to the 2026 Tennis Australian Open, which kicked off this weekend in Melbourne.

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: