Anna Leigh Waters Takes Over Career Pro Pickleball Association Gold Lead With Triple Crown At Worlds

With her latest triple crown, Waters now has 168 career titles on tour and takes over the lead in tour history.

PPA

The biggest pickleball tournament of 2025, and the biggest tournament (by participation) ever held, went down last weekend in Dallas. The Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) held its 2025 Jenius Bank World Championships this past weekend at the Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas, and a record-setting 3,566 players descended on the club to compete for a UPA world title and to watch the pros duke it out in the biggest event of the season. This event broke its own 2024 record for the most participants ever in a tournament, eclipsing past record holders such as the 2024 Worlds (3,507), the 2025 US Open (3,450), and 2024 USA Pickleball Nationals (3,367) in terms of total player participation.

Now in its third year of hosting, Brookhaven (operated by the Invited Club network, whose CEO I interviewed in this space in 2023) is now an experienced pickleball tournament host, and the festivities look second to none. The Pickleball Boulevard is back, with dozens of vendors and week-long entertainment. More importantly, the PPA Pro draws have the biggest stakes ever: this event counts as a “super slam” in terms of points; a 3,000 point event (normal PPA “Opens” are worth 1000), meaning a great result this weekend can make or break a player’s chances at qualifying for the big year end Tour Finals event in San Clemente.

Lastly, this tournament marks the 100th ever event on tour, a significant milestone.

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

Even though it’s only been a week since our last recap, there’s been a slew of PPA/UPA related news tidbits. Some of these are rumors, others are the kind of announcements one would expect to occur in conjunction with the season’s biggest event.

• Both the Dink and KOTC this week alluded to “Contract Crackdowns” that the UPA has been undergoing, up to and including the contract termination of players who originally signed back in the August 2023 tour wars. This is understandable given the sheer number of players who have been failing to meet the contractual obligations of the contracts they signed.
• On 10/29/25, the PPA tour announces its 2026 Challenger schedule, which totals 15 events. These events have proven to be great proving grounds for new pros and existing lower-level pros.
• On 11/5/25: Matt Manasse’s new show Celebrity Pickleball debuts at 10pm EST/7pm PST on PickleballTV, one of their first ever ventures
  into new programming unrelated to replays or recap shows.

With that said, let’s recap the action.

Men’s Pro Singles Recap

A great barometer for the size of a tournament is the number of Men’s singles players in the qualifier. This week: 92 players, the best eight of which join the 60-something signed pros who get right into the main draw at present to start the festivities in a partially filled round of 128.

By the time Thursday rolled around, the field had been whittled to the round of 16, and we had our normal collection of top 8 seed upsets and 40-something seed Cinderella runs. No. 35 Tom Protzek got a career win over No. 6 Jack Sock in three, as the grind of the tour seems to be getting to the oft-injured former Tennis star. No. 40 Auggie Ge, not necessarily known for his singles game, topped both Greyson Goldin and No. 8 John Goins to get to Friday. No. 12 Dylan Frazier beat his long-time doubles partner No. 20 JW Johnson in three. No. 4 Connor Garnett cooled the red-hot No. 27 Donald Young. No. 22 Jay Devilliers turned back the clock and ousted No. 9 Michael Loyd.

Lastly, long-time No. 1 Ben Johns, has now sunk down the leaderboard to enter this event ranked No. 7 in Men’s Singles, suffered yet another early round loss, dropping his round of 32 match to Alexander Crum. While this isn’t that bad a loss in and among itself (Crum has two wins over Staksrud this year), it’s the latest early-round upset of Johns in Singles this year. Including Worlds, in 17 tournaments held this year, Johns has missed 9 of them, won 2 golds, and been upset before the medal round 6 times now. He’s lost to Crum, Joseph, Freeman, Lenhard, Ford, and Goins this season, and he’s in real danger of dropping out of the top eight soon. By missing half the singles events, he’s already signaling an intent to perhaps give up entirely on singles, and his strategy for 2025, which is now failing, seemed to be, “Play the Cups and Slams and try to get enough points that way to qualify.” It will be interesting to see when, and not if, he quits Singles on tour.

The semis of singles featured no major surprises, with the three top seeds plus No. 13 Christopher Haworth making their way to the Saturday semis. There, Haworth handled top-seeded Hunter Johnson in two close games while No. 2 Staksrud crushed No. 4 Garnett to set up a captivating final.

In the final, Staksrud took back over the tour, at least for a day, with a close first game and a dominant second to take the title over Haworth. With the 3,000 points, Staksrud regains the top spot on tour, while Haworth moves all the way up to No. 6.

Gold: Federico Staksrud. Silver: Christopher Haworth. Bronze: Hunter Johnson

Women’s Pro Singles Recap

The early rounds featured a couple of 50-something seeds getting crazy upsets to shake up the early rounds. Oklahoman No. 52 Isabella Dunlap beat both Walker and Ingram to make the 16s. Former WTA touring player No. 53 Rika Fujiwara, who took bronze at the PPA Asia Vietnam Open earlier this year) shocked Devidze and then Hones before falling in the 16s to Jansen. No. 1 Anna Leigh Waters, who entered this event with a solid chance of taking over the career gold lead from Ben Johns, was pressed early with a round of 16 matchup against Jorja Johnson and then dropped a game somewhat controversially in the semis to Kaitlyn Christian, but advanced to the final for the 18th straight singles event (a streak that dates back to June 2024) from the top half.

The bottom quarters featured four ladies who all have multiple tour wins in Todd, Buckner, Fahey, and Parenteau, and the four ladies battled out multiple tiebreakers amongst themselves before No. 2 Kate Fahey lived up to her seed and rank and advanced to the final to face her recent nemesis ALW.

In the final, Waters made it 11 for 11 against Fahey in her career with a 4,10 win to take the title.

Gold: Anna Leigh Waters. Silver: Kate Fahey. Bronze: Brooke Buckner.

Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

In the biggest event of the year, the top mixed doubles teams all came out to play, leading to a chalk quarter finals (meaning, all 8 of the top seeded teams advanced into the quarter finals as expected). From the top half, No. 3 Bright & Patriquin did their best to take down the top seeds Anna Leigh Waters & Ben Johns, even stealing a game two in their semi, but they couldn’t keep their 100% error-free play going long enough to score the win and fell in the semis. From the bottom half, the Johnson siblings at No. 2 were pressed in the semis by no. 4 Black & Alshon, but advanced to setup a 1 vs 2 final.

In the final, Waters & Johns played their typical solid pickleball and won 7,4,7 to claim the title. It would end up being Johns’ sole title at Worlds.

Gold: Waters & Johns. Silver: Johnson & Johnson. Bronze: Bright & Patriquin.

Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

The No. 1 seeds Ben Johns and Gabriel Tardio entered this event having played together 10 times this year; they made the final in all 10 of those appearances, winning 8 golds. They were riding a 6-tournament winning streak and had not lost together since May. That all came to a crashing halt this weekend.

The No. 3 pair of Federico Staksrud & Hayden Patriquin, who first got together last fall and who have been a mainstay on the podium ever since, showed the pickleball world the game plan for beating the top pair, with constant pressure, constant attacks, and ended up beating Johns & Tardio in their own game in the semis with a comprehensive 8,5 win. However, their work wasn’t done with the seminal semis win, as they had to face another dangerous challenger to the throne in the increasingly powerful JW Johnson/CJ Klinger pair (who cruised the No. 2 seeds Alshon & Daescu 2,4 in their own semi).

In the final, after dropping the first game, Staksrud & Patriquin ground out three straight wins to claim the Worlds title. Final score: (8),7,4,8. This was clearly a meaningful win for Fed, who was as emotional as Hayden was happy in the post-game interviews.

Men’s Doubles has now settled in on tour with four pairs of players (now ranked 1-4th) who all have what it takes to win gold. Daescu & Alshon have 3 golds this year, Johnson & Klinger won their first in May, Staksrud & Patriquin now have four together since last October, and of course Johns & Tardio’s exploits in 2025 are well documented. In fact, to find the last time a Men’s Doubles gold medal winning team featured a player outside of these eight men, one would have to go all the way back to August 2023, when McGuffin & Ignatowich teamed up to win in Brigham City.

Gold: Staksrud & Patriquin. Silver: Johnson & Klinger. Bronze: Daescu & Alshon..

Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

After a couple of shock losses together in August and September, No. 1 Anna Leigh Waters and Anna Bright have righted the ship and won their third straight Women’s doubles title on the trot. They topped Parris Todd & Catherine Parenteau in the final with ease 2,2,5.

The top ladies on tour seem to be in a continual shuffle of partners ever since the Waters/Bright partnership began, with varying degrees of success. Initially the two vanquished partners of the top team (Rohrabacher & Parenteau) teamed up and immediately got to the final. However from there the two parted ways and there’s been a slew of different combinations of teams this year involving those two plus the likes of Todd, Black, Johnson, and the Kawamotos. Hurricane Tyra Black seems to be the favorite partner amongst these challengers to the throne (she’s won 14 medals in the 17 2025 events this year), likely because she’s steady-eddie on the right side and allows for left-side play from all these alpha-females.

With this win, Waters secures her 38th triple crown in her career, and her third in a row. She’s cruised through the tour in the last month, winning nine gold medals in a month, and has now eclipsed Ben Johns for the most golds all time on tour.

Gold: Waters & Bright. Silver: Todd & Parenteau. Bronze: Johnson & Black.

Senior Pro Competition Quick Recap

• Men’s Senior Open Singles: Mattias Johansson beat Joshua Cooperman for the gold in a meeting of the tour’s two most decorated senior singles players.
• Men’s Senior Open Doubles: Altaf Merchant/Steve Deakin won their 10th PPA Senior Pro doubles title in the strongest field of the season.
• Women’s Senior Open Doubles: Newcomers Elizabeth Wilcox/Mei Juan Lin from Florida shocked the field and took gold.
• Mixed Senior Open Doubles: Dave Weinbach & Kitri Boser got a shock upset win over regular Mixed winners Deakin and Johnson.

The tour also took a page out of the US Open and other major events and held “Split Age” pro events for (I believe) the first time.

• Men’s Split Age Pro Doubles: Steve Deakin, who still plays in the pro doubles draws and competes, paired with JW Johnson to take the split age 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 for PPA? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, the tour gets a break after two straight weeks in a Dallas hotel, then heads to Lakeland, Florida for a new tour stop location. There’s just two more PPA events scheduled between now and the end of the year, as the tour heads into a bit of a pause to catch its breath post Worlds.

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: