Bright and Waters Earn Double Gold at the First PPA Tour Event of the 2026-27 Season
The 2026-2027 PPA Tour season kicked off just one day after the Major League Pickleball Finals wrapped up, and it wasted no time delivering big moments. The Veolia National Championships took place in Cary, North Carolina at the Cary Tennis Center, and the heat was a real factor all week long — players and fans alike felt it. This was the first Slam of the new season, carrying 2,000 PPA points for the winners, which made every match feel like it had serious stakes attached to it.
Before we get into the results, there were four notable rule and format changes introduced at this event that will shape how the PPA Tour operates going forward. First, automated line calls were rolled out on eight side courts using Owl AI technology. Second, a side switch now happens at six points in every game. Third, bronze medal matches have been eliminated entirely. Fourth, the World Pickleball Rankings have been officially implemented. These are meaningful structural changes, and the no-bronze-match rule in particular changes the stakes of every semifinal matchup considerably.
What Is the PPA Tour? A Quick Breakdown for New Fans
If you’re new to watching professional pickleball, here’s the context you need. The Professional Pickleball Association, better known as the PPA Tour, is one of the premier professional pickleball circuits in the United States. It runs events throughout the year across different cities, with players competing in three main disciplines: men’s singles, women’s singles, and doubles — both same-sex and mixed. Points are awarded based on finishing position at each event, and those points determine seedings and rankings for future tournaments. A “Slam” is their highest tier of event, and this one in Cary, North Carolina was the first Slam of the 2026-2027 season. That means the best players in the world all showed up and everything was on the line from day one.
Think of it like a Grand Slam in tennis, except pickleball moves faster, the courts are smaller, and the sport is growing so rapidly that the competitive field gets deeper almost every single month. The Dink has been covering this growth closely, and this tournament in Cary was a perfect example of just how elite the level of play has become.
Anna Bright and Anna Leigh Waters Win Women’s Doubles Gold — Again
Anna Bright and Anna Leigh Waters continued their run as the most dominant women’s doubles team on the planet. In a tournament that was supposed to represent a fresh start to a new season, they made it look like nothing had changed — because for them, nothing has. The two came off the back of a heated rivalry during the MLP Finals just the day prior, and they set that aside immediately. By Wednesday they were back to business.
Their combined scoreline across the entire women’s doubles bracket was 121-28. To put that in perspective, that averages out to 11-2.55 per game. No opponent came close to pushing them. In the quarterfinals they beat Sleeth and Truong 0 and 1. In the semifinals they beat Rachel and Catherine 3 and 4. In the finals they defeated Jorja and Tyra 11-5, 11-6, 11-3. The most points any single opponent scored against them in a game was six. Six points. Against arguably the best women’s doubles team in pickleball history right now.
This win extends what is now at least a full calendar year unbeaten streak for Bright and Waters in women’s doubles. Their last loss came against the Kawamoto twins in the semifinals at the PPA Cincinnati Cup on September 13th, 2025. That is a remarkable run of consistency, especially in a sport where the competition has been improving rapidly at every level.
For those not familiar with what a streak like this means in context — imagine a tennis doubles team going an entire year without losing a match at the professional level. That’s the equivalent of what’s happening here. It’s genuinely historic, and it deserves recognition as such.
Anna Leigh Waters Wins Women’s Singles Gold — Her 830-Day Unbeaten Streak Continues
Anna Leigh Waters didn’t stop at doubles. She went on to win women’s singles gold as well, defeating Kate Fahey in the finals. Waters’ combined scoring across the week in singles was 110-18, or an average of just 1.8 points allowed per game. She pickled her opponent — meaning she held them to zero points — in four separate games during the tournament. Four.
Kate Fahey deserves credit for fighting hard in game two of the final, where she pushed Waters to a 9-11 scoreline. Those nine points were actually more than all of Waters’ previous opponents combined in the tournament. That’s how dominant she has been. It’s difficult to frame it any other way: Anna Leigh Waters in women’s singles right now is in a category of her own.
It has now been 830 days since Waters lost a singles match at the professional level. There is no immediate sign that streak is ending anytime soon. The gap between her and the rest of the field is not closing — if anything, it continues to hold steady at an uncomfortable distance for anyone hoping to knock her off the top.
The only thing that prevented Waters from completing a triple crown — winning singles, doubles, and mixed all in one tournament — was the mixed doubles semifinal. Jorja Johnson and JW Johnson upset Waters and Ben Johns in the mixed semis on Saturday, ending what had been a more than one-year unbeaten run for that duo as well. That loss to the Johnsons was a genuine upset and one of the most notable results of the week.
Anna Bright Wins Mixed Doubles Gold With Hayden Patriquin
With Waters and Johns knocked out of mixed doubles, the door opened for Anna Bright and Hayden Patriquin to claim the title. They walked through it confidently, defeating Jorja Johnson and JW Johnson in the finals with a scoreline of 11-9, 11-3, 11-7. It was the first major mixed doubles title for the Bright and Patriquin pairing, and it was significant for more than just the trophy.
Winning a Slam while beating the third-seeded Johnsons in the finals helps solidify Bright and Patriquin as a legitimate number two seed going into the rest of the season. Results like this matter for seedings and tournament brackets throughout the year. It also cements Anna Bright’s place as one of the most complete players on the women’s side of the tour — she now holds gold in both women’s doubles and mixed at the first Slam of the season.
Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio Stay Undefeated in 2026 With Men’s Doubles Gold
Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio continued their own dominant run, claiming men’s doubles gold and keeping their 2026 unbeaten record intact. Their last loss together came in a bronze medal match at Worlds back in November 2025. That means they have now gone over 300 days without losing a men’s doubles match. Similar to Waters in singles, the Johns-Tardio partnership in doubles is the defining standard of the event right now.
Their path to the title wasn’t effortless this week, though. In the quarterfinals, they dropped a game to CJ Klinger and Will Howells — the fifth seed — before recovering to win 11-3, 9-11, 11-5. In the semifinals they faced Hayden Patriquin and Federico Staksrud, winning 13-11, 11-5 in a match that actually ran over into Sunday morning due to how long the Saturday schedule ran. That semifinal was a real test, particularly that first game which went to 13-11.
In the finals they met Christian Alshon and Andrei Daescu. Johns and Tardio won 11-8, 11-8, 5-11, 11-5. They gave up a game — Alshon and Daescu took the third convincingly — but the overall tone of the match still felt like Johns and Tardio were in control. Giving up one game doesn’t tell the whole story when the other three games are won comfortably. These two are the team to beat in men’s doubles heading into the Arizona Open and beyond.
Hunter Johnson Wins Men’s Singles Gold to Open the New Season
Men’s singles at the PPA Tour level is notoriously unpredictable. It is the most chaotic of the three events, where upsets happen regularly and no lead ever feels completely safe. Hunter Johnson navigated all of that chaos and came out on top at the Veolia National Championships to win gold in the first event of the season.
His road wasn’t clean from the start. In the opening round he dropped the first game to Bret Berryman — a qualifier — losing 6-11. He recovered and won 11-4, 11-0, but that early stumble set a tone for what kind of tournament men’s singles was going to be. After that hiccup, Johnson found his rhythm. He beat the 17th seed Grayson Goldin 1 and 8, then the 24th seed Mo Alhouni 0 and 5, then the 12th seed Noe Khlif 1 and 0 in the quarterfinals. That’s a run of dominant performances against quality opponents once he got past his early-round scare.
In the semifinals Johnson faced the top overall seed, Chris Haworth, and beat him 11-9, 11-1. In the final he beat the second seed Federico Staksrud 7-11, 11-3, 11-0, clinching his first gold of the new season. Staksrud took the first game, but Johnson responded with back-to-back dominant wins to close it out. It was a strong showing that puts Johnson in a good position heading into the rest of the 2026-2027 season.
Other Storylines Worth Noting
Christian Alshon and the Post-Match Incident
After losing to Hayden Patriquin and Anna Bright in the mixed doubles semifinals — a 11-5, 11-2 loss — Christian Alshon reportedly said something at the handshake that offended both Hayden and Anna. The incident was addressed on-air after a commercial break by commentator Dave Fleming. It was a moment that added some drama to what was already a competitive and emotionally charged weekend. These types of moments tend to stick in people’s minds and will likely fuel some extra intensity the next time these players face each other.
Sofia Sewing’s Strong PPA Tour Debut
One of the most genuinely exciting storylines of the weekend was the debut of Sofia Sewing on the PPA Tour. She came in as the 45th seed out of qualifiers — essentially the lowest rung of the competitive ladder — and made a run all the way to the quarterfinals in women’s singles. Along the way she beat Marcela Ampon, Liz Truluck, and the eighth seed Kiora Kunimoto before losing to Kate Fahey 3-11, 7-11 in the quarters.
For context, Fahey ended up being the finalist in women’s singles, so losing to her in the quarterfinals is not a result anyone should be embarrassed about. The 400 ranking points Sewing earned for her quarterfinal run will help her climb the seedings quickly. She also had solid runs in women’s doubles alongside Catherine Parenteau and in mixed doubles with Casey Diamond. Mixed is the hardest event to break through in because the field is so established and stacked, but her overall debut was as good as anyone could have reasonably hoped for.
Jansen and Fahey as the Only Upset-Makers in Women’s Doubles
In a weekend where most of the results went exactly as the seeds predicted, Lea Jansen and Kate Fahey were the only women’s doubles team outside the top four seeds to make the semifinals. They were seeded sixth and had to beat Pisnik and Schneemann to get there. Beyond that one exception, the top four seeds occupied all four semifinal spots across the board. It was a chalk weekend in the truest sense, which raises an interesting question about how deep the gap between the top teams and the rest of the field actually is.
What’s Next on the PPA Tour
The next stop on the domestic schedule is the Arizona Open. But first, many players are heading overseas for the PPA Tour Asia Malaysia Cup this week, a 1,000-point event that could meaningfully shift the rankings before the Arizona Open even begins. It’s a busy stretch of the calendar, and the players who can manage travel, heat, and back-to-back high-level competition will be the ones who separate themselves over the course of the full season.
The opening Slam of the 2026-2027 season delivered on multiple fronts — record-extending streaks, a standout debut, a rule controversy, and competitive men’s singles action that reminded everyone why that event is never as predictable as the seedings suggest. If this is the standard for what the new season looks like, pickleball fans are in for a strong year of professional play.
