Chris Haworth Has Some Advice for Aspiring Pickleball Pros

The path from amateur pickleball player to professional competitor is more challenging than ever. With the sport’s explosive growth and increasing competition at the highest levels, breaking through to the professional ranks requires not just talent, but strategic planning, relentless commitment, and a realistic understanding of what it takes to succeed. Chris Haworth, one of the sport’s most accomplished singles players, recently shared candid insights about this journey that every aspiring pro should hear.

A Historic Winning Streak and Fresh Start

Chris Haworth has established himself as a force to be reckoned with in professional pickleball. His accomplishments speak for themselves—most notably, he made history by not losing a single men’s singles match on the APP Tour for over a year. This remarkable streak demonstrated not just his skill level, but his consistency and mental fortitude in high-pressure competition.

Now just over a month into his new PPA Tour contract, Haworth has wasted no time proving he belongs among the elite. He recently secured a significant victory by beating Christian Alshon in the finals at the Virginia Beach Cup. This win showcased his ability to transition between tours and compete at the highest level regardless of the venue or format.

During his appearance on PicklePod with host Zane Navratil, Haworth discussed not only his recent success but also offered valuable perspective for players dreaming of following in his footsteps. His advice comes from someone who has navigated the challenges of professional pickleball and understands the current landscape intimately.

The Reality Check: Breaking Through Is Harder Than Ever

Haworth doesn’t sugarcoat the difficulty facing aspiring professionals. “It’s so hard right now to break through,” he acknowledged during the podcast. This honest assessment reflects the current state of professional pickleball, where the talent pool has deepened considerably and the competition for spots on professional tours has intensified dramatically.

The sport has evolved rapidly from its early days when talented amateurs could make the jump to professional competition relatively quickly. Today’s professional pickleball requires a level of dedication, skill, and strategic career planning that mirrors more established professional sports. The window between recreational play and professional competition has widened, creating a challenging gap that aspiring pros must navigate carefully.

This reality doesn’t mean the dream is impossible—it simply means that players need to approach their professional aspirations with eyes wide open and a clear plan for progression. Understanding the difficulty upfront allows players to prepare appropriately rather than being blindsided by the challenges they’ll face.

The PPA Challenger Tour: Your Testing Ground

One of Haworth’s key recommendations for aspiring professionals centers on the PPA Challenger Tour. “I think right now the PPA Challenger Tour is a great option for people, just to see where your level is,” he explained. This tour serves as a crucial stepping stone between amateur and professional play, offering a realistic gauge of where a player stands in the competitive hierarchy.

The Challenger series provides several critical benefits for developing players. First, it offers exposure to tournament-level competition without the overwhelming pressure of facing the absolute top players in the world. Second, it creates opportunities to accumulate results that can attract attention from sponsors, potential partners, and tour organizers. Third, it serves as an honest assessment tool—if you can’t win consistently at the Challenger level, you’re likely not ready for the main tour.

Haworth emphasized that volume of play matters tremendously. “As much as you can play, the better,” he stated simply. This advice aligns with the 10,000-hour rule often cited in discussions of expertise development. There’s simply no substitute for match experience, particularly in competitive settings that mirror professional tournament conditions. Every match teaches lessons about strategy, pressure management, and execution that cannot be learned in practice sessions alone.

The Challenger Tour also provides a lower-stakes environment to experiment with different strategies, partnerships in doubles play, and approaches to tournament preparation. Players can afford to take risks and learn from failures without derailing their professional careers before they’ve truly begun.

Building Your Network and Reputation

Technical skill alone won’t carry you to professional success in pickleball. Haworth stressed the importance of building relationships throughout the pickleball community. “If you feel like your level is high, you’ll get some good results, you’ll get some eyes on you,” he said. “From there, I think the pickleball world is so good at helping each other. Meeting people along the way, making good connections. The more people you know, the better. Just get your name out there.”

This networking aspect of becoming a professional is often overlooked by players focused solely on improving their game. However, the pickleball community’s collaborative nature can be a significant advantage for rising players. Established pros, coaches, and industry insiders regularly help talented players make connections, find practice partners, and identify opportunities.

Getting your name out there means more than just winning matches. It involves being present at tournaments, engaging with the community on social media, demonstrating good sportsmanship, and making yourself memorable for the right reasons. Professional pickleball is a small world, and reputation matters enormously. Players who are known as good partners, gracious competitors, and positive community members often find doors opening that remain closed to equally talented but less engaged players.

Building a network also provides practical benefits beyond career advancement. It can help you find practice partners at your level, learn about tournament opportunities before they fill up, get equipment deals, and receive coaching advice from experienced players. The relationships you build as an aspiring pro often become the foundation of a sustainable professional career.

The Time and Financial Investment Required

Haworth acknowledges the practical challenges facing most aspiring pros: “It’s not easy, especially given most amateurs are working full-time, then training and competing on nights and weekends. It’s time-intensive. And expensive.”

This reality represents one of the biggest obstacles for talented players with professional aspirations. Unlike some sports where clear pathways exist with financial support systems, aspiring pickleball pros often must fund their own development. This includes costs for tournament entries, travel, accommodation, equipment, coaching, and training facilities. These expenses add up quickly, particularly when you’re not yet earning prize money consistently.

The time commitment is equally challenging. Developing professional-level skills requires hours of daily practice, ideally with high-level partners. Adding tournament play on weekends means sacrificing personal time, social activities, and often sleep. For players maintaining full-time jobs, this creates a grueling schedule that can be difficult to sustain over the months or years required to reach professional level.

Many aspiring pros face a difficult decision point: when, if ever, to quit their day job and pursue pickleball full-time. This decision carries significant financial risk, particularly for players with families or financial obligations. There’s no clear formula for making this choice, but Haworth’s advice to test yourself at the Challenger level first provides at least some objective data to inform the decision.

The financial model of professional pickleball also means that only players who can consistently reach later rounds of tournaments will earn enough prize money to sustain themselves. Early exits don’t cover expenses, creating a feast-or-famine dynamic that adds pressure to every match.

Zane Navratil’s Perspective: Being Good Trumps Everything

Zane Navratil, who has experienced the journey from amateur to professional himself, reinforced Haworth’s message about the importance of playing as much high-level pickleball as possible. His advice was direct: playing as much as possible, against the best competition you can compete against, is the only path to the top.

Navratil’s perspective carries weight because he has successfully navigated this path relatively recently. He understands the modern landscape of professional pickleball and the challenges facing today’s aspiring pros. His confirmation of Haworth’s advice suggests these aren’t just one player’s opinions but reflect a consensus among those who have succeeded at the highest level.

Perhaps most importantly, Navratil offered this reassurance: “The deck may be stacked against you, but one thing is undeniable. Being good at pickleball trumps all.” This statement cuts through the complexity and challenges to remind aspiring pros of a fundamental truth—if you’re genuinely good enough, you will find a way to succeed. The networking, the tournament selection, the financial challenges—all of these obstacles can be overcome if your skill level is truly professional caliber.

This doesn’t mean the other factors don’t matter, but it does provide a north star for aspiring pros: focus first and foremost on being undeniably good at pickleball. Everything else becomes easier when your game speaks for itself.

The New PPA Prize Money Model

Haworth expressed support for the PPA’s results-based prize money model, describing it as an “eat what you kill” system. This model, which heavily weights prize money toward tournament results rather than guaranteeing appearance fees to top players, has implications for aspiring pros.

On one hand, a merit-based system creates opportunities for unknown players to earn significant money if they perform well. You don’t need to be a recognized name or have an existing contract to walk away with substantial prize money—you just need to win matches. This theoretically levels the playing field and rewards performance over reputation.

On the other hand, this model also increases financial risk for developing players. Without guaranteed appearance fees or minimum earnings, players could invest significantly in tournament participation and walk away with nothing if they don’t advance. This creates additional pressure and makes the financial calculus of pursuing professional pickleball even more challenging.

For Haworth, who has proven he can win consistently at the highest level, this model makes sense. It rewards players like him who deliver results. For aspiring pros, it represents both opportunity and risk—the chance to earn significant money quickly if they’re truly ready, but also the possibility of significant financial loss if they’ve overestimated their readiness.

The Commitment Factor: All In or Nothing

Haworth’s ultimate advice distills down to a simple but demanding message: “If you think you can do it, and you believe in yourself, you’ve got to just go for it and commit.”

This call for commitment acknowledges that half-measures rarely produce professional-level results. The players who succeed at the highest level are those who commit fully to the pursuit, accepting the sacrifices and risks involved. Dabbling in professional aspirations while keeping one foot firmly planted in a conventional career path may feel safer, but it rarely produces the focused intensity required to break through.

Commitment means different things at different stages of the journey. Early on, it might mean spending every spare hour practicing and playing tournaments while maintaining your day job. Later, it might mean making the leap to full-time training despite the financial uncertainty. Throughout, it means prioritizing pickleball development over competing interests and staying focused on long-term goals even when short-term results are discouraging.

The belief component of Haworth’s advice is equally important. The mental challenges of pursuing professional athletics are well-documented, and pickleball is no exception. You’ll face losses, setbacks, injuries, and moments of doubt. Self-belief becomes the foundation that allows you to persist through these challenges rather than giving up when the path gets difficult.

However, belief must be balanced with realism. This is where testing yourself at the Challenger level becomes so valuable—it provides objective feedback about whether your self-belief is justified or whether you need more development before making larger commitments to professional play.

Understanding the Advice: A Guide for Newcomers

If you’re relatively new to pickleball or unfamiliar with the structure of professional play, Haworth’s advice might raise some questions. Let’s break down what this all means in more accessible terms.

Professional pickleball operates through organized tours—primarily the PPA Tour and APP Tour—where players compete in tournaments for prize money and rankings points. These tours represent the highest level of competitive play, featuring the best players in the world. Getting onto these tours and succeeding requires both exceptional skill and strategic career planning.

The PPA Challenger Tour that Haworth mentions functions like a minor league in baseball or a futures tour in tennis. It’s a step below the main professional tour but well above recreational play. Players compete for smaller prize purses, and it serves as a proving ground where developing players can demonstrate they’re ready for the bigger stage.

When Haworth talks about not losing a men’s singles match on the APP Tour for over a year, that’s an extraordinary accomplishment that demonstrates sustained excellence against top competition. Singles play in pickleball—where you play alone rather than with a partner—requires a complete skill set and exceptional physical fitness, making his streak even more impressive.

The networking aspect Haworth emphasizes reflects how professional pickleball operates as a relatively small, interconnected community. Unlike major professional sports with formal scouting systems and draft processes, pickleball relies more on reputation, relationships, and word-of-mouth. Getting noticed by the right people can lead to opportunities for partnerships, sponsorships, and invitations to events.

The financial challenges facing aspiring pros stem from the fact that pickleball is still a relatively young professional sport. While prize money has grown substantially and some top players earn comfortable livings, the sport doesn’t yet have the deep financial infrastructure of established professional sports. There are no minor league salaries, no developmental contracts with guaranteed income, and limited sponsorship money available outside the very top players.

When Navratil says “being good at pickleball trumps all,” he’s reminding aspiring pros that skill development should be the primary focus. All the networking, strategic tournament selection, and social media presence in the world won’t compensate for inadequate game skills. If you’re genuinely talented enough, opportunities will emerge. If your game isn’t ready, no amount of peripheral work will get you to the professional level.

Practical Takeaways for Aspiring Professionals

Synthesizing Haworth’s advice with the broader context of professional pickleball, several practical action steps emerge for players with professional aspirations.

First, honestly assess your current level. This means playing against the strongest competition available in your area and at regional tournaments. If you’re not consistently winning or placing highly against strong amateur and semi-professional players, you’re not ready for professional competition yet. This assessment should be ongoing and honest, not based on wishful thinking.

Second, develop a progression plan that includes the Challenger Tour as a key milestone. Rather than trying to jump directly to the professional tour, use the Challenger series to gauge your readiness and build a competitive resume. Set concrete goals for Challenger Tour performance before attempting to move up.

Third, maximize your playing opportunities against high-level competition. This might mean traveling to find better practice partners, attending competitive camps or clinics, or relocating temporarily to areas with stronger player populations. The quality of competition you regularly face directly impacts your rate of improvement.

Fourth, build your presence in the pickleball community. This doesn’t mean becoming a social media influencer, but rather becoming a known and respected member of the competitive community. Attend events, connect with other players, be a good partner and opponent, and make yourself memorable for positive reasons.

Fifth, develop a financial plan that acknowledges the costs involved. This might include saving money while working full-time, seeking sponsors, finding part-time work that accommodates training schedules, or planning for a specific period of full-time pursuit before reassessing. Going into professional pursuit without a financial plan leads to stress that undermines performance.

Sixth, commit fully once you’ve decided to pursue professional play seriously. This doesn’t necessarily mean quitting your job immediately, but it does mean organizing your life around pickleball development rather than fitting pickleball around other priorities. Half-hearted pursuit produces half-hearted results.

Finally, maintain perspective and flexibility. The path to professional success rarely follows a straight line. Be willing to adjust your approach based on results, stay open to advice from those who have succeeded, and remember that the timeline for success varies dramatically among players. Some reach professional level quickly while others require years of development.

The Mental Game of Professional Pursuit

While Haworth’s advice focuses primarily on practical steps and competitive experience, the mental and emotional aspects of pursuing professional pickleball deserve consideration as well. The journey tests not just your physical skills but your resilience, self-belief, and ability to handle pressure.

Aspiring pros face constant evaluation and comparison. Every tournament result becomes data in an ongoing assessment of your professional viability. Learning to handle both success and failure constructively is essential. Success must motivate continued improvement rather than breeding complacency. Failure must inform learning rather than triggering discouragement an