PPA Arizona Open Recap: Six Championship Points Saved, Double Gold for ALW, and Haworth Owns Mesa

The PPA Tour’s second stop of the 2026-27 season had a little bit of everything — and then some. The No. 1 seeds in men’s doubles got smoked in their opening match. A pair of teenagers kept proving that the PPA Challenger Series is producing real Tour-level talent. A 46-seed made the quarterfinals. A team had six championship points and somehow still lost. And a bird pooped on the eventual men’s singles champion in the middle of the final.

Welcome back to Mesa.

The Veolia Arizona Open was always going to be a little different. Several top players were absent, the new World Pickleball Rankings created some genuinely unusual seeds and byes, and Anna Leigh Waters wasn’t playing women’s doubles — which blew the entire draw wide open. By the time Championship Sunday wrapped up, we had four different championship teams, an Anna Leigh Waters double gold, and probably the best men’s doubles final of the 2026-27 season so far.

Let’s get into all of it.

What Is the PPA Tour? A Quick Primer for Newer Fans

If you’re relatively new to pickleball or just starting to follow the professional scene, here’s what you need to know. The PPA Tour — short for the Professional Pickleball Association Tour — is one of the premier professional pickleball circuits in the United States. It features the top-ranked players in the world competing across multiple disciplines: men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles.

Events are held at various venues across the country throughout the season, and each tournament awards ranking points that factor into the overall season standings. Players like Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns have become household names in the sport, consistently dominating their respective draws. The PPA Tour has been at the center of the explosive growth pickleball has seen over the last several years, and events like the Veolia Arizona Open in Mesa draw significant attention from fans, media, and sponsors alike.

When you hear terms like “Championship Sunday,” that refers to the final day of a tournament where all the gold medal matches are played. A “gold” in pickleball parlance simply means winning your event — taking home first place. “Championship points” are match points — moments when a team is one point away from winning the whole thing. And in Mesa this week, one team had six of them and couldn’t close it out.

Alshon and Daescu Survive Six Championship Points in an Instant Classic

Before the tournament, many analysts had Ben Johns and Federico Staksrud pegged as the favorites to win men’s doubles. They lasted one match. Nico Acevedo and Yuta Funemizu, seeded No. 15, completely dismantled the top pairing 11-4, 11-5 in just 34 minutes. This wasn’t a close match that could have gone either way — Acevedo and Funemizu were simply better on the day, and it wasn’t subtle.

What made the result even more remarkable was that it wasn’t a fluke. Acevedo and Funemizu kept winning. They beat Casey Diamond and Tyson McGuffin 12-10 in the third in the quarterfinals, then pulled off the exact same result against No. 3 seeds CJ Klinger and Cam Chaffin in the semis — another 12-10 third-game victory. That put them in the final against Christian Alshon and Andrei Daescu, and what followed was one of the most dramatic doubles matches you’ll see all season.

Alshon and Daescu won Game 1. Acevedo and Funemizu answered in Game 2. The deciding game turned into an absolute marathon. Acevedo and Funemizu had six different championship point opportunities. Six moments where they were one point away from gold. They couldn’t convert a single one. Alshon and Daescu finally escaped 11-7, 7-11, 15-13 after 91 minutes on the court. It was their fourth title together and their second specifically in Mesa.

Acevedo and Funemizu were arguably the story of the entire tournament despite coming away with silver. The run they went on — beating the No. 1 seed convincingly and then fighting their way through elite opponents to the final — was genuinely impressive. But you have to give Alshon and Daescu enormous credit. Surviving one or two match points takes some nerve and some luck. Surviving six requires something else entirely. Alshon also made the mixed doubles final and the men’s singles semifinals during the same weekend, which tells you how locked in he was across the board.

According to The Dink, the match clocked in at 91 minutes — a serious test of mental and physical endurance at the highest level of the sport.

Anna Leigh Waters Does It Again — And Ben Johns Hits Milestone No. 80

Anna Leigh Waters only entered two events in Mesa, which meant a Triple Crown — winning singles, doubles, and mixed in the same tournament — wasn’t on the table. She settled for two gold medals instead, because apparently that’s her floor now.

Waters and Ben Johns entered the week coming off a semifinal loss at Nationals in Carolina. Mesa hasn’t always been the friendliest venue for them in mixed doubles recently — they hadn’t won mixed doubles here since 2024, dropping matches to Anna Bright and Dekel Bar in 2025 and then to Bright and Hayden Patriquin at the Mesa Cup earlier in 2026. There was no drama this time. Waters and Johns beat Rachel Rohrabacher and Christian Alshon 11-3, 11-6 in the mixed doubles final, and it wasn’t close.

For Johns, the win was career PPA mixed doubles title No. 80. He also extended his streak to 58 consecutive PPA tournaments with at least one gold medal. That’s not a typo. Fifty-eight straight events with a gold. That streak borders on the incomprehensible when you think about what goes into competing at this level week after week.

Waters then turned her attention to women’s singles, where she faced Kate Fahey in the final. Fahey played a competitive first game and kept things interesting, but Waters won 11-9, 11-4 to finish her weekend with two golds. Her women’s singles unbeaten streak entered the event at more than two years and three months. It continues. At this point, the only meaningful women’s singles question at every PPA event is simple: who is going to be the one to beat Anna Leigh Waters? We still don’t have an answer, and it’s starting to feel like we won’t get one anytime soon.

Chris Haworth Owns Mesa — With a Little Help From a Bird

Chris Haworth won men’s singles at the Mesa Cup back in February. Six months later in the same city, he did it again. The men’s singles final against Federico Staksrud was one of Sunday’s best matches. Staksrud took Game 1, 12-10, Haworth answered 11-9, and then things got genuinely strange in the deciding game.

Haworth was down 6-3 when a bird, mid-match, pooped on him. He then proceeded to score the final eight points of the match and win 10-12, 11-9, 11-6. Whether the bird was responsible for the momentum swing is a question best left to philosophers and pickleball fans with too much time on their hands. What’s not debatable is the result: Haworth defended his Mesa title and claimed the ninth PPA Tour singles championship of his career.

More broadly, Haworth is continuing to establish himself as one of the two or three players in the world you absolutely do not want to face in a men’s singles draw. His composure under pressure, his ability to flip momentum in deciding games, and his consistency at the top level of the sport make him a genuine threat every single week. The PPA Tour’s next stop is Las Vegas, and Haworth will be among the names to watch when the draw is released.

Rohrabacher and Todd Win Gold — Right Before the Wedding

With Anna Leigh Waters not competing in women’s doubles and Anna Bright and Jorja Johnson also absent, this was one of the most open women’s doubles draws in recent memory. Rachel Rohrabacher and Parris Todd, the top seeds, took full advantage. They reached the final against the new pairing of Meghan Dizon and Hurricane Tyra Black and looked like they were going to cruise to the title — winning Game 1, 11-4, and building a 10-2 lead in Game 2 with championship point in hand.

Dizon and Black somehow clawed all the way back from 2-10 to steal Game 2, 12-10. That kind of collapse can break a team mentally. Instead of letting it carry into the third, Rohrabacher and Todd reset and closed out the deciding game 11-6. It was their second title as a team and their fifth medal together.

The timing made it a little sweeter. Rohrabacher is getting married on September 26 — just five days after Championship Sunday. The PPA Tour had even called her “the bride to be” in their tournament preview, asking whether she could bring a gold medal to her wedding. She can. Mission accomplished.

The Young Guns Are For Real: Kunimoto and Schupp Make Their Mark

Kiora Kunimoto and Elliott Schupp are 18 and 19 years old, respectively. They also reached the mixed doubles quarterfinals at a full PPA Tour event, and it wasn’t luck. The two had already gone 11-2 together in PPA Challenger Series events, including winning the Atlanta Challenger, and they translated that success directly to the main Tour level in Mesa without missing a beat.

Their run in Mesa included wins over Etta Tuionetoa and Will Howells, No. 9 seeds Kaitlyn Christian and Connor Garnett, and Meghan Dizon and John Lucian Goins before finally running into Waters and Johns in the quarterfinals. That’s not a soft draw. Those are legitimate Tour-level opponents, and Kunimoto and Schupp handled them. They look well ahead of schedule for players their age, and if the Challenger Series continues producing talent at this rate, the main Tour is going to keep getting younger and more competitive at the top.

Other Storylines Worth Knowing

Maria Ford’s Run From the 46 Seed

Maria Ford entered the women’s singles draw as the No. 46 seed and had to come through qualifiers just to get into the main draw. She made it to the quarterfinals anyway. Along the way she beat No. 6 seed Chao Yi Wang 11-6, 11-7 — a result that would have been an upset regardless of where Ford was seeded. Kate Fahey ended the run in the quarters, but getting from the qualifier rounds all the way into the final eight at a PPA event is a remarkable performance by any measure.

Jalina Ingram Beats Two Top-10 Seeds to Make Her First Semifinals

Local Arizona teenager Jalina Ingram had one of the best weeks of her career in women’s singles. As the No. 13 seed, she came through the Round of 64 against a quality opponent, swept the Round of 32, then knocked off No. 3 Kaitlyn Christian in a three-game fight in the Round of 16. In the quarterfinals, she took out No. 7 Catherine Parenteau — also in three games — to make her first career PPA Tour singles semifinal. She lost to Anna Leigh Waters in the semis, but that’s a loss that requires no apology. Ingram is playing the best pickleball of her career right now, and she’s on record saying she loves playing in Las Vegas — which is the next stop on the Tour.

Sofia Sewing and Casey Diamond Keep Causing Problems

Sofia Sewing and Casey Diamond came into the tournament as a low-seeded mixed doubles team and kept on doing what they’ve been doing all season — making life difficult for higher seeds. They came back to beat Jack Sock and Lacy Schneemann, knocked off Angie Walker and James Delgado, and took down Tyra Black and Noe Khlif in three games to reach the quarterfinals. Kate Fahey and Federico Staksrud finally stopped them. As Sewing continues to accumulate PPA ranking points, she’s going to stop drawing these favorable early-round matchups. In the meantime, whoever ends up across the net from her early in a draw isn’t thrilled about it.

The WPR Bye System Is Still Confusing

The new World Pickleball Rankings-based bye system produced some genuinely hard-to-explain results in Mesa. Ben Johns — the No. 22 singles seed — received a double bye into the Round of 16. Andrei Daescu, seeded No. 45, also received a double bye into the Round of 16. Meanwhile, No. 1 Chris Haworth and No. 3 Hunter Johnson both had to start in the Round of 64. The WPR is attempting to build one global ranking that rewards results across disciplines and events, which is a reasonable concept in theory. But a draw where the 45 seed starts in the Round of 16 and the top seed starts in the Round of 64 is going to be a tough sell to casual fans and even to some of the players. Changes to the format heading into 2027 seem like a reasonable expectation.

Championship Sunday Went Best Two-of-Three — And It Worked

All five Championship Sunday finals were played best two-out-of-three games rather than the traditional best three-out-of-five format. Three of the five finals still went to a deciding game. The 91-minute men’s doubles final certainly didn’t lack drama despite the shorter format. Whether the Tour sticks with this going forward remains to be seen, but the results from Mesa suggest the format doesn’t sacrifice excitement — it might actually concentrate it.

What’s Next: The PPA Tour Heads to Las Vegas

There isn’t much time to recover. The PPA Tour moves to Nevada for the Rate Las Vegas Open, running September 28 through October 4 at the Darling Tennis Center. After what Mesa delivered — a massive early upset, young players breaking through, bizarre seeding quirks, new partnerships making deep runs, one of the craziest doubles finals of the season, and yes, a bird — Las Vegas has a high bar to clear for sheer entertainment value.

But based on everything we saw this week, the 2026-27 PPA Tour season is shaping up to be one of the most unpredictable and compelling seasons the Tour has produced. The established stars are still winning, but the margins are getting tighter, the young players are arriving faster, and the draws are getting harder to predict from the top of the bracket down.

Don’t forget the bird, though. The bird was something special.