Pro Pickleball Association Players Take The Plunge In Sacramento With Spots Tightening For Tour Finals

While its top female player was 3,000 miles away playing at the US Open, the rest of the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) tour was at the Life Time Arden in California’s state capital for the 2026 Fasenra Sacramento Open. Without Waters in the field, the draws were wide open for the taking, and fans were treated to some new and exciting matchups.

Sacramento hosted the pros last September in a throwback event that featured all the pros playing with standardized wooden paddles. This time around, the pros were playing with their regular Gen3s, fighting for points in one of the two remaining PPA events prior to the Tour Finals.

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 or this event:

• The tour announced that the Cary, North Carolina event planned for September 2026 will kick off its 2026-27 season and has been elevated to a slam-level tournament.
• A new docuseries called Partners released its trailer on 4/9/26 ahead of a May 2026 release. It covers the Professional Pickleball Association tour and its players in a cross between sports documentary and reality series.

With that said, let’s recap the action.

Men’s Pro Singles Recap

We saw a rare Pro singles appearance from Ben Johns, seemingly giving it one last-ditch effort to qualify for the tour finals from his current 11th ranked spot. More likely is, since his regular Mixed partner was not here, he entered Singles so he got “credit” for playing two of the three disciplines. Either way, for his troubles he faced a laughably hard projected path to the final (JW Johnson, Sock, Haworth, Hunter Johnson, and Staksrud), and could not get past the first hurdle, losing to JW 8,7 and exiting in the round of 32. Johns essentially has to win the Atlanta Slam to have any shot at getting into the top eight for San Clemente, but if you asked me to bet money on whether he’d even enter singles, I’d say “no bet.”

The tournament saw a fantastic run from No. 12 Zane Ford, who destroyed Oncins 0,1 in the 32s, beat the always tough Gabriel Joseph in the 16s, and then got a forfeit-aided win into the semis when Hunter Johnson was defaulted from their match for bouncing his paddle into the stands, where it struck a fan. Ford too full advantage, beating the resurgent Jack Sock in the semis, who had gotten a career win over Haworth one round earlier. The top ranked Haworth will remain No. 1 despite the loss; he’s yet to even play 16 events this cycle, and the rankings are based on a players’ best 16 results.

In the final, Ford played No. 2 Federico Staksrud, who exorcised some daemons with early round wins over the fast-rising teenager Tama Shimabukor and a 4,0 demolishing of No. 9 Khlif. Staksrud was unstoppable on Sunday, beating Zane 4,2 to secure his 20th career Singles title on tour and keep the pressure on Haworth at the top of the standings. The Tour Finals Men’s singles division is going to be banging.

Gold: Federico Staksrud. Silver: Zane Ford. Bronze: Roscoe Bellamy.

Women’s Pro Singles Recap

With no Waters in this event, the rest of the top seeds knew the opportunity was there for the taking. Surprisingly, we did not see any crazy runs from unexpected sources, and the podium eventually featured the top three seeds, in order. Top seed Kate Fahey needed some time to wake up in her first round, dropping the first game to qualifier Kwon Mihae, but then went on a tear, handing out pickles in both the 16s and quarters. After topping No. 6 Kiora Kunimoto in the semis, Fahey pummeled No.2 Kaitlyn Christian in the final 11-0, 11-3 to take her 5th career pro title, and her first since last September (here in Sacramento).

Gold: Kate Fahey. Silver: Kaitlyn Christian. Bronze: Lea Jansen.

Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

With the uber-dominant top mixed team missing, the Johnson brother/sister team of J.W. and Jorja rose to the top seed. After a stretch in mid-2025 where a slew of the mixed pro finals was Johns/Waters versus the Johnson Siblings, the team has struggled a bit to make its way through the draws. They’ve had just two medals this calendar year as the team of Anna Bright & Hayden Patriquin has become the new leading suitor to the Mixed pro title.

This past weekend, the Johnsons rose to the occasion and made their way to the final, where they ran into a cobbled together team of Eric Oncins and Hurricane Tyra Black. Black has been playing with Alshon lately, but found a temporary partner in Oncins for Sacramento, and the pair immediately found success with each other and made a run to the finals as the No. 4 seed.

The final was an epic 5-game showdown, with the duos splitting the first two games and then Oncins & Black coming back to win both game 4 and 5 11-8 to take the title. It is Oncins’s first ever Mixed Pro Doubles gold, and Black’s second.

Gold: Black & Oncins. Silver: Johnson & Johnson. Bronze: Todd & Daescu.

Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

One of the GOATS may have been missing, but the other was here in full force. Ben Johns and Gabriel Tardio once again took gold in Men’s Doubles, making it six PPA events in a row for the pair, who are now clearly the prohibitive favorites in both the Tour Finals and in any event they play for the forseeable future. However, they were pushed early and often in Sacramento, dropping games in the quarters (to No. 8 Hovenier & Vich), the semis (to Daescu & Staksrud) and in the final (where No. 2 JW Johnson & CJ Klinger

Both Christian Alshon & Hayden Patriquin took the weekend off, which jumbled the typical teams we’ve been seeing week-in and week-out on the Men’s Doubles podium. Pablo Tellez & Jack Sock had a solid weekend and made a run to the semis before falling in the bronze medal match.

Gold: Johns & Tardio. Silver: Johnson & Klinger. Bronze: Daescu & Staksrud.

Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

With partner ALW missing, Anna Bright took the weekend off as well, leaving a big void in the Women’s Doubles pro draw. No. 2 Parris Todd & Rachel Rohrabacher took advantage. Parris entered the event having claimed the silver medal in each of the last three PPA events … with three different partners. For Sacramento, she returned to partnering with Rachel, with whom she took the Silver in Newport Beach back in March.

They looked like long-time partners in California, cruising through the bottom half of the draw with little issues and then taking the final in four over Parris’ long-time partner Hurricane Tyra Black and her new regular Women’s partner Jorja Johnson.

Notably, by taking a withdrawal in the bronze medal match, Tina Pisnik and her partner Cailyn Campbell took bronze, giving Cailyn her first medal on the PPA.

Gold: Todd & Rohrabacher. Silver: Black & Johnson. Bronze: Pisnik & Campbell

Senior Pro Competition Quick Recap

• Men’s Senior Open Doubles: Joshua Cooperman/Craig Riley took the California-heavy Senior pro doubles draw.
• Men’s Senior Open Singles: Cooperman made it a double with a win in singles, his 23rd career PPA Senior Pro singles title.
• Mixed Senior Open Doubles: Jennifer Douglas & Joshua Cooperman took the mixed title.

With the Mixed title, Cooperman secured a very rare feat; a Senior PPA Triple Crown. It has only happened once in the history of the PPA, way back in 2021 when Julie Johnson took all three senior titles as the 2021 Florida Grand Slam in Tampa. Bravo to Mr. Cooperman!

The Pro Pickleball Medal Tracker spreadsheets have now been updated with these results. Click here for the Pro-only Medal Tracker, and click here for the Senior Pro Medal Tracker. These spreadsheets hold Medal winners for every pro event going back to the beginnings of the tours.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule next up for the PPA in two week’s time is its Atlanta Slam, one of the biggest and best events on the schedule, held at the Life Time Peachtree Corners facility outside of Atlanta. This event in 2023 was the first time I ever covered a PPA event live and I can vouch for the facility and the competition.

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 31,000 matches in its database across all the pro tours, and has started a fantastic new Bracket Challenge feature for Fantasy-style sports fans to try out.

Other resources I use frequently to cover Pickleball include: