Pro Pickleball Association Tour Finals Qualifying Overview — What Is At Stake In Atlanta?

We’ll run through the singles divisions first. Rankings and points are as of this writing just after the Sacramento points have posted, and we’ll take a peek at who’s entered into Atlanta to identify notable missing players and what that may mean. I’ve also included the fields from the last time they held a Tour Finals, to show the churn and evolution of the game just in the last 1.5 years.

(note: throughout this post, instead of cluttering up the list of players in the “qualified” and “near-locks” sections with their current rankings, just note that they’re all listed in the exact current ranking within “The Race” standings.)

Men’s Singles

• Qualified: Haworth, Staksrud, H.Johnson, Alshon, Garnett
• Near-Locks: Bellamy, Sock, Goins
• Outside Looking in: Joseph, Ford, Khlif, Vich.
• 2024 field: Staksrud, Johns, Garnett, H.Johnson, Duong (replaced by Tellez), Frazier, Vich, McGuffin

There’s not a lot of intrigue at this point in Men’s Singles. Goins at No. 8 has 800 more points than the No. 9 ranked Gabriel Joseph, meaning that Joseph (or any of the next few players in the 10-12 range) would have to out-perform Goins by 800 points in the Atlanta event to surpass him. That’s a tall order; making the quarters at a slam is worth 400 points, meaning Joseph would have to get the Bronze medal (1200 points) or better to surpass him. Ironically, Joseph would play Goins in the round of 16, but then would have to beat both Haworth AND Alshon in order to even have a chance at surpassing him. A tall order.

What about Ben Johns? He currently sits ranked 14th but is an astonishing 23rd in the race and was out of contention months ago. He certainly has it in him to win a singles title at a Slam to jump his points up quickly if he wanted to, but at this juncture he’s not even entered into Singles in Atlanta, signaling a major shift in his career.

The projected field looks to have just three repeating players from the 2024 finals, a great indicator of how volatile the Men’s Singles division is at present. McGuffin has fallen all the way to 46th in singles at this point; remember, he was the long-time Robin to Ben Johns’ Batman in Men’s pro singles in the years leading up to the pro tour age.

Prediction: Joseph gets left out and the three “near-locks” fill out the field.

Women’s Singles

• Qualified: Waters, Fahey, Christian, Buckner, Jansen, Parenteau
• Near-Locks: Wang
• 8th spot up for grabs: between Castillo, Truluck, or Bouchard
• 2024 field: Waters, Buckner (replaced by J.Johnson), Parenteau, Fahey, Devidze (replaced by Schneemann), Christian, Todd, Brascia.

Right now, Judit Castillo has the inside track for finishing in the No. 8 spot and securing the last Tour Finals place. Parris Todd sits 9th in the race, but is not even in the Atlanta field (she has not played Singles on tour since January). It’s possible that Truluck or Bouchard could make a run to the semis and get in, but that seems highly unlikely. Bouchard would have to top Wang, Christian, and Fahey for a semis run, while Truluck would have to beat the red-hot Kunimoto, Buckner, and then Waters. Not happening.

When looking at the churn from the 2024 field, the name that stands out to me is Salome Devidze. She was ranked 5th in December 2024 and has a head to head win over Anna Leigh Waters, but has played just eight of the 20+ PPA events since.

Prediction: The six already qualified are joined by Wang and Castillo for a solid San Clemente field.

Men’s Doubles

Both OG stars Matt Wright (L) and Riley Newman (R) are set to make one more Tour Finals.

PPA

• Qualified: Johns, Tardio, Alshon, Patriquin, Daescu, Staksrud, JW Johnson, Klinger, Oncins, McGuffin.
• Near-Locks: Frazier, Devilliers, Khlif, Vich, Wright, Newman.
• Outside Looking in: Ge, Tellez, Garnett
• 2024 field: Johns/Johns, Frazier/Tellez, JW Johnson/Tardio, Staksrud/Patriquin, Alshon/Bar, McGuffin/Daescu, Wright/Ignatowich, and Newman/Vich

There’s a huge gap from the top eight Men’s Doubles players (and the top four teams that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in the semi-finals of events lately) to even the No. 9th ranked player in Eric Oncins; nearly 5,000 ranking points. There’s also an 800 point gap from Devilliers, ranked 12th at present, to the rest of the near-locks listed above.

Interestingly, the gap from the No. 16 ranked player (Newman) to the No. 17 ranked player (Augustus Ge) is sizeable enough (nearly 500 points) that the tour finals field already seems set.

What would it take for one of the guys on the outside looking in to catch Newman in Atlanta? Probably a miracle. Ge is playing with Bar as the No. 10 seed in Atlanta and plays into No. 7 Tellez & Devilliers in the 32s before facing the top seed in the 16s, so they seem a long shot to earn more than 200 points at best. How about Garnett at No. 19? He and Bellamy are the 13-seed and are projected into Klinger/JW in the 32s, another likely early exit. So, it seems like the field is set.

The 2024 field is pretty similar to what we’re projecting for 2026, with 12 of the 16 names from 2024 projecting into the 2026 event. Collin Johns, Pablo Tellez, Dekel Bar, and James Ignatowich are set to miss out, each for different reasons.

Prediction: no surprises in Atlanta.

Women’s Doubles

Alix Truong is one of many new faces projecting into the Tour Finals field.

PPA

• Locks: Waters, Bright, Black, Johnson, Todd, Parenteau, Rohrabacher, Jade Kawamoto, Pisnik, Jackie Kawamoto, Schneemann,
• Near-Locks: Dizon, Wang, Christian, Fahey, Truong
• Outside Looking in: Humberg, Wei, Irvine.
• 2024 field: Waters/Parenteau, Bright/Rohrabacher, Brascia/Dizon, Black/Jones, Smith/Kovalova, Johnson/Schneemann, Pisnik/Todd, Humberg/Irvine

The Women’s field seems essentially set. The top seven ladies have a sizeable gap in the rankings even to No. 8 Kawamoto, and then there’s an 600 point gap from No. 16 Truong to No. 17 Humberg. Irvine (playing with Castillo in Atlanta), Humberg (playing with Truluck in Atlanta), and Wei (playing with Allyce Jones in Atlanta) would need to all have career-best results essentially to overcome Truong (playing with Wang as the No. 8 seed).

There will be some churn from the 2024 field: Brascia, Jones, Smith, Kovalova, Humberg and Irvine seem set to miss out with both Kawamotos, Wang, Fahey, Christina, and Truong taking their place. The Kawamotos, by virtue of their NCAA employment, are always a wild-card but the timing of this event in mid May seems likely to keep them away from possible weekend conflicts, and should put a dangerous team into play in the group stages if they get to play with each other.

We won’t know who picks whom until the field is set and the players pick partners, but based on recent partnerships it seems like that we’re going to see Waters/Bright, Black/Jorja, Todd/Fahey, Parenteau/Rohrabacher as the first four pairs selected, which would let Jade pick Jackie for the 5th seed in pool play. However, these pairs seem up in the air; Todd paired with Rohrabacher to win gold in Sacramento and has been flipping between 3 players as her women’s doubles partners lately. She’s paired with Fahey in Atlanta though, possibly a projection of who she’d pick when the chips fall.

Prediction: no surprises in Atlanta.

Mixed Doubles - Men

• Locks: Johns, JW Johnson, Patriquin, Daescu, Alshon, Tardio
• Near-Locks: Staksrud, Oncins
• Outside Looking in: Khlif, Truong
• 2024 field: Johns, Tardio, JW Johnson, Alshon, Bar, Ignatowich, Staksrud, Newman

The Men’s Mixed field is nearly set. Oncins sits in 8th, 700 points behind 7th place Staksrud and 350 points ahead of 9th place Noe Khlif with a massive gulf to the 10th ranked player (surprisingly, Jonathan Truong). Khlif (playing with Jessie Irvine) would have to make up an achievable gulf of points in Atlanta to qualify over Oncins (playing with Pisnik), but that seems rather unlikely given Oncins recent success (a mixed gold medal in Sacramento) and his established success with Pisnik (they took a silver in mixed as recently as March).

Many of the same names are here from 2024, though the rise of Patriquin as a force in Mixed will have to be reckoned with by the field. Remember, Johns and Waters took a group stage loss in the 2024 event before winning it, so you just never know what can happen when RR play is in effect.

Prediction: no surprises in Atlanta.

Mixed Doubles - Women

• Locks: Waters, Bright, Johnson, Black
• Near Locks: Irvine, Parenteau, Pisnik, Todd
• Outside Looking in: Rohrabacher, Truong
• 2024 field: Waters, Bright, J.Johnson, Parenteau, Pisnik, Dizon, Rohrabacher, Irvine

Parris Todd currently sits ranked 8th with 4750 points, and Rachel Rohrabacher sits 9th with 4300 points, and she’s the only real chance of catching up. Todd is playing mixed with Daescu in Atlanta, while Rohrabacher is playing with Alshon, two of the best male mixed players out there and who are ranked 4th and 5th respectively on the Men’s side. Rachel won a bronze with Alshon earlier this year in Cape Coral, while Todd has won three bronzes with Daescu since January, including last week in Sacramento. Thus, the advantage is to Parris to claim the 8th and final spot, but don’t count out Rohrabacher & Alshon. This is perhaps the tightest race for the Tour Finals of any of the disciplines.

The 2026 field projects to be pretty similar to the 2024 field, though it is notable how well Hurricane Tyra Black has been playing in mixed in particular. She’s bounced around partners in 2026 and could slot along side any of the top men, and whatever partnership comes out of the partner draft will be a force.

Prediction: Todd & Daescu go on a run and sew up the last spot for Parris.

We will return to the Tour Finals field post Atlanta Slam, after the partner drafts have been set and the pools have been defined, to do a preview with some predictions.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com