Professional Pickleball Association’s US-Based Stars Dominate At The 2026 Hong Kong Slam

This past weekend, the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) saw a slew of its best players and one of the largest pro fields in Asian Pickleball history descend into Hong Kong for the 2026 Hang Seng Bank Hong Kong Slam. This event, like last weekend’s Australian Cup in Brisbane, count for 1,500 points on the PPA tour and thus drew a massive crowd of players. More than 1,000 players entered the event, and despite it being halfway around the world from the US, the draws made it feel like a domestic event when looking at the seeds, but then the draws included all the top names in both Asia and Australia, making for great clashes of styles all week.

Click here for the PickleballTournaments.com home page for the event, where you can get tournament details, draw sheets, and results.

With that said, let’s recap the action. Reminder, the PPA has eliminated Bronze medal matches starting in September, 2026.

Men’s Pro Singles Recap

The best Asia and Australia has to offer advanced deep into the singles draw before falling to the PPA’s top players. Harrison Brown, Hien Truong, Hong Kit Wong, and Mitch Hargreaves all had round of 16 results. Only Wong advanced, and then lost in the quarters to No. 2 Federico Staksrud in a brutal back and forth, 12-10 game three battle. No. 8 Noe Khlif, who has been steadily improving his singles results all season, shocked the top seeded Christopher Haworth in the quarters to make a surprise semis appearance. Lastly, teenage sensation and PPA Asia veteran Tama Shimabukuro (who won singles gold at both the Kuala Lumpur Cup last month and at the Macao Open in May) shook off an improving Grayson Goldin in the quarters to book his spot in the last 4.

In the semis, Tama tamed the red-hot Khlif 8,2 while Hunter had another 3-game thriller against Staksrud, coming out on top 11-5 in the third. In the final, Hunter improved to 2-1 over Tama on tour with a come-from behind 3-game win.

Gold: Hunter Johnson. Silver: Tama Shimabukuro.

Women’s Pro Singles Recap

A number of the Asia and Australia pros made deep runs in the Women’s singles draw, which was missing its top player Waters (who sat out Singles here). Ho Tam, Sophia Nhi Huynh, Aiko Yoshitomi, Nok Yiu Tang, Sophie Tran, and Rika Fujiwara all fell in the round of 16. Meanwhile, Australia’s two top singles players Andie Dikosavljevic and Sahra Dennehy cruised past multiple domestic seeded players to once again meet up in the singles semis. Dikosavljevic took out both Schneemann and Zoey Wang in successive rounds, while Dennehy faced down a line of Asia’s best to book her semis spot. Judit Castillo, finalist last week, continued her hot streak by taking out No. 1 Kaitlyn Christian in the quarters.

In the semis, Judit ground out an 8,7 win over Kiora to move into her second straight final, while Andie made fast work of her countrywoman Sahra to setup a rematch of last week’s Australia Cup Women’s singles final. In the Hong Kong final, we got the same result as in Brisbane, only this time more dominant, as Dikosavljevic crushed Castillo 1,5 for her second straight PPA win. With her second straight 1,500 point title, the Australian will now firmly move into the top 10 on tour, and existing singles specialists will be deathly afraid to see where she lands in the World’s bracket forthcoming.

Gold: Andie Dikosavljevic. Silver: Judit Castillo.

Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

Top seeds and top draws Ben Johns & Anna Leigh Waters were back in action after a few tournaments away; they did not skip a beat, dominating the early rounds and beating Jessie Irvine & Jonathan Truong 0,1 in the quarters to book their semi’s spot. Irvine & Truong had earlier shocked Staksrud & Townsend, a team i’d have bet money on. The withdrawal of an ill Alshon opened up the second quadrant for Hunter Johnson & Ting Chieh “Jamey” Wei, who survived three early round matches to face off against the top seeds. The bottom half was business as usual, with only Sahra Dennehy as a local player even getting as far as the quarters. Both the No. 2 and No. 3 mixed teams advanced to the semis.

In the semis, the top pair Johns & Waters crushed the upstarts Johnson & Wei 0,1 while No.2 Anna Bright & Hayden Patriquin won an epic battle over JW & Jorja Johnson 11-9 in the third to move into the final. There, the two top pairs renewed their budding rivalry, but it was Waters & Johns who came out on top in two. This gave Waters the double and an undefeated weekend,

Gold: Waters & Johns. Silver: Bright & Patriquin.

Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

The stacked draw managed to eliminate most of the local competition even before the round of 16. By the time the quarters rolled around, the only non-traveling pros left were the excellent pair of Quan Do & Hien Truong (gold medalists at the MB Ho Chi Minh City Open in August) and George Wall, playing with Zane Navratil and benefitting from the mid-event withdrawal of Christian Alshon.

In the quarters, top seeds Ben Johns & Gabriel Tardio took out Ben’s brother Collin, who has had great success in Asia playing with Len Yang. The dangerous Tama & JW Johnson team took out Oncins & Khlif in two. No. 2 seeds Staksrud & Patriquin eliminated the top Vietnamese team of Do & Truong 4,2, and the No. 6 team of Connor Garnett & Dylan Frazier took advantage of Alshon’s absence to get to the semis.

In the semis, the two top pairs advanced without too much trouble to setup a No. 1 vs No. 2 final. In that final, No. 2 Staksrud & Patriquin took a solid match in two against the world’s top pair 6,8 to claim the Hong Kong title. This is now the fourth straight Men’s Doubles draw that Johns has entered and failed to win after winning nine straight with Tardio between February and September of this year. Admittedly, two of those losses were without his normal partner, but you have to go back to mid 2024 to see such a long stretch of non-gold medal winning performances for Johns, a stretch that was the precursor to him eventually moving away from his brother to pick up Tardio in the first place. Certainly, another loss to their top rivals will inevitably lead to two questions being asked in the picklesphere: Is the Johns/Tardio partnership still working, and more importantly, is Johns starting to think seriously about hanging 'em up?

Gold: Staksrud & Patriquin. Silver: Johns & Tardio.

Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

Not surprisingly, with all four of the top PPA women’s teams present, the semis were chalk by seed. The best performing local team was, also unsurprisingly, the two best Australian female doubles talents in Danni-Elle Townsend and Sahra Dennehy, who upset Allyce Jones & Kaitlyn Christian in the 16s before falling to the top seeds Anna Leigh Waters & Anna Bright in the quarters. Sofia Sewing & Catherine Parenteau, fresh off of their first gold medal together last weekend in Virginia Beach, struggled through the early rounds to make the semis on the top-half, while the bottom semi featured the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds.

In the semis, AB and ALW stomped Sewing & Parenteau 4,0 to remind them of their place in the pecking order, while the bottom half semi featured a great comeback win from No. 2 Hurricane Tyra Black & Jorja Johnson, who lost the first game to their top rivals No. 3 Rachel Rohrabacher & Parris Todd 11-4, then won the next two to move into the final. In the final thought, No. 1 Waters & Bright cruised to the gold medal 6,4.

Gold: Waters & Bright. Silver: Black & Johnson.

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? It’s time: it’s Worlds 2026. The tour and the pro pickleball world heads to Dallas in a week’s time. First up will be the MLP Nation’s cup, then the week-long 3,000 point World Championships, the largest tournament in the world. I am tentatively scheduled to be there for semis-Saturday.

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:

• PPA Current Rankings, both the WPR and per-discipline.
• DUPR Player Profiles and Ratings (login/account required)
• Pickleball.com Player bios and Stats

For a full list of my “Pickleball Bookmarks,” including a summary of my “go-to” links for coverage as well as a relatively comprehensive list of links for the industry, click here.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com