And just like that, ladies, gentlemen, and baddies of the Brighter Pickleball community, the PPA Tour is BACK!!! And, perhaps more importantly, so am I❤️🙋🏽♀️. My 7-week break has been incredible, but I am so excited to get back out there and to get back to doing what I do best- being an absolute menace to whoever is on the opposite side of the court from me☺️☺️☺️
The Masters is a Slam, and there is so much palpable excitement about this first event of the year. The tour has done an incredible job of making the Masters feel different - the name, the venue, the location, and the all-white dress code… it’s such a wonderful place to start out the 2026 season! And beyond the ✨vibes✨, there are so many storylines to follow going into the week! Here are some of the ones I find most compelling.
1. Will, the Wolf🐺, Howells reintroducing himself to the PPA Tour
We’ve seen a lot of Will at MLP on the New Jersey 5s in the last two seasons, but otherwise, it’s very hard to place his level as there is so little APP/PPA crossover. Will found himself on top of the podium alongside his regular men’s partner, Jack Munro a lot on the APP tour in 2025 and regularly medaled in mixed with Bobbi Oshiro. How will he do in the big leagues outside of MLP?
In men’s he will be playing alongside his New Jersey 5s teammate Noe Khlif who had a great run in PPA Daytona primarily playing the right side (I hadn’t seen Noe on the right much and was very impressed!). I would expect Will to mostly play left in this partnership, but they will have some versatility. Will’s backhand drive is probably the best in the game and this team will be a major crash threat if people return to the wings. If they are comfortable and clicking, they are definitely a team that can push the “big 4”.
In mixed Will is playing with Rachel Rohrabacher- Friday Pickleball’s newest signee. I’m very happy for Rachel and am excited for this new chapter for her. I love the name “Aura” for her new paddle! I thought Friday’s announcements for both Rachel and Kyle Koszuta were very well done - different, cutesy, and memorable. When it feels like everyone and their mother is changing paddle brands, I appreciated the lightheartedness of their announcements. Rachel and Will will be very interesting to watch - we haven’t seen Will play mixed at the PPA level with anyone but ALW, so I’m particularly excited to watch this team play together.
The new men’s doubles Big 4
Last year, there was a very clear “Big 4” in Men’s Doubles except for a blip in which Federico and Hayden were struggling. They refound their form after making the huge adjustment of having Hayden switch to the left side, and Federico returning to the right for the first time, in my knowledge, since I watched him play tournaments with James in 2022😂😂😂 That feels like a different lifetime, for a multitude of reasons. Once a right side king, always a right side king???
Ben/Gabe are still a set partnership (how funny has Gabe’s social media been lately??????), as are JW/CJ. The mixup is in Hayden and Christian opting to play together while Federico and Andrei will be partnering up. I think it will take a bit to get used to watching these teams. Andrei and Federico were the “floor” guys in their respective 2025 partnerships while Hayden and Christian brought the ceiling. The 2026 teams of Andrei/Fed and Hayden/Christian do not have the “balance”, the “yin and yang” we had in the 2025 partnerships.
This will be a very interesting thing to see play out, but I understand and like the move from Hayden and Christian. If you’re not first, you’re last! Of course this isn’t entirely true - they won’t be happy to regularly lose in quarterfinals, but why not make a push to beat the established #1 team? If Hayden and Christian are firing, it will be scary. My main concern for this team is ego - someone will have to concede the alpha role situationally, regardless of sides played, and will there be ambiguity when it comes to sides? We saw some of left side Hayden at PPA Vegas and Worlds, but this team will look very different from what we saw from him with Federico. He and Christian will undoubtedly be at their best with Hayden on the left, but I wonder if Christian might want to play the left some as well, which would only further complicate things. It will be super interesting to watch! To my knowledge, the only time they’ve played together was in Vegas in 2024, and they actually lost to Federico and Matt Wright! Will the chemistry be better this go around?
Andrei/Fed will be fun to watch from a passion perspective but mind-numbingly boring otherwise. The points will be long, Federico’s exaggerated backswing just to hit forehand slice dinks will be the opposite of deceptive, and Andrei’s intensity on his 3 errors per match will be laughable. My understanding is Federico has fully embraced his right side role and I’m excited to see how this team does. I will be watching highlights, but probably not much else if I am being honest.
Also - this was simply too good not to share. The social media content this week has been so funny, but nothing funnier than this video Andrei posted that is so obviously AI generated. Just look at his facial expressions😂😂😂 God I love him.
Does Women’s Doubles have a big 4?
Last year, outside of CP/AL, Rachel and I, Kate/Tina, and later myself and AL, women’s doubles partnerships were all over this place. This year we seem to have a shift moreso towards consistency in partnerships at the top. Jorja and Tyra will be playing together, Rachel and Catherine are set, and so are the Kawamotos in the PPAs they are opting to play. It’s my understanding that the remaining players are mixing a lot and I know Kate/Parris have a few together which will be very interesting to see and scary to play against.
Rachel and Catherine partnering is very smart as they essentially have the 2 seed secured and guarantee themselves being on the opposite half of the draw from AL and I. They did great together in their 2 tournaments together in 2025 losing only to AL and I and seem to have been practicing a fair amount in the last week or so. They are expected to play the Kawamotos in the semifinals should both teams make it there, while Anna Leigh and I will have Jorja/Tyra.
AL and I have been playing a lot in the last week or so and I’m excited to get back out there with her. We are both so psycho in practice and I honestly don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone, save for Kate perhaps, that hates losing as much as us, even in practice. We are literally playing against men, hitting net cords, going for bags, and very audibly saying “yes”, “cmon”, and the likes instead of apologizing😂😂😂. I am currently shopping for clothes to match her new fits, and I couldn’t be happier for her for signing her big new deal(s). She is the face of our sport and deserves all of her success.
Is this the year Anna Leigh looks (a little) more human?
In women’s doubles I will be doing my damndest to prevent this, but will the girl lose a singles match this year? Can anyone beat her and Ben as more than a “one-off?”, and if so, who will it be? There’s not really much more to say on this front, and I don’t know the answer. This might be a hot take from me, but I actually think the person with the best chance to beat her in singles is Genie Bouchard. Of course, any of the other top players can do it, and Kaitlyn Christian and Kate both had chances this year, but the level I saw Genie play at in Vegas was insane to witness in person. If she can maintain that level of depth and shotmaking over the course of an entire match, I do think she’d have a legitimate chance.
In mixed, the most obvious choices for who could push the king and queen are the Johnsons and Hayden and I. Andrei and I have of course also done it, and I know we could again, but Hayden’s ceiling and ability to control the kitchen just brings something special. We have been playing very well in practice and I hope to carry some of that momentum into the Masters.
We need some fresh blood
NML wrote a very cool piece this week in which they discussed the winners and losers of pickleball in 2025. The entire piece was great and very thought-provoking (they said I do an amazing job with my newsletter so you know they know ball), but my favorite was their segment on how there weren’t really any true breakout stars in doubles in 2025. We need some fresh talent!!! New faces coming onto the scene and making a splash are a huge part of what keeps sports entertaining and engaging.
I wonder if we had less new talent coming in and making significant waves in 2025 is because the level is generally getting so high that it’s hard to truly be super disruptive relatively out of nowhere. Even Sofia Sewing, the APP’s breakout star, had to grind for a while on the doubles side in 2025 before the results aligned with her clearly visible talent. The days of fairytale APP Punta Gorda runs like mine in 2022 might just be over. Financial barriers are also probably impacting the lack of new talent - as pickleball gets more saturated with players, brands are less likely to give out sponsorships and the prices of events has not dropped at all. There’s probably not much to be done about this, but I really hope we see some new people cause some trouble in 2026 (as long as they don’t cause me any trouble, of course).
So, who could the fresh blood be? There’s no true way to know, but I think we should look to our very own juniors. Everyone is talking about Will MacKinnon but I haven’t seen much of him play. I have to shout out Camden Chaffin who won his first PPA Challenger title over the weekend alongside Juan Benitez who I regularly work with! I’ve long said you can’t beat reps as a kid, and I hope we see some juniors making increasingly deep runs in PPAs this year.
Me and Cam when he was just a baby - so sweet!!!
That’s all for this edition folks - sorry for yapping so much, there are just so many interesting things to discuss!!! What do you think are the most interesting storylines going into the Masters and the 2026 PPA season as a whole? Let me know😊 and I’ll see everyone out there on PickleballTV on Tuesday (if they put me on CC, you never know)😂🫦✨
Much love to all my baddies- XOXO, Anna❤️