PPA Tour Sacramento Open 2026 – 5 Takeaways – NML’S Amateur Experience
We haven’t done a takeaways article for a PPA in a little while and we are going to do this one a little differently. The reason for that is that we attended PPA Sacramento over the weekend, which is somehow the first PPA we have attended together since 2023 in Seattle (the ALW singles walk-off drama, for those who might have been around for that). We want to give our takeaways about the event as a whole and talk about some things that stuck out to us as we worked our way through the amateur brackets.
1. Pickleball Demand is Present – We have written a lot over the years about the market for pickleball and our thoughts about the future growth of the pro side of the sport. It is clear when watching from afar that the PPA is able to fill the seats in these smaller venues, but it is more evident when going in person that there is a real level of thirst for pro pickle.
Sacramento is one of the smaller events on the calendar and it coincided with the US Open and a PPA Challenger event. A lot of pro pickleball for one time. In spite of that, it was packed on semi-final Saturday at the venue, with the PPA charging just under $200 for Championship Court access for the day — an objectively steep price for pro pickleball.
The amateurs double-dipping on playing and watching the pros forms a good number of the spectators, but the in-person buzz was palpable when it comes to the pro side of the event in Sacramento. One of us was at the PPA Mesa event earlier this year, a much bigger venue, and there were more people attending in Mesa purely for pro pickleball. Nevertheless, there were a good chunk of people who appeared to be there in Sacramento primarily for the pros as well.
While it may be difficult to entice newcomers to the sport when it costs nearly $200 to sit in the beating sun all day on Championship Court, the PPA likely needs to maximize their revenue from a money-generating standpoint and there is enough demand out there currently to justify the relatively high cost. The trick is whether they are able to transition to bigger venues in the future, with options for pricing that are more cost effective for people looking to dip their toes in the pro pickleball waters.
Yes, you can get a grounds pass for $30 for the earlier days in the week to watch the other matches around the venue, but it is Championship Court energy that is more probable to convert a newcomer or skeptic into a pickleball fan. Maybe at some point we can move away from the monster truck rally-style MC for Championship Court, but overall the PPA does a good job of creating an atmosphere that is unique for pro pickleball.
At the end of the day, the in-person demand is still limited but the in-person experience provides reason for a cautious level of optimism that there could be more demand in the future.
2. Buttering Their Bread – The PPA has gotten a bad reputation for giving poor / sub-par experiences to its amateur players over the years. That negative reputation has carried through to the present day, at least to some degree, if you still drop in on a Facebook pickleball discussion group. But that was not the case for us.
Our experience as amateur players in Sacramento was a very good one for the most part. There were only 4 courts with temporary lines at the Lifetime facility where the event was held, which meant the vast majority of play occurred on proper courts with adequate separation/fencing and spacing. There were snacks for players at the tournament operations desk, ease of access to the water refilling station, and everyone was friendly and seemed happy to be there.
Even though most of the non-medal amateur matches don’t have a ref, the system that has been put in place means that the tournament days generally ran efficiently (although we had one oddly long wait on our men’s day, which we guess is what inevitably happens if you play enough amateur events).
The lack of refs is not ideal for diffusing tense situations that we observed in matches around us regarding disputes around line calls and foot faults. Luckily, there were two separate times on Sunday where we saw the man, the myth, the legend, Don Stanley, make his way over to an amateur match to personally deal with the disputes himself. What a treat for the amateurs to get the full Don Stanley pro experience! We would have made sure to have a dispute worthy of getting a ref involved if we knew Don Stanley might make an appearance.
In all seriousness, we are totally okay with the lack of refs as the cost/benefit decision is more than understandable, especially if the need for refs on each court makes the day go slower.
Additionally, the ability for amateurs to watch their matches on YouTube and have friends and family follow along at home is an incredible value add. It is no small feat to have a tripod and camera phone on every court, but the real legend Matt Mayfield makes it happen every day (shout out as well to the entire PPA staff for their hard work as part of the traveling circus) We’ll be curious if the always cost-savvy (to put it very generously) Tom Dundon is thinking about monetizing this at some point, similar to what is happening for streaming in the youth sports world (a $10 billion business). The only downside to the PPA streamed courts is that we aren’t able to watch back some of our matches because of copyright issues with YouTube, presumably due to the music that can be overheard blaring from Championship Court.
Overall, the amateur experience exceeded our expectations in Sacramento and it was very nice to be able to combine the playing of an amateur tournament with the ability to watch the pros on the side (the best in the world, as they will tell you as many times as they can). In our view, the PPA clearly understands where their bread is buttered and has made a concerted effort to ensure the amateur experience is a positive one, which may not have been the case early on for the PPA.
3. Pro Takeaways – Without ALW and Ben around to dominate all the events, we were excited to see what might unfold in Sac Town.
The biggest story was obviously Tyra Black and Eric Oncins taking a mixed gold title over the Johnson siblings. Tyra appeared to be dealing with a quad issue on Sunday, which hampered her movement and was more of an issue in women’s, but she was able to hold up for Oncins to do his thing in mixed. Conversely, it’s another loss for the Johnson siblings and, when you add another women’s loss for Jorja, it has been a concerning stretch for the Johnsons recently.
Yes, Tyra wasn’t operating at 100%, but Rachel and Parris having another top-notch performance may have them settling into the women’s doubles big 4 as a duo (the Kawamotos have only played 2 events in 2026 but are still part of this). They are not stacking and are having big-time success as both have the firepower to keep up with the best teams out there. They are dangerous.
Jack Sock had another uptick-in-results tournament with two semifinal appearances. A disappointing loss to Zane Ford in singles aside, it feels like every other tournament we see Jack show that he cares more about winning than he ever has before. He wanted that match against Haworth badly and it showed. He also showed that he really wanted the doubles win over Oncins/Frazier, playing some very focused and disciplined pickleball.
Pablo Tellez has been a really good partner for Jack. Having someone by Jack’s side that cares a lot about winning, but also is willing to bring the energy, fun, and shimmy to the court is perfect for what Jack needs right now. Pablo has been able to continue elevating his level in men’s doubles and his ongoing improvement is showing up in his results with Sock. They also took a game off JW and CJ after being down 10-6 in the second, a level of fight we haven’t seen from Jack in any pickleball partnership before Pablo.
The last one to mention for us on the pro side is the Cailyn Campbell bronze medal with Tina Pisnik (Meghan Dizon did have to withdraw from the bronze medal match). We didn’t get to watch any of Campbell in Sacramento, but that’s a good result. And it has to help playing with one of the true pros’ pros in pickleball, Tina Pisnik.
4. US Open / APP Tour Product Accessibility – On a separate note, the US Open / APP’s inability to make their product easily to accessible to the general public remains mind blowing. It was annoying enough to find results on the UTR app and website, but it was doable. This new Pickleball Den has been so difficult for us to navigate that we gave up trying to figure out the US Open results. Apparently, we were not the only ones.
It would be one thing to be having these issues in 2020, except it is 2026 and no one being able to follow along with your product is a fail of epic proportions.
4. NML Amateur Results – We don’t typically use the blog space to document our personal playing results, but we’ll do it here today for the very few that might be interested since this was the first PPA we have played as a duo.
We played the 5.0 (age 8 to 34) men’s division together and came away with a nice little bronze medal. It is always fun to test our game in other regions as it’s not something we have gotten to do as much over the past couple of years. Believe it or not, we very much enjoy the process of putting in the work to improve our games and it is satisfying to see that work pay dividends, even at the amateur level.
Funnily enough, Collin Johns was on the sideline for our opponents (two Season 2 UPA Trailblazer players, Julian Chow and Dang Ngo) in our semifinal match and, unfortunately for us, provided our opponents with some sound strategic advice to take us down. Probably deserved on our end for all the Benny backdraw jokes, mopey Ben and Collin references, MLP lighting complaint commentary, etc., over the years!
Chris also played 5.0 singles (8 to 34 age) going 3-2 and had a gold medal win in the mixed 5.0 (35 to 49 age) division, which included a finals win over Nico the Lefty himself. As we said on Twitter, the Nico the Lefty playing experience might be wilder in person than it is on video! Although, we are disappointed that Nico didn’t attempt a Nasty Nelson at any point in the match.
You can watch the match here if you are crazy enough to do that (time stamp 7:33:35 for start of match).
Agree or disagree? Let us know in the comments or email us at nmlpickleball@gmail.com! You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @nmlpickleball
I played 3.5 singles in Mesa and it was an absolute blessing to have family in three states watch my misery. Those cameras make a difference – it gives a PPA tournament a competitive advantage over the garden-variety tournament.
100%. It’s a big game changer that no one else really is able to offer