What’s happening, pickleball fam? Ace here with your final column of 2025, and what a way to close out the year. The PPA Tour just wrapped its last event in Daytona Beach, Lifetime gave us an actual pickleball Christmas movie (yes, really), and as we head into the holidays, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on how far our sport has come this year. Let’s dive into the latest.
Daytona Beach Open: Championship Sunday Delivers
The Florida Dairy Farmers Daytona Beach Open wrapped up this past Sunday at Pictona at Holly Hill, and with several top players taking the week off—Ben Johns, Anna Leigh Waters (in singles/mixed), Hayden Patriquin, Hunter Johnson, and others—we saw some fresh faces on the podium and a few familiar champions cementing their dominance.
Men’s Singles: Christopher Haworth continued his meteoric rise, dominating Gabriel Joseph 11-5, 11-1 in the finals. Haworth’s trajectory this year has been absolutely wild. Earlier in 2025, he was ranked 57th in men’s singles. Now he’s a top-five player with his sights set on that number one ranking. His goal is clear, and with performances like this, he’s on track.
Women’s Singles: Catherine Parenteau took advantage of Anna Leigh Waters’ absence from the singles draw to capture gold, defeating Katerina Stewart 11-4, 12-10. Parenteau is ranked seventh or better in all three PPA Tour divisions (singles, doubles, mixed), which shows her versatility and consistency. This win was a statement that she’s a force across every format.
Men’s Doubles: The most dramatic match of Championship Sunday went the full five games. JW Johnson and Augie Ge—playing together for the first time on the PPA Tour as Dallas Flash MLP teammates—outlasted Riley Newman and Noe Khlif in a back-and-forth battle: 11-6, 9-11, 11-1, 6-11, 11-8. Watching JW and Augie team up was fascinating because they’re both such high-level players with different styles, and they found a way to make it work under pressure.
Women’s Doubles: This one was special. Anna Leigh Waters and Jorja Johnson, the tournament’s top seeds, swept second-seeded Catherine Parenteau and Tyra “Hurricane” Black 11-3, 11-8, 11-5. Jorja and ALW have developed serious chemistry, and this was a dominant performance from start to finish.
Mixed Doubles: The quarterfinals featured some intense matches, including Gabe Tardio and Jessie Irvine defeating Tomas Pisnik and Elise Oncins 11-6, 11-7, and JW Johnson and Jorja Johnson taking down Rachel Rohrabacher and Federico Staksrud 11-3, 11-1, 11-4. The finals are still being determined as I write this, but the level of play has been exceptional.
What stood out about Daytona was how the absence of certain stars created opportunities for other players to shine. That’s healthy for the sport—it means we have depth, not just dominance by a handful of players.
A Pickleball Christmas: Lifetime Goes All-In on Our Sport
Okay, let’s talk about the elephant—or should I say, the dink—in the room. Lifetime premiered “A Pickleball Christmas” on Saturday, December 20th, and as someone who’s been playing this sport for eight years, I had to watch it. For science. And because my wife insisted.
The plot is classic Lifetime holiday movie fare: tennis star Luke Hollis (played by James Lafferty from “One Tree Hill”) returns home for Christmas and discovers his family’s racquet club is about to be sold. He teams up with Caroline, the club’s pickleball coach (Zibby Allen from “Virgin River”), to compete in a holiday tournament that could save the club. Romance ensues. You can see where this is going.
Here’s the thing: as a pickleball movie, it’s… well, it’s not great. Some reviewers on IMDB pointed out that the actors clearly don’t know how to play pickleball—incorrect ball striking, wrong court positioning, balls that are obviously out being called in. If you’re a serious player, you’ll cringe at the technical errors. It’s like watching a movie about tennis where nobody knows how to hold a racquet.
But here’s what matters: pickleball got a primetime holiday movie on a major network. Do you understand how significant that is? The fact that Lifetime—which reached over 23 million viewers with their holiday movies last year—decided pickleball was mainstream enough to build a romantic comedy around tells you everything you need to know about where our sport stands culturally.
The movie was born out of a South Pasadena pickleball club. Sami Ponoroff, senior manager of programming for Lifetime, is an avid player at a club called iPickle. She worked with actual pickleball coaches to create the concept, and while the execution might not satisfy hardcore players, the movie does mention dinking and kitchen rules, making it accessible to newcomers while giving pickleball enthusiasts some inside references.
Is it a good movie? Eh, it’s a Lifetime Christmas movie—your mileage will vary. Is it good for pickleball? Absolutely. Exposure like this introduces the sport to millions of viewers who might never have considered picking up a paddle. And with Apple TV+ also announcing “The Dink,” a pickleball comedy from Josh Greenbaum and Ben Stiller, we’re entering an era where pickleball is part of mainstream entertainment.
Plus, the speed at which these productions happen is actually perfect for pickleball. Cable TV movies can go from concept to production in a month, meaning they can capitalize on trends while they’re hot. As Lifetime’s team noted, the fast production timeline lets them “jump on a moment”—and pickleball is definitely a moment.
Closing Out 2025: What a Year It’s Been
As we wrap up the final PPA Tour event of 2025 and head into the holidays, it’s worth taking stock of what an incredible year this has been for pickleball.
We saw the Indian Pickleball League successfully launch with professional franchises and international stars. The Global Pickleball Alliance united seven international organizations to create the first coordinated global tour calendar with 30+ tournaments in 2026. We watched breakthrough performances from young players like Roscoe Bellamy winning his first PPA gold, and Kelly Goodnow becoming a world champion at age 13.
Anna Leigh Waters extended her dominance with multiple Triple Crowns and an unbeaten streak that lasted over two months. Ben Johns continued to experiment with different partners, searching for the right chemistry. Federico Staksrud solidified himself as arguably the best men’s singles player on tour. Megan Fudge and Jill Braverman dominated women’s doubles across multiple tours.
Technology advanced with smart paddles featuring embedded sensors, foam core Gen 4 technology becoming the industry standard, and automatic line calling being announced for Major League Pickleball in 2026. The sport expanded globally with significant growth in India, Australia, Vietnam, and across Europe.
And yes, we got a Christmas movie. Because that’s apparently what happens when your sport becomes truly mainstream.
Looking Ahead to 2026
The off-season will be short. The Global Pickleball Alliance kicks off its inaugural calendar with the NPL Invitational in Australia on December 5-7, 2025 (which has likely already happened by the time you’re reading this), followed by the Indian Open in February and the APP Daytona Beach Open on February 18-22.
MLP announced automatic line calling for 2026, which is going to be fascinating to watch in action. The PPA Tour will continue refining its format and schedule. International competition will intensify as more players travel to compete on the global circuit.
For me personally, I’m looking forward to getting more court time in during the holidays, dialing in my third-shot drop with the new Selkirk paddle I picked up during those Cyber Monday deals, and maybe—maybe—convincing my wife to watch “A Pickleball Christmas” with me one more time just to count all the technical errors. Hey, it’s become a tradition already.
Thanks for following along with Ace’s Pickleball Pulse throughout 2025. It’s been an absolute blast covering this sport we all love. Enjoy the holidays, spend time with family, get some dinking in when you can, and I’ll see you back here in 2026 for what promises to be the biggest year in pickleball history.
—Ace