The PPA Tour is the leading professional pickleball tour in the United States. It is where the top male and female players compete as individuals and in pairs across a full season.
Its full name is the Carvana PPA Tour, named for its title sponsor. Most fans simply call it the PPA Tour, and that short name is used throughout this guide.
If you watch pickleball on television, follow pro rankings, or attend a large tournament, you are very likely watching the PPA Tour at work. This guide explains what it is, how it works, and how it connects to ordinary players.
Key Takeaways
- The PPA Tour is a professional, individual and pairs tour, not a team league.
- It was founded in 2019 and now runs stops across the United States and internationally.
- Each stop is a Major, a Cup, or an Open, with Worlds and the PPA Finals as season highlights.
- Events cover five disciplines: men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles.
- Touring Pro status comes from an official UPA player contract, not from a single result.
- Rankings reward results across singles, doubles, and mixed doubles over the past 52 weeks.
- Most matches are best of three games, and top events use no bronze medal match.
- Amateurs can compete at many stops, and rising players can qualify for pro draws.
- Fans can follow the tour through PickleballTV, broadcast television, and the official schedule and rankings.
What Is The PPA Tour?
The PPA Tour is a professional tour built around individual achievement. Players enter as singles players or as pairs, win matches in a bracket, and collect ranking points.
The tour describes itself as a professional tour that looks, feels, and runs like the major sports. That means a real season, a real ranking, marquee venues, national television windows, and one place to follow every match.
It is part of Pickleball Inc., which also owns and operates Major League Pickleball. The shared ownership is important, because it explains why many of the same players appear in both formats.
For a closer look at the team format, read our guide to Major League Pickleball and its team format.
How The PPA Tour Began
The Carvana PPA Tour was founded in 2019. Its stated purpose was to give the best male and female players a stage to determine who was best in the world.
From the start, it organised tournaments at major facilities across the country. It also established player rankings, so results could be compared from one stop to the next.
In 2024, the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball merged under the newly formed United Pickleball Association. Both brands continued, but they now sit within one organisation.
The tour still keeps its own identity. It remains the individual and pairs tour, while Major League Pickleball remains the team league.
The PPA Tour Season At A Glance
The tour runs stops across the United States, plus a growing international footprint. That footprint includes events in Asia, Europe, and Australia.
The season builds toward the PPA Finals, where the season championships are decided. The exact calendar changes by season, so check the official schedule for the current list of stops.
Every stop is classed as a Major, a Cup, or an Open. The class tells you how many ranking points are on offer and how large the main draw will be.
Majors pay 2,000 ranking points to the winners. Worlds, the Pickleball World Championships, pays 3,000 points and sits above every other event.
Cups and Opens sit below the Majors in points, but they are not minor events. They still feature contracted professionals, televised courts, and strong amateur divisions.
Event Types And Ranking Points
Event size is measured by points, not by crowd size or venue name. The number in an event name often matches the points the winner receives.
The table below summarises the current tiers described on the official tour site. Main draw sizes are maximums, so a particular event may run a smaller draw.
| Event Type | Winner Points | Maximum Main Draw |
|---|---|---|
| Worlds, Pickleball World Championships | 3,000 | 64 |
| PPA Finals | 2,000 | 8 |
| Majors, other three | 2,000 | 64 |
| Cups | 1,500 | 56 |
| Opens | 1,000 | 44 |
| Challengers and select internationals | 125 to 500 | Varies |
The PPA Finals is the exception in that table. Only eight men and eight women qualify, so its draw is deliberately tiny.
At the Finals, qualifiers compete in all three disciplines. Individual champions are crowned in each discipline, plus one overall male and one overall female champion on total points.
What Happens At A PPA Event?
A PPA event is a multi-day tournament, not a single match. Most stops run for several days, with different disciplines scheduled across the week.
The five professional disciplines are men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles. A player may enter more than one discipline.
Mixed doubles is not a side event here. It is a full discipline with its own draw, ranking points, and championship match, and it often produces the most watched matches of a stop.
Most stops also run amateur divisions. The official tour invites amateur players to compete and play where the pros play, with divisions for every age group and skill level.
That shared venue is part of the appeal. An amateur can play a morning match, then watch professionals on a showcase court in the afternoon.
How Matches Are Played
PPA matches follow the standard pickleball rules that most players already know, with a few tour-specific details. Knowing those details helps you follow a broadcast without confusion.
Every match apart from doubles and mixed doubles gold medal matches at Majors and the PPA Finals is best of three games. Win two games, and you win the match.
Gold medal matches in doubles and mixed doubles at those top events follow a longer format. That extra length gives the final a bigger stage and more room for momentum to swing.
There are no bronze medal matches at events worth 1,000 points or more. Both losing semifinalists are treated as fourth place, rather than playing an extra match for third.
Byes are another feature to watch. A bye is a free pass through an early round, and it is awarded on the overall World Pickleball Ranking, not on a single-discipline seed.
At a full 64-spot Major draw, there are no byes, so everyone plays. At a 56-spot Cup draw, the top eight by ranking receive a bye into the round of 32.
At a 44-spot Open draw, the top four receive a bye into the round of 16. Ranks five to eight receive a bye into the round of 32.
PPA Tour Versus Major League Pickleball
The clearest difference is the unit of competition. On the PPA Tour, the unit is a player or a pair. In Major League Pickleball, the unit is a team.
Major League Pickleball is a coed, team-based league founded in 2021. Teams are city-based, rosters are drafted, and teams compete across a season of events.
A team match in Major League Pickleball is decided by a series of doubles games, with a rotating singles tiebreak, called a DreamBreaker, if the match is tied. That team drama is the league’s signature.
The PPA Tour has no DreamBreaker and no team standings. Each draw stands alone, even though points from each draw feed a season ranking.
The table below compares the two formats at a glance. Use it to decide which one to watch first, or to understand why a familiar player looks different in each setting.
| Feature | PPA Tour | Major League Pickleball |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of competition | Individuals and pairs | City-based teams |
| Main format | Bracket draws by discipline | Team matches across a season |
| Disciplines | Singles, doubles, and mixed doubles | Doubles and mixed doubles, plus a singles tiebreak |
| Season champion | Individual and pair champions, plus Finals champions | Winning team |
| Amateur play | Amateur divisions at many stops | Focused on professional teams |
| Best first watch | A singles or doubles final | A full team match |
Who Plays On The PPA Tour?
On the PPA Tour, being a professional comes down to one thing: a contract. Sign an official UPA player contract, and you become a Touring Pro.
That status unlocks main draws at PPA events and a spot to play in Major League Pickleball. Without it, a player must qualify or enter smaller events.
Touring Pros hold one of three contract levels. The main difference between levels is how much prize money a player can earn at each event.
Gold is the top contract level. Standard sits below Gold, and Futures is where every new signing starts.
A Futures player who climbs into the top 25 of the World Pickleball Ranking moves up to Standard. Futures contracts are re-evaluated after 12 months.
A small group of Legacy players are grandfathered into original deals signed before the summer of 2025. Those deals may carry a different prize money structure.
Not every strong player holds a contract. Non-contracted players can still compete in smaller events and qualify for bigger ones when spots open up.
Some players fall into a separate category called Ineligible Touring Players. These are players who were offered a contract but did not sign, whose contract expired, or who signed with a competing tour.
Those players sit out the biggest events for at least 12 months. They can still play Challengers and select international stops while they work back toward eligibility.
How Players Qualify And Enter
Entry to a PPA main draw follows a clear priority order. Understanding that order explains why some strong players start in qualifying while others start in the main draw.
Main draw spots go first to teams of two contracted professionals. Next come teams with one contracted professional, and finally, if room remains, non-contracted players by World Pickleball Ranking.
Singles follows the same priority. Contracted players enter first, then other players fill remaining spots by ranking.
Anyone who misses the main draw can play their way in through a qualifier. Qualifying draws typically run for one to three rounds and fill the remaining main draw spots.
Smaller events work differently. Events worth under 1,000 points mainly serve contracted players outside the top 20, non-contracted players, and Ineligible Touring Players.
The biggest stars generally sit those events out, unless they take one of a limited number of wild cards. That keeps smaller events fresh and gives rising players a real stage.
The Challenger Tour is a key part of that pathway. It is designed for developing professionals and ambitious amateurs, with its own leaderboard and ranking points.
A Challenger event winner can earn entry into the main draw of a PPA Tour Open event. That link turns a smaller win into a direct chance against the main tour field.
For players still building experience, the practical lesson is simple. Play recorded events, collect points, and let your ranking open the next door.
Rankings, Seeds And The Race To The Finals
The PPA Tour runs two related numbers, and new fans often mix them up. One is the World Pickleball Ranking, and the other is the Current Seed.
The World Pickleball Ranking is the big-picture number across all three disciplines. It decides who gets into events and who earns byes.
It blends results across gender doubles, mixed doubles, and singles over the past 52 weeks. Gender doubles counts for 50 percent, mixed doubles for 35 percent, and singles for 15 percent.
Only the best 14 tournament results in each discipline count toward that ranking. One bad week therefore cannot sink a season, but sustained results still rise to the top.
The four biggest events are mandatory and always count, no matter the result. Those are the Pickleball World Championships and the three other PPA Majors.
The Current Seed is different. It is a discipline-by-discipline number, using the best 14 results in just singles, just mixed doubles, or just gender doubles.
Current Seed is used to seed each individual event, so matchups stay fair. In doubles and mixed doubles, the two partners’ rankings are combined.
At the end of the season, the top eight men and top eight women in the World Pickleball Ranking qualify for the PPA Finals. They compete in all three disciplines at that event.
To understand how ratings work outside the pro tour, read our guide to pickleball ratings and skill levels.
How Fans Watch And Follow The PPA Tour
The official tour site is the starting point for any fan. It lists the schedule, draws, results, and rankings, and it explains each event before it begins.
Live coverage is available on PickleballTV and on broadcast television. The official tour description highlights both, so check the event page for the exact broadcast window.
Showcase courts carry the biggest matches. Those are the matches most likely to be streamed or televised, and they usually feature the highest seeds.
Outside courts matter too. Early rounds, qualifying matches, and amateur divisions often run on outer courts, and attending fans can watch those matches up close.
Following the rankings is the best way to follow the season story. Watch who is climbing, who is defending points, and who is close to the top eight cut for the Finals.
If you attend in person, arrive early for the matches you care about most. Showcase court seating fills quickly, and popular finals can draw a large crowd.
How The PPA Tour Relates To Amateur Play
The PPA Tour is a professional tour, but it is not closed to everyone else. Its link to amateur play is one of its defining features.
Many stops include amateur divisions for every age group and skill level. Amateurs play their own brackets, on the same site, during the same week as the professionals.
The Challenger Tour extends that ladder further. It gives developing players a professional division of their own, with ranking points that count toward the main tour.
For a first tournament of any kind, preparation matters more than talent. Read our guide to your first pickleball tournament and what to bring before you enter.
Watching professionals also improves amateur play, if you watch with a purpose. Notice where players stand, when they speed up, and when they reset a rally.
The wider lesson is that professional pickleball and amateur pickleball share the same rules, court, and scoring ideas. The gap is speed, consistency, and decision-making, not a different game.
Your First PPA Event Checklist
Use this checklist to turn a first PPA event, in person or on screen, into a proper introduction rather than a confusing afternoon.
- Check the official schedule and note which disciplines play on which days.
- Pick one singles match and one doubles match to watch in full.
- Look up the rankings before the event, so you know who is seeded and why.
- Watch the first two games of a match, not just the highlights, to learn the patterns.
- Note one tactic to practise at your next open play session.
- Follow the road to the PPA Finals, and check who is near the top eight cut.
- After the event, rewatch one final and list what the winners did repeatedly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does PPA stand for in pickleball?
PPA stands for Professional Pickleball Association. The tour is formally called the Carvana PPA Tour, after its title sponsor, but fans and players usually shorten it to the PPA Tour.
Is the PPA Tour the same as Major League Pickleball?
No, they are different formats under shared ownership. The PPA Tour is an individual and pairs tour, while Major League Pickleball is a coed team league with city-based teams.
How many events are on the PPA Tour?
The structure described on the official tour site covers stops across the United States plus a growing international footprint. The exact calendar changes by season, so check the official schedule for the current list.
Can amateurs play at a PPA Tour event?
Yes, many stops include amateur divisions for every age group and skill level. Amateurs play their own brackets at the same venue, while professionals compete in separate pro draws.
How does a player become a PPA Touring Pro?
A player becomes a Touring Pro by signing an official UPA player contract. Routes include breaking into the top 50 of the World Pickleball Ranking, finishing at the top of the Challenger Tour, or earning a recommendation approved by the UPA Standards Committee.
Where can fans watch PPA Tour matches?
Fans can watch live coverage on PickleballTV and on broadcast television. The official tour site lists the schedule, draws, and rankings, and event pages confirm the broadcast details for each stop.
The Bottom Line
The PPA Tour is professional pickleball in its classic form: individuals and pairs, bracket draws, season rankings, and championship events that reward sustained excellence.
Start with one event, follow one discipline, and watch the rankings. The tour becomes much easier to follow once you know which points are at stake and who is chasing the Finals.
For official details, schedules, and rankings, see the official PPA Tour about page and the tour’s guide to how professional pickleball works.
Shoaib is the publisher of Pickleball Card. He oversees the site’s guides to pickleball rules, ratings, strategy and gear, all researched from primary sources — the USA Pickleball Rulebook, DUPR and manufacturer documentation — and updated as the game changes.