The 10 biggest beefs in pro pickleball history
Pickleball may have started as a backyard game, but professional pickleball has developed all the ingredients of a major sport: rivalries, trash talk, controversial calls, bitter breakups and, occasionally, confrontations that go well beyond the usual post-match handshake.
From screaming matches and social media snipes to Tour Wars and an actual physical altercation, here are 10 of the most memorable beefs in pro pickleball history.
10. Pablo Tellez vs. the Hecklers
When: 2023
Where: PPA Newport Beach
Most pickleball beefs involve two players. Pablo Tellez managed to get into one with an entire section of the crowd.
Tellez has never been afraid to interact with fans during matches, but things boiled over at the 2023 PPA Newport Beach event on Championship Court. Tellez and a group of spectators went back and forth throughout his match, with the exchanges becoming increasingly heated.
At the end of the match, Tellez responded by flipping off the hecklers. Things seemed about to get physical as Tellez and the hecklers met at the edge of the court, but the parties were separated quickly by PPA staff members.
The aftermath? Tellez was fined, while the fans involved were reportedly ejected.
It remains one of the better examples of the occasionally blurry line between fan interaction and outright heckling as professional pickleball has grown.
9. Christian Alshon vs. James Ignatowich
When: 2023–present
Where: Everywhere from social media to the pickleball court
Christian Alshon and James Ignatowich didn't need pickleball to become rivals. They already knew each other from junior tennis.
According to Alshon, the two trained at the same academy for a period and occasionally played each other. They were never close, and when Ignatowich began finding success in professional pickleball, it helped convince Alshon that he could do the same.
Then came the trash talk.
Alshon has repeatedly used social media to poke at Ignatowich, including claiming that he could beat him in pickleball with a wooden spoon. He's joked about using an 11-0 practice-game victory over Ignatowich as evidence that he belonged in MLP's Premier Level and has even said he uses the possibility of winning a PPA title before Ignatowich as motivation to train.
Ignatowich hasn't stayed quiet, either. He's jabbed back at Alshon on social media and in post-match interviews, with both players publicly acknowledging their dislike of each other.
They've known each other for more than a decade, they've competed in two different sports, and they're still chirping at each other.
8. Quang Duong vs. Selkirk, the PPA and Contracts in General
When: 2024–2025
Where: Pretty much everywhere
At some point, this stopped being one isolated contract dispute and became a recurring theme.
Quang Duong's complicated relationship with contracts first became particularly visible during his time as a Selkirk-sponsored athlete.
Despite being under contract with Selkirk, Duong was spotted practicing and playing with paddles made by other manufacturers. The most memorable incident came at the 2025 PPA Masters, when Duong switched away from his Selkirk paddle during a match and began playing with a Proton Series Three.
Not exactly subtle.
His relationship with Selkirk eventually ended, but the contract drama wasn't finished.
In July 2025, the United Pickleball Association terminated Duong's playing contract, citing "multiple and repeated violations of the exclusivity terms of the agreement."
The final straw involved Duong competing in an unauthorized event in Vietnam, but reports indicated that the UPA had already warned him about previous violations.
Duong later signed with Vietnamese paddle company Sypik — only for that relationship to end less than a year later.
Plenty of professional athletes have fought with a sponsor or league over a contract. Quang somehow managed to make it a recurring storyline.
7. Collin Johns vs. Julian Arnold
When: December 2023
Where: PPA Tour Finals
Julian Arnold has built much of his pickleball persona around energy, chatter on court, and his unique scream of "Andiamo!" after big points.
Collin Johns, by comparison, stays fairly quiet. The two were both tennis players – Arnold in college and Johns on the ATP pro tour – but always competed very differently.
Put those personalities on opposite sides of the net and eventually something was bound to happen.
Collin Johns did not hold back in his post-game interview, calling Julian Arnold a clown🫣😂 pic.twitter.com/vcr1SHOMgS
— pickleball.com (@pickleball_com) December 4, 2023
During a heated round-robin match at the 2023 PPA Tour Finals, the chirping escalated both during and after play. Johns ultimately unloaded on Arnold, calling him the "biggest clown on tour" and a "blowhard bully."
For two players with dramatically different approaches to on-court behavior, the confrontation felt like more than an argument over a single match. It was a clash between two completely different philosophies about how professional pickleball (and tennis!) should be played.
6. Tyson McGuffin vs. Tyler Loong
When: 2023–2024
Where: PPA Cincinnati and Major League Pickleball
Here's a good rule for maintaining peace on the pickleball court:
Don't talk about Tyson McGuffin's wife.
The beef began after comments were made on Tyler Loong and Jimmy Miller's King of the Court podcast about McGuffin's wife carrying the couple's luggage through the airport. McGuffin took the comments personally — and when he and Loong met at PPA Cincinnati in 2023, he made it very clear he hadn't forgotten about them.
After beating Loong, McGuffin flipped him off and referenced the podcast comments in his post-match interview, giving us all the pickleball version of the infamous Will Smith Oscars line: “keep my wife's name out of your mouth.”
And the feud apparently wasn't left behind in Cincinnati.
Things got especially awkward at the 2024 MLP Draft when the Utah Black Diamonds drafted both McGuffin and Loong. According to reports at the time, McGuffin refused to play with Loong and requested a trade. Less than a week after the draft, Utah sent McGuffin to the Orlando Squeeze in exchange for Jay Devilliers and $50,000.
Plenty of pickleball beefs produce some entertaining chirps. This one helped produce an actual MLP trade.
5. AJ Koller vs. Federico Staksrud
When: November 2023
Where: USA Pickleball Nationals, Dallas
Plenty of pickleball players have yelled at each other.
AJ Koller and Federico Staksrud reportedly took things much further.
Their issues can be traced back to the 2023 Major League Pickleball Cup at the USA Pickleball Nationals in Dallas, when Koller was playing alongside Anna Leigh Waters for the Utah Black Diamonds. Staksrud made an obscene comment on Championship Court to Waters while playing her in a mixed match where Koller was her partner.
Koller found Staksrud following the match somewhere on the premises of the facility, and the simmering tension allegedly became physical.
According to reports, Koller grabbed Staksrud by the shirt collar during the confrontation, shoved him into the temporary fencing lining the venue walkway, and threatened him about what would happen if Staksrud were “ever to speak like that to a woman again.”
Koller was subsequently disqualified from the event.
4. Anna Bright vs. Rachel Rohrabacher: The End of "The Girlies"
When: 2025
Where: Off court
Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrabacher weren't just one of the best women's doubles teams in pickleball. They had built an identity around their partnership.
"The Girlies" won together, marketed themselves together and even sold merchandise together.
Then Anna Leigh Waters became available.
After Waters and longtime partner Catherine Parenteau split, Bright made the difficult decision to leave Rohrabacher and partner with the sport's No. 1 player.
The breakup was abrupt, and both Bright and Rohrabacher later discussed the emotional fallout in the Partners documentary series. Bright hesitated when she was asked whether she and Rachel are still friends and never ends up answering the question, while Rohrabacher said the breakup “shocked” her and said “trying to navigate it properly when I’m still trying to understand how I feel about it, that’s what made it chaotic for me.”
Compared to some of the screaming matches on this list, the Bright-Rohrabacher situation was relatively civil. But given their success and friendship, it was one of the most consequential partnership breakups the sport has seen.
3. Zane Navratil vs. Palm Beach
When: August 2026
Where: MLP Dallas
Sometimes what looks like a spontaneous blowup has a lot more going on behind the scenes.
During the 2026 MLP playoffs in Dallas, Zane Navratil hit Casey Diamond with a ball during Chicago's matchup with Palm Beach, then walked toward the net and let out an enormous scream in Diamond's direction. The chirping continued between Diamond and Navratil in a decidedly NSFW fashion, and Navratil ended the exchange by calling out the entire Palm Beach bench and earning himself a blue card.
But there was apparently some history.
Months earlier, Navratil had posted a video poking fun at questionable line calls made by Sofia Sewing, Diamond's partner. According to Jimmy Miller on The Line, that didn't sit well with Diamond, who reportedly made it very clear he wasn't happy with Zane publicly calling her out, and made some veiled threats about what might go down if he were to “see Zane in person,” etc.
The drama continued online afterward, with Diamond criticizing Navratil's behavior, although Zane appeared to apologize to several Palm Beach players after the match.
So what looked like Zane randomly losing his mind during an MLP playoff match may actually have been months of history boiling over.
Quintessential MLP.
2. Lea Jansen vs. A Lot of People
When: 2023–2026
Where: PPA Tour, Major League Pickleball and social media
If we're making a list of pickleball beefs, Lea Jansen probably deserves her own category.
Jansen has never been shy about speaking her mind, and over the years that has produced memorable confrontations with a growing list of fellow pros.
Salome Devidze was one of the originals. Their singles rivalry became infamous for disputed line calls, particularly during a heated meeting at PPA Red Rock in 2023. The tension between the two became significant enough that hordes of referees were assigned to all their matches to avoid both players hooking line calls as “revenge” for past bad calls.
Then there's Jay Devilliers. Their beef boiled over at MLP Austin in 2026 after Devilliers bodybagged Jansen's teammate. Jansen and Devilliers exchanged words during the match, and the disagreement didn't stay on the court — it continued on social media afterward.
Most recently, Hayden Patriquin found himself on the receiving end of a Lea Jansen beef.
At MLP Newport Beach in 2026, Jansen took exception to Patriquin's trash talk after her teammate Eric Oncins missed a ball. Jansen challenged Patriquin from across the net and mocked the St. Louis Shock with a crack about what fraternity the team had been in during college.
Part of what makes Jansen such an entertaining figure in professional pickleball is that you rarely have to wonder what she's thinking. If she believes someone crossed a line, made a bad call or simply needs to hear her opinion, there's a pretty good chance they're going to hear it.
1. Anna Leigh Waters vs. Hayden Patriquin
When: 2025–2026
Where: Major League Pickleball
Two of pickleball's biggest young stars have also developed one of its most entertaining rivalries.
Things reached another level at MLP Orlando in 2025 when Hayden Patriquin was overheard directing a profanity-laced insult toward Anna Leigh Waters. After the post-match handshakes, Waters went after Patriquin, and the two sides ultimately had to be separated.
That alone would have earned the rivalry a spot on this list.
But it didn't stop there.
The tension carried into the 2026 MLP season, particularly in matches between Waters' New Jersey 5s and Patriquin's St. Louis Shock. During one especially heated meeting, Patriquin won a point with a net cord and celebrated with a dance, adding another chapter to a rivalry that now has history behind it.
Waters and Patriquin are two of the most competitive players in the game, their teams are championship contenders, and neither seems particularly interested in backing down.
In other words: perfect MLP television.
Honorable Mentions
There were plenty of contenders that didn't quite crack the top 10.
Meghan Dizon vs. Emma Nelson became an instant MLP beef in Chicago in 2026 when a Nelson speed-up struck Dizon in the face. Dizon immediately fired the ball back at Nelson, earning herself a blue card in the process.
Daniel De La Rosa vs. Spencer Smith featured disagreements over calls at MLP Atlanta in 2023 that eventually spilled toward the benches, where pushing, shoving, and girlfriend insults entered the equation.
Collin Johns vs. net cords may be the most one-sided rivalry in professional pickleball history. Johns' apparent ability to find the tape at exactly the wrong moment became such a running joke that he eventually discussed his "feud with net cords" publicly.
And then there's the New Jersey 5s fanbase vs. everyone else. Their relentless "1-2-3-4-FIVES!" chant may not technically qualify as a traditional beef, but ask enough non-5s fans at an MLP event and you'll probably hear otherwise.
Pickleball Is Getting Chippy — And That's Not Necessarily a Bad Thing
Professional pickleball is still young enough that many of its biggest rivalries are being created in real time.
And that's part of the fun.
As more money, fans and attention enter the sport, matches mean more. Players have longer histories with one another. Team competitions like MLP encourage trash talk and bench involvement. Podcasts and social media ensure that something said away from the court can easily become motivation the next time two players meet.
Not every disagreement needs to become personal, and there's obviously a line between entertaining rivalry and behavior that goes too far.
But a little genuine dislike? Sports have been built on less.
And if the last few years are any indication, pro pickleball's beef database is only going to get longer.
Special thanks to Forbes contributor Todd Boss, whose work chronicling professional pickleball and compiling its historical feuds helped inform the historical list behind this article.