The last Slam of the 2025-26 PPA Tour season took place at Life Time Peachtree Corners, and while Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns were their usual dominating selves, the talk of the tour was the breakout performance of 15-year-old Tama Shimabukuro after he made it to Championship Sunday for the first time, and did it in two events.

 

Let’s go over what Shimabukuro did, and examine some reasons for why it happened. Plus, other major stories of other breakout performances and the steady domination by the very top players and teams.

 

 

Tama Shimabukuro has been steadily improving during 2026, but so far had lacked a big signature win or deep run in an event. In Atlanta, that all changed. First, in singles, Shimabukuro started as the #22 seed, reflecting that his prior results were quite competent, but not top 20 stuff. In Atlanta, he got people noticing with a Round of 32 win over #13 Jaume Martinez Vich, but there was a lot more to come. In the Round of 16, he scored a huge signature win by defeating #2 seed Federico Staksrud 11-9 in the third game. Shimabukuro showed his elite athleticism, but combined it with greatly improved volleying, especially by mixing in a lot of one-hand backhand volleys. In the quarterfinals, Shimabukuro continued his run by defeating #11 Noe Khlif. In the semifinals, he faced Hunter Johnson, who has spent the last year trading the #1 ranking with Staksrud and Chris Haworth. Shimabukuro shocked the pickleball world with an 11-1 third game win.

 

Shimabukuro’s magic run ended on Sunday, with a loss to Haworth, 11-5, 11-1. But Shimabukuro walked away with his head held high, and a silver medal for his efforts.

 

 

Shimabukuro’s great week was not limited to singles. In men’s doubles, Shimabukuro teamed with Yuta Funemizu (more on him below) to make a run to Sunday. Shimabukuro and Funemizu were seeded #19. After two fairly routine wins, they faced #2 seed Christian Alshon/Hayden Patriquin in the Round of 16. Shimabukuro and Funemizu walked away the victors, with a huge 11-8 third game win. They were not done, as they then defeated the tough team of Riley Newman/Armaan Bhatia in the quarterfinals in a very close and hard fought three-game match. Shimabukuro and Funemizu lost their next two matches to end up fourth, but what a great run it was for them.

 

Shimabukuro has been highly regarded for awhile, with many expecting him to at some point be a top 10 player. The main question was when it would happen, with the thinking being he still needed to get taller and stronger, and gain more top level match experience. The main thing noticeable in his game in Atlanta was his extensive use of a one-hand backhand volley. Shimabukuro remains primarily a player who relies on the twoey, but his matches from earlier this year showed a potential weakness; he would overly rely on the twoey in volleying, which exposed him to speedups at his body and limited the variety of his shot-making off the backhand volley. The twoey has become a mandatory shot for pros in 2026, as shown by such players adopting it as Ben Johns, JW Johnson, and Federico Staksrud, for certain shots. But while the twoey is best for some shots (such as crosscourt roll dinks), there are other shots where it has limitations, primarily for volleying. This is why you see Ben Johns use two hands on many dinks, but he volleys one-handed. Shimabukuro has clearly learned this lesson as 2026 has gone on, and his shotmaking and thus his results in Atlanta showed he is now using a one-hand backhand to volley much more than he used to. Top level pickleball is mostly about talent, but it is also about tactics and strategy. With Shimabukuro showing he is learning tactical play, there is no limit to how high he can go.

 

 

 

Somewhat lost in the well-deserved hype for Tama Shimabukuro was the fact that Yuta Funemizu in teaming with Tama also made his first appearance on Championship Sunday. Funemizu’s journey to the top of the pickleball world is an amazing story. In January 2024, Funemizu was the best player in the world at soft tennis, a somewhat obscure sport primarily played in Asia, but little known in the US. Funemizu met Daniel Moore in Japan. Moore, who has now been largely forgotten about in the pickleball world, was at one time the best player in the world, pre-Ben Johns. Moore helped introduce Funemizu to pickleball and Funemizu then came over to the US and trained initially with Scott Moore, Daniel’s father and himself a pickleball hall of famer. I first met Yuta in 2024, and at that early time, he was maybe a 4.5 at best. He employed a quirky style, due to his soft tennis background. Soft tennis is played with a strung racquet, but you use the same side of the racquet for both the forehand and the backhand. Yuta has incorporated this into his pickleball game, as he can hit unexpected tomahawk shots (using the forehand side of the paddle to hit a backhand volley).

 

Funemizu’s pro pickleball journey began slowly. I remember doing commentary on one of his early tournament matches, where he was to play Ben Johns in men’s doubles. I was doing the commentary with Thomas Wilson, who of course had never heard of Yuta. Before the match, I said “watch this” with a smile. Very early in the match, Funemizu pegged Johns with a low crosscourt tomahawk volley and we all were amazed. At a timeout, Wilson and I laughed as we saw Johns sitting on the bench talking with his partner and imitating that tomahawk shot in surprise.

 

From those early days to now, Funemizu has slowly but surely mastered the little things that make pickleball different from soft tennis. But he still has that super athleticism from soft tennis and he still has that surprising reach for an unexpected tomahawk volley. Now he has a Sunday appearance to go along with it. How much farther can he progress? It will be interesting to watch.

 

 

 

While it is fun to see new names like Shimabukuro and Funemizu make it to Sunday, the steadiness of Anna Leigh Waters remains the same. She continued her two year streak in singles, won women’s doubles easily with Anna Bright, and added a third gold medal in mixed doubles with Ben Johns. Notable in the women’s doubles win is the fact that Waters and Bright defeated both teams that had beaten them in 2025, the Kawamoto sisters and Jorja Johnson/Tyra Black. As has become normal, Waters and Bright held their opponents to an average of just three points a game.

 

Waters has become so dominant that it is now getting rare for her to even lose a game. In Atlanta, she lost one game, in singles to up and comer Kiora Kunimoto in their semifinal match.

 

 

 

On the men’s side, Ben Johns added a gold in men’s doubles (with Gabe Tardio) to his mixed gold with Waters. Johns and Tardio are undefeated in 2026. Johns and Tardio did drop a game in their Round of 32 and semifinal matches, again demonstrating that the best chance to defeat them is in a non-final when it is two of three instead of three of five games to win. But as usual, Johns and Tardio are at their toughest when playing the third and deciding game of a three game match.

 

The singles game has caught up to Johns and he is no longer the dominant player in that event. But even as the pickleball world elevates one player after another as the expected successor to Johns as the world’s best doubles player, if anything 2026 has proven that the gap between him and the rest of the field has grown, not shrunk. During 2025, it looked as if Andrei Daescu or Hayden Patriquin were potentially catching up to Johns, but just as in 2024 when Federico Staksrud or Christian Alshon appeared as if they might catch up to Johns, we now see the gap from Johns to the field being as large as ever. Right now, the second best player is probably Gabe Tardio, but as he is partnered with Johns, it is difficult to compare the two.

 

 

The world loves an underdog and often roots against greatness. Just look at how many people expected or predicted other quarterbacks would replace Tom Brady as the best when he was winning Super Bowl after Super Bowl. But no matter how much we look to elevate others, let us all realize that right now Ben Johns is the best in the world and the gap between him and everyone else is as big today as it has ever been. One day, someone will replace him as the best, but right now that day is not in sight.

 

Next up on the PPA Tour is San Clemente and the PPA Finals. It will begin May 4 from the beautiful Life Time Fitness facility. If you have not been there, I highly recommend it, as it is one of the very best places to watch pro pickleball. If you cannot be there in person, you can as always see it all on Pickleballtv.

 

Follow me for updates on X @pickleball_jim.