Kiora Kunimoto has quickly established herself as one of pickleball’s most promising young talents.

After capturing two gold medals and a silver at the PPA Challenger Series in Raleigh, she followed that performance with notable upsets in pro women’s singles.

Just 18 years old and relatively new to the sport, Kunimoto is already proving she’s a rising force on the court.

“I started playing pickleball when I was really young, about 10 years old, but it was always just for fun. I’d play maybe once a year,” shared Kunimoto. “About a year ago, I played in a local moneyball tournament, and in April I wanted to start taking pickleball more seriously.”

Kunimoto brings an impressive tennis background to pickleball, including a 2025 Hawaii state high school singles championship.

Despite her success, she chose not to pursue tennis at the collegiate level. Instead, after graduating high school in May, she committed fully to a career in America's fastest-growing sport.

“I played PPA San Clemente in June, the Fairfield PPA Challenger, and then PPA Vegas. I just kept going to more and more PPAs and playing as much as I could,” she explained. “In September of last year, I started drilling and training more seriously in pickleball, and that’s how I started leveling up.”

Kunimoto reflected on her experience at her first tournament.

“The level of play was definitely much higher than what I’ve ever seen in Hawaii,” she said. “I was a little bit overwhelmed because I didn’t realize people were that good. But once I kept playing, I was able to get adjusted to the level.” 

Kunimoto credited the PPA Challenger Series with helping her adapt to the demands of higher-level play.

“I really like the PPA Challenger Series because most of the time, when you go to play pro, you get in the qualifying round and you go against someone really tough, so it’s very hard to make it out of qualifiers,” she explained. “But in PPA Challenger, you get to play a lot more matches throughout the day, so it’s great for getting experience and seeing different levels and playing styles.” 

Drawing on her tennis experience, Kunimoto concentrated early on refining her soft game as she transitioned into pickleball.

“When I first started drilling, I focused more on dinking and resets because they were very new to me,” she emphasized. “When I started drilling that, that’s when I really started to see my game evolve.”

Based on Hawaii’s Big Island, Kunimoto does most of her drilling with her father, Randy.

“I drill every day because there’s not many players that I could play games with on the island, so my dad feeds me balls and helps me drill,” she said. “The pickleball scene there is good, but there’s not a lot of juniors or other girls, so I practice with the male players. I mainly just drill.” 

Kunimoto recently earned victories over Brooke Buckner and Zoey Wang at the Pickleball Central Indoor National Championships.

“It felt great to win, but it was also shocking to me because I didn’t expect to see results so soon,” she mentioned. “It was very rewarding.”

As Kunimoto continues to elevate her game, she shared her major goal for 2026.

“My goal for this year is to be drafted by an MLP team,” she confirmed. “I really want to evolve my doubles game and get better results in singles, but playing in MLP is my biggest goal.”

With the MLP Draft approaching, it remains to be seen whether Kunimoto will earn a spot on a squad.

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