Jack Sock's first ever event gave him his first, and only, gold medal.

PPA

With no tourney recaps from last weekend, let’s post a fun one.

In August 2026, when the Professional Pickleball Association announced competition changes for its upcoming 2026-27 season, and one of the most impactful changes was the elimination of 3rd place/Bronze medal matches. The tour has been slowly moving towards this point for years, as the pro sport has evolved from its pure double elimination roots.

The elimination of the bronze medal matches also fundamentally changes the meaning a long-running artifact that I maintain; the Pro Medal Tracker. With the loss of Bronze medal matches, metrics like “Career Medal Count” are no longer going to mean as much, and earning medals now means making division finals. The change also fundamentally changes the real meaning of “Career Medal counts” as a way to talk about player history.

Thus, I thought it was an opportune time to write a fun story about the “One Medal Club” of players on tour. This post is going to talk about the set of players who have just one career Gold medal, and then the larger club of players who have just one career Medal.

A quick disclaimers on my methodology here. For the time being, this data does NOT include medalists from the handful of 1000-level international PPA events that have been held, otherwise, it would include at least half a dozen more names for Asia-based pros who have claimed medals in these events.

Fair or not, this is (for the moment) a US domestic PPA tour medal analysis. I just recently had a conversation with a tour official on exactly which international events should “count” as full-tier events in the record books, a discussion that has led to my adding the Points/Tier to EVERY single PPA event domestic or international in the Medal Tracker. This will eventually become even more important because certain players (Ahem, Anna Leigh Waters) as I write this are closing in on 200 career gold medals … and that total includes the two golds she won at the 2026 HB Vietnam Open in April 2026.

The PPA One Gold Medal Club

Irina Tereschenko is better known as the early queen of MLP, but does own one career PPA gold medal.

MLP

The PPA as of this writing has now held 114 domestic tournaments, comprising 560 draws, which means there’s been more than 1100 gold medals awarded on tour. In that entire span though, there are just 63 players who have ever even won one gold. Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters combined have won some 385 of those 1100+ gold medals over the history of the tour, which is crazy to think about.

Of those 63 gold Medal winners, 19 of them have just one gold for their career.

Here’s that list:

Adam Stone1Augustus Ge1Brandon French1Brendon Long1Eric Oncins1Gabriel Joseph1Irina Tereschenko1Jack Sock1Jackie Kawamoto1Jade Kawamoto1Judit Castillo1Mary Brascia1Meghan Dizon1Roscoe Bellamy1Ryan Sherry1Salome Devidze1Steve Deakin1Tina Pisnik1Vivian Glozman1

There’s some pretty big names on this list, names that may be surprising even to those who follow the pro game. The Kawamoto sisters are routinely in the semis of pro doubles draws. Meghan Dizon was in the PPA Women’s doubles final just last weekend. Eric Oncins spent all summer in MLP proving that he’s one of the most dangerous players on tour. Tina Pisnik is a top-8 talent with more than a dozen career medals to her name.

Here’s some interesting tales about other players on this list.

  • Jack Sock’s one career gold was in his PPA Tour debut in May of 2023, where he teamed up with Anna Leigh Waters in Mixed to take the gold. I interviewed Sock ahead of this event, then did a deep-dive into his singles performance before recapping his gold medal run.
  • You may be surprised to see that pro pickleball legend Irina Tereschenko has just one career gold. I was as well, since she has more than 20 career medals to her credit, as well has a slew of MLP titles. Here’s something even crazier: her one career gold was in the first ever PPA event held in February 2020, when she took the first ever PPA singles tournament. Simone Jardim won the next six PPA singles titles to become ALW before there was an ALW on tour, but Irina will always have that first ever title.
  • Adam Stone is known today for his broadcasting acumen; he’s part of the “lead broadcast team” for the tour with Dave Fleming. But for the early years of the tour he was a regular in the back-end of events. His one gold came in Men’s Doubles at the 2021 PPA Championships in Vegas; he partnered with Dekel Bar as the No. 4 seed, took out the top seeds Johns & Wright in the semis, then gutted out a 5-game masterpiece to take the title.
  • Salome Devidze is one of the few women on tour who have a head-to-head singles win over Anna Leigh Waters, but the event where she got that win was not the same as her sole gold medal. That she won in March 2024 in the Minneapolis National Indoors. Salome owns no fewer than 15 career PPA medals, all in singles, but essentially stopped touring at the end of 2025.
  • Steve Deakin is better known these days as the GM of the Las Vegas Night Owls and as the head liaison for the new PPA Canada tour, but he was a regular tour player until the end of 2025 despite also qualifying for the 50+ senior divisions since the beginning of 2024. He partnered with Matt Wright to take the February 2021 PPA Florida Grand Slam Men’s doubles title for his sole gold; they beat Bar and Stone in the final.
  • Ryan Sherry is one of the great personalities in the history of pro pickleball, and on the court rose to nearly the top of the pro singles rankings despite being 40 before the pro tours really even took off. He won his sole gold medal in May 2022 at the North Carolina Open, beating Julian Arnold in the final in what could only have been an absolute chirp-fest all match.

So, who is the most unlikeliest member of the “One Gold Medal Club?” Well, there are two players who not only have just one gold .. it’s their only career medal.

  • Brandon French has been on tour since the beginning, an OG old school pro who continues to grind today. His sole career pro medal was a gold medal, earned at the Frisco, Texas 2022 PPA Tour Round Up event. It was an odd event, held the weekend after a major in Vegas and with just eight teams in the Men’s Pro doubles draw. Then No. 2 Riley Newman’s normal partner took the event off, so he picked up French and they cruised to the title, getting a walkover in the gold medal match.
  • Brandon Long got his sole career PPA medal in April 2023 at the Selkirk Red Rock Open in St. George. He managed to bag Tyson McGuffin as his partner for this event, essentially a McGuffin home draw, and they cruised to the finals as the No. 6 seed. There, they went 5 games with the top seeds Bar & Johns before winning 13-11 in the 5th to give Brandon his sole career medal.
The PPA One Career Medal Club

Tama Shimabukuro as of this writing has one career domestic medal, but seems destined for far more.

PPA

As of this writing, there are no fewer than 28 players who own exactly one career PPA Medal. Here’s that list:

Aanik Lohani1Adam Harvey1Ben Newell1Brandon French1Brendon Long1Cailyn Campbell1Cammy MacGregor1Chuck Taylor1Jake Kusmider1Joey Farias1Kat Stewart1Kyle Yates1Liz Truluck1Maggie Brascia1Nicolas Acevedo1Rachel Rettger1Rafa Hewett1Rafael Lenhard1Rob Cassidy1Samantha Parker1Shelby Bates1Spencer Smith1Tama Shimabukuro1Yates Johnson1Yuta Funemizo1Zaen Affleck1

There are definitely some interesting names on this list.

  • A couple of these players won their first career medals within the last few PPA events. Nicolas Acevedo & Yuta Funemizo were on the precipice of winning the 2026 Arizona Open last week, but couldn’t close out the third game to settle for their first career medals being silver. Tama Shimabukuro made the finals of the Atlanta Slam singles event in May, and has a slew of medals in PPA Asia events that are pushing him near the top 10. Teenager Cailyn Campbell won a bronze playing alongside Tina Pisnik (who is nearly three times her age) at the 2026 Sacramento Open.
  • A slew of these players no longer play the PPA at all and are now playing primarily on the APP. That includes the likes of Ben Newell and Shelby Bates. Kat Stewart is the current No. 1 ranked APP singles player; she popped into the 2026 Daytona Beach event and made the final as the No. 40 seed, beating Truluck, Blatt, Christian, and Dunlap along the way before losing to Parenteau for gold.
  • Cammy MacGregor won her sole medal in the very first PPA event, a bronze in the singles draw.
  • We have not seen some of these names in ages on tour: Chuck Taylor, Jake Kusmider, Rachel Rettger, and Zaen Affleck are examples of fringe pros who were signed or competed regularly at one point but who have seemingly moved on.
  • Kyle Yates was Ben Johns before there was a Ben Johns, the dominant male player throughout the mid 2010s, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2024. His sole PPA medal was in August 2021, and he pivoted to playing primarily APP Events for a time before retiring from playing to take over as the co-Director of the academy at the APP’s The Fort in Florida.
  • Joey Farias now lives full time in Australia and is a regular in both the PPA and MLP events held there.
Best Players never to win a Gold Medal

Jaume Martinez Vich has been close a number of times, but has never taken a PPA title.

MLP

Here’s a list of top medalists on tour who have never managed to win a PPA gold. There are more than 50 players who have won a medal at some point in their career, but who have never won gold. Instead of listing all 50 players, here’s a list of all the players who have won at least 10 career medals, but who have never come out on top.

Jaume Martinez Vich20Pablo Tellez18Allyce Jones16Lauren Stratman16Tyler Loong14Callan Dawson12Lindsey Newman12

There’s some pretty amazing stories here.

  • Jaume Martinez Vich has won 20 medals; 9 silvers and 11 bronzes, but has never taken a PPA title. Despite this fact, he’s firmly entrenched in the top 8 of singles players on tour, and has been for quite a while. Five times he’s made a singles pro final and lost, but it’s now been nearly a year and a half since he got to play for gold on Sunday.
  • The fact that Pablo Tellez doesn’t have a gold medal is astounding. In the 2023-24 timeframe, he was one of the best doubles players in the sport. He was at both the 2023 and 2024 Tour Finals. He’s made a PPA final eight times, but has never won. His last finals appearance was in Dec 2024. He was partnered with Staksrud for quite a while, but when Fed moved on Tellez was left behind and has now fallen in the mid 20s on tour.
  • Allyce Jones has made seven PPA finals without breaking through. Perhaps her best opportunity was her one Mixed silver, earned at the same North Carolina event that gave Jack Sock his sole PPA gold.
  • Tyler Loong, now perhaps better known as one of the co-hosts of the King of the Court podcast, has been playing the tour since day one but has never come out on top. Loong is also the answer to another fun trivia question: he’s the ONLY left handed male who has ever won a Mixed Doubles Pro medal. Ever. Not one other top lefty in the sport’s history (Tellez, Ge, Klinger, Hewett, etc.) has ever won a pro mixed medal.
Best Players never to win a PPA Medal

Sewing is destined to earn her first PPA medal, and soon.

MLP

The PPA tour is constantly evolving, with new players making moves and players who had yet to even debut a year ago suddenly pushing into the top 10. So, naming the “best player” whose never won a Medal requires some digging.

I have a Player Profile spreadsheet where I maintain a list of nearly 400 “pro players” who have featured in some fashion or another in the sport since the Pro game began in 2020, and thus hundreds of these players have never won a PPA medal. Instead of listing them all, I’ll divide them into categories of players.

These players fall into one of several distinct categories:

  • APP-Only Pros: there are a number of very good pro players who have made the decision to not play PPAs but who have found solid success on the APP. Among this list would be players like Megan Fudge, Jack Munro, Bobbi Oshiro, Domenika Turkovic, Max Manthou, Jill Braverman, Richard Livornese, Tanner Tomassi, Ammar Wazir, Ronan Camron, and the like.
  • Recently signed APP pros Will Howells, Sofia Sewing, and Casey Diamond are all projecting success and making deep runs, but have yet to break through.
  • OG Pros who were good before the PPA got going; these are the best players from the pre-pro tour era, players like Dave Weinbach, Jennifer Dawson, Jennifer Lucore, Alex Hamner, Morgan Evans, Marcin Rozpedski, and Tim Nelson (for whom the “Nasty Nelson” was named).
  • Top Senior Pros who were aged out of the PPA before it really became a thing. I’m talking guys like Altaf Merchant, Beth Bellamy, Dayne Gingrich, Jamie Oncins, Julie Johnson, Lee Whitwell, Marcello Jardim, Mircea Morariu, Rick Witsken, and Scott Moore.
  • International stars who have had success in Asia and Australia, but who haven’t taken a PPA medal yet. Players like Armaan Bhatia, Danni-Elle Townsend, Eunggwon Kim, George Wall, Hoang Nam Ly, Hong kit “Jack” Wong, Lingwei Kong, Lucas Pascoe, Sahra Dennehy, Ting Chieih Wei, and Yufei Long. This list continues to grow as the events in Asia and Australia get more competitive each passing month.
  • Younger Pros just coming onto the tour now. Players like Alexa Schull, Alia Brown, Braden Jacobson, Cam Chaffin, Cason Campbell, Clayton Powell, Ella Yeh, Elsie Hendershot, Emma Nelson, Jalina Ingram (who could have gotten a Bronze in the most recent PPA event had they still been holding them), Jonathan Truong, Kiora Kunimoto, Will MacKinnon, and Wyatt Stone.
  • Current veteran pros who just haven’t broken through. Here, I’m thinking players like Alex Crum, Anderson Scarpa, the Walker sisters, Blaine Hovenier, Matthew Barlow, Genie Erokhina, Grayson Goldin, James Delgado, Layne Sleeth, Lina Padegimaite, Millie Rane, Tammy & Martin Emmrich, Victoria Di Muzio, and the like.

It’s really hard to look at this list of dozens of names and just name the one player who I think is the best of them who hasn’t yet won a PPA medal. If I took one from each section, I’d probably name Munro, Sewing, Evans, Whitwell, Townsend, Chaffin, and Rane.

Hope you enjoyed this deep dive into PPA medal-winning history.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com