PPA Launches New 'World Rankings' to Crown Pickleball’s Best All-Around Players

The global system combines singles, mixed doubles, and gender doubles results into one definitive leaderboard

The PPA Tour wants to settle one of pro pickleball’s biggest debates: Who is the best overall player in the world?

Beginning with the 2026–2027 season, the Tour will introduce its new World Pickleball Rankings, a unified global leaderboard covering every PPA event worldwide.

Unlike the existing discipline-specific rankings, the new system will measure performance across singles, mixed doubles, and gender doubles, rewarding the players who consistently compete — and win — in every format.

The scoring breakdown:

Gender doubles: 50%
Mixed doubles: 35%
Singles: 15%

Each player’s ranking will be calculated using their 14 best results over the previous 52 weeks.

“Greatness isn’t one-dimensional,” PPA Tour founder and CEO Connor Pardoe said.

“The World Pickleball Rankings is about clarity and credibility — one number and one global standard that tells the story of who the best players in the world truly are.”

Results from every level of the PPA ecosystem will count toward the same leaderboard, including Challenger, international events, Majors, and the Pickleball World Championships. Point totals will be scaled based on the size and importance of each tournament.

The rankings will carry real competitive consequences, helping determine tournament entries, byes, and qualification for the season-ending PPA Finals. The top eight men and top eight women will compete across all three disciplines for the PPA Finals Championship.

The launch arrives alongside the Tour’s new rallying cry: “BE THE BEST.”

The slogan will appear throughout PPA events, marketing, and merchandise, with the Tour positioning it as a message for everyone from world-class professionals to first-time recreational players.

But the rankings are the bigger development.

Singles specialists and doubles standouts will still have their own leaderboards. The World Pickleball Rankings, however, will attempt to answer a much broader question — and crown the sport’s most complete player.

Instant Reactions

Zoey Weil

Zoey Weil, currently ranked 44th on the women's side in the World Pickleball Rankings, had this to say on X this morning:

Big changes coming to the PPA Ranking system. They will now use World Pickleball Rankings which combines your results from gender (50%), mixed (35%) and singles (15%). As pickleball keeps changing adjustments need to be made and I always welcome trying new things. Here’s the part…
— Zoey Weil (@zoeyweil66) August 5, 2026

Erik Tice - Pro pickleball journalist & GM of the California Black Bears

I think the announcement of the World Pickleball Rankings is a great step forward for the PPA Tour and the UPA. There are quite a few positives from this:

There is a clearly defined system in place now to become a contracted UPA pro - either get to the top 50 in the WPR, win the Challenger Series at Worlds, or get recommended by an MLP team and approved through the league.
The top 14 events in a players rolling 52 week calendar year count. For those players who can't play as many events and don't need to, according to their contracts, this will allow players to pick and choose which tournaments to enter.
I really like that player seedings in each individual event is not affected by the WPR. For example, Chris Haworth will be seeded #1 overall in the men's singles event in the North Carolina Cup that is upcoming, despite his 17th overall WPR ranking.

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