The Global Pickleball Alliance and Global Pickleball Rankings Formally Announced

A Global Pickleball Alliance (GPA) and Global Pickleball Rankings (GPR) have been announced by a group of pickleball tours/entities.

The GPA’s mission aims to create the world’s first shared pro schedule, a unified ranking system, and a collaborative governance structure that strengthens player pathways, increases international exposure, and ensures consistent standards across all member regions.

Led by the Association of Pickleball Players (APP) Tour, the Global Pickleball Alliance has announced its formal formation along with its own rankings system. The APP's full 2026 tour schedule features 13 nationally televised events and expanded circuits, giving the GPA a strong domestic foundation to build its international structure on.

If this is sounding familiar, it's because the alliance was announced in late August. The APP had also previously solidified its global expansion footprint ahead of this formal GPA announcement.

APP Leads New Global Alliance to Unite Professional Pickleball

The APP has announced a partnership with the CNPL, Australia’s NPL, Global Sports, Pickleball England, and Vietnam’s Pickleball D-Joy for the 2026 year, forming a global alliance of pickleball with more than 30 combined events throughout the year.

The Dink PickleballErik Tice

The announcement today added three distinct updates to the above-mentioned article:

• The name of the alliance is the "Global Pickleball Alliance" or GPA
• The GPA is officially rolling out a Global Pickleball Rankings system, where players earn rankings points at the GPA events. For context on how international player ratings already work across the sport, the best doubles pickleball players by DUPR on every continent and the top singles pickleball players by DUPR on each continent show exactly how scattered the global landscape has been before a unified system like this existed.
• The GPA has updated its tournament offerings with over 35 GPA events scheduled in the 2026 calendar year

For more information regarding all GPA events, click here.

“This is a monumental day in pickleball history. The APP is immensely proud to partner with these incredible organizations and lay the pathway for players across the globe to realize their professional dreams. The GPA represents the pinnacle of ambassadors for the sport internationally, and creates unprecedented unity never before seen in pickleball. Ken Herrmann, Founder of the APP Tour

Founding members of the GPA include:

• USA — Association of Pickleball Players (APP)
• Australia — National Pickleball League (NPL)
• Vietnam — D-Joy Pickleball
• India — Global Sports Pickleball
• Canada — Canadian National Pickleball League (CNPL)
• United Kingdom — Pickleball England
• Europe — European Pickleball Federation
• Additional Founding Participation — Representative bodies from Malaysia and Japan

The Vietnam entry is particularly notable. The PPA Vietnam event set a world record for single-day pickleball event attendance, signaling that the sport's international appetite is already well beyond what current tour structures can serve.

The Kick Off

The 2025 Sypik Australia NPL Invitational is set for Dec. 4-7 at Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club in Melbourne. (Existing external link preserved. Editorial note: confirm this URL is live before publishing.)

The broader global ambition this launch represents is best understood alongside the 26 pro pickleball predictions for 2026, which anticipated exactly this kind of international structural push.