China has hosted five PPA events in eleven months, and its national points now count towards entry to the pro draws. Nanjing had a big field at the bottom. Its finals were played by people the tour already knew.
The short answer: Five pro titles were decided in Nanjing on Saturday 31 October. Xie Yujie won the women’s singles, Li Zida the men’s singles, Cai Xiang and Miao Yaxuan the men’s doubles, Mihae Kwon and Wen Junyuan the women’s doubles, and Kwon and Liang Haotian the mixed, according to the Yangtse Evening News. Five players filled 12 of the 16 places in the finals, and several of them were already on PPA Asia 500 draws this year. Our view: China’s pathway is filling up from the bottom, but at the 125 level it is rewarding the tour’s regulars, not yet finding new names.
The paper’s description of finals day reads like a coaching manual: players low on their legs, quick small steps, eyes on the ball, soft drops to the kitchen, drives from the baseline, the decisive cut-off volley. Then it gets to the names, and the names keep repeating.
Xie Yujie beat Mihae Kwon in the women’s singles final. Kwon and her partner beat Xie and hers in the women’s doubles. Kwon and a different partner beat Xie and a different partner in the mixed. On the men’s side Li Zida beat Cai Xiang in singles, and Cai beat Li in doubles. Over four days and five finals, the Ledongli Jiangning Digital Sports Center, according to the Yangtse Evening News report, hosted more than 600 players from 12 countries and regions. Sixteen places in the finals were available. Five players took 12 of them.
A caveat first
These results come from a single source: the Yangtse Evening News (Zi Niu News) report of 31 October, republished word for word on ifeng, which doesn’t make it a second source. We rechecked PPA Tour Asia this morning. The Nanjing event page shows the event (28 to 31 October, US$15,000, 125 points) but its results widget is showing placeholder data, not Nanjing scores. The tour’s news sitemap has nothing newer than 25 October. Until the official results appear, treat every name below as reported, not confirmed. We will correct the record if the official version differs.
The finals
- Women’s singles: Xie Yujie beat Mihae Kwon 2-0. The paper says Xie attacked from the first point and never gave up control.
- Men’s singles: Li Zida beat Cai Xiang 2-1, coming back after losing the first game.
- Men’s doubles: Cai Xiang and Miao Yaxuan beat Wang Guangmao and Li Zida 2-1, again after dropping the opener.
- Women’s doubles: Kwon and Wen Junyuan beat Chen Zhe and Xie 2-0. Xie Anni and Sophia Phuong Anh Tran took bronze.
- Mixed: Kwon and Liang Haotian beat Xie and Miao 2-1.
Three of five finals went to three games, and both men’s finals were comebacks. It was competitive. It was also very concentrated.
Our number: 12 of 16
Kwon and Xie were in every final open to them: three each. Li, Cai and Miao were in two each. That is 12 of the 16 places. Only four other players, Wang, Wen, Chen and Liang, reached a final at all.
Some of that is arithmetic. A strong player in a 125 can enter three events, and doubles finals contain four people, so a handful of good players will always fill a lot of places. But it is the second number that matters more.
Our second number: how many were already on the tour
Check the finalists against PPA Tour Asia’s own 2026 draws and a pattern appears. On the tour’s event pages:
- Kwon Mihae was the No. 8 seed in women’s singles at both the Beijing Open in June and the Shenzhen Open in August, both 500-level events with US$70,000 in pro prize money. She was also in the women’s singles draw at the Hong Kong Slam.
- Cai Xiang appears in the men’s singles main draw at Shenzhen and at the Hangzhou Open last December. A “X. Cai / Y. Miao” pair is in the Hong Kong Slam men’s doubles list.
- Anni Xie, a women’s doubles bronze medallist in Nanjing, was seeded seventh in women’s singles at Shenzhen. Chen Zhe is in the Hangzhou women’s singles list.
We could not find Xie Yujie, Li Zida, Wen Junyuan or Liang Haotian on those pages, though romanisation varies and the lists are incomplete. So the honest summary is this: at least three of Nanjing’s nine finalists and medallists we checked were already playing 500-level draws this year. The 125 didn’t so much discover them as confirm them.
The context: five events in eleven months
China’s arrival on the PPA map has been fast. The tour describes the Hangzhou Open of 3 to 6 December 2025 as its first visit to China: US$50,000 and 1,000 points, with Federico Staksrud the top seed in men’s singles. Then came the Beijing Open at the National Tennis Center in June, the Shenzhen Open in August, the Shandong Challenger (4 to 7 October, the first PPA Asia 125 in China, US$15,000) and Nanjing.
That is five, which matches the figure the Nanjing Sports Bureau gives. The bureau says Nanjing was the fifth PPA event held in China since the China Tennis Association brought the tour in in December 2025. It also says something more striking: Chinese players can enter the pro draws on their CPC (China Pickleball) points, and that CPC and PPA points are “equally valid” as the basis for pro-draw entry. That is the pathway we looked at in October. The event was organised by the General Administration of Sport’s tennis centre and the CTA, according to the bureau, and run by Chengshi (Orange Lion) Sports.
The argument: a feeder that isn’t feeding yet
Here is the firm call. The 125 tier in China is a feeder in name. At the moment it is a stage for the regulars.
That is not a criticism of the players who won. Kwon was the best woman in Nanjing by results, and Xie beat her in the one match that was head-to-head. It is a comment on the structure. A 125 offers 125 points and US$15,000 shared across five events. For a player already ranked high enough to play 500s, it is an efficient week: fewer elite rivals, real points. For a CPC-ranked newcomer hoping to step up, it means running into exactly those players in the semi-finals.
The bureau’s framing is about access, and access is clearly working. Six hundred players, a university team event alongside the pros and an amateur programme with age groups from 36 to 65 are a big base. The question is what happens between the base and the finals. If, after a few more 125s, the same five or six names keep filling the finals, the CPC route will have produced lots of entrants and very few new professionals. If new names begin to appear in the semi-finals, it will be working as advertised.
The second call is about the tour itself. A professional tour that publishes rankings has to publish results. Two days after the event, the only account of five pro finals is a local newspaper. PPA Tour Asia should put the Nanjing scores on its site, because its players’ ranking points depend on them, and because a pathway nobody can check is a pathway nobody can measure.
The global angle: Asia’s calendar keeps growing
The tour has already told us where it goes next. PPA Tour Asia’s site lists the Manila Open 2027, a PPA Asia 500, for 24 to 28 February. It is one of four 500s announced for early 2027, alongside Bangkok (27 to 31 January), Penang (16 to 20 March) and Ho Chi Minh City (31 March to 4 April). Bangkok and Manila are tour debuts.
The Philippine leg will also include a PPA 125, according to Tiebreaker Times, with both events at the new Helios SPARC facility in Pasig. Fastbreak reports the 125 for 14 to 18 January. The 125 isn’t on PPA Tour Asia’s site yet, so treat those dates as reported, not confirmed.
Anna Bright helped promote both events in Manila last week. “As a spectator sport, pickleball is going to grow so fast in Asia,” she told Tiebreaker Times. “I think it can even grow faster than the United States.” We tested that claim in Saturday’s feature. The comparison with Europe is useful here. Europe’s tours are building a pro class from club players who travel. China is building one from a state-backed points system that plugs into the PPA. The second is faster to set up. Whether it is faster at producing champions is exactly what the 125s will tell us.
What comes next
There are three things to watch. The first is whether PPA Tour Asia publishes Nanjing’s results, and whether they match the paper’s. The second is whether the Manila 125 is confirmed for January. The third is the slower test: whether, by the time the 2027 China events come round, the names in the 125 finals are different ones.
Nanjing proved the players will come. It hasn’t yet proved they will win.
