By Isaac Hunter. Additional reporting: WPM
The PPA Challenger season ends this week with the Challenger Showdown at Brookhaven Country Club in Farmers Branch, Texas, from 5 to 7 November. It runs alongside the Opendoor Pickleball World Championships. Eight players or teams in each of five disciplines will play for eight 2027 PPA Tour contracts, and for most of them the season comes down to a few days of best-of-three matches.
The short answer: Eight PPA Tour contracts for 2027 go to the Showdown winners: one each in men’s and women’s singles, and both players of the winning men’s, women’s and mixed doubles teams. William Hsieh and Jessica Ho arrive in form, but pool play followed by knockout semi-finals leaves little margin for error.
Who is in the field?
Qualification came through the season-long PPA Challenger rankings. The top eight men and top eight women qualified in singles, the top 16 men and women in gender doubles, and the top eight of each in mixed. In doubles the players were drafted: the highest-ranked qualifier chose a partner first, and so on down the list, with partnerships confirmed by 26 October.
- Men’s singles: William Hsieh, Matt Burkhardt, Bret Berryman, Eli Steiner, Vincent Rettke, Martin Stanchev, Troy Akin and Wade Heerboth.
- Women’s singles: Jessica Ho, Masa Grgan, Shannon Pretorius, Kelsey Laurente, Eileen Wang, Anne-Sophie Courteau, Janet Liu and Naomi De Hart.
- Men’s doubles: Riley Inn/Alex Emery, Eli Steiner/Jackson Ayotte, Mike Radermacher/Matt Burkhardt, Juan Varon/Ryan Camras, Jake Anderson/Vincent Rettke, Connor McCartney/Wade Heerboth, Nicholas Wade/Dale Kim and Usama Khalid/Zach Gonnering.
- Women’s doubles: Allie Reichert/Madalina Grigoriu, Maddy Rasmusen/Masa Grgan, Marisa Ruiz/Kelsey Laurente, Monika Wynne/Ella Boydston, Anne-Sophie Courteau/Chloe Diskin, Averee Beck/Bella Nelson, Adelie Osher/Janet Liu and Yolena Carlon/Haley Ferguson.
- Mixed doubles: Garrison Eaby/Madalina Grigoriu, Jarryd Woog/Lauren Cole, Chloe Diskin/Matt Burkhardt, Anne-Sophie Courteau/Juan Varon, Maddy Rasmusen/Usama Khalid, Jake Anderson/Allie Reichert, Nicholas Wade/Marisa Ruiz and Monika Wynne/Zach Gonnering.
Several names appear more than once. Burkhardt is entered in singles, men’s doubles and mixed, so he has three chances at a contract. Courteau also has three, in singles, women’s doubles and mixed. Grgan, Laurente, Liu, Rettke, Steiner and Heerboth each have two, in singles and doubles, and eleven more players are entered in both gender doubles and mixed.
What is on the line?
There are eight PPA contracts for 2027. The PPA says each winner will sign with the tour and receive professional status. With 64 places across the five draws, that works out to one contract for every eight places.
A player’s whole Challenger season can come down to a handful of matches. Someone who has been the most consistent player on the circuit all year could lose in the semi-finals, while a player who only just qualified could catch fire for three days and leave Texas with a contract. For the players competing here, this isn’t just another tournament. It’s a chance to change the direction of their careers.
The format is bigger than last year’s. At the inaugural Showdown in 2025, only the top four in each singles ranking qualified, and they went straight into knockout semi-finals. This year the field has doubled to eight, but the number of contracts hasn’t changed.
The 2025 event showed what a contract can lead to. Connor Mogle won men’s singles 11-1, 11-2 against Matthew Finnerty. Mogle had been laid off from his job in May and committed to the circuit full time. “This means a lot,” he told pickleball.com afterwards. “I’ve grinded out a lot of events.” Men’s doubles winners Anouar Braham and Christopher Crouch went on to beat AJ Koller and Dekel Bar, the No. 9 seeds, at the same World Championships. Braham then had a big 2026: he won mixed doubles Challenger titles in Grand Rapids and Macon and took singles bronze in Atlanta.
Who are the favourites?
William Hsieh starts the men’s singles as one of the players to watch. He arrives in Texas after winning gold at the Charlotte Challenger in late September. He beat Braylon Ohrel 11-6, 11-7 in the final, having survived an 18-16 opening game against Garrison Eaby earlier in the draw. Before that he was runner-up at the Atlanta Challenger in August, where he beat Braham 12-10, 11-2 in the semi-final before losing the final to Tristan Dussault. He also reached the quarter-finals at Grand Rapids, one of the season’s 250-point events.
Together, those results show the consistency and drive that carried Hsieh to the season finale.
“I’m confident in my own game leading up to the PPA Showdown, but every player there is a really strong opponent,” he said. “All I can do is to take one step at a time and see where we end up.”
For Hsieh, a contract would mean more than recognition for his results. “A PPA contract would mean the world to me, and it would feel like proof that what I’m doing is working,” he said. “I’m super grateful I get to compete for it.”
His season puts him in a strong position. Now he has to turn that form into a contract.
In women’s singles, Jessica Ho is the front-runner. She won gold at the Fort Collins Challenger, beating Marianna Petrei 12-10, 11-2 in the final. She then won Grand Rapids, beating Grgan 11-0, 13-11 in the final, and took bronze in Atlanta. Under the series points table, those three results alone add up to 450 points (250 for Grand Rapids, 125 for Fort Collins and 75 for Atlanta). That is the total that put her first in the official women’s singles rankings. Only two points separate her from Grgan, who will also be in Texas.
“There are a lot of great players in the final eight and everyone earned their spot,” Ho said. “I’m going to compete at the best level I know how while having fun and let the chips fall where they may.”
A contract would cap a prolific season. “If I secure a contract, that’s my cherry on top,” she said.
Is this event too much pressure for upcoming talent?
The Showdown opens with a round-robin group stage. Each draw of eight is split into two pools of four, and everyone in a pool plays everyone else. Each match is best of three games to 11, and the top two from each pool go through to the semi-finals on Saturday. Singles pool play is on Thursday; all three doubles events play their pools on Friday.
This gives players room to recover from a defeat, which isn’t what they are used to on a circuit of knockout draws. But they still have to perform consistently to get through. With only three pool matches, a player who loses the first will almost certainly need to win the next two to have a realistic chance of reaching the semi-finals. For the champion, the route to a contract is five matches: three in the pool, then a semi-final and a final.
Resetting mentally after a defeat is almost as important as the pickleball itself. Players have to find a balance between taking risks to win and avoiding unforced errors. And unlike a straightforward knockout tournament, they have to keep an eye on other results and the wider pool standings.
So what happens when a PPA Tour contract is within reach? The Showdown brings together players who earned their place over a full season of competition, but reaching the final eight is only one part of the journey. In singles it’s every player for themselves. In doubles, partners who were drafted together only weeks ago have to win as a team. For Hsieh, Ho and the other qualifiers, it’s a chance to turn a year’s work into a place on the main tour.
The question is whether the most consistent players can deliver when the pressure is at its peak. In every discipline, seven of the eight players or teams will go home without a contract.
After winning a contract, what are the next steps?
For everyone competing in Texas, a PPA contract could be a major step towards establishing themselves on the professional circuit. The Challenger Series is built as a pathway to the main tour. Even during the season, event winners earn a wild card into a PPA Tour Open, and players ranked in the top 20 of a PPA Tour division can’t enter that division at Challenger events.
A contract goes beyond the chance to compete at the highest level. It also recognises a player’s development and the results they produced through the season.
The real benefits depend on the terms of the contract, including its tier and which doors it opens. The PPA hasn’t published the terms of the 2027 contracts. Those details matter, because a contract shouldn’t automatically be treated as a guarantee of financial security or of entry into every main tour event.
The verdict: Hsieh and Ho have the strongest seasons behind them, and Ho’s Grand Rapids final against Grgan suggests she has the edge on her closest rival. But the Showdown rewards whoever wins five matches between Thursday and Saturday, not whoever earned the most points between January and September. Last year’s winners show that a contract is a starting point rather than a finish line. For everyone in Farmers Branch this week, the hard part may be what comes after the trophy.
