The short answer: Paddletek’s new Tempest Veyra, the paddle JW and Jorja Johnson use, and its sister paddle the Bantam Jolt are on the UPA-A approved list and so legal at this week’s World Championships in Dallas. Neither is on USA Pickleball’s Approved Paddle List, whose rulebook says a match is forfeited if a player is caught mid-match with an unlisted paddle. Pickleball now runs two approval lists that do not match, so check which list your event uses before you buy. The sport should have one list.
Some time this spring the Johnsons settled on a paddle nobody could buy. According to The Kitchen, both siblings ended up with “a blacked out PIKKL model that hadn’t been released” and went on to beat Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters in mixed doubles at the PPA Tour’s National Championships. That is a decent advert for a paddle without a name. On 1 November, The Kitchen reported, it got one: the Paddletek Tempest Veyra, Elongated for JW and Wide Body for Jorja, $179.99 on paddletek.com, shipping “mid to late November”.
Just in time for Christmas, then. Just in time for a puzzle, too.
What the two lists say
I checked both lists this morning, line by line, because that is the only way to be sure of either.
The UPA-A Certified Paddles List, the one run by United Pickleball’s certification arm, shows 290 paddles. Among them: Tempest Veyra Elongated (model PTKEL16) and Tempest Veyra Wide Body (PTKWB16), both 16mm, both added on 9 October 2026; and Bantam Jolt Elongated (PTKTKO5.0A) and Bantam Jolt Wide Body (PTKESQ4.0B), also 16mm, also 9 October. The Bantam Jolt Elongated then appears a second time, same model number, dated 2 November 2026. The list does not say why. A re-test, a revision and a clerical double-entry would all look the same from the outside, and I am not going to guess.
The USA Pickleball Approved Paddle List is a bigger beast: 5,392 entries at 08:30 GMT today. Its own model search for “Veyra” returns, in its words, “This search returned no results.” A search for “Jolt” finds exactly one paddle, the ProXR Pickleball JOLT, added on 9 July 2025. It is a different paddle, though not a stranger: ProXR belongs to the same Paddletek Group, according to pickleball.com. Two paddles called Jolt from one parent company, one on each list, is the kind of thing that makes a referee’s morning longer than it needs to be.
Belt and braces: we have also read all 216 pages of the USAP list, 215 of them yesterday and the last, page 143, this morning after it had timed out twice. It runs from entry 3,551 to 3,575, all from February and March 2023. No Veyra, no Bantam Jolt anywhere. The newest Paddletek entries are the Phoenix Firestorm 16mm (15 October 2026), the Phoenix Talon 16mm (18 August 2026) and the Honeyfoam ESQ 16 (20 May 2026). The newest PIKKL entry dates from December 2024.
| Paddle | UPA-A list | USA Pickleball list | Price (paddletek.com) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tempest Veyra Elongated (JW Johnson) | Yes, 9 Oct 2026 | No | $179.99 |
| Tempest Veyra Wide Body (Jorja Johnson) | Yes, 9 Oct 2026 | No | $179.99 |
| Bantam Jolt Elongated | Yes, 9 Oct 2026 (listed again 2 Nov) | No | $224.99 |
| Bantam Jolt Wide Body | Yes, 9 Oct 2026 | No | $224.99 |
| Selkirk Boomstik ST Elongated | Yes, 30 Oct 2026 | Yes, 1 Oct 2026 | n/a |
Source: WPM check of both official lists, 3 November 2026, and paddletek.com product pages. Table: World Pickleball Magazine.
To be clear about what this does not mean. It does not mean the Veyra breaks any rule anywhere the Johnsons play. They play UPA-A events, and on that list the paddle is legal. It does not mean the paddle would fail a USA Pickleball test, either. A paddle can be absent from a list because nobody has submitted it, because it is in the queue, or because it is still being tested. The list cannot tell you which, and nor can I. What it does mean is narrower and, for anyone buying one this month, more useful: as of this morning, if you take a Veyra to a USA Pickleball-sanctioned tournament, the list your referee checks does not have it.
What that means at Worlds, and at your club
The official event page for the Opendoor Pickleball World Championships, which run from 2 to 8 November at Brookhaven Country Club in Farmers Branch, Texas, sets out the paddle rule in its pro format section. Certain divisions “are required to use paddles on the UPA-A Approved Paddle list only”. Then the important bit for the 3,432 players registered: “All other divisions, including age/skill and Moneyball events may use paddles listed on the UPA-Approved Paddle list and/or the USA Pickleball Approved Paddle List.”
So Dallas is the friendliest place in the world to use a Veyra this week. The pros must use the UPA-A list. Amateurs may use either. Every Paddletek paddle in the table above is fine.
A USA Pickleball-sanctioned amateur event is a different place. The 2026 USA Pickleball Official Rulebook is blunt. Rule 18.A: “Players must confirm that their paddle is approved and listed on the USA Pickleball Approved Paddle List.” Rule 18.A.1: if an unlisted paddle is spotted before a match, the player switches, no penalty. Rule 18.A.2: if it is spotted during play, “a match forfeit will be imposed on the player.” Rule 18.A.3: spotted afterwards, the result stands. At its Golden Ticket events USA Pickleball now tests amateur paddles on site, and its 2026 player instructions say: “Any paddle not listed or that does not pass testing may not be used in the tournament.”
The conventional view in the shop is that a paddle is either legal or it isn’t. That was true when there was one list. It is not true now. A paddle can be legal in a Dallas pro draw and a forfeit risk in a USA Pickleball amateur draw on the same day. The question for the buyer is not “is it approved?” It is “approved by whom?”
Our numbers: two lists, two speeds
Set the two lists side by side and they are not just different in membership. They are different animals.
The UPA-A list is small and new. Of its 290 entries, 164 are dated 2026. Eighteen paddles have been added since 1 October. The USA Pickleball list is twenty times larger, at 5,392, and moves in both directions. Our sister piece on spin testing, “Forty-five out of 5,408”, recorded 5,408 entries on 28 October. Yesterday it was 5,393. At 06:00 this morning it was 5,391, and by 08:30 it was 5,392. That is a net fall of 16 in six days, on a list that keeps adding paddles. Entries are clearly leaving as well as arriving. The list does not say which, or why, and I would rather report a number than invent a reason.
Then there is speed, which is where the Veyra is genuinely interesting. Paddletek’s paddles went from UPA-A approval on 9 October to launch on 1 November: 23 days. Compare two rivals. Selkirk’s Boomstik ST was added to the USA Pickleball list on 1 October, launches on 10 November (40 days), and only reached the UPA-A list on 30 October. Gearbox’s Pressure X was added to the USAP list on 1 October; I could not find it on the UPA-A list this morning.
Three brands, three routes. Paddletek went UPA-A first and has launched without a USAP listing. Selkirk went USAP first and picked up UPA-A a month later, before launch. Gearbox, so far, is USAP only. None of them is doing anything wrong. All of them are making a bet about which players matter, and the bets don’t match. That, rather than any one paddle, is the story.
Two caveats. I count list entries, not paddles: one paddle in two shapes is two rows, and the UPA-A list repeats some entries, the Jolt among them. And a launch date is a marketing decision as well as a certification one. But the pattern is plain enough. When a brand has to choose which list to join first, the pro list now goes first for some of them.
How we got two lists
For most of the sport’s modern history there was one list, USA Pickleball’s, and everybody used it, including the pro tours. The split came with the professional game’s consolidation. Under United Pickleball, the professional game now has its own certification, UPA-A. The pros play to one list and much of the amateur game to another.
The Johnsons’ route to the Veyra is a neat history of the year in miniature. They left Franklin in January, according to pickleball.com, and spent months testing. The Kitchen says JW used five brands in competition this spring (JOOLA, Franklin, Selkirk, PIKKL and Paddletek) and Jorja three. On 7 July Paddletek Group announced it had bought PIKKL and signed the Johnson family and Hurricane Tyra Black. “This was never about logos or contracts,” JW said at the time. “I’ve tested every paddle, and this opportunity gives us access to incredible technology while becoming part of a brand focused on winning.” The paddle they picked was a PIKKL prototype. It launched as a Paddletek. Since the switch JW has become the top-rated men’s doubles player on DUPR: its own rankings, updated 28 October, put him first at 7.047, ahead of Ben Johns.
In other words, the paddle used by the hottest family in the sport was designed by one company, sold by another, approved by one governing body and, as of this morning, absent from the other’s list. If you set that as a quiz question nobody would get it.
The global problem
This is not just an American quarrel, and the global federation knows it. On 2 November the Global Pickleball Federation published its six takeaways from last month’s summit in Hong Kong, reported by Times Now. The first was this: “The global pickleball ecosystem is deeply concerned about duplication in paddle certification and governance.” Aligning certification “at the national, continental and international levels is essential to building a stronger, more credible sport.” The GPF says it has 80 member countries. We covered what Hong Kong exposed at the time.
For a British player, the Veyra is a small, practical version of a large, abstract problem. A UK buyer ordering from the US this month is paying $179.99 plus shipping for a paddle whose legal status depends on which tournament you enter, and which list that tournament uses. Most players will never be asked. The ones who play sanctioned events will, and they deserve to know before they hand over the money rather than at the referee’s table.
The verdict
Here is the call. The Veyra is legal at Worlds, legal across the UPA-A game, and missing from the USA Pickleball list today. Buy it if you play UPA-A events or unsanctioned club play. If you play USA Pickleball-sanctioned events, wait until it appears on that list, which takes about a minute to check and may save you a forfeit.
The bigger call is for the sport. Two lists that disagree about the paddle used by DUPR’s top-rated men’s doubles player are not a sign of choice. They are a sign of duplication, which is the GPF’s word, not mine. One certification, recognised by both sides and published in one place, would end this kind of story. I would quite like to stop writing it.
Until then the rule is simple. Before you buy the paddle, check the list. Before you check the list, check which one.
Related: Forty-five out of 5,408: USA Pickleball’s spin cap is real, but its paddle list can’t show you where.
