The short answer: The 2026 Worlds semi-finals are Goins v Alshon and Sock v Hunter Johnson in men’s singles, and Waters v Buckner and Fahey v Christian in women’s singles. In the doubles, Johns/Tardio play Daescu/Alshon and Klinger/Oncins play Shimabukuro/JW Johnson in the men’s draw. Bright/Waters play Rohrabacher/Todd and Sewing/Parenteau play Fahey/Pisnik in the women’s. In mixed, Johns/Waters play Rohrabacher/Alshon and Bright/Patriquin play the Johnsons. Higher seeds won 16 of Friday’s 20 quarter-finals. Alshon has won 24 games from 24 this week, and Waters 22 from 22.
Five and five. That is all Christopher Haworth, the men’s singles top seed, could take from John Lucian Goins in Friday’s quarter-final at Brookhaven Country Club: 11-5, 11-5 to the seventh seed. Earlier, on Grandstand, 13th seed Jack Sock had beaten fifth seed Roscoe Bellamy 11-8, 11-7. That means a man who arrived as a tennis player is now two matches from a world singles title.
So the men’s singles semi-finals are Goins (7) against Christian Alshon (4), and Sock (13) against Hunter Johnson (3). Neither of the top two seeds is there. Federico Staksrud, the No 2, went out to Sock on Thursday.
That is the headline, and it will get plenty of attention. It is also the least representative thing that happened on Friday.
The other four draws did exactly what they were told
Here is the conventional view after a week like this: Worlds is chaos. Johns lost in singles, Haworth and Staksrud lost in singles, and the defending men’s doubles champions lost too. Surely nobody’s seeding means anything?
Across the 20 quarter-finals in the official Worlds draw, the higher seed won 16. Two of the four upsets came in men’s singles. The others were Klinger/Oncins (5) over Staksrud/Patriquin (2) in men’s doubles, and Sewing/Parenteau (5) over Tyra Black and Jorja Johnson (2) in women’s doubles.
Now look at who is left. There are 20 semi-final places, and seeds one to four fill 16 of them. Women’s singles is seeds one, two, three and four, exactly as printed. Mixed doubles is seeds one, two, three and four as well. Men’s and women’s doubles each have three of their top four, with a fifth seed standing in for the missing No 2. Men’s singles has two of its top four.
| Event | QF won by higher seed | Top-four seeds in semis |
|---|---|---|
| Men’s singles | 2 of 4 | 2 of 4 (3, 4) |
| Women’s singles | 4 of 4 | 4 of 4 |
| Men’s doubles | 3 of 4 | 3 of 4 (1, 3, 4) |
| Women’s doubles | 3 of 4 | 3 of 4 (1, 3, 4) |
| Mixed doubles | 4 of 4 | 4 of 4 |
| Total | 16 of 20 | 16 of 20 |
This matters because our 222-match seeding audit found higher seeds winning roughly three in four results through the round of 32. On Friday the figure was four in five. The field got smaller and the order got more obedient, not less. Men’s singles is the event that broke the pattern. It is not the pattern itself.
So the honest headline for Saturday is not “anything can happen”. It is narrower and more useful. Anything can happen in men’s singles. Elsewhere, the favourites have mostly made it.
Goins and Alshon have met before, and it went the distance
Goins should not be treated as a fluke on the strength of one quarter-final. In August 2025, aged 17 and seeded 19, he beat Alshon, then the seventh seed, 8-11, 11-7, 11-8 in the Bristol semi-finals, recovering from 3-7 down in the decider. “I’ve always dreamed of being out here on a court in front of all these people and playing against the best in the sport,” he said afterwards. He went on to win titles in Bristol and Las Vegas that month, according to pickleball.com.
His Worlds route has been harder than his seeding suggests. He beat George Rangelov 11-7, 11-3, then Max Freeman 11-7, 11-0. Next came Noe Khlif, the player who had knocked out Ben Johns, 11-6, 3-11, 11-2. Then he beat Haworth. That is nine games played, one lost, and 46 points conceded.
Alshon’s numbers are cleaner still: eight games, none lost, 44 points conceded. He beat Martin Stanchev, Michael Loyd, Harrison Brown and Spain’s Jaume Martinez Vich, the 12th seed, 11-5, 11-9 on Friday. On paper, the fourth seed against the seventh is the tightest semi-final in the singles. Their meeting in Bristol last year went to three games.
Sock’s run is real, and so is Hunter Johnson’s
Sock has had the hardest road of the four men. He has played ten games, more than anyone else in the semi-finals, and conceded 59 points. He lost a game to Jonathan Truong in the round of 64, then lost the first game 3-11 to Staksrud before winning the next two. Sock has explained why he thinks he is playing better. “My entire game plan in singles now is just to have fun and try to honestly have the most fun I can. Swing free and play loose,” he told PickleballTV, as reported by pickleball.com. He has also been working on his fitness for long tournament days. “Being in better shape, I have less wear and tear on my bones, muscles, and joints,” he said.
His opponent has been the most economical player in either singles draw. Hunter Johnson has won eight games out of eight and conceded 32 points, four a game. He beat Daniel Miron 11-5, 11-0 and Anouar Braham 11-4, 11-9, then Rafael Lenhard 11-1, 11-4. On Friday he beat Hong Kong’s Hong Kit Wong 11-3, 11-6.
Wong deserves a line of his own. He was the only man in the last eight based outside North America and Europe. On the way he beat Joel Poland, advanced past Eric Oncins without a ball being struck (the official sheet records a walkover, and pickleball.com reports that Oncins withdrew from singles with a hip injury), and then beat Donald Young 12-10, 11-9.
My call is this. Sock against Johnson is the semi-final where the numbers and the narrative point in opposite directions. The narrative belongs to Sock. The numbers belong to Johnson, who has conceded 27 fewer points while playing two fewer games. I would not bet against the man who has been the most efficient player in the draw, and I would not be shocked to be wrong.
Women’s singles: the four favourites, as advertised
The women’s draw has produced no upsets since the round of 16, and it shows. Waters, the top seed, has won 88 points and conceded 19 in eight games. She beat Frances Altick, Kelly Goodnow (11-0, 11-1), Milan Rane (11-0, 11-2) and, on Friday, Sofia Sewing 11-2, 11-8. The eight points Sewing took in the second game are the most anyone has managed against Waters in a single game in this draw. According to The Kitchen, she has won the event every year it has existed, in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Kate Fahey, the No 2, has been nearly as tight: eight games, none lost, 24 points conceded. That includes an 11-3, 11-0 quarter-final over Catherine Parenteau, the seventh seed.
The other two semi-finalists have been stretched. Brooke Buckner (4) needed 13-11 in the first game against Rika Fujiwara (12) before winning 11-4. Kaitlyn Christian (3) lost the first game 11-13 to 22nd seed Jorja Johnson, then won 12-10, 11-7.
So the semi-finals are Waters v Buckner and Fahey v Christian. If there is an upset in women’s singles this weekend, it will be the first since the round of 16.
The players left in everything
This is the part of Saturday I would watch most closely.
Twenty-three players are still alive across the ten semi-finals. Seven of them are in more than one event. Two are in all three. Alshon is in men’s singles, in men’s doubles with Andrei Daescu, and in mixed with Rachel Rohrabacher. Waters is in women’s singles, in women’s doubles with Anna Bright, and in mixed with Ben Johns.
Neither has dropped a game.
| Player | Matches | Games won | Games lost | Points conceded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christian Alshon (MS, MD, XD) | 12 | 24 | 0 | 120 |
| Anna Leigh Waters (WS, WD, XD) | 11 | 22 | 0 | 49 |
Waters has conceded 49 points in 22 games across three events. That is a little over two a game. Bright and Waters have conceded just nine in six women’s doubles games, the best ratio of any team in the semi-finals.
And at 2.40pm Central time (20:40 in London), on the official order of play, they meet: Johns/Waters, the No 1 mixed seeds, against Rohrabacher/Alshon, the No 4s. One of those perfect records is guaranteed to go by the end of that match. Only one of the two can still win three titles on Sunday.
The schedule adds a further test. According to the posted order, all ten pro semi-finals are on one court, with the venue listed only as Court TBA. Alshon is due on at 11.00am, 2.40pm and 4.30pm local time. Waters is due on at 11.55am, 2.40pm and 5.25pm. All of those times are subject to change. Nobody else has that three-event workload.
Klinger and Oncins, and the defending champions who are gone
Men’s doubles had the round’s most consequential upset. CJ Klinger and Eric Oncins, the fifth seeds, beat Staksrud and Hayden Patriquin, the defending champions, 11-8, 11-4 on the official sheet. The teams had met in the Chicago Cup semi-finals last month, which Patriquin and Staksrud won 11-8, 7-11, 11-3.
Oncins, the player who pulled out of singles, was frank about the division of labour. “CJ is basically carrying me all week,” he told pickleball.com. “I’m not moving that well this week, so CJ is doing a lot of the work and I’m just making balls.”
The scoresheet says Klinger and Oncins are the only men’s doubles semi-finalists to have dropped a game, losing 2-11 to Augustus Ge and Sock in the round of 16 before winning 11-8, 11-7. They meet Tama Shimabukuro and JW Johnson (4), who have won eight games out of eight. The other semi-final is the one the draw always promised: Johns/Tardio (1) against Daescu/Alshon (3).
Women’s doubles has Bright/Waters (1) against Rohrabacher/Todd (3), and Sewing/Parenteau (5) against Fahey/Pisnik (4). The Kitchen notes that Bright is chasing a third consecutive Worlds women’s doubles title, with Rohrabacher in 2024 and Waters in 2025, which gives the first semi-final an obvious subplot. Fahey/Pisnik lost the first game 11-13 to Carlota Trevino and Isabella Dunlap in the last 16, then beat Mari Humberg and Milan Rane 12-10, 11-9 in the quarter-final. That was the tightest straight-games quarter-final in the women’s draw.
Mixed doubles has followed the seeding exactly. Bright/Patriquin (2) play Jorja and JW Johnson (3), and neither team has dropped a game.
What Saturday will tell us
It is not quite right to call Worlds a week of upsets. It has been one event full of upsets and four events in which the favourites keep winning. Saturday will settle whether men’s singles was a genuine break or simply noise in one draw.
It will also tell us something about this sport’s version of the multi-event problem. At Worlds, the best players can enter all three events and see how far they get. Alshon and Waters are still in all three and have not lost a game in any of them. One of them will lose a game at 20:40 London time, and possibly the match.
Women’s singles has gone to seed, men’s singles has gone to pieces, and the most interesting match of the day is in mixed.
Saturday’s semi-finals start at 11.00am Central (17:00 London) on PickleballTV.
Archive: Anna Leigh Waters celebrates a point at the Fanatics Sportsbook North Carolina Cup in Cary on 7 April 2024. Photo supplied by United Pickleball Association / Carvana PPA Tour.
