PPA Tour Australia Sydney 125 Opens 2026 Season With 451 Players

Hong Kit Wong arrived in Sydney as the top seed and left with two gold medals, capping a dominant performance at the PPA Tour Australia Sydney 125 that served as the opening event of the Professional Pickleball Association's 2026 international schedule.

The four-day tournament at Central Pick and Pickle Point drew 451 players spanning professionals, emerging juniors, and a strong amateur field, making it one of the larger gatherings the Australian PPA circuit has seen. The venue itself marked a milestone: for the first time, Central Pick and Pickle Point hosted competition on permanent infrastructure rather than the temporary court setups used in prior events. The tournament ran under the full branding of the 2026 PPA Tour Australia Powered by Franklin.

Wong, representing Hong Kong, added to his already remarkable recent run by beating Australian Mitchell Hargreaves in the Men's Pro Singles final to claim his sixth international PPA pro singles title since April. Harrison Brown completed a clean 1-2-3 seed podium by taking the bronze. In Men's Pro Doubles, Wong teamed with Eunggwon Kim, winners of several 2025 Australian PPA events, and the No. 1 seed pair swept through the draw without dropping a game. They defeated the up-and-coming Aussie pair of Harrison Brown and Ryan Henry in the final, though the path was not without surprises: regular podium players including Joseph Wild were upset early in the men's doubles bracket.

On the women's side, Andie Dikosavljevic defended her Women's Pro Singles title, but could not complete the doubles sweep. She and Nicola Schoeman fell in the Women's Pro Doubles final to Danni-Elle Townsend and Sahra Dennehy, both newly-drafted Major League Pickleball players hailing from Gold Coast in Queensland. Schoeman had a busy weekend regardless, collecting three medals across the event, all silvers.

Townsend finished as the weekend's other standout performer. After claiming Women's Pro Doubles gold with Dennehy, she paired with Joseph Wild to win the Mixed Pro title, giving her two gold medals from a single Sydney event.

The cross-over implications for U.S. audiences are real. Several of the weekend's medalists were recently drafted in the 2026 MLP draft, meaning North American pickleball fans will get a closer look at players like Townsend and Dennehy when the domestic MLP season gets underway later this summer.

The Sydney 125 drew 451 competitors total across pro and amateur divisions, and the amateur turnout in particular pointed to pickleball's expanding footprint in New South Wales. With permanent court infrastructure now in place at Central Pick and Pickle Point, the Australian PPA circuit is no longer building the event from scratch each time it returns to Sydney.