Toys R Us PPA Finals in San Clemente reward season-long Race leaders
San Clemente’s Finals put the season’s steadiest Race-point collectors on center court, with pool play, not one-and-done brackets, deciding the year’s last big payoff.
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The Toys 'R' Us PPA Finals opened in San Clemente with the sport’s season-long grinders getting the reward they spent months chasing: an invite-only draw based on Race points, not the usual ranking table. The event ran May 4-10 at Life Time Rancho San Clemente, a 45,000-square-foot facility at 111 Avenida Vista Montana, and it doubled as the tour’s final checkpoint before the year-end PPA World No. 1 was crowned.
The format made the difference as plain as the draw sheet. Instead of a straight knockout, the Finals used pool play, with the top eight players in singles and mixed doubles and the top 16 in men’s and women’s doubles earning entry. The Race standings were built from each player’s best 16 events over the previous 52 weeks, which meant consistency mattered more than one hot weekend. With the final main-circuit qualifying stop already locked in at the Veolia Atlanta Pickleball Championships, a Slam worth 2,000 points, the late-season math had already done its work.
That point structure is why the fields shifted even before the first ball was struck in San Clemente. Anna Leigh Waters was out of the singles bracket after her demanding triple-crown run in Atlanta, and her absence pushed Liz Truluck into the last qualifying spot in women’s singles. In women’s doubles, Jackie Kawamoto qualified but did not play, clearing the way for Jamie Wei to grab the final berth as injuries and withdrawals rippled through the field. Waters’ omission stood out even more because the official PPA profile listed her as No. 1 in women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles, with 39 triple crowns and 181 gold medals already on her record.
For players and rec players watching for patterns, this was the clearest lesson of the Finals: the tour rewards durability, not just peak gear. The PPA said the 2025-26 calendar included 25-plus tournaments, and the prize grid for the Finals sat in a $1,252,241 event tier within a broader 2026 pool of $5,235,943 in prize money and appearance fees. Live coverage started with pool play on PickleballTV at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, while a separate PPA 500 event ran at the same San Clemente site for pros who missed the cut. Even the parking note fit the tone of the week, with complimentary parking directed to the Outlets at San Clemente and none at the club itself, a reminder that the Finals were built as a destination stop, not just another bracket.
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