Jason Barry pickleball tournament raises more than $75,000 for cancer research

A third annual pickleball tournament and pre-pickleball happy hour at Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club raised more than $75,000 for cancer research, turning a local summer gathering into a meaningful fundraising engine. The Jason Barry Team staged the two-day event June 17-18 with The James Blake Foundation, and the total showed how quickly a community pickleball format can scale when players, donors and sponsors buy into the cause.

The number matters because it marks a clear jump from the second annual tournament, which raised more than $50,000 at the same club. The inaugural Jason Barry Team tournament was also held at Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club, giving the event a three-year continuity that now reads less like a one-off charity outing and more like a recurring fixture. Game play has included both competitive and non-competitive brackets, a structure that widens the field beyond the most serious players and helps pull in supporters who want to take part without entering a full draw.

That broader appeal was on display in the second annual edition, when the noncompetitive winners were Cole Barry and Matt Rivera and the competitive title went to James Blake and Calin Dawson. The format, paired with a pre-tournament happy hour, gives the fundraiser two entry points: one for players looking for matches and another for guests who can still contribute, socialize and support the foundation’s work. In amateur pickleball, where events often rise or fall on atmosphere as much as competition, that combination has become part of the model.

Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club has been a fitting home for the event. The club was formed in 1962 and now features four pickleball courts, alongside a calendar that includes social events, charity fundraisers and tournaments throughout the year. The setting gives the Jason Barry event an established venue and a built-in sense of continuity, important ingredients for any fundraiser trying to grow from year to year.

The charitable partner brings added weight. The James Blake Foundation supports the Thomas Blake Sr. Memorial Research Fund at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and says it has donated just under $1.2 million toward cancer research since its inception. In August 2024, the foundation announced a $1 million donation to Memorial Sloan Kettering to establish the James Blake Discovery Fund in Prevention and Early Interception, underscoring that the pickleball tournament is part of a much larger push to channel racket-sport energy into cancer research.