Upsets Reign Supreme At Association Of Pickleball Players Chicago Open

News and Noteworthy ahead of the Event

Here’s a quick recap of notable news items of import to the tour or this event. It’s been a busy couple of months for the APP.

• On 8/5/26: Spain-based Top Pickleball Tour announces a new European tour in partnership with the APP, created to boost the sport of pickleball across Europe, with events starting in 2026. Their first four events will be centered on the Iberian peninsula before expanding across Europe in 2027. This comes on the heels of a similar European expansion plan announced earlier this summer from their rival tour.
• On 8/3/26: The APP announces that its doubling its 2027 total tour purse to $3 Million. It also announces it is going from 10 to 12 domestic tour events, part of a global slate of 50 events for next year, notes that they now have nearly 70 players under contract, and announces expanded live streaming to show all four days of its 2027 events.
• On 6/25/26, the APP announces that its APP Asia Tour circuit has become the world’s first to be officially dual-sanctioned by the Asian Pickleball Association (APA) and Asia Federation of Pickleball (AFP).
• On 6/18/26: Jay Devilliers, #12 ranked doubles player on the PPA, announces in conjunction with the APP that he’ll be leaving the tour after the MLP season and will rejoin the APP tour in September 2026. This is a super interesting bit of news, and is the latest of a slew of APP Player signings that have been announced throughout 2026, kept track in a running fashion on this page. Is this the first of many PPA defections that we’ll see as the Aug 2023 “Tour Wars” contracts start coming to an end?
• On 6/18/26, just a few days after announcing with Pickleball England, the APP also expanded its relationship with the European Pickleball Federation.
  The enhanced partnership will see the APP and EPF collaborate across tournament operations, athlete development, event promotion, international
  competitive opportunities, and grassroots initiatives, with the ultimate goal of fast-tracking the growth of pickleball across Europe. The highlight of this new partnership will be the APP “powering the upcoming EPF flagship event, the 2026 European Pickleball Open,” set to beheld in November in Turkey.
• On 6/11/26 the APP announced an expanded partnership with Pickleball England, with whom they’ve already been partnered since 2022. Together the groups will work together to accelerate Pickleball’s growth in England. The upcoming English Open is one of the largest non-US based event on the global calendar.

With that said, let’s recap the action.

2026 Shriners Children’s APP Pro Invitational Results

Before the full tour event kicked off, the APP held the latest iteration of its Pro Invitational format, where the tour’s top pros get together to play an “out of the hat” mixed one day event with quick timed games (8 minutes).

Eight teams formed two round-robin pools; Pool 1 was taken by Kat Stewart and Richard Livornese via a tiebreaker, while Pool 2 featured a 3-way tie-breaker, taken on point differential by Susannah Barr and Brandon Lane. In the 12-minute timed final, Lane (sporting a rather unique haircut) and the legend Barr jumped out to a massive 8-1 lead, then gave it all back in the span of about 90 seconds before running out the clock to win 9-8 and take the event.

Men’s Pro Singles Recap

The influence of the APP Next tour was strongly seen in the Men’s Singles draw, as No. 21 Jayden Broderick and No. 15 Drake Palm (each of whom owns 7 gold medals on the Next tour) joined 2025 Next graduate and top seed Ronan Camron and long-time No. 1 and Wazir in the semis. From there, Wazir reclaimed his seat atop the podium, where he sat for much of the latter half of 2025, with a solid win over Broderick for the title.

Gold: Ammar Wazir. Silver: Jayden Broderick. Bronze: Ronan Camron

Women’s Pro Singles Recap

The top singles specialists on the APP took advantage of No. 2 Sewing being absent due to MLP duties, and the top four seeds advanced to the semis. There, we had three straight upsets, as No. 4 Seone Mendez upset No. 1 Kat Steward in the first semi, then No.3 Domenika Turkovic took out No. 2 Bobbi Oshiro in the other semi. In the final, it was the Australian Mendez winning her 2nd career APP pro singles gold.

Gold: Seone Mendez. Silver: Domenika Turkovic. Bronze: Kat Stewart.

Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

No fewer than 53 teams poured into the Mixed Pro Doubles draw in Chicago, and once again we saw lower ranked teams oust the top seeds early. No. 1 Megan Fudge & Aidan Schenk were the only top-4 seed into the semis, and they fell to the eventual gold medalists No. 5 Kat Stewart & Ronan Camron

Gold: Stewart & Camron. Silver: Trevino & Blanco. Bronze: Fudge & Schenk.

Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

Top Seeds Jack Munro & Richard Livornese Jr. won their third straight APP Men’s Pro Doubles title, topping the 10th seeds Patrick Kawka & Quang Duong in the final. Kawka & Duong had beaten both the No.2 and No. 3 seeds on their way to the final, but fell (9),2,6 in the gold medal game. Shout out to Richmond-native and pro at my local club David Bieger, who partnered with Zack Marceau to claim bronze for his first full tier APP medal.

Gold: Munro & Livornese. Silver: Kawka & Duong. Bronze: Bieger & Marceau.

Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

The Women’s Pro doubles draw was upsets galore, with all four top-4 seeded teams falling before the semi final rounds. This is partly due to missing players forcing the creation of new teams, and partly due to under-seeded teams without ranking points actually being better than they’re ranked. This led to a solid showing from No. 11 seeds Vivian Glozman & Roos van Reek to take the gold, giving Glozman her first Women’s Pro doubles title since Sept 2023 and the Aussie van Reek her first gold on the APP tour in general.

Gold: Glozman & van Reek. Silver: Hendry & Schmidt. Bronze: Schoeman & Turulja

AARP Champions Pro Competition Quick Recap

• Men’s Champions Pro Singles: Youssef Bouzidi got the better of Marcello Jardim, as the pair met for the Champions singles gold for the 6th time in the last seven APP events.
• Women’s Champions Pro Singles: Karin Ptaszek-Kochis won her 18th career APP Champions singles title.
• Men’s Champions Pro Doubles: top seeds Marcello Jardim / Dayne Gingrich cruised to the title.
• Women’s Champions Pro Doubles: Klara Nowak / Baili Hernandez upset two top seeds to claim their first APP gold.
• Mixed Champions Pro Doubles: 50+ newcomer Pialena Ander teamed with Marcello Jardim to claim the Mixed title.

AARP Masters 60+ Pro Competition Quick Recap

• Men’s Masters 60+ Pro Singles: David Spearman beat Scott Greenberg in a battle of the 2 top seeds.
• Women’s Masters 60+ Pro Singles: 3rd seed Laura Albano took the small 60+ singles division title.
• Men’s Masters 60+ Pro Doubles: David Spearman / Chuck Feinstein beat Steve Scurfield / Todd Murphy in a battle of the top 2 seeds for gold.
• Women’s Masters 60+ Pro Doubles: Lynn Salo / Laura Albano took the title.
• Mixed Masters 60+ Pro Doubles: David Spearman / Sue Johnston took the mixed pro title, giving Spearman the rare Masters triple crown.

The Pro Pickleball Medal Tracker spreadsheets have now been updated with these results. Click here for the Pro-only Medal Tracker, and click here for the Senior Pro Medal Tracker. These spreadsheets hold Medal winners for every pro event going back to the beginnings of the tours.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule .. Next up for the APP is the English Open 8/16 weekend, then back in the midwest for the Detroit Open 8/23.

Any Head to Head or career match stats quoted in this article are courtesy of PickleWave. Visit picklewave.com for the premier source of Pro Pickleball data, including match replays, highlights, stats, and discussion. PickleWave has more than 31,000 matches in its database across all the pro tours, and has started a fantastic new Bracket Challenge feature for Fantasy-style sports fans to try out.

Other resources I use frequently to cover Pickleball include:

For a full list of my “Pickleball Bookmarks,” including a summary of my “go-to” links for coverage as well as a relatively comprehensive list of links for the industry, click here.