What is “The Race?”
| October 5, 2023
The PPA Tour hosts pickleball’s rankings for professional players. These rankings are computed over a 52-week rolling period and automatically drop a certain number of tournaments to account for the fact that all players don’t always play all events. This ensures the most accurate rankings and allows the traditional ranking system to offer a long view of a player’s success.
The Race (similar but different!) is also a ranking system but only compiles points from the start of the year, rather than 52 weeks. Ranking points are earned tournament by tournament, reflecting the players’ performance and success throughout the year. The Race is the yardstick by which we can determine which athletes are performing the best throughout the 2023 season.
You can think of traditional rankings as a marathon and The Race as a sprint.
Besides being an interesting data point, The Race has a functional purpose. At the end of the 2023 season, the top-ranked players based on their accumulated points qualify to compete in the prestigious PPA Finals, which serves as the culmination of the season and features the best of the best in the sport.
How many players qualify?
- Top 8 from men’s singles
- Top 8 from women’s singles
- Top 8 from men’s mixed doubles
- Top 8 from women’s mixed doubles
- Top 16 from men’s doubles
- Top 16 from women’s doubles
= 8 teams for each division
The reason The Race is so important right now is that we’re down to the wire. There are only two more tournaments this year that have ranking points attached to them – the Guaranteed Rate PPA Championships in Las Vegas (ongoing now!) and the Hertz Gold Cup in November. The PPA Championships is a Major, which means a massive 2,000 points awarded to winners, while the Hertz Gold Cup is worth 1,000 points to the winners. (see ranking points table here)
*It’s important to note that the USA Pickleball National Championships does not have PPA ranking points attached to it and will not contribute to The Race totals.*
Now that you are clear about what The Race is, the question becomes – which players will perform best in Vegas and Daytona, securing their spot among the top 8 and earning the chance to compete in the prestigious end-of-year PPA Finals?
See below for the most recent PPA rankings to analyze who is likely to make the cut and let us know your predictions on social media @ppatour!
