The Leapmotor Kuala Lumpur Cup is arriving at the Hood in Kuala Lumpur this September, from the 9th to the 13th. As a PPA Asia 1000 event, all the pros are coming with US$300,000 in prize money and 1,000 ranking points on the line across five days of play.
What's so special about this year's PPA Tour 1000 in KL is the adoption of WPR (World Pickleball Ranking). This ranking was first introduced during the Carvana PPA Tour on August 5 to unify global pickleball leaderboards across categories. Instead of keeping separate rankings for each type, WPR calculates a single composite score (more on this below).
1. Gabe Tardio (WPR No. 2) and Noe Khlif (WPR No. 10)
The Bolivian phenom Gabe Tardio headlines the Kuala Lumpur Cup as the top seed and makes his Malaysia debut here. He is best known as Ben Johns's men's doubles partner, but this time, he is teaming up with Noe Khlif. Noe is a French former University of Illinois tennis player who is also making his first appearance on the PPA Tour Asia.
The two squared off against each other at the Major League Pickleball Finals in New York before linking up as partners, so this new pairing is untested on a big stage. With a combined WPR gap of eight spots between them, KL will show fast whether the partnership clicks.
2. Kaitlyn Christian (WPR No. 10) and Eunggwon Kim (WPR No. 19)
Kaitlyn Christian is a former WTA doubles pro who reached a World No. 38 career-high in tennis before switching to pickleball in 2024. She already has a history in Malaysia for winning singles and doubles gold (with Chao Yi Wang) at the Panas Tour in 2025.
On the other hand, Eunggwon Kim brings a different racket-sport background as a professional table tennis player in South Korea for 15 years. The mixed doubles pairing puts two of Asia Tour's more unusual crossover stories on the same side of the net.
3. Alix Truong (WPR No. 13) and Jessie Irvine (WPR No. 15)
Jessie Irvine is a former WTA and junior tennis standout from North Carolina. She has spent her pickleball career ranked in the top five across all three women's divisions. She will be playing with Alix Truong, who is no stranger to the Kuala Lumpur heat. Truong won gold (with Tama Shimabukuro) at the Panas Tour this year and is coming back for more.
4. Yuta Funemizu (WPR No. 34) and Tama Shimabukuro (WPR No. 13)
Another pro returning to Kuala Lumpur is Tama Shimabukuro. For the Panas KL Tour in May 2026, "the Kid" brought home Gold in Mixed Doubles (with Alix Truong) and Silver in Men's Doubles (with Armaan Bhatia). He returns to the city with a different partner this time, chasing a repeat in a different discipline at a different venue.
Funemizu is the first Japanese-born player to sign an exclusive UPA contract for the PPA Tour. He came to pickleball after a world championship-level career in soft tennis. He is credited with developing the "Yuta style," where players use the same side of the racquet face for both forehands and backhands. This created unpredictable ball spin and disguised shot directions that opponents struggle to read.
5. Augie Ge (WPR No. 25) and Len Yang (WPR No. 23)
Both players came to pickleball from table tennis rather than tennis, a rarer path on tour. Ge holds a master's in biostatistics from Brown and played college tennis at Arizona before switching sports. He built his early reputation on smart shot selection and a lefty game that's hard to read. Yang's reflexes and net game carry the same table tennis fingerprint. Their men's doubles pairing sits closer together in the WPR standings than any other pair on this list, which should make for tight scorelines if they meet ranked opposition.
What is at Stake at the Hood?
Apart from the US$300,000 prize purse, winners in each division earn 1,000 WPR points. These points directly influence main-draw seeding and qualify top-performing athletes for marquee global events. More importantly, these points offer massive mobility towards earning global rankings on the WPR leaderboards.
What Is World Pickleball Ranking (WPR)?
WPR is a first-of-its-kind system that rolls a player's results across all formats into one global number. This ranking measures who is the best all-around pickleball player on the planet whether they play men's doubles, women's doubles, mixed doubles, or singles.
WPR is dynamic and is calculated over the preceding 52 weeks. Older points automatically drop off as new tournament dates pass. To prevent players who simply play every weekend from inflating their rank, only a player's top 14 event results in each category (Singles, Gender Doubles, Mixed Doubles) over the 52 weeks count toward their total points.
The 50/35/15 Formula
In WPR, not all categories weigh the same. This split rewards players who show up across formats rather than specialists who only enter one discipline. Here's how each category is weighted:
- 50%: Gender Doubles (Men's or Women's Doubles)
- 35%: Mixed Doubles
- 15%: Singles
For example, a player logs the following top-14 points total across the 52-week calendar:
Category | Points Earned within the 52 weeks | Weight | Total |
Gendered Doubles | 10,000 | 50% | 10,000x0.50 = 5,000 |
Mixed Doubles | 8,000 | 35% | 8,000 x 0.35 = 2,800 |
Singles | 4,000 | 15% | 4,000 x 0.15 = 600 |
Total | 8,400 points |
What Does this Mean for Pros?
For pro elites, WPR means they can no longer remain one-dimensional specialists. This is especially true for singles professionals since it only accounts for 15% of the points. They need to be more well-rounded with doubles play since it accounts for 85% of the composite score.
The same thing for doubles players, even though they only need to account for 15%. For elite players, the point margins separating top 10, top 20, or top 50 players are razor-thin. If two players have nearly identical doubles points, the athlete who plays singles (even if they only make deep runs at a few PPA Opens or Cups) will consistently edge out the non-singles player for crucial ranking spots.
The Stage is Set in Kuala Lumpur
Single-day tickets and 5-day GA season passes for the Leapmotor Kuala Lumpur Cup are on sale now via Tixr, with Pickletown running fan activities at The Hood all week. Check out other events happening in pickleball on events.thepicklebase.com. Follow us @thepicklebase on Instagram for updates from the courts.