The PPA Tour, the top level of professional pickleball, has entered the 2026-27 season with a major reshuffle among the leading pairs. For enthusiasts in Japan, the focus is that Tama Shimabukuro, a Hawaii-raised teenager with Japanese roots, has formed a new men's doubles partnership with JW Johnson. Johnson dropped CJ Klinger, his partner through last season, and chose Shimabukuro as his fourth-seeded partner. US media are cautious about how the new pairing will go.
JW Johnson names Shimabukuro as his partner
A season preview published by Forbes in the US as the season opened goes through the new men's doubles teams formed for the opening event one by one. Listed there as the fourth seed are JW Johnson and Tama Shimabukuro, together for the first time. It is their first official partnership, and the article sets the question as how far they can go at their first tournament.
Johnson is one of the tour's most complete all-rounders and contends in singles as well. Choosing as his partner a teenager still building a record drew attention before the season started. Even in a season where partner changes have been concentrated, this is one of the most watched pairs.
Dropping Klinger to recreate the Frazier era
Johnson played with CJ Klinger from 2025 through spring 2026, piling up medals. Still, the results of those two years did not match the earlier period when he stood at the top with Dylan Frazier. By Forbes' reading, Johnson has ended the partnership with Klinger and is trying to recover the momentum of 2024 by teaming with a rising teenager.
Klinger, having lost his partner, has paired with Will Howells for the first time and enters the new season as the fifth seed. With one of the leading pairs dissolved, the combinations below them shifted in a chain reaction. This change is confined to men's doubles; Johnson plays with different partners in the other events.
Other players expect the right-side assignment to be short-lived
In doubles, which side of the court you stand on changes your role. The right side, where you handle balls on the backhand, and the left side, attacking with the forehand, call for different movement and different contact points. The Forbes writer goes as far as calling this new pair one he cannot rate highly, and puts the reason on where Shimabukuro stands. Shimabukuro is a fast-improving young player, but in this pair he takes the right side, and the article notes that he has not shown good form there.
The article also writes, drawing on conversations with other pros, that many see this pair not lasting long. It is a forecast made before the season, and results would change the assessment. Turned around, if Shimabukuro functions on a side he is not used to, he overturns the pre-season consensus outright.
Shimabukuro, a teenager of Japanese descent out of Hawaii's development network
Shimabukuro is a teenager of Japanese descent who came through Hawaii's development environment. This summer we reported on his two golds at an international event in Tokyo asproof of the strength of Hawaii’s development network. Within a few years of picking up a paddle he was on the world stage, taking gold in mixed doubles at the Shenzhen event, and the match in which he camewithin one step of a triple crownis still fresh in the memory.
Now that young player has been named as a partner by one of the tour's central figures. A player with Japanese roots sitting among the fourth seeds on the top permanent tour makes a close-to-home subject for anyone following pickleball in Japan. It overlaps with Japanese players such as Yuta Funamizu starting to get results at PPA events in Asia and Europe, making it harder to watch the moves at the top of the world as someone else's business.
Alshon and Daescu, Patriquin and Staksrud are back with old partners
The reshuffle is not limited to Johnson's circle. At the second seed, Christian Alshon has paired again with Andrei Daescu. The two played together for most of 2025 and stacked up gold, silver and bronze. The third seed sees Hayden Patriquin and Federico Staksrud revived; that pair debuted with gold at the 2024 Tour Finals and also won in Dallas last November.
Elsewhere, Dekel Bar with Dylan Frazier (seventh seed) and Tyson McGuffin with Nico Acevedo (12th seed) line up among old and new combinations. Pablo Tellez and Max Freeman at the 14th seed stand out as an unorthodox pair of two left-handers. While the leading players return to familiar partners, Johnson alone has bet on an unknown young player.
Ben Johns' pair and Waters enter the new season unbeaten
Amid the reshuffle, there are absolute constants that have not cracked. In men's doubles, Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio have been unbeaten since November 2025. In women's doubles, Anna Leigh Waters and Anna Bright have won 13 tournaments in a row since September 2025. Waters has also taken 25 straight tournaments in singles since June 2024.
We have previously dug into why the champion pairs built around Waters do not crack, fromthe angle of the records. Precisely because the peak is fixed, who holds the right to challenge below it becomes the story across the year. New pairs such as Johnson and Shimabukuro are positioned as candidates to break that wall.
The PPA Tour decides its annual champion through seeding and a long circuit
The PPA Tour is a permanent professional circuit centered on North America but traveling the world. A single event runs singles, men's and women's doubles and mixed doubles in parallel, and players are seeded according to ranking. The fourth seed here refers to placement in the draw at the opening event.
The tour stacks many events across the year, and the order shifts with the points earned. Alongside individual results, thelaunch of a unified world rankingthat measures strength across events is also moving ahead, making a player's standing easier to read than before. That is why the pairings set at the opening shape the race that follows. A pair that does not click early drops seeds and faces a hard circuit.
Why readers in Japan should watch Shimabukuro's right side
Shimabukuro's pairing goes beyond news about reshuffles at the top overseas; it is a concrete thing to watch for people on courts in Japan. A fast-improving teenager pairs with a top partner in an unfamiliar position, and those around them expect it to be short-lived. That alone is reason to follow men's doubles at the opening event.
Whether the right-side assignment works, or whether the pair breaks up early. The answer will be visible within the first few events of the season. How far a player with Japanese roots can push on the world's top tour.
短命予想を覆せるかが最初の焦点
The 2026-27 PPA season has seen a major reshuffle at the top, with Johnson and Klinger splitting, Shimabukuro promoted, and Alshon with Daescu and Patriquin with Staksrud revived. At the peak, the Johns and Tardio pair and Waters remain unbeaten. Below them, how far new pairs with low expectations can push in is the season's first talking point. If Shimabukuro, of Japanese descent, delivers on the right side, the pre-season forecast gets rewritten. First, the content of the opening matches is worth watching.
Sources:
