Las Vegas Open 2026 Draws: Waters Two Titles From 200

Anna Leigh Waters arrives at the Rate Las Vegas Open on 198 PPA titles, seeded first in women’s doubles with Anna Bright and in mixed with Ben Johns.

The short answer: Anna Leigh Waters reaches the Rate Las Vegas Open on 198 career PPA Tour titles after winning women’s singles and mixed doubles in Mesa. She and Anna Bright are top seeds in women’s doubles, and she heads mixed doubles with Ben Johns. Christian Alshon and Andrei Daescu are the No. 2 men’s doubles seeds, and Kate Fahey tops women’s singles.

Anna Leigh Waters is two PPA Tour titles from 200 as the Rate Las Vegas Open approaches. The newly released draws also bring back the partnerships that defined Mesa, place several of its finalists alongside new teammates and give the tour’s challengers an immediate chance to alter the order.

Anna Leigh Waters left Arizona with two gold medals and a career total of 198 PPA Tour titles. She beat Kate Fahey in the women’s singles final, having already won mixed doubles alongside Ben Johns, and now travels to the Rate Las Vegas Open within two titles of 200.

The number will follow her throughout the week, but it is only one part of what the five newly released professional draws reveal. Mesa produced a narrow escape in men’s doubles, a different women’s doubles champion in Waters’ absence from that event, and another mixed doubles final involving the tour’s leading partnership. Las Vegas brings many of those players back under changed conditions, which makes the opening rounds more than a procession towards a possible milestone.

Waters and Bright return to women’s doubles

Waters and Anna Bright are the top seeds in women’s doubles, a division Waters did not enter in Arizona. Her absence there created an opening that Parris Todd and Rachel Rohrabacher took, although their route to gold was far from straightforward. They survived a three-game test against Judit Castillo and Mari Humberg before beating Tyra Hurricane Black and Meghan Dizon in another three-game final, as WPM reported in its Arizona review.

Las Vegas restores a formidable partnership to the top of that draw, while changing some of the opposition around it. Black is seeded second with Catherine Parenteau, rather than Dizon, and Fahey joins Lacy Schneemann as the third seeds. If those teams progress, Waters and Bright will face opponents whose recent results provide useful evidence, but whose partnerships do not simply reproduce the Mesa bracket.

There is a more personal thread for Fahey. She held Waters close through the opening game of their Arizona singles final before losing 11-9, 11-4. A possible women’s doubles meeting would ask a different question of both players, with Bright and Schneemann involved in a contest that cannot be reduced to a singles rematch.

Mixed doubles offers another route to 200

Waters and Johns lead the mixed doubles draw after defeating Rohrabacher and Christian Alshon 11-3, 11-6 for gold in Mesa. Anna Bright and Hayden Patriquin are the second seeds in Las Vegas, with Tina Pisnik and Alshon third and Black and Gabriel Tardio fourth. Those positions describe potential routes, rather than promised late-round meetings, but they show how quickly familiar names can return in different combinations.

Alshon is an especially useful measure of that movement. He reached the Mesa mixed final with Rohrabacher and won men’s doubles with Andrei Daescu, giving him a significant part in two of Arizona’s five title matches. He retains Daescu as his men’s doubles partner in Las Vegas while entering mixed with Pisnik. His challenge is to carry a strong week into another event without assuming that success in one partnership will transfer automatically to the other.

Can Alshon and Daescu back up their escape?

The men’s doubles final provided Mesa’s most dramatic finish. Alshon and Daescu saved seven championship points against Nicolas Acevedo and Yuta Funemizu before winning 11-7, 7-11, 15-13. Acevedo and Funemizu had already removed Ben Johns and Federico Staksrud from the draw, then proved that upset was the beginning of a sustained run rather than its whole story. Their path to the final made the eventual defeat more revealing for both teams.

Alshon and Daescu return as the Las Vegas No. 2 seeds. Johns reunites with Gabriel Tardio at the top of the bracket, while Patriquin and Staksrud are seeded third. Acevedo is listed with Jaume Martinez Vich, so the same four players cannot repeat the Arizona final together. The question now is whether Alshon and Daescu can turn two consecutive final appearances, and their hard-won title, into evidence of a partnership capable of holding its place when other leading combinations return.

Fahey leads the singles draw

Fahey is the top seed in the released women’s singles bracket, with Kaitlyn Christian second, Lea Jansen third and Chao Yi Wang fourth. After another final against Waters in Mesa, Fahey begins Las Vegas with both a recent measure of her level and another opportunity to pursue a title on her own terms. The published draw graphic does not show its full lower half, so the complete entry list should be checked before drawing conclusions about every possible singles matchup.

In men’s singles, Christopher Haworth arrives after recovering from 3-6 down in the deciding game of the Mesa final against Staksrud. That victory followed Hunter Johnson’s title at the National Championships, continuing the pattern WPM identified after Arizona: several men have shown they can reach the closing stages, while their order remains unsettled.

The Rate Las Vegas Open runs from 28 September to 4 October at the Darling Tennis Center. Pickleballtv coverage is scheduled to begin on Thursday, 1 October, with the round of 16. Waters may leave with a landmark title, but the draws also offer a test of which results from Mesa can survive another week of shifting partnerships and renewed opposition.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading

• Arizona Opened the Door. Haworth, Alshon and the Tour’s Disruptors Walked Through It
• The Door Is Open in Arizona: New Partnerships, Missing Champions and a Rare Chance to Break Through
• Official Rate Las Vegas Open professional draws
• Rate Las Vegas Open event information

Chris Beaumont

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine, published by World Pickleball Media Ltd. He follows the global game closely, reporting on news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball…

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