Short answer: The Kuala Lumpur Cup results 2026 came down to two players collecting two gold medals each. Jessie Irvine and Gabriel Tardio won mixed doubles together, then each added a same-gender doubles title. The men’s singles gold went to 15-year-old Tama Shimabukuro, and Kaitlyn Christian took women’s singles. Every score below is sourced and linked.
The 30-second version
- Event: PPA Asia 1000 Leapmotor Kuala Lumpur Cup, September 9–13, at The Hood in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
- Stakes: up to US$300,000 in prize money and 1,000 world ranking points for gold.
- Two-gold weekend: Jessie Irvine and Gabe Tardio each won mixed plus their same-gender doubles.
- Teenager takes singles: Tama Shimabukuro, 15, beat Noe Khlif 11-8, 11-5 for his second Asia singles title.
- Khlif’s consolation: he lost the singles final but won men’s doubles with Tardio.
- Why it matters here: a PPA Asia 1000 carries the same 1,000 points as a domestic Open, so overseas weekends move the rankings Americans read.
The 2026–27 season did not pause after Nationals. A week after the last ball at Cary, the tour was in Malaysia, and if you were asleep for it — the finals ran in the middle of the night on Eastern time — here is exactly what happened, with a link to the source for every result.
Kuala Lumpur Cup results 2026: every gold medal
All five finals below are as reported in the PPA Tour Asia’s own recap, “Partners in Gold: Irvine and Tardio Clean Up in KL”, and independently corroborated by a Yahoo Sports recap of the September 13 weekend in Asia. Where I only had one source for something, I have said so.
- Men’s singles: Tama Shimabukuro def. Noe Khlif, 11-8, 11-5.
- Women’s singles: Kaitlyn Christian def. Brooke Buckner, 9-11, 11-4, 11-5.
- Men’s doubles: Gabriel Tardio / Noe Khlif def. Augustus Ge / Len Yang, 11-9, 11-4.
- Women’s doubles: Jessie Irvine / Alix Truong def. Sahra Dennehy / Danni-Elle Townsend, 5-11, 11-5, 11-6.
- Mixed doubles: Jessie Irvine / Gabriel Tardio def. Danni-Elle Townsend / Joey Wild, 5-11, 11-3, 12-10.
The mixed final was the match of the weekend. Irvine and Tardio dropped the opener, ran away with the second, and then trailed 7-2 in the decider before reeling off the run that got them to 12-10.
Who had the best weekend?
Jessie Irvine and Gabe Tardio, jointly. Both walked off championship court with two golds — Irvine in mixed and women’s doubles, Tardio in mixed and men’s doubles.
Tardio’s stretch is the one to sit with. A week earlier he had won men’s doubles at the National Championships alongside Ben Johns, beating Christian Alshon and Andrei Daescu in the final. Then he flew to Malaysia, played his first event on the continent, and won two more. We covered the Cary week in our Nationals recap.
Noe Khlif deserves a line too. He reached both the men’s singles and men’s doubles finals in his first crack at the Asia swing, lost the singles to a fifteen-year-old, and then won his first men’s doubles gold — capping a year in which he was also part of the New Jersey 5s’ MLP championship run.
Who is Tama Shimabukuro?
A 15-year-old, and this was not a fluke. Per the PPA Tour Asia recap, the Kuala Lumpur title was his second Asia singles crown, after winning the Macao Open in May.
Singles is where teenagers break through first in this sport, and the reason is not complicated: it rewards movement and pure ball-striking over the accumulated positional judgment that doubles demands. It is the same pattern we flagged when Hunter Johnson and the younger cohort started taking singles draws. If you want to understand why singles and doubles produce such different winners, our singles strategy guide lays out the differences.
On the women’s side, Kaitlyn Christian’s win over Brooke Buckner was, per the same recap, her third consecutive victory over Buckner and her second gold in Malaysia.
What does this mean for the rankings?
This is the part that gets missed about the Asia events, and it is the reason we cover them at all.
A PPA Asia 1000 carries up to 1,000 world ranking points for a gold medal — the same tier value as a domestic Open like the Veolia Arizona Open that started September 14. It is not an exhibition. Points banked in Kuala Lumpur count exactly the same as points banked in Mesa.
So when a casual fan looks at the rankings in October and wonders how somebody climbed without appearing on a US broadcast, this is usually the answer: they were playing overseas, at full point value, while everyone here was asleep. If the ranking systems themselves are murky to you, start with world pickleball rankings explained and our ratings explainer.
Was there other pro play that weekend?
Yes. Per the Yahoo Sports recap linked above, the D-Joy 2026 Saigon Cup in Vietnam, run under the APP banner, ran the same weekend — two competing pro events in Asia at once. That recap credits singles golds to Ronan Camron and Tranh Huynh, with doubles titles to Jack Munro and Richard Livornese Jr., Megan Fudge and Vivian Glozman, and mixed to Bobbi Oshiro and Brandon Lane.
I am flagging that as single-sourced. I could not independently confirm the Saigon Cup results against a second outlet, so treat those as reported rather than settled — unlike the Kuala Lumpur scores above, which two sources agree on. The APP is a separate tour from the PPA, a distinction we unpack in PPA Tour vs MLP.
What is next on the calendar?
The Veolia Arizona Open in Mesa opened September 14, another 1,000-point Open, and the schedule stays dense from there — a Challenger in Rockford, Michigan, then Barcelona, then Las Vegas to close out the month. The full slate lives on the PPA events page.
For New England players the more useful calendar is your own. There is still no PPA stop in our region and no MLP franchise here, so the realistic pathway is amateur brackets — which is what our tournament hub is built for.
Frequently asked questions
Who won the Kuala Lumpur Cup 2026?
There were five champions. Tama Shimabukuro won men’s singles, Kaitlyn Christian won women’s singles, Gabriel Tardio and Noe Khlif won men’s doubles, Jessie Irvine and Alix Truong won women’s doubles, and Jessie Irvine and Gabriel Tardio won mixed doubles.
When and where was the 2026 Kuala Lumpur Cup?
September 9 to 13, 2026 at The Hood in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was contested as a PPA Asia 1000 event with up to US$300,000 in prize money and 1,000 world ranking points available for a gold medal.
How did the mixed doubles final finish?
Jessie Irvine and Gabriel Tardio beat Danni-Elle Townsend and Joey Wild 5-11, 11-3, 12-10, having trailed 7-2 in the third game before coming back to win it.
Do PPA Asia events count toward world rankings?
Yes. A PPA Asia 1000 awards up to 1,000 world ranking points for gold, the same tier value as a domestic Open, so results earned on the Asia swing move the rankings exactly as US events do.
Is there a PPA Tour event in New England?
Not on the current published schedule. The nearest listed stops are elsewhere on the East Coast, and there is no MLP franchise in New England either, so the practical route for players here is amateur tournament play rather than watching the tour come to town.
Written by Jason Regan, founder of Regan Family Pickleball in Leominster, Massachusetts. Every score in this recap is taken from the sources linked above, and anything I could only confirm in one place is labelled as such. More tour coverage in the Pro Corner.