Chicago – 13th July 2020 – Today, Seymour Rifkind, President of World Pickleball Federation (WPF) announced that the “WPF World Pickleball Games will begin in 2021”.
“The WPF World Pickleball Games, will be the first true team competition in pickleball, where each competing country’s federation will select a team of up to 9 players and a coach to represent their country in the competition. Starting this process demonstrates that pickleball is getting ready for the Olympics”.
Each country’s team will be comprised of a minimum of 4 men, 4 women, and one other team member of a country’s choosing. The team format will consist of men’s doubles and singles, women’s doubles and singles, along with mixed doubles.
Seymour Rifkind said “Pickleball has always been represented by both men and women in tournaments. WPF will continue to reinforce this tradition in team competition as it is unique to pickleball.”
Below is an example of what a countries team will look like:
USA men’s A doubles team vs Canada men’s A doubles team- winner awarded 1 point
USA men’s B doubles team vs Canada men’s B doubles team- winner awarded 1 point
USA women’s A doubles team vs Canada women’s A doubles team- winner awarded 1 point
USA women’s B doubles team vs Canada women’s B doubles team-winner awarded 1 point
USA mixed doubles team vs Canada mixed doubles team-winner awarded 1 point
USA men’s singles vs Canada men’s singles-winner awarded 1 point
USA women's singles vs Canada women’s singles-winner awarded 1 point
Total number of points possible 7 – Winner is the team with the most points. The country with the most points advances in round robin play.
Qualifying competitions will take place on each continent in a round robin format based on the number of participating countries. Continents such as Europe and Asia will have several flights of round robin play as a result of the number of countries participating. In those instances, a knockout round will be implemented. The two country finalists from each continent, i.e.: Europe, Asia, Oceania, North and South America will qualify for the World Pickleball Games Finals. (other continents and their countries will be added as pickleball expands on those continents)
Dates and countries hosting WPF World Pickleball Games on each continent will be announced at a future date. World Pickleball Games Championship will rotate to different continent’s countries based on countries desire to host and ability to meet WPF host prerequisites.
Seymour Rifkind also announced that World Pickleball Games for Seniors and Juniors will be introduced in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
WPF was founded at the end of 2018 to help grow pickleball globally with the end goal of getting the game into the Olympics. WPF now has 18 country federation members and is actively working on expanding its membership. WPF’s website address is: https://www.worldpickleballfederation.org
For further information contact: rif@worldpickleballfederation.org
