Rising Stars Watch: The Young Contenders Chasing Gold in Cary

The season-opening major in Cary is a rising-star spotter’s dream. The Veolia Pickleball National Championships, running August 31 through September 6, drew a field of more than 1,400 players and a stacked pro draw — and a striking number of the headliners are still early in their careers. That’s the story of pro pickleball right now: the elite tier keeps getting younger.

Consider the hometown angle. North Carolina residents world No. 2 Kate Fahey and world No. 4 Brooke Buckner arrive as two of the brightest young talents in the women’s game, and they’ll have plenty of local support in Cary. Buckner, in particular, has had a breakout stretch — her steady, sneaky-offensive play helped power the Dallas Flash’s memorable run through the MLP playoffs just last weekend. Watching a player carry momentum from a team-event upset run straight into a singles-and-doubles major is exactly the kind of arc that turns promising names into stars.

The whole generational picture is worth appreciating. World No. 1 Anna Leigh Waters turned pro at age 12 and has since piled up a remarkable number of gold medals and triple crowns — and she’s still just getting started. A generation of juniors grew up watching her do it, and they’re now filtering into the pro ranks with a belief that youth is no barrier at the top. The MLP Finals underscored the point: young contributors like JW Johnson and Jackie Kawamoto were central to their teams’ deep runs.

The pipeline is global, too. Over the previous weekend, the PPA Tour’s Delta, BC stop paired a Challenger with a Junior 500, and thanks to the new World Pickleball Rankings, strong results from developmental and junior events now register on the same global board as the majors. That visibility matters: a breakout week no longer disappears into a regional footnote, giving young players a clear ladder to climb no matter where they’re based.

There’s a Canadian thread here as well. The national championships in the Greater Toronto Area wrapped up over the weekend, and events like it are where a lot of rising Canadian talent gets an early taste of high-level competition before, in some cases, chasing the pro circuit.

For recreational fans, the takeaway is simple and genuinely exciting: keep an eye on the young names in Cary this week, because some of them will be household names before long. The talent pool is deeper, younger, and more international than ever — and the tools to follow it keep getting better. We’ll spotlight the standout up-and-comers from Nationals in next week’s roundup.

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