A Golden Ticket event is a highlighted pickleball tournament where category and division winners are granted pre-registration access (Golden Tickets) to the USA Pickleball National Championship. If you earn a gold medal at a Golden Ticket event, you have secured a guaranteed spot to compete at Nationals.

Golden Tickets are the only guaranteed path to register for USA Pickleball Nationals, the premiere year end tournament hosted annually in November.

The USA Pickleball National Championships is the premier professional and amateur tournament in the sport of pickleball. Established in 2009, the National Championships has evolved into the first and only pickleball tournament in which players must qualify to participate. To be eligible to participate in the USA Pickleball National Championships, you must have played in a qualifier tournament held in various locations across the United States.

A player enters a qualifying "Golden Ticket" event (listed above) and wins a gold medal in their skill/age bracket. As a gold medal winner, the player receives a “Golden Ticket” or the pre-registration opportunity to compete at the USA Pickleball National Championships.

All players participating in any USA Pickleball National Championship qualifying events (listed above) are eligible for the Nationals registration lottery. As a lottery-eligible player, once all Golden Ticket players register for Nationals, a lottery of all eligible players is utilized to fill all remaining spots within the divisions.

All events, including singles, will offer a pool-play format. If there are not enough teams for pool play, then a round-robin bracket will be played. The format is subject to change at the Tournament Director's discretion.

The top four teams (2 from each pool or 4 from a round-robin bracket) will move forward to the next round.

All pool-play matches, as well as all pre-medal matches, will be one game to 15, with a two-point margin of victory. The medal matches will be best-of-3 games, with a two-point margin of victory.

The gold-medal winners of each event will earn a Golden Ticket to the USA Pickleball National Championships.

This is an MMP format.

For a confirmed spot in an event, both partners must register and pay. Players without partners or whose partners have not registered and paid within four(4) days of their signup will be moved to the waitlist. Once a partner signs up, they will be moved back into the event - If there are spots remaining in the bracket and the tournament.

In addition to an unrivaled player experience and the opportunity to compete at some of the best facilities around the country, players will receive an exclusive gift bag as a result of attending and participating in a USA Pickleball-operated Golden Ticket event. Players participating at APP and UTR-operated Golden Ticket events will receive a commemorative lapel pin.

The 2025 USA Pickleball National Championships will be held in November. Visit the Nationals website for up to date event information: usapickleballnationals.com.

The winners of each age respective age bracket will receive a Golden Ticket.

Example #1:

In a qualifying event, a 35+ age bracket has less than four teams in their bracket and therefore must be combined with a 19+ age bracket. In that combined bracket, the winners of both the 19+, as well as 35+ age groups, will each win a gold medal and a Golden Ticket to the USA Pickleball National Championships. Hypothetically, in this scenario, the 35+ age group has Teams A, B, and C. The 19+ age group has teams D, E, F, G, and H. The brackets are combined. Team F wins their bracket, a gold medal and a Golden Ticket. Furthermore, team "F" won the overall combined bracket. (The overall winner of the combined bracket is irrelevant because in order to be the overall winner, you must have won your individual bracket in the first place so you have already received a Golden Ticket for that win). The highest-finishing team within the 35+ age bracket also wins a gold medal and a Golden Ticket.

The winner of the 19+ age bracket and the 35+ age brackets would be based on which person/team advanced the furthest within the bracket. If the top two players/teams left within the same age bracket (19+ and 35+) end up being eliminated from the tournament at the same time/position within the bracket (tied for fifth), then the finishing position medals would be determined by a tie-breaker system:

Tie-breaker #1. Who beat who if they played each other in the winner’s bracket (they couldn't have played in the consolation bracket and end up tied because one of the teams would have been eliminated while the winner of the match would have moved on, thus finishing higher).

Tie-breaker #2. If the players/teams within the same age bracket never played each other but were eliminated from the tournament in the exact same finishing position, then the medals are determined by a point differential tie-breaker system.

Example #2:

In a qualifying event, a 75+ age bracket and a 70+ age bracket must be combined with a 65+ age bracket. The winner of the 65+ age bracket will earn a gold medal and a Golden Ticket to the USA Pickleball National Championships. In addition, all 70+ and 75+ age bracket teams will receive a Golden Ticket to the USA Pickleball National Championships (this is due to the fact that all 70+ and greater aged teams that participated in a qualifying event automatically receive a Golden Ticket).

We have greatly expanded the opportunities for players in the 70+, 75+, and 80+ age brackets to obtain early registration to the USA Pickleball National Championships. Players in these age brackets have a different qualification path than all other age brackets. All they have to do in order to qualify for Nationals is play in one of the Golden Ticket tournaments listed on this web page. 

Example #1: I play in one of the qualifying tournaments listed in the link above, but my bracket gets combined. Do I need to medal in my combined bracket to get early registration to the USA Pickleball National Championships?

A. No. All you need to do is play in the tournament. If you play in the 70+, 75+ or 80+ age brackets in any of the Golden Ticket tournaments listed above in the link, you will get a Golden Ticket for Nationals.

Example #2: If I get a Golden Ticket for Nationals by satisfying the requirements in Example #1, does my partner also have to play in one of the Golden Ticket tournaments?

A. Yes, your partner will need to play in a USA Pickleball qualifying tournament to be eligible to participate at this year’s Nationals.  Please click on the Golden Ticket tournaments list above.

Example #3: If I am 70+, 75+ or 80+ years old and I play in one of the Golden Ticket tournaments listed above, does this mean I automatically get a Golden Ticket for the USA Pickleball National Championships?

A. Yes.

Example #4: If I played in the Diamond Regional tournaments in the 70+, 75+, or 80+ brackets, does that get me early registration for the USA Pickleball National Championships?

A. No. However, it does qualify you to register for the USA Pickleball National Championships lottery. You are also now qualified to play in Nationals with any Golden Ticket winner who elects to partner with you in your age/skill bracket.

If you are a Junior Player that did not qualify for Nationals via a qualifying tournament, you can still register using the process below:

Send an email to nationalsreg@usapickleball.org and include the following information:

• Junior player's first and last name
• Date of Birth
• USA Pickleball membership number
• Let the registration team know that it is for JUNIOR-only events