Howells Finishes Off The Association Of Pickleball Players Season With Double Gold At The Tour Finals

The Association of Pickleball Players (APP)’s 2025 season came to an end last weekend at their headquarters in Fort Lauderdale with the 2025 Geico APP Tour Finals event at the Fort. This event, the last of four majors and the last of a 13-tournament slate for the APP touring pros this year, brought to an end the APP’s 5th season and may very well mark an interesting transition point for the tour going forward.

As covered recently, the APP’s moving onto a new platform for its events in 2026, they’re embarking on a massive new global partnership for a competing international tour with their primary rivals at the PPA. Furthermore, the continued severance of UPA contracted players may very well result in fresh new faces playing in (or returning to) the APP in the forthcoming months. Only time will tell. We’ve seen one-way traffic from the APP to the PPA for a while now, but we may start seeing some players coming back.

Click here for the UTRSports.net home page for the event, where you can get tournament details, draw sheets, and results.

With that said, let’s recap the action.

Men’s Pro Singles Recap

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It did not take long for the singles draw at the Fort to be upended; half of the top eight seeds didn’t even make it out of the round of 32 here. The top seed Ronan Camron was ousted by Jordan Chrysostom in three, and the No. 2 Seed Will Howells (likely playing in his last APP Event before his exclusive PPA contract kicks in on January 1st) fell to Tristan Dussault 15-11, 18-16. They were joined by early exits for top seeds Brandon Lane and Richard Livornese, opening up a massive opportunity for some new names atop the podium.

The player to take advantage? None other than APP diehard Ryler DeHeart, who has been ranked in the top 8 in singles for years but has just one singles medal to show for it. DeHeart held firm as the No. 4 seed here, moving past No. 5 Foster in his first big test of the event, then ending Chrysostom’s run in the semis to make his first pro singles final on tour. There he met No. 3 Dusty Boyer, who had to like his chances to gain his first singles gold once the top two seeds fell. However, it wasn’t to be: DeHeart edged Boyer 16-14, 16-14 for his first APP singles gold.

Gold: Ryler DeHeart. Silver: Dustin Boyer. Bronze: Tristan Dussault.

Women’s Pro Singles Recap

For as many upsets as there were in the Men’s Singles draw, there was the mostly the opposite in the Women’s Pro Singles draw, as the favorites all advanced into the quarter finals with little fanfare. However, there was one shocking exception: No.1 Sofia Sewing, winner of five APP singles events on the trot, was ousted in the 16s by the little known Seone Mendez, a 26-yr old former WTA touring pro from Australia who has been making waves in lower-level events for most of 2025 without a major breakthrough. She shocked Sewing in three games in the round of 16, moved past Jessica Warren in the quarters, then faced down the upset-minded Kelsey Laurente, who flew straight to the APP Event from the Dink Minor League championships in Texas before making a surprise run to the semis.

In the final, Mendez faced off against Kat Stewart, multi-gold medal winner in singles and the 2nd ranked player on tour, and once again pulled off a shocking win for gold.

Gold: Seone Mendez. Silver: Kat Stewart. Bronze: Bobbi Oshiro.

Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

The top Mixed pair (Megan Fudge & Jack Munro) have certainly been well traveled this month, having bounced from the Vietnam Cup to the India League, then back home to Fort Lauderdale for the tour finals. Perhaps the miles caught up to them, because the No. 1 seed and winners of the last three APP Mixed pro events were bounced in the semis by the increasingly dangerous team of Sofia Sewing & Casey Diamond.

In what might be their swan song on tour, No. 2 Will Howells & Bobbi Oshiro, who ran off three straight titles of their own in March and April before Howells’ MLP duty took him away for the summer, cruised through the draw and topped Sewing & Diamond for the title.

Gold: Oshiro & Howells. Silver: Sewing & Diamond. Bronze: Fudge & Munro.

Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

Top seeds Howells & Munro, whose successful partnership in 2025 included five straight titles to start the season, finished 2025 with their 8th title in Men’s Pro Doubles. In the final. They topped the No. 3 seeds Richard Livornese & Tanner Tomassi in the final, after they vanquished their increasingly frequent rivals Lange & Manthou in the semis.

With the win, Howells says farewell to the tour with a double gold weekend.

Gold: Howells & Munro. Silver: Livornese & Tomassi. Bronze: Dancuart & Diamond.

Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

The final women’s doubles match of the final APP event of the year could only come down to the two top teams in form coming down the stretch, No. 1 Megan Fudge & Jill Braverman and No. 3 Sofia Sewing & Shelby Bates. These two pairs have been trading titles back and forth all fall, and between the two of them have won 9 of the 12 events held in 2025 on tour. After the No. 2 seeds Cederquist & Newell were upset early, the path was clear for a huge final.

In the final, the ladies traded games back and forth in a streaky final, with Sewing & Bates coming out on top 5,(8),5.

With the win, Sewing earns her second gold for the weekend and fell one final shy of a triple crown at an APP Major.

Gold: Sewing & Bates. Silver: Fudge & Braverman. Bronze: Oshiro & Walczak.

AARP Champions Pro Competition Quick Recap

  • Men’s Champions Pro Singles: The singles final, and the year finishing No. 1 title for 2025, came down to the two top players in Fort Lauderdale, No. 1 Marcello Jardim and No. 2 Youssef Bouzidi. Fittingly, the two top singles players on tour played a 3-game thriller, with first-year Champions tour player Bouzidi taking the win and securing the yearend title in his rookie season. He takes his 5th straight title and his 7th on the season.
  • Women’s Champions Pro Singles: As with the Men, the Women’s Champions singles title came down to the two top seeds, No. 1 Karin Ptaszek-Kochis and No. 2 Lee Whitwell. The pair has traded off titles all season, but Ptaszek-Kochis edged Whitwell for the gold this weekend 16-14, 18-16. She had already sewn up the year-end No. 1 ranking in Singles, and extends her lead heading into 2026.
  • Men’s Champions Pro Doubles: Jamie Oncins & Marcello Jardim took their 6th pro doubles title together of the season.
  • Women’s Champions Pro Doubles: Lee Whitwell and Angela Simon won their sixth title of 2025 together and did it in comeback fashion, dropping the first game 11-0 to silver medalists Karin Ptaszek-Kochis & Sheri Courtier before rebounding and winning the gold.
  • Mixed Champions Pro Doubles: The dominant No. 1 Champions Mixed team in 2025, Lee Whiwell & Jamie Oncins, won their 7th title together to finish off a fantastic season. The win gave both Whitwell and Oncins double golds for the weekend.

AARP Masters Pro Competition Quick Recap

  • Men’s Masters Pro Singles: No. 2 David Spearman topped No. 1 Dana Treister for the title (his 4th career), but it won’t be enough to supplant Treister for the year-end title.
  • Women’s Masters Pro Singles: Lupita Curiel took the small RR group for her 3rd gold medal this year, wrapping up the yearend title.
  • Men’s Masters Pro Doubles: Howard Mendel & Dan Granot ground their way to the final, then dominated 11-1,11-1 for the title.
  • Women’s Masters Pro Doubles: Anna Shirley wrapped up the yearend title with a bang, winning the gold with partner Heather Iffert.
  • Mixed Masters Pro Doubles: Jean Halahan won her first ever Masters Gold, teaming with Miguel Nido to take the title as the No. 1 seeds.

The Pro Pickleball Medal Tracker has now been updated with these results; check out this link online for a complete pro medal history for all tours and all pro events dating to the beginnings of all the major pro tours, plus pro events that predated 2020.

Next up on the Pickleball Calendar? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, the PPA has one more event this season before everyone breaks for the holidays.

Next up for the APP? Their tour starts out 2026 with a very international flavor, with events in Australia, India, and Kuala Lumpur before they have their first domestic event in Mid-February in Daytona.

Any Head to Head or career match stats quoted in this article are courtesy of PickleWave. Visit picklewave.com for the premier source of Pro Pickleball data, including match replays, highlights, stats, and discussion. PickleWave has more than 22,000 matches in its database across all the pro tours.

Other resources I use frequently to cover Pickleball include:

Post publishing Correction: I corrected the winner of the Women’s Pro Singles and altered the title to reflect this correction.

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