No. 4 seeds JW Johnson and 15 year old Tama Shimabukuro beat No. 3 Andrei Daescu and Christian Alshon 5-11, 5-11, 11-4, 11-8, 11-4 on Sunday, Nov 8, at Brookhaven Country Club in Farmers Branch, Texas, winning the men's doubles title at the Opendoor Pickleball World Championships. The final ran more than two hours, and the finish turned into the week's loudest moment, with fans filming over the barrier and the PPA's own reel of the last points drawing thousands of likes overnight.
Daescu and Alshon had earned the final by beating top seeds Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio 11-9, 11-6 in the semifinals on Saturday. Johnson and Shimabukuro reached the final by beating CJ Klinger and Eric Oncins 11-4, 11-6. Klinger and Oncins had knocked out defending champions Hayden Patriquin and Federico Staksrud 11-8, 11-4 in the quarterfinals on Friday. Oncins withdrew from singles earlier in the week with a hip injury.
The win is Shimabukuro's first domestic gold medal in men's doubles, and it caps a year in which the 15 year old has been one of the sport's biggest stories. Johnson played the best pickleball of the week in Dallas, continuing the form he showed in the 2026 MLP season, where he was arguably the best player in the league. The recap is at pickleball.com, with the full results feed at ThePickleHub. Worlds drew more than 4,000 registered players across the week.
The win also forces a new conversation at the top of men's doubles. Johnson and Shimabukuro now sit alongside Johns and Tardio, Alshon and Daescu, and Patriquin and Staksrud as a fourth team that can win any event it enters. The youngest member of that group is 15.
Why it matters: A 15 year old winning the biggest doubles title in the sport pulls new fans in, and it came against the team that beat the top seeds, after dropping the first two games. The Big Four conversation now has a fourth team.