PPA Tour to debut new format at Red Rock Open, be nationally broadcast on FOX this weekend

Alex Lantz

Director of Content

Last Edited

Mar 26 2025

Category

News

The PPA Tour Red Rock Open in St. George, Utah, will have a slightly different look to it this week.

The tour is debuting a new format that will showcase the semifinals in each division on Saturday -- that means matches (through the quarterfinal rounds) have been moved up a day from their traditional spot, with singles being played Wednesday, mixed doubles Thursday and gender doubles Friday.

All semifinal matches in each division will be played on championship court on Saturday. The new format will also be in place for the North Carolina Open next week.

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Championship Sunday action from Little Valley Sports Complex will be available exclusively on FOX from 4:30-6:30 p.m. ET, taking over the network following the Major League Soccer contest between St. Louis City FC and Austin FC.

This will be the fifth time since 2024 that the PPA Tour has had an exclusive slot on a major TV network, with three prior broadcasts on FOX and one on CBS.

Those broadcasts were watched by 1.4 million combined viewers, with the highest mark being 501,000 viewers in the FOX window at the 2024 Carvana Mesa Cup.

In addition to the live FOX slot on Sunday, the Red Rock Open will also be featured on other FOX networks on Friday and Saturday. Quarterfinal men’s and women’s doubles action will be broadcast live on Fox Sports 2 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. ET on Friday, while Saturday’s best semifinal matches will be replayed on Fox Sports 1 from 9:30-11:30 p.m. ET Saturday evening.

Catch all other tournament action on PickleballTV.

The draws -- for the most part -- are wide open this week thanks to the notable absence of several JOOLA sponsored players, who are doing events with the paddle brand in Asia this week.

Ben Johns, Collin Johns, Anna Bright, Tyson McGuffin, Brooke Buckner and Zoey Wang aren't playing the event, and Anna Leigh Waters is sitting out mixed doubles (because Ben isn't playing).

Read next: Would Ben Johns be better off playing with Andrei Daescu moving forward?

Waters and Catherine Parenteau will look to bounce back in women's doubles, though, after being upset in the quarterfinals at the Texas Open two weeks ago.

The absence of several top players could actually work to the benefit of the tour this week, though. Typically Ben Johns and Waters have been the ones featured on prior national network broadcasts, and those matches often have not been competitive due to their dominance in previous years.

With a more wide-open field this week, it's more likely that a close championship Sunday matchup could present itself and showcase more drama to the masses.

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