Georgia pickleball players win $25,000 at The Kitchen Open Atlanta tournament

Alex Lantz

Director of Content

Last Edited

Oct 27 2025

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News

Luca Mack and Juan Varon – two up-and-coming pickleball players originally from outside the U.S. who currently live and train in Georgia – got the biggest win of their careers over the weekend, taking gold in The Kitchen Open Atlanta tournament.

The Open Division champs collected the winner-take-all grand prize of $25,000 with a victory over Matthew Barlow (Omaha, Nebraska) and Anouar Braham (Atlanta) in the best-of-5 final (11-6, 3-11, 11-8, 12-10).

For both players, the money and exposure gained through the win could be a stepping stone to pro pickleball, as it has been for past winners of The Kitchen Open, such as Noe Khlif (2023) and Juan Benitez (2024).

“The money from this will help me a lot,” said Mack, who is originally from Germany but came to the states to play tennis at Valdosta State University, a Division II powerhouse in southern Georgia.

Mack, now 25 years old, is a graduate assistant coach for the Valdosta State tennis team, but has been playing PPA Tour qualifiers and PPA Challenger events for the past several months with the goal of becoming a signed pickleball pro.

“There’s a ton of expenses for guys like us to play in these pro tournaments … travel, rental car, hotels, entry fees. So to be able to get some help in that regard is big,” Mack said.

For Varon, the win is validation that he can compete with and beat top players (Barlow and Braham are both rated over 6.0 on DUPR).

The 24-year-old Columbia native played tennis at Xavier University of Louisiana and started playing pickleball about three years ago, bouncing back and forth between pro and amateur tournaments in that time. He still coaches tennis at an academy and country club in Atlanta, but hopes to pursue pro pickleball more seriously in the coming months.

“I have been training on and off. Sometimes I feel like I’m very close, and then I have a bad loss or something and I’ll take a step back and focus more on my tennis teaching,” he said. “But then after a break I’ll play again and I can see the potential in my game. So this shows that my game is there and I can do it.”

A big factor in Varon’s recent improvement has been a switch to playing mostly the right side – and also the partnership with Mack, who plays the left. The two have played several events together prior to this weekend, making the main draw at multiple PPA Tour events earlier this year, including the Atlanta Pickleball Championships in May, which is one of the biggest stops on tour.

“Once I figured out that I’m a little better on the right, I think that has been a good fit for me,” Varon said. “In all of the tournaments we have played together, we have played good. That made us think we had a good chance coming into this week.”

Both players said that beyond the financial gain, they hope the tournament will lead to exposure to more players and decision-makers in the pro pickleball world.

“I think this will help to get our names out there a little bit more, especially outside of Atlanta,” Varon said. “Everybody here knows who we are and that we are good players, but outside of here, I think we’re still pretty unknown. So this is huge for that.”

Mack, Varon used rain delay to their advantage

Sunday’s best-of-5 final was delayed for about an hour between the second and third games because of light showers in the area.

Barlow and Braham had just won Game 2 handily, playing a more aggressive and faster style than in Game 1, which Mack and Varon won comfortably.

There was some uncertainty about the forecast – and a discussion about finishing the match on temporary courts under a covered structure – but the weather eventually cleared up and the match resumed outside. Mack and Varon won the next two games to close out the match following the delay.

“In the second game they came out firing and were super aggressive,” Mack said. “They were crashing the net, taking a lot of risks and it was working for them. So we kind of realized that we had to get back to our patterns and dinking and getting all four players at the line – that’s where we liked our chances in the long run.”

Games 3 and 4 were much more grindy, with long dink rallies that tested the patience of all four players.

“We knew even if we had to stay there for a long time, that’s how we were going to win our points,” Mack said. “I thought we executed really well in those last two games.”

Barlow and Braham had a game point in Game 4 at 10-9, but Mack and Varon were able to get the ball back and score three straight points to seal the match.

“We felt like the rain delay was probably good for us, because before that happened they were playing amazing and Matthew was jumping around all over the court, just making the game faster,” Varon said. “So we were like, ‘Maybe this will help us to slow the game down a little bit and slow their momentum from that game.’”

Varon’s tennis background showed up in a big way late in Game 4, when Braham threw up a lob over his left shoulder. Varon is a righty, so ordinarily a lob over the left shoulder would be an effective shot, but in tennis Varon served with his left hand. So he switched the paddle over to his left hand and smashed an overhead for a winner, which propelled them to the win just a few minutes later.

“To pull that off in an important moment like that was an awesome feeling,” he said.

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