USA Defends Its Crown as the Pickleball World Cup Grows

Team USA is the 2026 Pickleball World Cup champion, defending the title it won in the previous edition to make it back to back.

Rex Thais, part of the winning squad, posted match point footage from the court with the caption "one heck of a run this tournament, so glad this team was able to pull off the win." The organisers' own account called it a dominant performance across the event.

The Pickleball World Cup itself is a genuinely global, national-teams event tied to the sport's Olympic-inclusion push, and it has been growing fast: organisers were targeting around 80 competing nations for the 2026 edition, up from 33 in 2024. Winning it back to back against that scale of field is a different proposition than defending a smaller regional title.

Team Vietnam, the host nation, reached the same final and finished as runner-up.

This article is based on social media posts and historical data tracked by Pickle361.