LAC's Battle of the Sexes Runs Two DUPR-Rated Brackets at PJ Collective

"Is Men's Pickleball truly stronger than Women's at the same DUPR rating?" That is the question PJ Collective and Dink and Smile are putting to the field with LAC's Battle of the Sexes, a pickleball tournament running 9 Nov, 9am to 2pm, at PJ Collective in Petaling Jaya.

The prize pool tops out at RM1,800 for the top team in the higher-rated bracket, spread across two DUPR-based categories: Women 7.8 vs Men 6.8, and Women 6.8 vs Men 5.8. 32 teams and 64 players are expected across both.

Registration Date: Not yet published beyond "link in bio" on the organisers' Instagram.
Tournament Date: 9 Nov 2026, 9am to 2pm.
Venue: PJ Collective, Lot 6, Jalan 51A/241, Seksyen 51A, Petaling Jaya.
Registration Limit: 64 players, 32 teams, across both categories.

Categories

• Women 7.8 vs Men 6.8: 8 women's teams and 8 men's teams
• Women 6.8 vs Men 5.8: 8 women's teams and 8 men's teams

Prizes

• Women 7.8 vs Men 6.8: RM1,800 for 1st, RM1,000 for 2nd, RM800 for 3rd
• Women 6.8 vs Men 5.8: RM1,500 for 1st, RM800 for 2nd, RM600 for 3rd
• The People's King and Queen, and the Battle Highlight Award, each carry a RM300 cash prize plus PJ Collective memberships and other prizes worth over RM500

How the Battle Actually Works

Every team's rating is a combined DUPR figure, not an individual one. Group play runs round robin, four teams per group split evenly between two women's and two men's sides, before the field narrows to a knockout bracket: quarter finals, semi finals, then a final. Games use 002 scoring and are played to a win by two.

Each player walks away with a tournament tee and a goodie bag worth over RM300 regardless of result, and two participant-voted awards, the People's King and Queen, and the Battle Highlight Award, come with their own RM300 cash prizes on top.

Our Read: Not Quite an Equal-Rating Fight

Our read: the tournament's own marketing asks whether men are "truly stronger" than women "at the same DUPR rating." The two brackets it actually runs don't test that. Women 7.8 faces Men 6.8, and Women 6.8 faces Men 5.8, a full DUPR point apart in both cases, never an equal number on each side of the net. Whether that gap is meant as a genuine handicap to keep both sides competitive, or reflects an assumption that a men's and a women's DUPR number don't carry the same weight at the same level, PJ Collective and Dink and Smile have not said. Either way, a reader taking the tagline at face value would expect two evenly rated sides, and that is not the format on the poster.

Pickleball's Own Battle of the Sexes History

The name is borrowed from a format the sport has already run at its highest level. DUPR itself streamed a Battle of the Sexes exhibition in 2022, pairing elite men and women with comparable ratings specifically to demonstrate that its scale is, in its own words, "genderless and ageless." Pickleball Slam 4 went further this year: an ESPN primetime Battle of the Sexes in April pairing pros Anna Leigh Waters and Genie Bouchard against tennis legends Andre Agassi and James Blake for a $1 million purse, with Team Agassi winning 3 to 1. LAC's version brings the same premise down to a community bracket in Petaling Jaya rather than a televised exhibition, DUPR numbers and all.

LAC Malaysia's Second Pickleball Bet This Year

LAC Malaysia, short for Leader in Antioxidative Control, is a health and wellness supplement brand under LAC Global Brands (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd. Title-sponsoring this event is not its first move into Malaysian pickleball this year. LAC also put RM12,500 of its own products into the prize pool of the LAC Pickleball Championship 2026, a separate tournament run by PLAYA Racquet Club at PARC Subang on 13 Jun, part of a total RM37,850 pool there. Between the two events, LAC has now backed pickleball prize money at two different Klang Valley venues in under five months.

Gold Sponsor FRWD Furniture, a designer furniture retailer also known as CUURA Space with a showroom in Bangsar, rounds out the sponsor list, with sports massage and a warm up zone provided by Balanced Healing.

A First Real Test of PJ Collective's New Event Space

PJ Collective announced "newly integrated event spaces" at its own venue on 16 Sep, just over a week before this tournament went public, alongside an open invitation for outside groups to host events there. A 64-player, sponsor-backed tournament is a real early showcase of that space in use, not just a marketing line.

Registration is through the organisers' Instagram bio. No external ticketing page or registration deadline had been published as of this writing.

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