Global Pickleball Alliance - Founding Member
Australia's seat at the top table of world pickleball
NPL helped pioneer the Global Pickleball Alliance - the coalition of professional pickleball organisations across four continents running a unified world tour and official world rankings. NPL is a founding member, and Australia's voice in the global game.
The first GPA-sanctioned event in history was an NPL event - the NPL Invitational at Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club, December 2025. The first professional pickleball ever played at Kooyong.
What the GPA is
member organisations across four continents
international tournaments each year
official world ranking - the Global Pickleball Rankings (GPR)
Member organisations
United States
Australia
Canada
Vietnam
India
England
Europe
Malaysia
Japan
How rankings work
GPA events are tiered - Tier 1 International (1,000 points to the winner) down to Tier 4 Sanctioned (100 points). Rankings run on a rolling 12-month window, counting each player's best results. NPL tournaments carry GPR points - which means Australians earn world-ranking points at home.
See the world rankingsWhat it means for Australian players
- NPL events carry official world-ranking points
- Australian and New Zealand players hold world rankings earned at NPL events
- A clear route from the NPL calendar onto the international tour
Melbourne, summer of pickleball
The world tour comes to Melbourne: the AO Pickleball Slam at Melbourne Park in January, then the NPL's Tier 1 international at Kooyong in February 2027 - world-ranking points and a $100,000+ prize pool on the line.