Thousands of spectators are expected to descend on Cary Tennis Park starting Monday for the Veolia Pickleball National Championships, and organizers have one blunt message for anyone without a pre-approved pass: do not drive to the venue. There is no general parking at the park, and attendees will instead need to rely on a free shuttle running from an off-site lot more than two miles away.
The tournament unfolds at Cary Tennis Park, located at 2727 Louis Stephens Drive in Cary, as reported by the News & Observer. Reporter Kristen Johnson notes that the main Cary Tennis Park lot and the adjacent Green Hope Elementary School lot at 2700 Louis Stephens Drive are both reserved strictly for pre-approved vehicles, meaning credentialed players, RVs, referees, and staff. General spectator parking instead sits at Phillips Farm, 6800 Good Hope Church Road, where a free, ADA-accessible shuttle ferries guests to and from the park roughly every 15 to 20 minutes.
How the Shuttle Schedule Works
Shuttles begin running about an hour before the first matches each day and keep going until an hour after the final match wraps up, according to the same report. Match times vary day to day, so organizers point spectators to ppatour.com/events for the daily schedule before heading out. A limited number of on-site ADA parking spaces exist at the park itself, but guests are asked to shift to the Phillips Farm lot once those fill up.
Town officials have urged both attendees and everyday commuters to plan ahead for traffic changes along Louis Stephens Drive, warning that drivers near the park should expect delays and heavier pedestrian activity throughout the week. Uber and Lyft riders get their own designated drop-off and pick-up zone at the park's main entrance, offering an alternative to the shuttle for those who would rather skip the Phillips Farm lot entirely.
What Fans Can and Cannot Bring
Security rules are fairly typical for an outdoor sports event. Small bags are accepted but will be checked at the gate, and personal cameras, hats, and sunscreen are all allowed inside. Tripods, coolers, and outside alcohol, however, are not permitted on the grounds.
A Season-Opening Slam With Real Money on the Line
The stakes on court match the logistical scale off it. The tournament serves as a Carvana PPA Tour “Slam” event carrying a total payout pool of $1,648,641, the largest prize purse and ranking-point allocation on the professional pickleball calendar, according to the Carvana PPA Tour. Slam winners collect 2,000 ranking points across the singles and doubles divisions, and the Cary event doubles as the official launch of the tour's 2026–2027 global season, a distinction secured in part through a North Carolina state grant, per the Town of Cary.
More than 1,500 registered amateur competitors will play alongside the sport's top professionals across singles, doubles, and mixed doubles, with amateur matches taking place on courts surrounding the main Championship Court, per Pickleball Tournaments. Headlining the pro field are world No. 1 players Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns, joined by North Carolina locals Kate Fahey, ranked world No. 2, and Brooke Buckner, ranked world No. 4, according to SportsTravel Magazine, which notes Waters has already piled up 39 career triple crowns at age 19.
Ticket Prices and Court Access
Daily grounds passes for spectators start at $25, with courtside seats beginning at $60 and VIP upgrades required for access to the main Humana Championship Court, per the Carvana PPA Tour. Registered amateur players receive complimentary basic grounds passes for the week, a perk that helps explain why the tournament's footprint stretches so far beyond the main stadium court.
Cary's Bigger Bet on Racquet Sports
The parking crunch this week is also a byproduct of Cary's ambitions. Voters were presented with a $560 million Parks and Recreation Bond in November 2024 that included $60 million earmarked to expand Cary Tennis Park's clubhouse, grow stadium seating from 530 to more than 900 seats, and add 25 to 30 new pickleball courts, according to the Town of Cary Bond proposal, with the expansion designed to support larger collegiate and national competitions down the road. Until that buildout materializes, this week's nationals lean on temporary court conversions and tight perimeter traffic control to handle the crowds.
As North Carolina's largest public racquet facility, with 32 championship tennis courts and dedicated pickleball spaces, Cary Tennis Park already generates roughly $3 million in direct local economic impact annually through hosted tournaments and visiting athletes, per The GH Falcon. Cary's broader sports tourism push, spanning the tennis park, WakeMed Soccer Park, and the USA Baseball National Training Complex, has generated nearly $300 million in cumulative economic impact and drawn more than 10.5 million visitors through 2023, according to Cary Mayor Harold Weinbrecht.
The town also maintains more than a dozen public pickleball courts across six municipal locations, including McCrimmon Parkway Neighborhood Park, and runs a “Pickleball University” instructional program staffed by IPTPA-certified instructors, per the Town of Cary. That grassroots infrastructure reflects the sport's explosive growth nationally, with close to 50 million players now nationwide, making pickleball the fastest-growing sport in the United States. Hoodline reported this week on a related Triangle-area push for a specialty ALS-research pickleball license plate, another sign of just how deeply the sport has embedded itself in the local sports culture ahead of Monday's opening matches.
