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When Desert Smash calls, Hollywood listens. Hosted earlier this week by three-time Grammy Award-winner Pink, the annual pickleball and tennis charity event welcomed dozens of actors, musicians and tennis pros, including Nick Kyrgios, Naomi Osaka, Aryna Sabalenka, Jason Derulo, DJ Mustard, Lance Bass, Yvonne Orji, Jay Ellis and Pete Wentz.
Held at the La Quinta Resort & Club on March 3 and 4, the 2025 games benefitted the WTA Foundation Global Women’s Health Fund, an initiative from the Women’s Tennis Association that supports access to life-saving women’s health and nutrition products and services. It’s a cause near and dear to 10-year UNICEF Ambassador Pink’s heart.
“How we fuel our bodies is everything,” the artist tells The Hollywood Reporter ahead of her doubles match with German tennis pro Alexander Zverev. “I mean, I know that on tour how I treat my body and what I put into my body is how my show is going to be, and there’s a lot of women and children in the world that don’t have choice in that matter, so it’s up to the rest of us to feed everyone’s kids and to keep women safe and protected.”
Pink and Zverev playing doubles at the 21st Annual Desert Smash.
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Pink then hit the court sporting Wilson’s Midtown Tennis Skirt and Head’s brand-new Radical tennis racquet, while Zverev played with Head’s Gravity racquet. The sports equipment brand served as just one of the event’s many sponsors. Others included Gordon Ramsay-backed cookware brand HexClad, electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian, tennis apparel brand Boast and premium spirits brand Dobel Tequila, who counts No. 1 women’s player Aryna Sabalenka as an official partner.
Sabalenka and Lance Bass shake up cocktails at Dobel Tequila Bar.
Anna Webber/Getty Images for Maestro Dobel Tequila
Sabalenka was spotted whipping up her signature Dobel cocktail, the Marg-Aryna, on the sidelines of the starry event. (For those looking to recreate the beverage at home, the recipe calls for 1.5 oz Dobel Diamante Cristalino Tequila, .25 oz light agave, .5 oz fresh lime, 3 oz Olipop Tropical Punch Prebiotic Soda and a Tajín rim.)
Since Ryan Macauley founded Desert Smash in 2004, the tournament has raised nearly four million dollars for charities including Playing for Change Foundation, Sophie’s Voice Foundation, Cancer for College, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Yetunde Price Resource Center. Last year’s event, hosted by Charlize Theron, supported the Oscar-winning actress’s charity, Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project.
Pink, who hosted Desert Smash once before in 2023, needed no convincing to return in 2025. “I’ll do anything for UNICEF,” she tells THR. “The people that work at that organization, too, are some of the most inspiring, relentless humans that you will ever meet.” (Every dollar raised through the WTA Foundation Global Women’s Health Fund is directed toward the UNICEF-led Child Nutrition Fund.)
Yvonne Orji, Gavin Rossdale, Pink, DJ Mustard, Alexander Zverev, Matteo Berrettini and Jay Ellis at the 21st Annual Desert Smash.
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
It also doesn’t hurt that the singer has a deep love of tennis. She began playing the sport a few years ago and instantly caught the bug. “When I was a kid, my parents didn’t have any money, so my brother and I got to pick one sport each, and I picked gymnastics and my brother picked tennis, so I would have to go watch him play tennis and I wasn’t allowed to touch any of the balls. So, I hated tennis. I was like, ‘Tennis is stupid! It’s so boring!’”
Cut to Rock in Rio music festival in 2019: “They had a tennis court on the roof and all of us on the road just started playing together, and we played for like nine hours that day, and I just was like, ‘Where has this been all my life?’”
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Before the match, Pink shares some parting words with THR: “It’s fun, it’s for a good cause and I need to keep telling my competitive self that over and over and over again.” (She then reveals her and husband Carey Hart compete about shower times. Her record is two minutes.) “I’m here to win … wait, no I’m not,” she laughs.
Tickets for Desert Smash 2026 will become available on desertsmash.com early next year.