Vietnam to host world pickleball tournament for first time
Monday, April 01, 2024, 09:20 GMT+7
Vietnam is set to organize an international pickleball tournament, one of 12 stops of the World Pickleball Championship (WPC) Series - Asia Pacific run by Pickleball Global, from April 3 to 9.
The WPC Vietnam will take place at Carmelina Beach Resort in Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province, southern Vietnam.
Invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island off Washington State in the United States, pickleball resembles tennis, badminton, and table tennis.
The sport became popular after billionaire Bill Gates played it, and many international tennis players competed in several pickleball tournaments.
Pickleball has been named the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. over the past few years.
It entered Vietnam in 2018 and has attracted more and more Vietnamese players.
Vietnam is home to 25 pickleball clubs, but no national pickleball championships have been organized in the Southeast Asian nation as yet.
As such, it came as a great surprise to Vietnam as the country was selected as a stop in Asia of the WPC Series - Asia Pacific.
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| A woman plays pickleball in Vietnam. Photo: Minh Hoang / Tuoi Tre |
Luu Thuy Dung, a member of the organizing board of the WPC Vietnam, said that her mother suffers from osteoarthritis so she has shifted from playing tennis to pickleball.
Dung’s mother was trained to play the sport by coach Coolien, a Vietnamese-born American.
She quickly converted the tennis court at her Carmelina Beach Resort into a pickleball one.
Coolien revealed that Jan David, the founder of Pickleball Global and her boss, was on the lookout for a spot in Asia to host a pickleball competition, Dung recounted.
Therefore, David traveled to Vietnam to carry out a survey at her resort before ultimately deciding to run a tournament there.
The WPC finals are scheduled to be held in Vietnam in January 2025.
This is the first time for Vietnam to host an international pickleball tourney, so all members of the organizing board were fairly nervous, Dung said.
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| Vietnamese pickleball players will have a chance to compete in an international tournament in Vietnam in April 2024. Photo: Minh Hoang / Tuoi Tre |
The WPC Vietnam is expected to bring together 300 pickleball players, including 220 international athletes.
Dung said that she had contacted the leaders of 25 Vietnamese pickleball clubs to introduce the competition to them and call on local players to join it.
The tournament is set to be open to amateurs and professionals, including five categories: Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles, Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles, and Mixed Doubles.
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