Pro Pickleball Tour Asia And Australia-Based Pros Shine At 2025 Vietnam Pickleball Cup

The Professional Pickleball Association Asian Tour had its second straight cup-level event in as many weekends in Southeast Asia, a situation that drew more than a dozen top-ranked US-based PPA pros for the two-week swing through the area. They landed this week in Da Nang, Vietnam for the 2025 MB Vietnam Cup.

Click here for the PickleballTournaments.com home page for the event, and click here for the brackets.

Let’s do a quick recap of the results, highlighting the winners, the upsets, and the top Asian players who made waves.

Men’s Pro Singles Recap

With last week’s Malaysia champ Christian Alshon on a plane back home, Eric Oncins took the top seed in the draw, and was immediately ousted by Shanghai’s Thomas Yu in three games. Yu, who the round earlier took out two-time APP pro singles gold medalist and recent PPA signing Armaan Bhatia, continued his run to the semis before falling to eventual champion Phuc Huynh. Huynh also took the gold at the MB Vietnam Open in early September and is now ranked 14th on the PPA tour thanks to his points earned overseas. Hoang Nam Ly took the bronze; he has now medaled in four of the first six PPA Asia events held and himself is now ranked 19th on tour.

Women’s Pro Singles Recap

Kaitlyn Christian, who nearly won a triple crown at the Malaysia Cup last weekend, eased past the top-ranked Asian pro Yufei Long in the quarters before getting upended by fellow visiting pro Liz Trulock in the semis. This opened the door for Australian Sahra Dennehy, who took silver at the MB Vietnam open, to top Trulock for the gold. Another top Australian Roos van Reek (gold medalist at the Hong Kong Open in August) took the bronze.

Side note: how is Long seeded 8th in this draw? Long won the gold at the 2025 Panas Malaysia Open in July, went back to back gold in pro singles in Fukuoka and Ho Chi Minh city, and took a bronze at the Hong Kong Open. Yet she was seeded 8th in this draw and 9th last week, feeding into the top seed in the quarters each time despite demonstrated performance on the PPA Asian tour thus far.

Mixed Pro Doubles Recap

The brother/sister combo Alix and Jonathan Truong went on a fantastic run and claimed the Mixed Pro gold, having had to settle for bronze together in the previous two PPA Asia events. They more than earned it, with solid wins over Huynh & Huang in the 16s, Mehta & Dikosavljevic in the qtrs, and then Oncins & van Reek in the semis. In the final they topped No. 1 seed Tyson McGuffin & Chao-Yi Wang with a comprehensive 1,6 win.

Men’s Pro Doubles Recap

The crowds turned out for Ben Johns, who helped set a Guinness World Record for most live attendees at a pickleball match with his participation in the Men’s Pro Doubles event. Playing with Dekel Bar, whom he last played with way back in March of 2021 (where the pair took the 2021 PPA Red Rock Open in St. George, Utah together right around the time where Ben was beginning to start playing with brother Collin), the No. 1 pair cruised through local players in the first two rounds, but then were shocked in the semis by Zane Navratil & Armaan Bhatia 13-11 in game three. Zane & Armaan couldn’t keep the momentum going though, and ran out of gas in the final against Tyson McGuffin & Eric Oncins, who go back-to-back on their PPA Asia swing (winning both here and last week in Vietnam).

Johns & Bar salvaged the bronze, but not without nearly blowing it to two top India-based players Harsh Mehta/Vanshik Kapadia, who got up big on the duo in game three but eventually fell 11-9. Mehta & Kapadia took the inaugural Men’s Pro Doubles PPA Asia tour title in Kuala Lumpur back in early July, an event where Kapadia nearly won a triple crown in his PPA debut.

Women’s Pro Doubles Recap

Kaitlyn Christian & Chao Yi Wang repeated as champions in back-to-back weeks on the Asian tour, but were made to work for hit heavily by MLP Australia veteran teams along the way. The No. 1 seeds were pushed to three games in both the quarters (by van Reek & Dikosavljevic) and semis (by Nicola Schoeman/Danni-Elle Townsend) before a two game win in the gold medal game over Chao-Yi Wang & Ting Chieh Wei.

Big News: I’ve now created a new tab on my Pro Medal Tracking XLS to track all the PPA International events. We’re now at six PPA Asia events held plus a PPA-affiliated Australian event earlier in the year, all of which are now on the tracker. Please go to the Medal Tracker online and click on the “PPA Intl” tab.

Next up for the PPA Asian tour? According to my Master Pickleball Schedule, this is the final event of the 2025 season. We look forward to the announcement of more events in the coming months.