Pickleball World Cup Heads to Da Nang, Vietnam for Historic 2026 Asia Stop

Da Nang already rewrote the record books once. Now the city is being handed an even bigger stage.

Vietnam is set to host a Pickleball World Cup for the first time, with central Da Nang City selected as the venue for the 2026 edition from August 30 to September 6. This will be the fourth time the tournament has been held, following previous editions in Peru twice and in Florida. For the first three years of its existence, the World Cup never left the Americas. That changes this August.

In 2023, the first Pickleball World Cup attracted just 14 players. By 2025, the number had risen to over 3,000, representing 68 countries and territories. That growth trajectory is precisely why Da Nang makes sense as the landing spot. In 2025, Da Nang successfully hosted the PPA Tour Asia MB Vietnam Cup, attracting top players including Ben Johns and Tyson McGuffin, along with 600 athletes from nearly 20 countries. The tournament's final match set a Guinness World Record with 7,906 spectators in attendance. The previous record for the largest attendance at a pickleball event was 5,522.

That 2025 PPA Tour event, held September 30 through October 4 at Tien Son Sports Arena and Tuyen Son Sports Complex, served as Da Nang's proof of concept on the global pickleball circuit. The PPA Tour Asia MB Vietnam Cup 2025 was the largest pickleball event in Asia in terms of prize value, number of participants, and audience size, with a total prize fund of $150,000 USD. The Guinness recognition was awarded to tournament organizer America & Asia Connect Co. Ltd, the Da Nang Pickleball Federation, and broadcaster FPT Play.

On the court, the action matched the crowd energy. Ben Johns and Dekel Bar fell to Zane Navratil and Armaan Bhatia in the men's doubles semifinals, before Eric Oncins and Tyson McGuffin struck gold in a three-game thriller against Navratil and Bhatia. USA siblings Alix and Jonathan Truong claimed gold in mixed doubles, defeating Chao Yi Wang and Tyson McGuffin 11-1, 11-6 in the final. Women's singles went the way of Australian Sahra Dennehy, 2-0 (11-5, 11-7), as she capped a remarkable week in Da Nang.

Now, with that momentum established, the Pickleball World Cup is building on it. On March 27, Pickleball World Cup leaders including President Hercilio Cabieses and Vice President Miranda Cabieses held a working meeting with the Da Nang Pickleball Federation to discuss preparations for the 2026 edition. Hercilio Cabieses said the delegation was strongly impressed with the landscape, infrastructure, and dynamism of Da Nang, and highly appreciated the city's potential to host the World Cup.

The 2026 tournament is expected to feature hundreds of matches throughout the week-long event in Da Nang, with live broadcasts available on the FPT Play platform. For amateur players, the format mirrors what made the 2025 PPA Tour event so accessible: players of all ages and divisions competing alongside the pros, with gold medals on the line across multiple brackets.

Da Nang's Director of Culture, Sports and Tourism expressed hope that the World Cup Pickleball Organizing Committee would support promotion of Da Nang's image on the tournament's official media platforms, "spreading the image of a youthful, dynamic, and friendly city to international friends."

The city that broke the attendance record in 2025 now has until the end of August 2026 to do it again on an even grander stage.