Dumaguete hosts Philippines’ biggest pickleball tournament, draws 720 players

Dumaguete did not just host another weekend pickleball stop. The PlanOut Pickleball Open opened as the biggest tournament in the Philippines to date, drew more than 720 players and enthusiasts, and put a P1 million prize pool on a stage that felt built for a larger circuit.

The three-day event ran from May 1 to May 3, 2026, across four venues in Dumaguete City: Riverside Courts, FKS Gym, Loops, and Burn Room. In all, 22 courts were in play, with brackets for mixed doubles, doubles genderless, doubles men, and doubles women, divided into novice, intermediate, and advanced levels. That mix gave the tournament depth at both ends of the ladder, from newer players trying to hold their nerve to advanced teams chasing the biggest payday the local sport had seen.

PlanOut CEO Kim Joseph Llena said the event was built as a live test of what a large-scale pickleball tournament looks like when the field, the logistics, and the pressure all expand at once. That mattered in Dumaguete, where the city and province already had the players, coaches, and courts. What they had been missing was a tournament big enough to match the talent around it. Llena said Dumaguete could become the country’s pickleball hub, and the first edition of this open made that sound less like hype than a working theory.

The event also doubled as a sports-tourism play under Negros Oriental’s “Destination Pickle” push, with organizers trying to pull athletes, clubs, and spectators into multi-day stays in the capital of Negros Oriental. The registration and entry process was handled through a paperless, app-based system, a first for a Philippine pickleball event, which fit the scale better than clipboards and manual queues ever could.

The final day added another layer of attention. A celebrity exhibition game at Riverside Courts featured Beauty Gonzales, Diana Zubiri, Eric Fructuoso, and Jeffrey Tam, giving the open a crossover spotlight that amateur pickleball rarely gets. It also came with a reminder that Dumaguete’s scene did not appear overnight. The Negros Oriental Pickleball Club was established in 2024, and this tournament suggested the city is already moving from fast-growing outpost to serious event destination.