Asia Federation of Pickleball builds continental system with 18 member nations
AFP now lists 18 member nations and 70,000 players as it wires junior, university and pro events into one Asian pipeline.
The Asia Federation of Pickleball says it now spans 18 member nations and an estimated 70,000 players, and it is tying that base to new pro, junior and university pathways. On June 25, 2026, AFP said it would dual-sanction a pro pickleball circuit with the Asian Pickleball Association, another sign that the federation is trying to turn scattered national booms into one continental structure.
AFP describes itself as the first continental federation of the International Federation of Pickleball and says it is headquartered in Singapore. It also publicly backed the unification of the World Pickleball Federation and the International Pickleball Federation on June 20, 2025, placing the Asian body inside the broader fight over how the sport will be governed globally.
The federation’s development stack runs well beyond elite administration. AFP says it is set to launch three new programs aimed at expanding the pickleball community across Asia, while its Academy page lists coach certification pathways including PPR Level 1 and 2 and IPTPA Level 1 and 2. The country reach attached to those certifications includes Brunei, China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Chinese Taipei and Korea, a detail that shows the coaching pipeline is being standardized across markets rather than left to individual federations.
Youth competition is now part of the same ladder. AFP’s Asia Pickleball Junior Network is built around “growing future stars of pickleball,” and the federation hosted the inaugural Asia Pickleball University Championship 2025 in Da Nang, Vietnam, from July 17-20, 2025. It also staged the Asia Pickleball Junior Open 2025 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, from July 13-15, 2025, presenting junior and collegiate events as connected stages of the same development track. AFP’s social posts describe the Asia Pickleball Junior Open 2026 as a complete development experience for young athletes across Asia, and a Japan Pickleball Federation recruitment post listed July 28-30, 2026, at Mahidol University in Thailand for the AFP Junior Open.
The scale of that push sits against a fast-growing market. A June 2025 UPA Asia and YouGov Singapore survey found about 1.9 billion people across 12 Asian territories had heard of pickleball, and about 812 million had played at least once. Bonafide Research projected compound annual growth above 24.5 percent from 2024 to 2029 in the Asia-Pacific market. AFP’s answer is not just more events, but a system: member-country governance, coaching standards, junior pathways and cross-border competition, all feeding the next stage of Asian pickleball.
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