Cebu pickleball open to mix competition with charity fundraising

Cebu’s next pickleball event is already drawing a line between festival energy and real sporting ambition. The Cebu Pickleball Open Tournament 2026, The Blazing Torch and True Edge Cup, was launched on May 13 at Sunburst-8 Banawa Centrale and is set for June 27 at the Net and Paddle Pickleball Area in Barangay Sawang Calero, Cebu City.

The one-day tournament comes with modest but meaningful stakes: P10,000 for each doubles champion and P7,000 for runner-up pairs in men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles. Entry is set at P1,500 per player, and the field is open to qualified players and enthusiasts regardless of organizational affiliation, a signal that the organizers want more than a closed club event.

That broader approach matters in a city that has become one of the Philippines’ most active pickleball centers. Pickleball first arrived in Cebu through a clinic in 2016, and the sport has since spread fast enough to give the island a real claim as a development hub. The country now has more than 250 clubs and thousands of active players across Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao, with another count putting nationwide registration above 320 clubs. Cebu’s calendar already includes major events at the Net and Paddle courts, including the Kosmas Pickle Fest, which makes the June 27 open look less like a novelty and more like another marker in a growing circuit.

Allan Borres Delantar said the tournament was built around three goals: promoting camaraderie and brotherhood through sportsmanship, raising funds for charitable and humanitarian causes, and helping develop pickleball in Cebu and nearby communities. The event is being hosted by Antorcha De La Libertad Lodge No. 2 and Espada De Rectitud Lodge No. 3 of the Sovereign Grand Lodge of Visayas and Mindanao, which gives it a civic layer that most local tournaments do not have.

That social identity is not accidental. Cebu’s pickleball scene has been described as unusually unified, with players and venue operators crossing lines of age, background and affiliation. One Cebu player put it bluntly: “I can play pickleball with anyone from my mother to the archbishop of Cebu.” That kind of reach helps explain why the sport has caught on so quickly, and why events like this one are being used not just to fill brackets but to fund a cause.

Proceeds from the June 27 tournament will go to a charitable organization or humanitarian initiative chosen by the organizers and approved by the lodge. For Cebu, the real question is not whether another tournament gets staged. It is whether events like this keep pushing pickleball toward a stronger competitive base while preserving the community force that made the sport take root in the first place.