Charles Yong stuns Timothy Foo, wins PickleSlam title, earns Singapore Open berth

Charles Yong turned a home win at Jurong Play Grounds into a far bigger prize: a berth in the PPA Asia 500 Singapore Open. The 19-year-old full-time national serviceman trailed 9-5, fell behind again at 13-10, then steadied himself and ran down Timothy Foo 15-13 to claim the PickleSlam pro men’s title and the biggest victory of his career.

That comeback mattered because of what it unlocked. The Singapore Open runs from July 23 to 26 at Sports Arina @ Expo, with US$70,000 in prize money and 500 PPA ranking points for champions. Yong’s win moved him out of a local title chase and directly into one of the top-tier events on the PPA Tour Asia calendar, where the field, visibility and pressure will all be larger.

PickleSlam 2026 was not an exhibition stop. It was the first-ever PPA Asia 125 tournament in Singapore, the third series of the event, and it sat inside a pathway into the wider PPA Tour Asia ecosystem. Sanctioned and supported by the Singapore Pickleball Association, the event also fed results into DUPR and awarded official PPA Tour leaderboard points, giving every match tangible value for ranking and seeding. For a young Singaporean player, that is the difference between a local breakthrough and a regional entry point.

The final also showed how tight the margins were across the draw. Sophia Tran of Vietnam beat Taiwanese player Lai Pei-yu by the same 15-13 scoreline in the women’s pro final, reinforcing that the Singapore stop has already drawn an international field rather than a purely domestic one. On both sides of the draw, players had to survive late swings, not just hold serve through routine wins.

For Singapore, Yong’s title was a proof point as much as a trophy. PickleSlam 2025 had been billed as Singapore’s only outdoor pickleball tournament; the 2026 edition now sits as a qualifier-style launchpad into a regional pro circuit, with local winners able to trade a home title for a place on a bigger stage. Yong did exactly that, and his 15-13 escape over Foo was the result that carried him there.