Hoang Nam Ly and Roos van Reek rally to mixed doubles gold in Asia pickleball tournament

Hoang Nam Ly and Roos van Reek did more than win mixed doubles gold in Ho Chi Minh City. They flipped a shaky start into one of the clearest statements yet that Vietnam’s biggest pickleball stage is starting to matter across Asia, not just at home.

Ly and van Reek beat Harsh Mehta and Nicola Schoeman 17-21, 21-9, 21-11 in the final on June 7 at the Michelob ULTRA - Asia Open 2026. After dropping the first set, they erased the deficit with a 12-point response in the second and closed with an even sharper third-game margin. That kind of swing usually means more than a hot stretch. It points to a pair that settled its spacing, tightened its shot selection and stopped giving away easy openings.

For Ly, the win carried extra weight. He had already finished second twice at the 2026 Michelob Ultra Asia Pickleball Tournament and was not going to let this run end with another runner-up finish. Instead, he and van Reek turned the final into a reset, not a collapse, and that matters in a sport where doubles chemistry can punish hesitation instantly.

The title also says something bigger about where pickleball is headed in Vietnam. The event was the debut of the Asia Open in the country, co-organized by America & Asia Connect Company Limited and FPT Play, and it brought roughly 600 players from the Asia-Pacific region into five divisions: men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles. With total prize money set at VNĐ3 billion, the tournament had the kind of scale that makes a region take notice.

And the final weekend delivered the sort of depth that gives an event staying power. On the same day, Phúc Hunh beat Lý Hoàng Nam in an all-Vietnamese men’s singles final, while Roos van Reek also took the women’s singles title. That mix of domestic contenders and foreign winners is exactly what gives a tournament credibility: local stars still have to survive real pressure, and cross-border pairings are no longer novelty acts. They are becoming central to how elite Asian pickleball is played.

Ly’s mixed doubles breakthrough fits that trend. He had also been active earlier in 2026 at the PPA Asia Hanoi Cup, where he played multiple matches in early April. Put together, those results show a player building through a crowded regional calendar, not waiting for one perfect bracket. For Vietnam, that is the real takeaway: a home event can now produce results that look less like a one-off and more like proof the country is becoming a serious stop on the Asian pickleball map.