PPA Tour Asia returns to Vietnam for Ho Chi Minh City Open in August

Vietnam is no longer a one-stop curiosity on the PPA Tour Asia map. After the MB Hanoi Cup sent Ly Hoang Nam to a career-high No. 14 in the rankings, the tour is headed back to Vietnam in August for the Ho Chi Minh City Open, a move that turns the country into one of the circuit’s anchor markets rather than a simple host stop.

The Ho Chi Minh City event is scheduled for August 6-9 and listed on the official Asia calendar as a PPA Asia 500, a tier that gives the tournament more than local significance. It adds another ranking-relevant stop to a 2026 regional slate that stretches across Kuala Lumpur, Macao, Tokyo, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, China again, Hong Kong, and a later Kuala Lumpur event. That pattern says as much about the tour’s strategy as it does about the venue: the PPA is building a repeatable Asian schedule, not dropping in for isolated exhibitions.

The timing also matters. Vietnam’s capital had just staged the MB Hanoi Cup from April 1-5 at My Dinh Indoor Athletics Arena, where two Vietnamese players reached the final of a PPA Asia 1000 event for the first time, a milestone that underscored how quickly the country’s pickleball scene is climbing. Ly Hoang Nam beat Truong Vinh Hien in that final, and the run lifted Nam to 3,100 points, a number that gives Vietnam a player with genuine weight in the continental race. That kind of homegrown relevance is exactly what makes the return to Ho Chi Minh City more than a calendar note.

For players, a second Vietnam stop reduces travel guesswork in a season that will also take them through Malaysia twice, China twice, Japan, Singapore, Macao and Hong Kong. For sponsors, it creates a more coherent regional story, one with multiple touchpoints in a market that has already shown it can produce finalists, winners and ranking movement. For the tour itself, it strengthens the case that Asia can sustain a pro circuit with real continuity.

The broader PPA Tour has described its ranking system as having begun on February 13, 2020, and it continues to frame itself as the official professional pickleball tour with more than 25 stops in the United States. Its 2026-2027 schedule announcement also highlighted upcoming tournaments in Kuala Lumpur, Brisbane and Hong Kong, another sign that Asia is being folded into a larger international plan. In that context, Ho Chi Minh City is not a side trip. It is part of the map the tour wants to keep drawing.