Vietnam sends only three women pros to Macao Open 2026

Vietnam’s Macao Open presence was striking for what it lacked: no men in the pro draw, and only three women carrying the flag. That thin lineup turned the May 28-31 PPA Tour Asia 500 stop into a revealing snapshot of where Vietnamese pickleball stands now, with Sophia Phương Anh, Sophia Hunh and H Th Trúc Tâm forced to cover women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles at The Venetian Macao’s Cotai Expo.

The event itself carried real weight. PPA Tour Asia put US$70,000 in pro prize money and 500 ranking points on the line in Macao, China, making it one of the bigger stops on the 2026 calendar. It was the circuit’s third event of the season after Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur, and the brackets released May 22 showed a deep international field led in men’s singles by Hong Kit Wong and Tama Shimabukuro, and in women’s singles by Yufei Long, Albie Huang, Rika Fujiwara and Sophia Tran.

For Vietnam, the most telling detail was roster shape. Lý Hoàng Nam and Trương Vinh Hin stayed home, leaving the country without a man in the pro draw. Phương Anh entered women’s singles as the fourth seed in a 12-player main draw, Hunh had to come through qualifying, and Tâm went straight into the main draw. In women’s doubles, Phương Anh and Hunh formed a seeded pairing, while Tâm teamed with Mihae Kwon. Without Vietnamese men on site, the three women also had to take on mixed doubles with foreign partners, a reminder that the country’s depth still varies sharply by category.

Tâm turned that imbalance into a breakthrough run. She beat Tya Karina in three games in the round of 16, then upset fourth seed Sophia Phuong Anh Tran in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, she defeated Anni Xie 11-6, 11-6 in women’s singles and, with Mihae Kwon, outlasted Rika Fujiwara and Kei Sawaki 8-11, 11-2, 11-8 in women’s doubles. Tâm ultimately left Macao with two silver medals after losing both finals. Rika Fujiwara took women’s singles gold, while Jamie Haas and Pei-Chuan Kao won women’s doubles gold.

That outcome matters beyond one week in Macao. Vietnam has still produced male standouts this season, with Hoang Nam Ly winning men’s singles gold in Hanoi and Hien Truong taking the title in Kuala Lumpur, while PPA Tour Asia’s May 30 rankings had Hoang Nam Ly at No. 15 with 3,100 points. But Macao showed that the next phase of Vietnamese pickleball may depend less on a few headline men and more on whether the women’s side can keep building genuine depth.