Vietnam to open its largest covered pickleball facility in Ninh Binh

Vietnam is about to add a new centerpiece to its pickleball surge: what Sun Group says will be the country’s largest covered facility, a 22-hectare sports park inside Sun Sports City Ninh Binh in Sun Urban City. The complex is scheduled to open later this month, and its scale points to more than a local venue launch. It is a signal that Vietnam wants pickleball to move from a social craze into an organized sports-and-tourism asset.

The headline number is the one that matters most, 41 standard PPA courts, all covered. That roofed layout changes the calculation immediately in a country where weather can interrupt outdoor play for months at a time. Sun Group says the pickleball zone also includes a V-VIP area with a fully covered dome, a private grandstand for more than 500 spectators, competition lighting, VIP rooms, changing rooms and food-and-beverage services. The company says the venue is being designed to meet technical standards for future professional events, including possible PPA Tour competitions.

Sun Sports City Ninh Binh is also being positioned as the first large-scale multi-sport park in Vietnam, and pickleball is only one part of the larger buildout. Another report tied to the project describes 58 courts across seven sports, which puts the Ninh Binh site in the same conversation as the Asian destinations trying to build formal, multi-use racket-sport ecosystems rather than isolated courts.

The timing fits the size of the market. A UPA Asia and YouGov survey said Vietnam had 88% pickleball awareness and 37% trial participation, the highest awareness-growth rate in Asia at 152% from 2023 to 2024. Across 12 Asian territories, the same survey found 1.9 billion people aware of pickleball, 812 million who have played at least once and 282 million who play at least monthly. For developers, that is the kind of demand signal that justifies real infrastructure.

Vietnam’s tournament base is already deep enough to feed it. The national club pickleball championship that ended May 24 drew 683 athletes from 89 clubs, a strong marker of how quickly the sport has organized itself at home. With a roofed, event-ready hub in Ninh Binh, the country is not just giving players a place to hit balls in the rain. It is building a venue that can host tournaments, attract travel traffic and give Vietnam a more durable place in Asia’s accelerating pickleball map.