Vietnamese pickleball stars skip Macao Open to target Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam’s best pickleball players made a clear choice: pass on the PPA Asia Macao Open 2026 and save their bodies, attention and peak form for a bigger payday at home. Truong Vinh Hien, Ly Hoang Nam, Phuc Huynh and other national champions were absent from the Macao field even after the draw and schedule became public, and that absence now reads less like a withdrawal than a statement about where the sport’s center of gravity is shifting.

The immediate trade-off is simple. Macao offers ranking points and regional visibility, but the Asia Open in Ho Chi Minh City, set for June 4-7, carries a 3 billion dong prize pool and the kind of domestic prestige that increasingly matters in Vietnam. For players trying to manage form across a crowded stretch of events, that local opportunity outweighed one more trip, one more adjustment to weather and one more hard week on the road.

That calculation also reflected workload. Vietnamese players have just come through a demanding run of club championship action, and the warning signs have been visible. Reigning PPA titleholder Truong Vinh Hien was upset by Mikar Fisher, a reminder that even the top names are not immune to fatigue or schedule squeeze. Against that backdrop, skipping Macao looked like periodization, not indifference.

The timing made the decision sharper. Macao landed only days before the Ho Chi Minh City event, leaving little room for travel recovery or a proper reset. For athletes trying to peak twice in quick succession, the smarter move was to protect energy for the larger stage at home rather than spend it chasing another regional stop.

What stands out is not the absence itself, but the leverage behind it. A year or two ago, a major Asian tour event might have been too important for Vietnamese stars to bypass. Now the domestic circuit is strong enough, and the prize money large enough, that top players can be selective. That is what an emerging power center looks like: not just producing champions, but giving them reasons to stay home.

For Macao and other regional events, the message is equally clear. If the biggest Vietnamese names are choosing Ho Chi Minh City over the tour stop, the rest of Asia will have to compete harder on prize money, timing and workload management to keep elite fields intact. Vietnam’s pickleball rise is no longer about participation. It is about priorities.