Women's Month Pickleball Festival Draws Beginners and Stars to Manila Mall

APP Malaysia gold medallist Ryan Fu took to the courts of SM Mall of Asia this weekend as the headline name at Rally & Rise: Women's Month Pickleball Weekend, a two-day festival designed to pull first-time players off the mall floor and into competitive Philippine pickleball.

Organized by Toby's Sports and local partner RPM, the event split its programming deliberately across two days. Saturday ran coach-led skill development sessions for beginners and intermediate players; Sunday shifted to friendly competitions and open community play targeting families and seniors. Fu's schedule included meet-and-greets alongside on-court coaching segments, giving newcomers direct access to one of the region's most decorated players.

The Women's Month branding was more than cosmetic. Organizers built the weekend around a specific gap in Philippine pickleball: female participation rates. Dedicated clinics, coached doubles pairings, and a spotlight exhibition match formed the core of the women-focused program, with Toby's Sports using the SM Mall of Asia venue as a testing ground for a retail-to-court recruitment model anchored by the SM Active Hub network.

Pop-up vendor areas and live paddle demos ran alongside the play sessions, giving local players the chance to trial gear from regional distributors before committing to a purchase. For a sport where equipment choice is the first barrier many beginners cite, that hands-on product access inside one of the country's highest-foot-traffic venues was a deliberate structural choice, not a side feature.

The organizers are treating Rally & Rise as a data-collection exercise as much as a participation event. Attendance figures, clinic signups, and post-event club registrations will feed directly into decisions about future community programming and the scheduling of events on the national tour calendar. Local stakeholders indicated the metrics from this weekend will determine how organizers approach the broader women's pipeline in the coming months.

That pipeline runs to officially sanctioned tournaments that count toward national ranking lists. The SM Active Hub model, built on mall venues accessible to urban players who have never held a paddle, operates on the premise that removing the physical and social barriers to a first session converts casual curiosity into competitive engagement faster than traditional club recruitment. Rally & Rise put that premise in front of one of the Philippines' largest retail audiences, with a Women's Month mandate and a gold medallist on court to back it up.