Vietnam closed out the Heineken Pickleball World Cup 2026 in Da Nang this week as the overwhelming dominant force at the tournament, finishing with a staggering medal haul that dwarfed every other participating nation. The week long event, held at Tien Son Sports Palace and additional venues across the central coastal city, brought together more than five thousand athletes from around eighty countries and territories for what organizers describe as the largest pickleball tournament ever staged in Vietnam.
By the tournament’s later stages, the host nation had built a commanding lead in the overall medal standings, collecting well over two hundred medals including more than one hundred gold, a total roughly ten times higher than the second placed delegation. South Korea and the United States rounded out the top positions behind Vietnam, though neither country came close to matching the host nation’s overwhelming success across the tournament’s various competitive categories.
The scale of the event itself set new benchmarks for the sport. Guinness World Records recognized two records tied to the tournament, including the distinction of the most nationalities ever to participate in a single pickleball competition, alongside recognition for the most valuable trophy ever created for the sport. The opening ceremony on September 2 featured a parade of participating national delegations alongside vibrant artistic performances, setting a festive tone for the week of competition that followed.
Competition spanned five distinct categories, including Open, Senior, Master, Junior, and Kids divisions, with sixty six national delegations fielding teams across these different age and skill brackets. Organizers built out ninety seven courts across seven different facilities throughout Da Nang to accommodate the massive scale of simultaneous competition, transforming venues from the Tien Son Sports Complex to Tuyen Son Sports Village into a citywide pickleball festival for the duration of the tournament.
Notable athletes competing included top Vietnamese stars such as Ly Hoang Nam and Phuc Huynh, alongside internationally recognized names from the professional PPA and APP pickleball circuits. International competitors traveled from as far as Mexico, the Netherlands, France, India, and Hong Kong, reflecting the sport’s rapidly growing global footprint and Da Nang’s success in attracting a genuinely worldwide field of competitors.
Local officials emphasized that the tournament served purposes well beyond athletic competition alone. Da Nang’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism framed the event as both a sporting festival and a tourism showcase, encouraging visiting athletes and their accompanying friends and family to explore the city’s beaches, cuisine, and cultural attractions during their stay. City leaders expressed hope that the tournament could become a recurring fixture on the international sporting calendar, helping cement Da Nang’s growing reputation as a destination capable of hosting major global events.
The timing of the tournament, running through Vietnam’s National Day holiday period, added extra significance to the event’s cultural dimension. International visitors arrived in Vietnam during a period when the country was simultaneously celebrating its eighty first anniversary of independence, giving athletes and travelers a chance to experience Vietnamese National Day festivities alongside the sporting competition itself.
As the tournament concludes and delegations begin departing Da Nang, city officials and organizers are already looking toward future editions, encouraged by both the scale of international participation and the enthusiastic reception from visiting athletes. For Vietnam’s rapidly growing pickleball community, this week’s dominant showing on home soil offers a powerful signal of the sport’s expanding popularity and competitive strength within the country, setting high expectations for continued success on the international stage in the years ahead.
