D-Joy Pickleball Day One: Camron and Vietnam Advance

The short answer: On day one of the D-Joy Pickleball Tour 2026 Leg 3 in Ho Chi Minh City, Ronan Camron beat Nguyễn Văn Khánh and Rashein Samuel to reach the men’s singles last 16, alongside Mikar Fisher, Jay Devilliers, Ryler DeHeart and Richard Livornese Jr. Nguyễn Đắc Tiến and Từ Lê Khánh Duy are the two Vietnamese men still in the draw.

Ronan Camron, Mikar Fisher and Jay Devilliers reached the men’s singles last 16 in Ho Chi Minh City, where Nguyễn Đắc Tiến and Từ Lê Khánh Duy kept Vietnam in contention.

For the international players arriving in Ho Chi Minh City, the opening day of the D-Joy Pickleball Tour 2026 Leg 3 was a negotiation with the unfamiliar: a large draw, opponents gathered from across Asia and beyond, and two men’s singles rounds to survive before the Petrolimex Saigon Cup could begin to assume a recognisable shape.

For the Vietnamese players, the question was more immediate. How many of the home contingent would remain once the leading visitors began moving through the draw?

By Wednesday night, most of the established international names were still standing. Camron, Devilliers, Fisher, Ryler DeHeart and Richard Livornese Jr had reached the last 16. So had two Vietnamese players, Nguyễn Đắc Tiến and Từ Lê Khánh Duy, although neither took an easy route.

Day One was devoted to professional singles. The men’s field progressed through two rounds, while the smaller women’s draw completed its opening matches around a series of byes. Doubles had not yet begun.

Camron finds two ways through

Camron began with an 11-2, 11-5 victory over Nguyễn Văn Khánh before encountering more sustained resistance from Rashein Samuel.

He won the opening two games of their round-of-32 match 11-5, 11-5 and appeared to have subdued another opponent. Samuel extended the contest by taking the third 11-9, forcing Camron to reset rather than close quickly.

The response was controlled. Camron won the fourth game 11-7 and advanced to meet Từ Lê Khánh Duy, one of the two remaining Vietnamese men.

The important detail was not simply that Camron won twice, but that he dealt with two different matches. The first allowed him to settle into the tournament without alarm. The second demanded that he regain control after an opponent interrupted his rhythm.

Từ’s route to the same stage was more difficult.

He began by beating Đỗ Tràng Minh Quang 12-10, 11-5, then lost the opening game against Ethan Butson. Butson had already defeated Takuya Saito 12-10, 11-0 and appeared capable of carrying that momentum through another round.

Instead, Từ changed the contest. He recovered from 9-11 down to win the next two games 11-5, 11-5, keeping a Vietnamese player in Camron’s section and giving the home crowd one of its most consequential victories of the day.

Camron will begin their last-16 match as the stronger favourite. Từ, however, has already demonstrated that losing the first game need not determine what follows.

Fisher leaves almost nothing behind

No leading player made a cleaner start than Fisher.

Across two matches and four games, he conceded five points. Fisher beat Will Barksdale 11-1, 11-4 before dismantling Arthav Neema 11-2, 11-3.

Neema had needed patience in his opening match, overcoming Đặng Huỳnh Ngọc Châu 14-12, 11-2. Against Fisher, there was no similar opportunity to settle. The match moved quickly and continued in one direction.

Fisher’s reward is a meeting with Brandon Lane, who experienced almost the opposite kind of opening day.

Lane lost the first game against Lê Quốc Khánh before recovering to win 8-11, 11-0, 11-7. He then eliminated Trần Đức Minh 11-4, 11-8 after the Vietnamese player had fought past Liam Lamb 4-11, 11-8, 11-6.

Fisher arrives in the last 16 having spent few points under pressure. Lane arrives having already recovered from difficulty. One has been clinical, the other tested. Their meeting should reveal more about both.

DeHeart survives the strongest Vietnamese challenge

DeHeart’s day began almost perfectly. He conceded a single point in beating Ruslan Nurmatov 11-1, 11-0.

Nguyễn Hữu Hùng Anh then made him work for everything that followed.

Nguyễn had opened with an 11-0, 11-5 victory over Frank Ngo and carried that confidence into the next round. DeHeart won the first game 11-3, but the match did not continue towards the straightforward conclusion that score suggested.

Nguyễn took the second 11-8 and stayed with DeHeart through the decider. The American eventually completed an 11-8 victory, but this was the clearest indication on Day One that one of the home players could make an established international opponent uncomfortable for a sustained period.

There was no place in the last 16 for Nguyễn, but his performance supplied a more useful measure of Vietnam’s developing competitive level than another comfortable early-round victory would have done.

That question follows a World Cup in which Vietnam demonstrated considerably greater singles depth than many international observers expected. WPM examined that development in our analysis of Vietnam’s men’s singles performance in Da Nang.

DeHeart now faces Sahil Dang. Dang was untouched through four games, beating Trương Ngọc Quang Timmy 11-1, 11-2 and Ngô Hùng Thuận 11-6, 11-1.

Nguyễn Đắc Tiến advances without losing a game

Vietnam’s other surviving man, Nguyễn Đắc Tiến, followed a more direct course.

He overwhelmed Nguyễn Thanh Điền 11-2, 11-0 in his first match and then beat Dylan Ooi 11-3, 11-9. The second game against Ooi was the first time his progress came under meaningful pressure, but Nguyễn closed it without allowing the match to reach a decider.

He will face Mackonner Dy, who came through a volatile opening match against Raaquib Merchant. Dy won 11-6, lost the second by the same score and then completed the match 11-0. He followed that with an 11-7, 11-4 victory over Antoine Uy.

Uy had already played the most tightly contested match of the first round. Every game against Panth Thakkar reached 10-10 before Uy eventually prevailed 12-10, 10-12, 12-10. After 66 points and three games decided by the minimum margin, there was not enough left to prevent Dy from advancing.

Devilliers makes his entrance

Devilliers required only two games to establish himself in the draw.

Facing Kyean in the round of 32, he won 11-2, 11-0 and moved into a last-16 meeting with Aman Patel. The brevity of that appearance should not be mistaken for a lack of significance. Devilliers entered as one of the competition’s best-known players, and his opening performance did nothing to disturb that order.

Patel will arrive with more court time behind him. He recovered after dropping the first game against Arunava Majmudar, winning 7-11, 11-4, 11-9.

Elsewhere, Aditya Nandal lost the opening game against Trần Anh Tú before turning the match around 6-11, 11-9, 11-3. He will next face Drake Palm, who defeated Purvansh Patel 13-11, 4-11, 11-8 in one of the day’s most competitive contests.

Dev Shah beat Atikul Amattayakul 11-3, 11-6 and will meet Mauro Garcia. Garcia advanced from his scheduled match against Ranveer Singh, although the official D-Joy card does not show a completed score.

Matthew Kouznetsov defeated Yuki Sugiyama 11-8, 11-2. His next opponent is Richard Livornese Jr, whose match against William Sobek ended with Livornese leading 11-4, 3-2. D-Joy records Livornese as the player advancing but does not state why the match ended early.

Livornese arrives only days after winning World Cup men’s doubles gold alongside Jack Munro. Their victory formed part of a final day in which WPM tracked four finals for Vietnam’s Lý Hoàng Nam.

Three emphatic results in the women’s draw

The women’s professional singles competition opened with three completed matches. Several leading players, including Domenika Turković, Katerina Stewart and Roos van Reek, received byes into the last 16.

Those required to play wasted little time.

Bobbi Oshiro-Alconcel beat Alia Brown 11-3, 11-3. Pei Chuan Kao defeated Aleisha Horridge 11-0, 11-2, while Ayesha Dang allowed Ekaterina Ogurtsova only four points in an 11-3, 11-1 victory.

Jada Bui also advanced to face Shreya Bhumireddy, although no completed score from her scheduled match against Natnicha Lueangtawikit appears on the official results card.

The competition changes considerably in the next round. Turković begins against Averry Chew, Stewart meets Sharmada Balu and Van Reek opens against Brittany Yang.

Three Vietnamese women are also in the last 16. Trần Diễm Ngọc faces Brooke Revuelta, Quynh Phan meets Pei and Trang Huynh takes on Dang.

Those matches will provide a broader measure of Vietnam’s position in this international field than Day One could offer. The host country placed several players directly into the women’s last 16 through the shape of the draw. What they do once the leading players enter is the more significant question.

What happens on day two?

Day Two brings the men’s and women’s singles last 16, with places in the quarter-finals at stake.

The principal men’s matches include Camron against Từ Lê Khánh Duy, Fisher against Lane, DeHeart against Dang, Devilliers against Patel and Nguyễn Đắc Tiến against Dy.

In the women’s draw, the players who received opening-round byes enter the competition. That places Turković, Stewart and Van Reek on court for the first time while the three remaining Vietnamese women attempt to extend the home challenge.

The D-Joy tournament arrives during a particularly busy period for elite pickleball in Asia. The event is taking place alongside the PPA Tour Asia Kuala Lumpur Cup, part of a regional schedule that increasingly asks players to choose between competing tours, ranking systems and international opportunities. WPM recently examined why PPA Tour Asia is becoming part of the elite calendar.

The draw has narrowed, but not yet broken open

Day One did what an opening singles programme is supposed to do. It removed the mismatches, forced some of the stronger players to solve early problems and left enough home representation to give the second day a local stake.

Fisher and Devilliers advanced without conceding enough points to experience genuine pressure. Camron and DeHeart had to respond when their matches shifted. Nguyễn Đắc Tiến and Từ Lê Khánh Duy survived two rounds and now carry the Vietnamese men’s challenge into contests against stronger international opposition.

The draw has narrowed, but it has not yet broken open.

Camron must deal with a player carrying the crowd and the confidence of a comeback. DeHeart faces an opponent who did not lose a game. Fisher’s near-perfect numbers will be tested by someone who has already survived adversity.

The opening day established the names. The next one begins to establish the hierarchy.

Further reading

• Pickleball World Cup: Vietnam Has More Than a Star as Da Nang Reveals Its Men’s Singles Depth
• Four Finals, One Gold and Three Silvers: How Lý Hoàng Nam’s World Cup Sunday Ended
• Inside Vietnam’s Push to Build Smarter Pickleball
• From Cary to Kuala Lumpur: Why PPA Tour Asia Is Becoming Part of the Elite Pickleball Calendar