By Fabrizio Lavezzari
In 2014, Daniel Moore stood on the podium at the US National Pickleball Championships alongside his father. Both had won national titles on the same day. For many players, it would have been the defining moment of a sporting career.
For Moore, it became the beginning of something much bigger.
Within months, he was packing his paddle and heading back to the country that had shaped him: Japan.
Born in Atlanta, Moore moved to Japan at just seven months old when his father pursued a master’s degree. What was intended as a two-year stay stretched into sixteen years. He grew up bilingual, first in Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture, then in Tokyo’s Nerima ward, and later in Ueda. He attended Japanese public schools, played tennis and snowboarded, while helping care for his younger siblings as the eldest of four children.
At sixteen, his family returned to the United States in search of stronger English-language education and broader opportunities. High school and college tennis followed at Azusa Pacific University, but after graduation his curiosity took him much farther afield.
From 2011 to 2013, he lived in Kenya, working for a social enterprise that sold efficient cookstoves to rural communities. Later, while living in Colorado, his father introduced him to pickleball with a simple challenge.
“This is your only chance to become a national champion at something.”
The pair trained relentlessly.
The result was remarkable. Daniel won the Open Singles title, while his father captured the Senior Open division. Both became national champions on the same day.
Yet even after achieving that dream, Japan continued to pull him back.
Returning Home
By 2015, Moore had returned to Japan and was working as a freelance guide for Walk Japan. He led hiking tours along the Nakasendo Trail, guided snowshoe expeditions in Nagano and Hokkaido, and walked with visitors along the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes.
He loved the work.
What he could not find was good pickleball.
“I wanted to live in Japan, but I also wanted to play,” he says. “There was almost no one here playing.”
So he decided to help change that.
Through a family connection in Hachioji, Moore introduced the sport to Makoto Sato, who would become one of the early driving forces behind Japanese pickleball before his passing. Clubs slowly began to emerge in both Hachioji and Nagano.
At the time, Japan had fewer than one hundred pickleball players.
Moore jokes that his original motivation was partly selfish. He simply wanted better opponents to play against. But he quickly realised the sport could offer something much bigger.
“Japan can be a hard place to make new friends,” he says. “Pickleball solves that. More exercise. More connections.”
He saw the game as a way to combat isolation, encourage physical activity, and build friendships across generations and cultures.
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When Japan Woke Up
For several years, growth was steady but modest.
Even after the pandemic, Japan’s pickleball community remained relatively small, with perhaps 1,000 to 1,500 active players by 2022 and 2023.
Then everything changed.
In 2023, Japanese broadcaster TBS began showing pickleball on television and YouTube. Suddenly, millions of people were seeing the sport for the first time.
Major companies quickly recognised the opportunity.
Sponsors including Mizuno, JTB, Sansan and Burger King entered the space. In Japan, where institutional support often drives participation, that backing accelerated development dramatically.
By 2026, the landscape looked entirely different.
The Japan Pickleball Association and the Pickleball Japan Federation announced plans to merge. National rankings were introduced. Under-19 development pathways were established through PCL Asia’s Rising Stars programme. Major events such as the JPA Japan Open in Tsu City and the PJF Pickleball Japan Open in Yamaguchi City became key fixtures on the national calendar.
What had once been a niche pastime with only a handful of participants was rapidly becoming a recognised national sport.
Building the Ecosystem
Today, Moore no longer considers himself a full-time professional player, although he still competes occasionally.
His focus has shifted towards building the sport’s foundations.
As head coach at Pickleball X Academy, he oversees training programmes, mentors players, and works with partners including Diadem and local distributor Globeride to expand access to the game.
His ambition is straightforward.
He wants clubs in every town, village and city across Japan.
Challenges remain, particularly around facilities. In Greater Tokyo, the cost of land makes dedicated outdoor courts difficult to develop. Meanwhile, rural communities often benefit from affordable indoor gymnasiums, creating a distinctive divide between Japan’s indoor and outdoor pickleball cultures.
Moore sees opportunity in those regional areas.
Lower development costs and growing interest in sports tourism could help bring visitors to communities facing population decline. Pickleball tournaments and club activities, he believes, can become part of local economic revitalisation.
He also notices cultural differences in how the game is played.
“There is more humility here,” he says. “Less of the ‘big fish in a small pond’ ego. Players are more willing to follow coaching advice rather than just hitting every ball hard, like many tennis converts in America.”
Looking Beyond Japan
Japanese pickleball has made significant competitive progress.
Players such as Yuta Funemizu, who reached the quarter-finals on the PPA Tour, have demonstrated that Japanese athletes can compete internationally.
In early 2026, Aiko Yoshitomi and her husband Kenta Miyoshi became the first Japanese and Asian married couple to sign PPA contracts simultaneously. Both have already enjoyed success on the PPA Asia circuit.
Yet Moore believes the next challenge is depth.
Japan needs more 5.0-plus players, stronger domestic competition, and more victories against elite international opponents.
At the same time, he remains committed to growing participation at the grassroots level.
His family venture, Pickleball Trips, combines his background as a guide with his passion for the sport. The business offers small-group experiences that blend pickleball with cultural immersion, local food, and meaningful connections with communities across Japan.
“It is not just tourism,” he says. “It is being a traveller. Making real memories with local players.”
He even sees pickleball as a tool for international understanding.
In 2018, he travelled to China alongside Makoto Sato to teach the sport, posing beneath American, Japanese and Chinese flags under the banner of “pickleball diplomacy”. Drawing on earlier experiences travelling across the Middle East, he remains convinced that sport can bring people together in ways politics often cannot.
A Place to Play
Today, Daniel Moore wears many hats: national champion, coach, guide, entrepreneur and advocate.
More importantly, he remains one of the key figures connecting Japan’s pickleball past, present and future.
When he returned to Japan in 2015, he found a country with only a handful of players and very few places to compete.
A decade later, he is helping oversee a landscape filled with clubs, rankings, youth pathways, major tournaments and growing international ambition.
His goal remains simple.
He wants every person who wants to play pickleball in Japan to be able to find a court, a club, and a community.
A decade ago, Daniel Moore returned to Japan looking for people to play against.
Today, he is helping build a future in which every town, city and village has a place to play.
For Japanese pickleball, that journey is only just beginning.
Further Reading
- Latest pickleball news from around the world
- Tournament coverage and results
- Rankings and player profiles
- Regional pickleball coverage
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Chris Beaumont
Founder and Editor-in-ChiefChris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine. Chris follows the global game closely, reporting on the latest news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball Podcast, interviewing people at…
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