Truong Vinh Hien and Ly Hoang Nam beat Federico Staksrud and Dylan Frazier to set a historic all-Vietnamese men’s singles final in Hanoi, while the women’s draws continue to follow a different script.
- Vietnam will claim the men’s singles gold medal at the MB Hanoi Cup after Truong and Ly won Saturday’s semi-finals
- Truong avenged his Hangzhou loss to Staksrud, while Ly controlled his match against Frazier from start to finish
- Elsewhere, Brooke Buckner reached the women’s singles final and Anna Leigh Waters and Anna Bright stormed into the women’s doubles title match
The sound inside the arena changed before the day was done.
It stopped sounding hopeful. It started sounding certain.
For the first time on the PPA Tour Asia tournament beat, a men’s singles final will be contested entirely by players from the host nation, with Truong Vinh Hien and Ly Hoang Nam beating two established American names to seize control of the MB Hanoi Cup in Hanoi.
Truong’s win carried the weight.
Up against Federico Staksrud, the same opponent who beat him in the bronze-playoff meeting at Hangzhou in 2025, Truong had to win this one the harder way. He took the first game 11-7, lost the second 4-11, then reset himself impressively to close out the decider 11-5.
This was not a noisy upset built on emotion alone. It was a composed, mature performance against a player still searching for a first singles gold in Asia. Truong had reached the MB Vietnam Cup final last year without finishing the job. Here, he looked more settled in the key moments and far clearer in what he was trying to do.
Ly’s route to the final was more direct and, in its own way, just as striking.
His 11-5, 11-6 win over Dylan Frazier never felt loose. He controlled the shape of the points, kept the pace where he wanted it, and never allowed the match to drift. It followed a brutal quarter-final win over Tama Shimabukuro, 11-3, 11-0, the sort of scoreline that says as much about authority as execution.
That leaves Sunday with two very different pressures.
For Truong, this is the chance to turn a breakthrough week into a first tour singles title.
For Ly, it is the chance to confirm that Hangzhou was not a moment but a standard. After winning there, he arrived in Hanoi with expectation on him. He has carried it well.
The contrast elsewhere in the draw is also worth noting.
While the men’s singles bracket has opened up for Vietnam, the women’s events have so far remained in firmer American hands. Brooke Buckner came through a three-game women’s singles semi-final against Kate Fahey, winning 11-9, 6-11, 11-6, while Kaitlyn Christian beat Chao Yi Wang 11-4, 11-4 to book the other final place. In women’s doubles, Anna Leigh Waters and Anna Bright tore through Tina Pisnik and Jade Irvine 11-3, 11-2 to reach the title match.
That split matters.
For years, the default expectation in pro pickleball has been straightforward enough: American players travel, absorb the conditions, and usually take over by the end of the week. In the women’s draws, that pattern still looks familiar. In the men’s singles, it does not.
This is why Hanoi matters beyond Hanoi.
An all-Vietnamese final is not simply a home-nation success story or a loud day in the stands. It is evidence that the expected outcome has broken. And once expectation breaks, it rarely resets neatly.
Vietnam will take the men’s singles title on Sunday. The bigger shift is that this no longer feels like a surprise.
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Footnote: Elsewhere at the MB Hanoi Cup, women’s singles finalists Brooke Buckner and Kaitlyn Christian are now confirmed, while Anna Leigh Waters and Anna Bright have already advanced to the women’s doubles final. This page will be updated during the day as live results come in across the men’s doubles and mixed doubles semi-finals.
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Chris 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 all levels of pickleball. Chris is also an avid player, currently struggling to make the breakthrough from 4.0 to 4.5.