PPA Tour Asia 2027: why Bangkok and Manila, and why January

Main image: Photo: PPA Tour Asia

The short answer: PPA Tour Asia will open 2027 with four PPA Asia 500 events: Bangkok (27–31 January), Manila (24–28 February), Penang (16–20 March) and Ho Chi Minh City (31 March–4 April). Thailand and the Philippines are new markets for the tour. The bigger change is the timing: Asia now starts the year rather than waiting until spring.

At the groundbreaking for a 25-court complex in Pasig City, Kimberly Koh did not undersell the moment. “In the years to come, we will look back on this day as the day when everything started,” the managing director of UPA Asia said, according to pickleball.com, “not just in the Philippines, but the revolution of pickleball in Southeast Asia, in Asia, and the globalization of the sport.” Her stated goal was “to bring a major tournament from the PPA to Manila” once the Helios Pickleball venue was ready, which, she understood, would be in 2027. Times Now also reported the UPA deal to bring PPA Tour events to the Philippines.

Manila now has its date: 24–28 February, according to PPA Tour Asia‘s event page. When PPA Tour Asia announced its first four stops of 2027 on the final day of the Hong Kong Slam, the Philippines debut was the second of two firsts, a month after Bangkok opens the season. No venues have been named, so whether Helios is ready in time is still an open question. The intent is not.

How fast has PPA Tour Asia grown?

Quickly, and from a modest base. When PPA Tour Asia announced its first calendar in May 2025, it had five events and three tiers: Slams worth 2,000 points and an estimated US$1 million in prize money and payouts, Cups worth 1,500 points and about $500,000, and Opens worth 1,000 points with a minimum of $50,000. The first event, the Panas Malaysia Open in Kuala Lumpur in July 2025, was an Open at that $50,000 minimum, pickleball.com reported.

A year later the five-event schedule had doubled to ten stops in seven markets. That is the context for the 2027 announcement. The tour is no longer proving it can stage events in Asia. It is choosing which new countries to bet on.

Why is PPA Tour Asia going to Thailand and the Philippines?

Because those are the markets where the sport is growing fastest and where nobody yet owns the professional calendar. The tour’s own language is unusually frank about the first part. Bangkok gets a stop because “new courts and clubs have been popping up across Bangkok, and now the city’s players and fans get to see Pro pickleball live for the very first time.” Of Manila: “Pickleball here has grown fast, and now local fans get a PPA Tour Asia event of their own.”

The second part is the more interesting. The Philippines has spent 2026 building a professional structure of its own. Manny Pacquiao’s Maharlika Pilipinas Pickleball Tour launched with 12 regional franchises and a five-leg season, with ₱1 million to the winning team at each leg. In Cavite, the Philippine Tennis Center and Ayala Land are building a ₱500 million racquet-sports hub with 16 public pickleball courts. A domestic league with a famous founder and serious infrastructure money is precisely the kind of rival that can make an international tour look like a visitor. Arriving in February 2027, with a dated event, puts the PPA brand into that market before the local structures harden.

Thailand is a different calculation. There is no Thai equivalent of the MPPT and no Pacquiao. Bangkok is a bet on a large, sport-hungry city with good air links and a growing club scene, and a 500-level event is a modest way to test it. If the crowds come, the obvious next step is a bigger tier.

The numbers support the bet. DUPR, the sport’s main rating platform, lists the Philippines as its fastest-growing country, at 1,213%, with Thailand also in its top ten at 170%. Data from the booking app Reclub, presented at the Asia Pickleball Summit and reported by Pickle361, put the Philippines first in Asia for scale: 180,000 unique players and 8,056 clubs in the 12 months to May 2026, ahead of Malaysia’s 120,000 players. Those are platform figures, not a census. The Philippine Pickleball Federation’s own directory is more conservative, with 47,386 players, 509 clubs and 439 venues, according to Radar. Either way, the direction is clear.

Thailand’s evidence is thinner but points the same way. Court bookings for tennis and pickleball on the Thai app matchday rose by as much as 669% in early 2026, MarketPlus reported. Across the continent, a UPA Asia and YouGov study reported by Times Now estimated that 812 million people in Asia have played pickleball.

That is why the calendar matters beyond Asia. The PPA’s US tour sets the professional standard, but the fastest growth in players is now happening elsewhere. A tour that can make Manila and Bangkok regular stops gives the sport a professional pathway in the countries producing the most new players. It also gives the PPA a second circuit that does not depend on the American market.

Why does the January start matter?

In 2026, PPA Tour Asia did not begin until 1 April, in Hanoi. Its ten-stop calendar across seven markets was weighted towards the second half of the year and ended with the Hong Kong Slam this month. In 2027, the tour will have played four events before the date on which last season started.

That changes the tour’s relationship with the American calendar. The four Asian stops, according to PPA Tour Asia, “complete the PPA Tour Asia schedule ahead of the PPA Finals” at Life Time Rancho San Clemente on 10–16 May, and the top eight men and women in the overall World Pickleball Rankings qualify for those Finals. Asian points earned between January and April will therefore count in the race for an end-of-season event in California. For the first time, a player chasing a Finals place has a reason to fly to Bangkok in January rather than treat Asia as an autumn trip.

The cost falls on the players. The PPA has not yet published its US schedule for early 2027, so the size of any clash is not yet known. Each Asian stop becomes a choice between a long-haul trip and a domestic event, and top Americans who did make the trip this autumn, such as Ben Johns, Anna Leigh Waters and Hunter Johnson in Hong Kong, may not repeat it in winter. The players with most to gain are those based in Asia and Australia, along with Europeans willing to travel east: four 500-level events with smaller fields are a realistic route to ranking points.

What about Malaysia and Vietnam?

Both return for a fifth time. Penang, which the tour says brings “pro pickleball to the country’s north”, is a deliberate step away from Kuala Lumpur, and the city already staged the APP Asia Penang Open in July, so the PPA is moving into a market its rival has already worked. Ho Chi Minh City follows 11 days later. Vietnam opened the 2026 season in Hanoi and staged the August stop in Ho Chi Minh City; leaving it out was never likely.

What has not been announced is as telling as what has. All four stops are 500-level events. Hong Kong, whose Slam at Kai Tak was the tour’s showpiece this season, China and Japan are not yet on the 2027 list, and the tour has said nothing about where its 1,000 and 1,500-level events will sit. The calendar released so far is the foundation. The second half of the year, when the bigger events usually fall, will decide whether Asia is a genuine second circuit or a feeder for California.

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Chris Beaumont

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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…

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