Trinh Linh Giang and Domenika Turkovic will face Bobbi Oshiro-Alconcel and Brandon Lane after the two finalist pairings survived very different tests in Ho Chi Minh City.

By the end of Friday’s mixed doubles programme at D-Joy Pickleball South Saigon, the international field had claimed most of the available ground.

Trinh Linh Giang ensured it did not take everything.

The Vietnamese player and Domenika Turkovic reached the professional mixed doubles final at the third leg of the D-Joy Pickleball Tour, recovering from the only three-game quarter-final before producing their most convincing performance of the day in the last four.

Waiting for them will be Bobbi Oshiro-Alconcel and Brandon Lane, whose route required two narrow escapes before a controlled semi-final victory over Jack Munro and Roos van Reek.

It leaves D-Joy with a final between two partnerships whose tournaments have developed differently. Oshiro and Lane have repeatedly been taken towards the margins of games and survived. Turkovic and Giang were forced into a decider, answered it and then appeared to grow stronger.

One pairing has lived on the edge. The other may have found its level at exactly the right time.

Key takeaways

  • Trinh Linh Giang and Domenika Turkovic defeated Max Manthou and Shelby Bates 11-8, 11-3 to reach the mixed doubles final.
  • Bobbi Oshiro-Alconcel and Brandon Lane beat D-Joy Leg 2 champions Jack Munro and Roos van Reek 11-5, 12-10.
  • Oshiro and Lane survived an 11-3, 13-11, 12-10 opening match against Anne-Sophie Courteau and Jay Devilliers.
  • Giang guarantees Vietnamese representation in another professional final after Trang Huynh reached the women’s singles final on Thursday.
  • Saturday’s men’s and women’s doubles draws rearrange several mixed doubles partnerships, placing recent opponents on the same side of the court.

Giang and Turkovic respond

The decisive passage in Turkovic and Giang’s run came against Harsh Mehta and Pei Chuan Kao.

Turkovic and Giang won the opening game 11-4, but the quarter-final tightened considerably from there. Mehta and Kao took the second 12-10, forcing the Vietnamese-Croatian partnership into a deciding game with their place in the tournament at risk.

Their 11-8 response mattered for more than progression. Having failed to close the match in two, they prevented the momentum from travelling any further and arrived in the semi-finals already acquainted with the pressure of a decider.

Max Manthou and Shelby Bates represented a different test. They had eliminated Katerina Stewart and Ronan Camron 13-11, 11-8 in a quarter-final containing two sustained games, yet they could not extend the eventual finalists in the same way.

Turkovic and Giang won 11-8, 11-3.

The scoreline shows a match that separated sharply after its opening game. Once Turkovic and Giang moved ahead, the second passed quickly beyond Manthou and Bates. A partnership that had spent part of the previous round trying to prevent a match from slipping away was now controlling one from the front.

For Giang, the result guarantees Vietnamese representation in another of the tournament’s principal professional finals.

Trang Huynh had already secured her place in Sunday’s women’s singles final by defeating Pei Chuan Kao 11-1, 11-6 on Thursday. As WPM reported in our D-Joy singles semi-final review, she will face Katerina Stewart for the title.

Giang has now extended the home challenge into mixed doubles.

That matters in a field containing established APP professionals and players carrying extensive international experience. Home advantage alone has not cleared his path. Giang and Turkovic have had to survive the aggression of Mehta, the speed of Kao and a Bates-Manthou partnership that had already removed two dangerous opponents.

They found a different answer each time.

Oshiro and Lane refuse to leave

If Turkovic and Giang’s day was defined by their response to a lost game, Oshiro and Lane built theirs around the points at which defeat was beginning to feel possible.

Their opening match brought the most severe turnaround.

Anne-Sophie Courteau and Jay Devilliers took the first game 11-3, placing Oshiro and Lane one game from an immediate exit. The response was neither quick nor comfortable. They survived the second 13-11 and then took the decider 12-10.

Three games. Two extended finishes. No room left for another mistake.

The quarter-final brought more of the same. Jada Bui and Phuc Huynh pushed the opening game beyond its regulation finish before Oshiro and Lane finally claimed it 15-13. The second was more secure at 11-7, but only after another prolonged examination of their ability to close.

By the semi-final, they had already played five games. Four had either been decided by two points or continued beyond 11.

Munro and van Reek arrived by a cleaner route, having beaten Patrick Brian Kawka and Trang Huynh 11-6, 11-3 in their quarter-final.

They also carried a proven D-Joy partnership into the match. Munro and van Reek won the mixed doubles title together at Leg 2 in June, one of the results covered in WPM’s wider examination of the international players shaping the 2026 season.

The defending champions would not reach another final.

Oshiro and Lane took the opening game 11-5, then prevented Munro and van Reek from forcing a decider by closing the second 12-10.

After surviving so many narrow situations earlier in the competition, another extended game was no longer unfamiliar. This time, it delivered a place in the final.

The draw loses some of its biggest names

The depth of the mixed doubles field made early exits inevitable.

Megan Fudge and Ryler DeHeart were beaten 11-7, 11-5 by Manthou and Bates in the round of 16. Stewart and Camron defeated Brooke Revuelta and Mauro Garcia 11-4, 11-5, only to fall in the following round. Munro and van Reek could not turn their previous D-Joy title into another final appearance.

Those results removed several recognisable names while leaving two finalist pairings with distinct competitive histories.

Oshiro and Lane have demonstrated their ability to play when the margin has almost disappeared. Their tournament might have ended in the second game of their first match, the third game of the same contest, the extended opener of their quarter-final or the closing stages of their semi-final.

It ended in none of them.

Turkovic and Giang have taken a more direct route since their quarter-final interruption. Their final game on Friday was also their most decisive, suggesting that the difficult moments against Mehta and Kao strengthened rather than diminished them.

The final now asks which quality will travel.

Can Oshiro and Lane continue producing their best pickleball when games tighten, or can Turkovic and Giang establish the sort of scoreboard control that made their semi-final second game so brief?

Friday’s opponents become Saturday’s partners

The D-Joy programme now moves into professional men’s and women’s doubles, rearranging many of the relationships that shaped Friday.

Giang partners Manthou, the player he helped eliminate in the mixed semi-finals. Their section of the men’s draw also includes Ronan Camron and Zack Marceau, while Quang Duong and Harsh Mehta occupy another section containing Emilien Burnel and Jay Devilliers.

Elsewhere, Lane joins Callan Dawson, DeHeart partners Phuc Huynh and Munro plays with Richard Livornese Jr.

Each must move quickly from one partnership to another while carrying Friday’s workload into a fresh draw.

The women’s competition contains an even sharper reversal.

Oshiro and Turkovic, who will stand on opposite sides of the mixed doubles final, are entered together. Van Reek partners Bates, Stewart joins Glauka Carvajal Lane and Fudge plays alongside Vivian Glozman.

Friday’s opponents are therefore Saturday’s partners. Information gathered from across the net must be put aside, or perhaps put to use, when they occupy the same side of it.

Several Vietnamese and wider Asian combinations also have opportunities to interrupt the leading international partnerships. The women’s bracket contained several unconfirmed opening positions when published, so the precise routes will only become clear once play begins.

The quality of the field reflects D-Joy’s growing connection with the wider professional game. The APP lists the tournament as the 2026 Pickleball D-Joy Event Powered by the APP, while several of the players in Ho Chi Minh City were included in the APP’s recent group of international signings.

D-Joy’s final weekend is taking shape

The tournament began with a large field and a collection of international names. It enters the weekend with something more useful.

Defined contests.

Ronan Camron will face Drake Palm in the men’s singles final. Trang Huynh will meet Katerina Stewart in the women’s final. Oshiro and Lane now know that Turkovic and Giang stand between them and the mixed doubles title.

The men’s and women’s doubles draws will determine which players arrive on Sunday carrying one opportunity and which must manage several.

That workload is particularly relevant at the end of a demanding period in Vietnam. Several players arrived in Ho Chi Minh City almost immediately after competing at the World Cup in Da Nang. WPM identified the accumulated physical demands in its coverage of the singles competition, and the repeated movement between partners and disciplines now makes those demands harder to ignore.

D-Joy Leg 3 runs until 13 September at D-Joy Pickleball South Saigon and forms the final points stop on the Road to the Vietnam Masters. The event follows WPM’s recent examination of how Vietnam is becoming a test bed for pickleball technology and tournament infrastructure.

For Giang, however, the central opportunity is much simpler.

The mixed doubles final will not be a procession of visiting professionals. A Vietnamese player remains at its centre, one victory from turning home representation into a home title.

Further reading

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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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