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On a late November afternoon the Long Bien sports complex in Hanoi was packed with people. In the central area, Thu Thuy, a middle-school teacher from Vinh Tuy ward, had just finished a thrilling match against a male pair.

A table-tennis player since childhood, she has struggled to find a sport to play with her high-school friends due to their varying preferences, but pickleball seemed a way for them to bond again.

“This sport has a strange power to connect people; one trial session and you’re hooked,” she says. Sometimes she shows up seven times a week at the court.

Thuy’s story is typical of the pickleball wave that is now a rage in Vietnam. The sport originated in the U.S. in the 1960s and was introduced to Vietnam around 7 years ago, but only truly took off at the beginning of 2024.

An October 2025 report from UPA Asia & YouGov estimated that Vietnam has 16 million players, behind only behemoths India and China in Asia. Of them, 28% came from traditional racket sports such as tennis, badminton and table tennis.

Although the figure of 16 million players is questionable due to the statistical methods adopted, the popularity on the ground us undeniable.

Google Trends data showed there were 2.3 million searches for keyword “pickleball racket” in 2025, far more than keywords to soccer, inarguably the most popular sport for Vietnamese.

The database Metric.vn said sales of pickleball- products in the first 10 months of 2025 were worth almost VND1 trillion ($37.94 million), with people spending nearly VND400 billion to buy 1.4 million pickleball rackets on e-commerce platforms, a 689% increase from the same period last year.

Sales of other pickleball accessories increased by 795%. The number of stores participating in the online market doubled to 1,683.

Pickleball’s journey to conquering Vietnamese hearts began gingerly. In mid-2023, when Ho Chi Minh City only had a few hundred players and a court each in District 1 and Thu Duc City, Manh Seven, a tennis coach, faced strong criticism for predicting that pickleball would become a “national sport.”

The professional sports community looked down on it, with its hollow plastic ball and short racket, considering it a step down from the grace of tennis.

Phan Phuc Dat, 30, of Da Nang, a former national tennis coach, also faced similar prejudice. “People said this sport was boring and only for women who like taking photos or the elderly doing light exercise,” he recalls from when he first started playing pickleball in February 2024.

The turning point came when Dat brought a racket to a park to try it out. Within three months, from an initial four-person group, his pickleball community quickly grew to 100 and now has 500.

Dat became a pioneer in opening pickleball courts in Da Nang. He estimates the city now has around 10,000 regular players and more than 30 standard court complexes.

Since July 2024 he has directly instructed at least 500 trainees. “In my many years of coaching I have never seen a sport storm [to popularity] like this,” he says.

In Ho Chi Minh City, Manh Seven was also “shocked” to see pickleball courts popping up everywhere. He estimates that now there are around 1,000 pickleball courts and several million players.

From being criticized at first, his YouTube channel now attracts seven to ten million views a month. He also teaches wealthy clients, charging two to VND3 million per session.

Explaining the boom, experts suggest that pickleball is not simply a sport in Vietnam but a social activity.

Data from a UPA Asia survey shows that in addition to entertainment (35%) and health (33%), 27% of players go to the court to seek new relationships.

Its accessibility allows players to learn how to serve and score in just 30 minutes, creating an immediate feeling of success, a quality that keeps newcomers hooked. Furthermore, the sport erases generational and skill-level gaps. “The barrier to entry is almost zero,” Dat says.

A youngster can play on an equal footing with an adult, and elderly parents can share the court with their children and grandchildren. “It is rare to find a sport where strangers can play together, and where even playing badly does not lead to judgment,” Manh Seven says.

Phan Phuc Dat (red shirt), a pioneer in establishing the pickleball movement in Da Nang. Photo courtesy of Dat

With Vietnamese people being categorized as sedentary, the emergence of pickleball has created a positive impact.

Thu Trang, 30, from Hanoi, had long avoided exercising because of her hectic office job and young children. But during a trip to her husband’s hometown in central Nghe An province, where she saw relatives of all ages playing the sport, she reconsidered.

“Seeing my husband and me look bewildered, our relatives asked, ‘You are from Hanoi and don’t know how to play pickleball?’. At that moment I felt truly outdated.”

After returning home the couple hired a coach to get proper training. Now, after work, they take turns holding their child and practicing on the court.

The cost of renting a court is VND150,000-250,000 per hour and the equipment costs tens of millions of dong, but Trang has no qualms and feels it is worth it. “The biggest benefits are health and bonding. Now when I go back to my hometown, I have a story to narrate to everyone.”