The news that Quang Duong had his contract cut by UPA, ending his chance to compete week in and week out with the world’s best players in the PPA, hit hard in Asia.
The Asian pickleball scene was buzzing with shock and questions about why and how this could happen.
Pickleball News Asia has been delving into what happened and why a player who, just a few short weeks ago, was playing mixed doubles with world no 3 Anna Bright against other world beaters, ended up last week losing a mixed doubles final in a low-level Indian tournament, playing with three players—all of whom can only aspire to reach the heights from where QD had just fallen.
We visited Vietnam and spoke to pickleball industry people there and also got insight from people with inside track to what’s happening at the PPA to piece together what went wrong for Quang Duong. What follows is an opinion piece that relies on interpretation of events, and third party information passed to us.
It’s important to understand that the player himself is still a teenager and is not the mastermind of his career. The “boss” making the decisions about what QD does and doesn’t do is his father, Duc Duong, who manages every aspect of his son’s career—acting as trainer, agent, business manager, and everything else in between. Mistakes that have been made sit more with Duc than Quang.
A Loving Father Protecting His Son from the Circling Sharks or a Greedy Business Manager Who Overplayed His Hand?
Quang Duong went from relative obscurity to overnight worldwide pickleball fame when he became “the Asian player who beat Ben Johns.”
At a time when the sport was exploding in Asia, opportunity came knocking on the Duong’s door in a big way. Naturally, as a teenager, it made sense that his father should step in and protect him from a world where he could easily be exploited. But in our opinion, the mistake the family made was not bringing in expert help to guide the contractual and commercial side of his career.
When we look at how things have been managed, it appears to us that Duc was not much better prepared or experienced to handle things than his son would have been. And, in our view, chasing opportunity and money in Asia clouded Duc’s judgement and led to this unfortunate turn of events.
The Signs Were There
The incident when QD publicly ditched his Selkirk paddle in favour of a Proton was a big clue of a lack of experienced guidance in the camp. An experienced agent would not have allowed that to happen, given how QD at that time was a Selkirk-sponsored player.
Yes, it was a breach of contract, but more importantly, it sent a clear message to other sponsors that working with him may be “trouble”—with the overriding question being: Can he be trusted to honour contractual obligations?
Inexperience Breeds Impatience
When Team Duong experienced a incredible level of appeal in Asia (being treated like a superstar on visits to Vietnam and Malaysia) along with chances to pick up appearance fee money as they moved from town to town, it seems that they got swept up in this Southeast Asia “bubble of fame” and saw opportunities to monetise faster and bigger than under the auspices of the UPA and PPA.
We heard “off the record” that the PPA had plans for Asia and had already informed Team QD that Quang would be front and centre of those plans as PPA started its drive into Asia. It appears that when Quang Duong started playing small-town tournaments and taking appearance fees for playing in exhibitions around Southeast Asia, the PPA asked him to stop—not only because it was a contract breach, but also because it was undermining their own plans for the region, of which QD was a big part. Anecdotally, we heard that the PPA had even decided NOT to bring Ben Johns over to Asia so that the light could be shone solely on QD. (How things have changed, though, with the recent announcement that Ben will be coming to Malaysia.)
In our judgement, some serious mistakes were made. Immediate opportunities to make money were put in front of Team QD, and the temptation to jump on these opportunities was just too much. At the same time, most likely caught up in the aforementioned “fame bubble” here in the region, Team QD very likely overplayed their hand. In other words, they misjudged the balance of power in the Asian market between their superstar and the PPA.
People close to the matter told us that Duc didn’t believe that the PPA would go so far as to cut ties with QD; hence, they continued to chase appearance fees in Asia, not believing it would lead to this situation.
There have also been some reports that the money on offer (e.g., the Sypik deal) was just so big that QD had to walk away from UPA. We have seen figures reported of USD $800K a year from Sypik. However, our understanding is that the deal is nowhere near this amount and is more commensurate with other sponsorship deals QD could have struck whilst retaining his UPA contract.
Doubling Down Seems Like a Big Mistake
What we expect Team QD will learn very quickly is that without the PPA, his value will diminish rapidly. Quite simply, if you are not playing the best in the world, you become irrelevant and forgotten.
Case in point: QD posted on his Insta about his double crown at the recent Monsoon Tournament in India. Comments to the post included observations like “washed-up player.”
Worse is that if he is not playing the best in the world, his level of play is likely to fall behind. Pickleball, more than any other sport, is evolving rapidly, with the method and standard of play evolving by the month. To remain top-level, he needs to be playing the best.
Watching his games in India, he looked deflated and under pressure. It’s hardly surprising because just a few short weeks ago, he was a rising star—on top of the world and mixing it up with the global elite. Then, following repeated run ins with UPA , he suddenly finds himself playing sideshow tournaments, having to muster up the motivation to beat players that a couple of weeks earlier would have been queuing to get his autograph.
What Now?
In our opinion, every day he is away from the hub of the action at PPA in the US, his value declines and his career prospects are put at risk. He is in danger of becoming like a circus sideshow attraction—used up and spat out once his relevance on the world stage disappears.
To that point, we believe his father should take a deep breath and step back. Get the team back to the US and train and play with the best of the best.
Moreover, we feel it would make sense for Duc to hire an experienced business manager/agent to handle his son’s business interests with a singular purpose of going back to UPA/PPA to find a way to mediate and get QD back on the PPA roster in the quickest possible time.
In our opinion Duc would also be best served if he focuses on what got his son on the world stage in the first place: coaching and training him. And if they could only employ a good business manager to take care of the commercials, the only thing that Team QD need to worry about is Quang Duong playing great pickleball—something he has proven capable of doing at the highest level.
It’s clear that the Duong family have been and still are on a steep learning curve. It’s sad that they look to have made some wrong turns. However, we are massive QD fans at PNA, and we sincerely hope they find a way to get him back to where he needs to be, chasing down the world’s top ten with his ferocious drives, serves, and volleys.
