Paddletek Malaysia Bets on Five Youngsters It Thinks Could Be Country’s Next Big Thing
Malaysia’s next generation of pickleball talent just got a proper backer. Paddletek Malaysia and Mypickleball have unveiled the first cohort of their Junior Talent Support Program, officially launching the Paddletek Malaysia Junior Pickleball Team with a clear brief: find the country’s most promising young players and give them an actual runway toward national and international competition, rather than leaving that development to chance.
Five players make up the inaugural intake, and the résumés already on offer suggest the scouting has been done properly.
Paddletek Malaysia’s First Five
Norman Wong, 15, out of Miri, Sarawak, arrives having won the Team Event at DUPR U18 during the EPIC Singapore Open 2026, adding gold in U18 Mixed Doubles at the TOBC Borneo Open 2026 for good measure. Down in Ipoh, Perak, 11-year-old Koay Janson has already claimed the U12 Junior Doubles title at the ISEIGUR Cup 2026 and took bronze in U13 Boys Doubles at the Volvo Penang Grand Slam 2025.
Catherine Liew, 17, of Tanjung Malim, Perak, finished as second runner-up at the PCL Asia Rising Stars Malaysia Selection 2026 before bouncing back to win Mixed Doubles at the Honolulu Pickleball Tournament 2026. Muhammad Ariq, 12, from Kajang, Selangor, has been nearly unbeatable in his age group this year, taking Boys Singles U12 at both the National Junior Open 2026 and the Amverton Pickleball Championship 2026. Rounding out the group is Kimberly Tan, just 10, of Shah Alam, Selangor, who claimed Girls U12 Singles at the Empire NextGen Series 2026 and finished first runner-up in the same category at the Kejohanan Terbuka Junior Putrajaya 2026.
Between them, that’s five players, five different states, and a genuinely broad spread of results at exactly the age where consistent support tends to matter most.
More Than Just Free Paddles
The programme isn’t simply a sponsorship logo slapped on a jersey. Each player gets full backing with Paddletek paddles and gear, training support through two academies—002 Pickleball Club & Academy and Gee Academy—and a clearer pathway toward national and regional competition than most young players in Malaysia currently have access to.
Paddletek’s track record here carries real weight, too. This is a brand that signed Anna Leigh Waters at just 12 years old, long before she became the player many now consider the greatest to ever play the sport. More recently, 13-year-old Elsie Hendershot has been competing as a key player for Chicago Slice in Major League Pickleball—proof that backing a young player early can pay off remarkably quickly when the talent is real.
That history is exactly the kind of precedent Malaysia’s own junior scene can now point to. Whether any of these five follow a similar trajectory remains to be seen, but they’re starting that journey with considerably more structure behind them than the generation before them ever had.
Fans wanting to play with the same gear as the team can find Paddletek’s full range, including the latest Honeyfoam TKO-X and ESQ models, now live at www.mypickleball.my.
